Best Villain Ideas you have ever had...

[WereRabbitz]

Just curious what are some of the Villains you have created that have went over well in the past?

Personally I have created monsters/lichs/ect... and one of the best responses I got was a slimey underhanded Trader who always managed to cunningly escape being caught or leaving evidence of his wrong doing. The players actually hated the guy, and it surprised me how well it worked he wasn't some great evil sorcerer or demon trying to a destroy village. Just a regular human who was a liar and a cheat and really good at having a alibi for the authorities. It was very pleasing to see such a plain character get their goat so well.

[Beastrolami]

I've found the best villain is one you can get the party to hate.

I had a villain in a campaign who was pretty affluent. He was the mastermind behind a mystery the party was investigating, and they knew he was involved, but didn't have all the clues to pin it on him. So they got themselves invited to a ball he was throwing. It was his ball, and a lot of the other attendees were lined up to meet with him, and get in his good graces. The face of the party waited in line to speak with him, and when he brought up the mystery, he brushed him off, ended the conversation, and began talking to the next person in line. The party didn't like this, so they took a more direct approach (they were split up, so they did this one at a time). One by one, they marched up to him, interrupted his meeting and threw various facts/acusations about the mystery at him. Every time, he would apologize to his guest, "I'm sorry, the servants here are so irksome. [suggestion] gather the dishes and return to the kitchen to wash them." After each party member was forced to (wash dishes, brush horses in the stable, etc.) they were pretty pissed at the guy. The rest of the campaign turned into a covert war against him and his shady underworld associates. Even when they had the opportunity to take on a quest with larger scope, they declined, waiting until they "took him down".

[Dualswinger]

1) A villain who could “stop time” at will, but couldn’t interact with the world while he did. He mostly used this ability to taunt the party, or better, to explain weaknesses of mutual enemies and then “graciously thank” the party for their assistance in his schemes.

2) A villain who “succeeded” in his bid for immortality, and then was immediately killed. He then turned up in the next campaign and referred to the party by their old characters names. He had 4th wall immortality.

[Jama7301]

2) A villain who “succeeded” in his bid for immortality, and then was immediately killed. He then turned up in the next campaign and referred to the party by their old characters names. He had 4th wall immortality.

Sounds like this guy got Monkey Paw'd on his immorality wish.

[GlenSmash!]

I found the key is not too try and make them "Evilest bad guy ever" but like others have said just get the party to actively dislike them.

The easiest way is to have them steal form the party. That earns eternal hatred.

[EternalPrime]

In one of my current campaigns, I have an NPC who was designed to aid the PCs and provide them with plot hooks. The NPC is an agent of the Lords Alliance and has come to a border town on the edge of goblin territory as its new sheriff to provide law, order, and defense for the local populous.
The PCs decided that the Lords Alliance was a "foreign power" trying to take control of the town and extort taxes. They immediately became suspicious of the sheriff's motives and interpreted his every action as negatively as possible.
Half the party has openly threatened the Sheriff's life and the other half has sought to prevent the sheriff from communicating with his Lords Alliance "masters" through intimidation and shady deals.
I considered shifting the sheriff's goals to make him into the villain that the PCs are convinced he is, but then I decided against it. It has been much more fun having the PCs boldly strive against this "great evil" that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the bad things happening in and around the town. When the PCs confront him about anything, I get to play the innocent which drives them mad which is all the more fun because he IS legitimately innocent. The sheriff's motives are pure and he truly desires to help and protect the townsfolk. These accusations have even caused other potentially helpful NPCs in the town to shift their opinions of the "heroic" PCs because of their continued harassment of the sheriff.

I guess this is the best villain idea i NEVER had.

[Dualswinger]

Sounds like this guy got Monkey Paw'd on his immorality wish.

He really was. During the third different campaign he appeared in, his motives had switched from world domination to finding a way to undo his curse. Eventually he just started appearing in all the groups other games. A patient in Pandemic, a random soldier in RISK etc.

He essentially became the group punching bag, and now that Ive left that group, he may never be free...

[UrielAwakened]

The best villains are complex, have good reasons for doing what they're doing, with logic that, if not agreeable, is at least internally consistent.

Dawn War is ongoing. Immortals are dying constantly, fighting over this area of existence. Obviously the solution is to separate the universe entirely so that they can't kill each other anymore. Yeah, it'll kill all living creatures, but their lives are incredibly finite in comparison to that of immortals anyway, so that's an acceptable loss.

