Need a name for an end game villain. He starts off a pirate and end up an emperor.

[Cyclops08]

This is for my homebrew world here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610624-The-Continental-Archipelago-(what-I-have-so-far)-Opinions-please

and this is still a year out, the current campaign will last at least that long. The players love tragic, Conan style backstories. I bounced the the basics of the idea off a number of them and they like it. (but not any spoilers)

--about ten years ago they all had a tragic encounter with a Dread Masked Pirate. He is one of the bloodiest, most successful pirates known. Their families are dead or enslaved because of him.
(In session zero I might give awards to the best background story).

--The players are the only ones to ever have seen him without his mask...and they will never forget that face. They were meant to be killed but survived. now they have banded together to gain experience and magic to kill this fiend, ala Kill Bill.
The players are the only ones to have seen his face and survived.

--All they know is the masked pirate is very powerful, able to fight and cast spells. (he will be every bit as min-maxed as they are).
He was well known and then just disappeared about three years ago.

--He has no idea the players exist until they discover his plans and start to foil them.

--What they do NOT know. The villain is a foppish noble in the Victorian empire. He took up piracy on a Lark and discovered he had a knack for villainy. In fact he was an expert at it (the mask was to protect his noble status). He quickly became a captain and amassed a fortune. But now his ambitions reach to loftier goals. He returned to the empire and plots to assassinate the queen, making himself the emperor, the most powerful man on my world...then he will unleash the empires forces in the bloodiest conquest ever to set sail.
...and he is only 34.

--The end game, he will have achieved his goal, and the players will need to over throw an emperor. Campaign completed.

I am looking for two things: an excellent name for both the masked Pirate, and the Noble villain drawing closer to the throne.
and if you want to toss a 20th level minmax multi class at me, I wouldn't mind that at all. Right now he is looking to be a Hexblade, sorcerer. Maybe with an arm or eye of Vecna.

[Bobthewizard]

Kaloz Kiraly. In Hungarian, Kaloz means pirate and Kiraly menas king.

I love to use this sight when looking for names. Type something meaningful for the character then pick a word that sounds cool to you.

https://www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/king

[TigerT20]

Lospal the Legendary.

It's important to include the 'the Legendary'. Don't forget it.

[Stattick]

Billy McBillface :smallbiggrin:

(I kinda suck at names.)

I haven't nailed down all the specifics to the build. But this is what I thought was a pretty nasty build I was working on (requires UA):


Sea Elf. Pirate background.
Fighter (Scout) 13 / Ranger (Fey Wanderer) 7... (prob best to start Fighter for the Con save)

Dex>Con>Wis or Dex>Wis>Con

Use all the options from UA Class Feature Variants for Ranger. Likewise, replace the Scout's Natural Explorer w/ Deft Explorer: that way you get full progression on Deft Explorer by dipping into it from both classes.

I'd have to double check to see if you gain more skills later, but the 5th level character I was working on ended up with the following skills:
Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth, Insight, Perception, Survival, Deception... Navigator's tools, Vehicles (water).

Languages:
Common, Elven, Aquan, Sylvan, Goblin (I figure that Hobgoblins & Bugbears wouldn't be uncommon on pirate crews)

Fighting Styles:
UA Druidic Warrior - Gains the Cantrips: Thorn Whip (refluffed as kelp) & Shape Water (plenty of water around, which you can turn to ice). ALTERNATELY - Take Archery or Defense, & take Magic Initiate Druid to pick up the same cantrips plus Faerie Fire.
UA Superior Technique - Gains a Battlemaster Maneuver to add to the Scout Maneuvers already known.

Feats:
Martial Adept: 2 more Battlemaster Maneuvers. (This makes 3 known, in addition to the Scout Manuevers. I'd recommend taking: Trip, Riposte, & Snipe (throwing daggers, poisoned if you're nasty)
Elven Accuracy
Xbow Expert
Sharp Shooter

Plus that leaves a couple of ASI's to throw into score improvements. Throw one into Dex to max it. The other into Wis or Con. Probably Con.


You end up with a character that breaths water, can climb & swim at their walking speed. Can cast Hunter's Mark for free w/o needing to maintain concentration. Can Misty Step & Charm Person. Can get an extra 1d6 dmg on their weapons at will w/ a Bonus action. Can burn a slot to get an extra 3d6 dmg. You can add your Wis mod to Chr checks, so having used Chr as one of your dump stats doesn't hurt your talky skills overly much. Did I mention you know Entangle? Because you know Entangle. Hunter's Mark doesn't cost you concentration Wis mod times per day. So this guy gets boarded and things aren't looking good, he lays down Entangle, Misty Steps up to the Crows Nest, and next round, with Hunter's Mark, starts laying down some heavy hitting sniper fire.

[Bobthewizard]

For an NPC at level 20, I'd skip Hexblade and take 3 levels of fighter on your sorcerer. This gives him action surge which will be scarier to the players than anything Warlock can bring. Warlock is better for a PC since it holds up better over the day, but if this guy is casting a quickened eldritch blast you've bored your players.

No need to create a full build, he'll be dead in 4 rounds once he meets the characters. Your job is to scare the players before they kill him. You only need to come up with a 5-6 round plan of spells. Make sure he has some minions to absorb some hits and help with counter spells. Make sure he has a simulacrum (from wish) that they fight first.

0. Before combat begins, while he gives his evil bad guy talk, cast a subtle mass suggestion as part of the talk. "You should all drop your weapons, bow down and come join me. Together we can rule the universe."

1. When combat starts, drop a quickened meteor swarm, then action surge for a twinned dominate person or subtle upcast hold person on any who passed their initial mass suggestion save. Or just cast hypnotic pattern on them. If you can separate out the paladin then the other PCs should fail some saves. Then use the main action to hide.

