DragonBaneDM
2017-08-13, 10:44 PM
Hey gang! Here's a bit about a villain I've got going right now.
So there's this gnome businessman. His name's Zook. Zook's been bullied and put down by dwarves his entire life. Against this adversity he rose up to become a powerful merchant guild leader based in the dwarven district of a large city. Zook now employs hundreds of dwarves, gnomes, and humans and recently won a political office as well. However, he's immensely greedy and is frustrated by his inability to expand to greater power due to his low birth and unpopularity with the majority of dwarves in his part of the city. I've decided his alignment is neutral evil.
Zook recently received word of a new opportunity known by few: a dragon, along with an army, is coming to this city to "liberate" it from it's current occupants. Seeing a way to greater power (and a way to put the current dwarven leadership in their place) Zook jumped on this opportunity and immediately started helping small groups of monstrous humanoids into the city and equipping them in order to soften it's defenses for the coming battle.
TLDR: Rich gnome wants to let a foreign invader take over city he lives in because it promised him power.
Enter: the party. They found one of these infiltration squadrons, cleared out the dungeon they were in, and captured their leader. Luckily for the gnome, Zook managed to convince the party that they should leave the enemy leader with him so that she could stay in his compound's holding cell. After the party left, Zook had her killed so she can't be interpreted by any other authority, but the party is super suspicious of him.
Luckily for Zook, the party ignored him in favor of heading into the dwarven mines (which is where Zook has been smuggling monsters from) to try and figure out what's happened to a local dwarven leader who's been kidnapped and taken down to a dungeon within the mines.
So Zook is thrilled! It's probable that the party dies down in the mines. However, he's not an idiot, he's defintely working on a contingency plan to make sure they do die or that he gets out of dodge should they find out his connections and survive to rat him out. How do you think a villain like this would try to consolidate his power now that he's been given some space to work with and some darn good motivation? Here's some of my thoughts on some things he might try:
Flood or barricade the entrance to the mines so that the party cannot return.
Have evidence planted on other local leaders/political rivals to have them arrested.
Turn his compound into an absolute fortress and await the dragon's army to arrive.
Leave the city entirely, taking his family to the safety of the dragon's army.
Sending a monster or maybe even rival party of "adventurers" into the mines with the sole purpose of finding and killing the party.
Zook's got a ton of wealth, connections with mages and artificers, years of secret training using blade and crossbow (he's got many Rogue-like features in his stat block) as well as a few magic items he could make use of. I wanted to brainstorm here because I am not a rich, evil mastermind with a 16 Int, but maybe some of you are?
So there's this gnome businessman. His name's Zook. Zook's been bullied and put down by dwarves his entire life. Against this adversity he rose up to become a powerful merchant guild leader based in the dwarven district of a large city. Zook now employs hundreds of dwarves, gnomes, and humans and recently won a political office as well. However, he's immensely greedy and is frustrated by his inability to expand to greater power due to his low birth and unpopularity with the majority of dwarves in his part of the city. I've decided his alignment is neutral evil.
Zook recently received word of a new opportunity known by few: a dragon, along with an army, is coming to this city to "liberate" it from it's current occupants. Seeing a way to greater power (and a way to put the current dwarven leadership in their place) Zook jumped on this opportunity and immediately started helping small groups of monstrous humanoids into the city and equipping them in order to soften it's defenses for the coming battle.
TLDR: Rich gnome wants to let a foreign invader take over city he lives in because it promised him power.
Enter: the party. They found one of these infiltration squadrons, cleared out the dungeon they were in, and captured their leader. Luckily for the gnome, Zook managed to convince the party that they should leave the enemy leader with him so that she could stay in his compound's holding cell. After the party left, Zook had her killed so she can't be interpreted by any other authority, but the party is super suspicious of him.
Luckily for Zook, the party ignored him in favor of heading into the dwarven mines (which is where Zook has been smuggling monsters from) to try and figure out what's happened to a local dwarven leader who's been kidnapped and taken down to a dungeon within the mines.
So Zook is thrilled! It's probable that the party dies down in the mines. However, he's not an idiot, he's defintely working on a contingency plan to make sure they do die or that he gets out of dodge should they find out his connections and survive to rat him out. How do you think a villain like this would try to consolidate his power now that he's been given some space to work with and some darn good motivation? Here's some of my thoughts on some things he might try:
Flood or barricade the entrance to the mines so that the party cannot return.
Have evidence planted on other local leaders/political rivals to have them arrested.
Turn his compound into an absolute fortress and await the dragon's army to arrive.
Leave the city entirely, taking his family to the safety of the dragon's army.
Sending a monster or maybe even rival party of "adventurers" into the mines with the sole purpose of finding and killing the party.
Zook's got a ton of wealth, connections with mages and artificers, years of secret training using blade and crossbow (he's got many Rogue-like features in his stat block) as well as a few magic items he could make use of. I wanted to brainstorm here because I am not a rich, evil mastermind with a 16 Int, but maybe some of you are?