[GlenSmash!]

The best villains are complex, have good reasons for doing what they're doing, with logic that, if not agreeable, is at least internally consistent.

Very true. Compelling motivations is superior to mustache twirling (not that you can't have both).

[sithlordnergal]

I have two villains that are, so far, highly successful. Now, I will admit that one is a character from the Tomb of Ahnniliation hardcover, and the other was just an NPC wizard. However, my party hates them both. And the best part, they have never even properly met one.

The first villain is Ras Nsi, one of the baddies from Chult. The party has not properly met them, but they hate him in every way, shape, and form. Ras has constantly been in the background since he is the guy who made all the undead. Two players had their characters kidnapped and magically bound to Ras when they decided to swap characters out, which forced the players to fight their own beloved characters. Ras' undead have also been the cause of a paladin group being destroyed that my players liked, and has caused them no end of troubles.

The second is a Red Wizard. He hasn't done much except murder a ton of the party's friends and allies. The party hates him too because he killed a Cleric NPC that had been helping them...then turned her into a zombie to force the party to fight her.

[Derpaligtr]

Just curious what are some of the Villains you have created that have went over well in the past?

Personally I have created monsters/lichs/ect... and one of the best responses I got was a slimey underhanded Trader who always managed to cunningly escape being caught or leaving evidence of his wrong doing. The players actually hated the guy, and it surprised me how well it worked he wasn't some great evil sorcerer or demon trying to a destroy village. Just a regular human who was a liar and a cheat and really good at having a alibi for the authorities. It was very pleasing to see such a plain character get their goat so well.

Not mine, but perhaos my favorite fight was during a 4th of July session against Tea Elemental.

In order to reduce their defenses and make the fight beatable we had to push the Tea Elemental into the harbor.

[Dr. Cliché]

One of my favourite villains was a Gnoll with what amounted to a few warlock levels.

The party was investigating some disappearances from a timber-harvesting village next to a forest. They found that gnolls were raiding the place and taking kidnapping people.

After foiling an attempted raid and following the tracks, the party found the gnoll camp. There were several crude tents, erected near some ruins. There was another battle as the party attacked the camp, during which most of the gnolls were killed. In the largest tent, the party found the gnoll leader - a pot-bellied gnoll who was happily munching on a leg from one of the people they'd kidnapped. He cheerfully greeted the party, pausing to take further bites out of the leg.

The party didn't have much trouble dispatching him or his bodyguards. However, even accounting for the prisoner or two that the gnoll had chomped his way through, there still seemed to be a lot of kidnapped people missing.

The party investigated the ruins and found a concealed door leading to a flight of stairs that led underground. They found more gnolls there, and began clearing them out whilst searching for the prisoners.

Finally, they came to a chamber where they found the remaining prisoners tied down in a sacrificial circle. And from inside, they heard the unmistakable voice of the pot-bellied gnoll, who was now hungrily devouring the arm of one of the prisoners in the circle.

I believe, this time, the party managed to take the gnoll alive (they correctly suspected that he could body-hop), stopping the ritual and saving the prisoners.


Now, I think he was quite a fun villain, though not particularly powerful (which was intentional as he wasn't meant to be a major villain or anything). The thing is though, it didn't end there.

You see, one of the party was intrigued by the gnoll's resurrection and had a long talk with him about how it happened. This led to his character basically striking up a weird friendship with the cannibalistic gnoll. To the point where he first elected to help the gnoll escape (killing him so that he could body-hop), and then abandon the party altogether to join up with the gnoll.

So, yeah, 'Cannibal Gnoll' remains one of my favourite villains.

[Gastronomie]

I agree with the many above that great villains are those who are hated by the players. In my case it was a NPC from Out of the Abyss.
The book said Buppido, one of the NPCs with which the adventurers travel the Underdark, was an insane killer... but they also said he was a normal CR 1/2 Derro. The hell? I decided to make him a pretty tough Warlock, one of the major figures in a cult of Orcus in Gracklstugh (the reason for traveling with the adventurers being to go out on an investigation of how much the influence of the other Demon Lords are spreading). I also made him secretly kill some NPCs in Sloopdulop and the path to Gracklstugh, raising concern among the PCs of who did it.

Eventually the PCs find out, and they roll initiative. Buppido summons some zombies and fights them. He knocks out one of the adventurers, and next turn uses Lightning Bolt on the area including said adventurer... which does 36 damage (only 4% chance of doing that much), just above the base HP of the unconscious character, resulting in an insta-kill. Buppido then harvests the soul of the dead PC, but for his own reasons leaves the other characters there and goes back to Gracklstugh, jumping onto a Chasme he summons out of thin air (probably would have ended in a TPK if he didn't leave - I'm okay with that itself, but I supposed it would be more fun if the PCs knew Buppido).

The PCs are enraged at the dude who was betraying them all along, murdered one of the adventurers, mocked and trolled them all he wants, and even had good luck with his rolls. Originally my plan for Gracklstugh was to have the PCs fight both the cults of Demogorgon and Orcus, and Buppido was only one of the "important members" of the Orcus cult - but since the PCs were so focused on Buppido, I decided to make him the "worshipped savior" of the Orcus cult, and make his cult so strong they sorta cleaned up the Demogorgon cult by themselves. As a result Buppido became the Big Boss of the chapter, and when the PCs finally defeated him (after fighting the zombie of the killed PC which Buppido was controlling), they were quite happy.

[Arcangel4774]

Chatoic good villian, obsessed with the a good diety that takes the souls of the rightous to a paradise of an afterlife. Tries to kill peoplr who are good so they dont have a chance to become evil, ensuring their place in the afterlife. Litterally forces you to drink the koolaid lol

P.s. also makes a fun pc in an evil campaign

[Mongrel]

Some of my favorites, though most of these were not really villains in the traditional sense:

1) The PCs were very high level (around 13 or 14) mercenaries working for a mercenary guild. The guild received and distributed missions according to power level of the various teams. One such mission, the PCs were hired by some researcher wizards, who teleported them to a remote research facility in a jungle, on the edge of a great crater-like canyon that housed its own unique ecosystem consisting of hybrid creatures and dinosaurs (sort of like a "Lost World" meets "Island of Dr. Moreau"). The PCs' clients wanted them to gather a variety of things from said canyon, including things like "three white pheonix eggs" and "some of the local gnolls and lizardmen, alive." They refused to elaborate any further, even when the PCs asked for more information (which they pretty clearly had). The PCs grumbled about this in character, but in the end they went down into the canyon to do their job. It soon became clear that their clients left a LOT of information out, even beyond what the PCs were asking about. EVERYTHING on this island was far more deadly than they were expecting. The gnolls were all half troll, the lizardmen were were-crocodiles, they had to do battle with a half dragon T-rex, it was pretty miserable. When they finally brought all the specimens back to the researchers, they were asked a series of questions about each type of creature they encountered there, things like "what did you have difficulty with?" and "what were its weaknesses?" It slowly dawned on the PCs that they hadn't been hired to gather magical reagents from a magical land of wonder that these wizards were studying...they had been recruited to test the effectiveness of these researchers' creations! Needless to say, they weren't too happy with those wizards after that...

2) The PCs were involved in a "who's summoning demons at the wizard school?" mystery. They went around questioning the headmasters/mistresses of the various magic schools. Some were pretty much what you'd expect (the paranoid abjurations professor, the tricksy illusion professor) while a few bucked the trend (the kindly old witch necromancer, the mild mannered evocation professor), but one of them made an instant bad impression with the PCs: the Divination professor. She was a pale, gaudy elf with a penchant for showmanship who really got into the "mysterious fortune teller" bit. While she was quite skilled at divination magic, she wasn't too good at cold reading, which is what she primarily used. The party grew to resent her really quickly. Long story short, she was being mind controlled by an alhoon through her (cursed) crystal ball. Said alhoon was trying to summon a specific demon using some summoning beacons that needed to be properly "tuned." The party foiled this plot, turning the divinations professor into a toad in the process...though because she was being mind controlled, a subsequent trial (which the PCs were not present for) found her innocent and changed her back to normal. The PCs didn't know about this until, much to their chagrin, she was assigned to help them in a later mission. One of the few characters I've had that the players seemed to genuinely hate, even though she didn't really oppose them lol.

3) This one isn't mine, but I wish I'd thought of it. It's one of the best villains I've gone up against in a game DM'd by a friend. The party was tasked with moving a sarcophagus which served as a prison for an ancient entity: the "Corpsefather." All that was known about this entity was from legend: he was said to be evil, supremely powerful, and (worst of all) unkillable. As the party entered the guarded tomb in which he was kept, there was an earthquake...and some falling debris landed on the sarcophagus, breaking it open. A desiccated corpse began to slowly climb out. The party (which was I think around third level or so) panicked, of course, assuming that this must be a lich! They immediately dumped all of their most powerful spells and attacks into the creature...and to their surprise it was easily defeated, its body crumbling to dust. This seems like a victory...until the party receives a fancy letter in the mail, written in what appears to be blood. The letter is from the Corpsefather, thanking them for freeing him from his bodily prison, and cordially inviting them to dinner at his estate. You see, the legends were true, the Corspefather could not realistically be killed, for if the body he inhabited perished he would be able to transfer his consciousness to any other lesser undead on the plane (possibly even greater undead too, that wasn't clear). When the PCs "killed" him, he was able to immediately travel back to his seat of power, which was essentially an entire nation of undead. He hoped to bring the "gift" of undeath to the world. It wasn't just his abilities that made him a great villain though, it was his attitude. He was reasonable, cordial, and friendly, if a little unnerving, and he made a pretty good case for his actions. Quite a good character.

[Oramac]

In one of my current campaigns, I have an NPC who was designed to aid the PCs and provide them with plot hooks. The NPC is an agent of the Lords Alliance and has come to a border town on the edge of goblin territory as its new sheriff to provide law, order, and defense for the local populous.
The PCs decided that the Lords Alliance was a "foreign power" trying to take control of the town and extort taxes. They immediately became suspicious of the sheriff's motives and interpreted his every action as negatively as possible.
Half the party has openly threatened the Sheriff's life and the other half has sought to prevent the sheriff from communicating with his Lords Alliance "masters" through intimidation and shady deals.
I considered shifting the sheriff's goals to make him into the villain that the PCs are convinced he is, but then I decided against it. It has been much more fun having the PCs boldly strive against this "great evil" that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the bad things happening in and around the town. When the PCs confront him about anything, I get to play the innocent which drives them mad which is all the more fun because he IS legitimately innocent. The sheriff's motives are pure and he truly desires to help and protect the townsfolk. These accusations have even caused other potentially helpful NPCs in the town to shift their opinions of the "heroic" PCs because of their continued harassment of the sheriff.

I guess this is the best villain idea i NEVER had.

I have had this happen multiple times, and I absolutely LOVE it! It's so much fun to play the innocent "bad guy" who isn't bad at all. Especially while the REAL bad guy keeps going with his machinations, laughing at the party's ignorance and stupidity the whole time.

[BBQ Pork]

I getting ready to spring this one on my party.
We used to have a player named Doug, who played a Necromancer named Nevynn. Nevynn was supposedly some dialect's word for "No one", so he could say "I an no one". This never really came into play, but I'm going to build on it.

Anyway, we ran an evil party campaign. Nevynn grew in power. His player was a bit of a rules lawyer and sought power. He tried vampirism, for more power. His party, with a surprisingly loyal assassin, captured him and turned him back. (Cut his head off, drained his blood, Blessed him, stitched his head back on, Rezzed him. DM was generous with the rolls. They did tease that they had put a slip-knot in the stitching.) He tried sponsoring a Fight Club, so that he could Magic Jar the strongest fighter possible. He tried anything he could in order to get more powerful, to the limits of the DM's patience. In Ravenloft, he polymorphed a Charmed peasant into a dragon so he could have a dragon mount. (The peasant-dragon, unused to flying, crashed. Crashing with peasant HP, it died and reverted back to a human. Nevynn walked away unscathed as usual.)

Running Tomb of Annihilation, I am going to substitute out the Red Wizards of Thay. They will all be Nevynn. The backstory will be that in his constant attempts at power, he has modified the Magic Jar spell for MORE POWAH! and like many of his schemes, it went awry. His mind is now split between many mages, so you can't kill any particular one and they act as a hive mind. If one of them sees you kill them, the rest know who killed one, etc. He may be adding a few more bodies to the hive mind while you do. His sanity will be stretched, but he can press portions of his spellcasting power through each. He will have pressed some of the victims' powers into his own.

It's a work in progress.


This evil party back in the day needed a "Healer". They grabbed the first guy who showed up at the inn, without asking too many questions. They realized only after they were many miles into the Underdark that he was a priest of the Elder Gods and wanted to bring the Old Ones to this world. We ran a short campaign about taking him down. IIRC, it ended with him walking across water (His theme element), them dispelling the effect, him falling into the water, them freezing the water with his head above water, then running out there and cutting his head off.

[Imriel]

The best I created was a sort of nazi-elf prince who was born dead and resurrected and thus touched by Death itself. His goal was simple: turn everyone into undeads.

But his ways...he was cunning and handsome and I presented him as an ally. The elf paladin of the party, a girl, fell for him nearly on sight. They played 10 levels of campaign pretty much doing the work for him.

When he revealed himself, they wanted to kill ME. The Paladin girl eventually killed him, but broke her oath doing so (she was a healer with an oath of non violence) and had to reroll. Amazing ending. 2 dead pcs who resurrected into undeads. One of them, wizard, kept playing him.

[ImproperJustice]

I had an ancient Lich who had survived for centuries using the Wizard of Oz technique.

The front of his lair was a traditional dungeon with a couple traps that he knew would weaken adventurers, by playing off their curiosity.

All leading to a big throne room, with some powerful undead guardians, and a underpowered clone of himself. There was even a chest with some underpowered loot in it, to satisfy the victorious heroes so they would go away.

Then he would send servants every so often to repair everything and rastock the chest.
Sometimes he would send agents to recruit low level adventurers to clear out neighborhood strongholds to restock his chest.
The PCs first clue something was up, would be when they defeated the fake Lich and recognized some of the loot.

[Zalakoth]

The Chaotic Evil Druid that is Circle of the Spores...

One that believes the cycle of nature is eternal, and that Civilization is terrible.

This Chaotic Evil Druid wants to bring ruin to civilization and basically cause the events of The Last Of Us - bringing the world back to its natural roots

[Ranikirn.]

Faldrus, an agile prison ruler drow expert in poison and armed with a whip, shortsword and some gas "granade". He was able to use his chain whip to attack from the distance and grappling enemie's weapons trying to disarm him while he went out and came back into magic darkness. With the help of other some drow he was a little unnerving for the party (without magicians) :smallyuk:

[Plantae]

This is a hard one. I've had a number of villains I really enjoyed running.

The first - a group of Archfey posing as gods, whose power had begun to wane. They unleashed a horde of evil fey into the world, and then marked the PCs as their "chosen" so they could heroically save the people of the kingdom from this manufactured threat. Their real goal was to regain their own power, using the PCs as champions to inspire the people of the kingdom to believe in them again (ala American Gods). They pushed the PCs to become more and more like them, with the ultimate goal of using their bodies as vessels to enter the material plane and rule over the kingdom in perpetuity.

Another - a minor lord who had ascended to the title from common origins. He was in love with the queen of the kingdom, but the difference in their status made their relationship impossible. Bitter over the relationship, and deeply angered by the abuses of the country's nobility, he decided to lead a revolution. Recruiting from the peasantry and the ranks of the kingdom's mercenaries and criminals, he attempted to stage a relatively bloodless coup. However, the revolution quickly devolved into a series of bloody rebellions, riots, and gang wars, and was ultimately hijacked by a group of authoritarian nobles. The PCs were city watchmen tasked with investigating and putting a stop to these events. Ultimately, the villain kidnapped the queen in order to rescue her from an assassination attempt. When the PCs went to rescue her, the villain didn't even put up a fight and made it clearly he deeply regretted his actions.

[Ranikirn.]

This is a hard one. I've had a number of villains I really enjoyed running.

The first - a group of Archfey posing as gods, whose power had begun to wane. They unleashed a horde of evil fey into the world, and then marked the PCs as their "chosen" so they could heroically save the people of the kingdom from this manufactured threat. Their real goal was to regain their own power, using the PCs as champions to inspire the people of the kingdom to believe in them again (ala American Gods). They pushed the PCs to become more and more like them, with the ultimate goal of using their bodies as vessels to enter the material plane and rule over the kingdom in perpetuity.

Not bad, I like it

[solidork]

Snake, father of all serpents and the most cunning of the beast totems, saw that humanity was rapidly leaving him and his kin behind. No longer did they venerate the primal gods that had guided them in their infancy, when the world was dark and they had nothing. He looked at their glittering cities that had no place for nature and did not hate them like his brothers and sisters; he coveted them. It was easier than he thought to convince a king that he was so diminished that his godhood could be plundered. The king even thought it was his own idea to bind them together. Now Snake rules the kingdom from a golden throne, and it wont be long before his children slither in the hearts of all the men and women of power in the kingdom.