2. Maybe plane shift someone away. Or just start into damage spells at this point.

Subtle counterspell anything the wizard/sorcerer casts. If they have more than 1 spell caster, make sure the BBEG has some sorcerers with him that can counterspell.

[KorvinStarmast]

The villain is a foppish noble in the Victorian empire. He took up piracy on a Lark and discovered he had a knack for villainy. In fact he was an expert at it (the mask was to protect his noble status). He quickly became a captain and amassed a fortune. But now his ambitions reach to loftier goals. He returned to the empire and plots to assassinate the queen, making himself the emperor, the most powerful man on my world...then he will unleash the empires forces in the bloodiest conquest ever to set sail.
...and he is only 34.
Linvail Havensbane.
(He was known as The Masked Marauder while leading his various pirate ships and pirate flotillas)
He spends a significant amount of time involved with courtly intrigue. This is where the Actor feat is of immense use to him since his plotting to set up the queen for a fall and take over for her will require people to be suspicious of everyone except him. As a pirate, it helped him to get rivals to blame each other for one mess or another (that he instigated) so that they began to eliminate each other and he came out on top.

Race: Human
Background: Criminal.
(Swap in Disguise kit for Gaming Set proficiency)
Class: Rogue Swasbuckler (15) / Warlock(Fiend/Chain) 5
Beginning Stats: S 10(11) D 15(16) C 13(14) I 9(10) W 11 (12) Ch 14(15)
4th First ASI Feat: Actor (16 CHA and Mister Deception)
2d ASI: 18 DEX
3d ASI: 18 CHA
4th ASI: 20 CHA
5th ASI: 16 CON / or 20 DEX
1-8 Rogue
9-13 Lock
14-20 Rogue
When he gets a familiar, it's an Imp. Spy.
What's in a name?
Villain (anagram) gives us a name something like Linvail (and doesn't that sound like a noble fop's name?) And as a pirate he's raided a variety of ports as well as taking ships at sea.

Linvail Havensbane.

Make sure he has a magical rapier, and has attuned a rare, very rare, and legendary item. He's the kind of pirate/treasure hunter who'd equip himself suitabely, and I suspect that a cloak of displacement woule be one of his items. Add a Rod of the Pact Keeper and +3 Studded Leather

[Chad.e.clark]

NPC's are not bound by the limits of PC's. Look at Jarlaxle's Stat block in Dragon Heist: sure he looks kind of like a PC, but out of nowhere, *bam* he can attune to more magic items than any PC ever will.

Or that old hermit that lives up on mount Waterdeep in the same adventure: looks like an epic level monk, fights like an epic level monk, casts like an epic level cleric, but in reality he is just an NPC statblock.

You are not bound by the limits of a 20th level PC when making your BBEG. Make the villain into whatever you want it to be.

[CapnWildefyr]

I could not read all the background... quite a lot. Wow.

For the pirate why not go descriptive, no name just The Red Beast, or Death's Slaver or The Sea Plague.

For the noble, start him with something more foppish like Gliptkerio (from Fritz Lieber).

For the build, I'd personally avoid the vecna thing just to stay away from liches. Make him part high priest of an evil sea god or even 'the elder gods' aka Yog et al from Cthulhu. Give him artifacts that he stole as he got into pirating and saw its potential--artifacts that let him mind control or permanently charm people. The great danger he represents is how deep his people permeate society. PCs have to wade in paranoia. Secret cults too, and they seem unrelated until you break in and find out who is in charge. So he has religious cults, maybe a pirate group, probably at least one thieves or assassins guild, and he is charming a few key merchants and nobles he hasn't bribed, extorted, or converted with his cult. Maybe be he doesn't kill the queen, maybe just controls her or replaces her with a doppleganger so she looks evil and he plays the nice guy in the house of lords.

Maybe thats too much.

Please let him use doubles or something, this cool a villain needs to be fought more than once, until the PCs finally beat him half dead and then chain him to a rock on crab island and watch him get nibbled to death, just to be sure (and because, you know, he did that to their parents).

[Quoz]

If you want a name, use Baldassare Cossa. A real life Italian pirate from the 15th century, who used his wealth to become governor of Bolognia and ascended to Pope before being excommunicated into an Anti-Pope (European history is sometimes weirder than even fantasy writers can make up, so just steal it)

[Stattick]

I could not read all the background... quite a lot. Wow.

For the pirate why not go descriptive, no name just The Red Beast, or Death's Slaver or The Sea Plague.

For the noble, start him with something more foppish like Gliptkerio (from Fritz Lieber).

For the build, I'd personally avoid the vecna thing just to stay away from liches. Make him part high priest of an evil sea god or even 'the elder gods' aka Yog et al from Cthulhu. Give him artifacts that he stole as he got into pirating and saw its potential--artifacts that let him mind control or permanently charm people. The great danger he represents is how deep his people permeate society. PCs have to wade in paranoia. Secret cults too, and they seem unrelated until you break in and find out who is in charge. So he has religious cults, maybe a pirate group, probably at least one thieves or assassins guild, and he is charming a few key merchants and nobles he hasn't bribed, extorted, or converted with his cult. Maybe be he doesn't kill the queen, maybe just controls her or replaces her with a doppleganger so she looks evil and he plays the nice guy in the house of lords.

Maybe thats too much.

Please let him use doubles or something, this cool a villain needs to be fought more than once, until the PCs finally beat him half dead and then chain him to a rock on crab island and watch him get nibbled to death, just to be sure (and because, you know, he did that to their parents).

I think there's a lot of good stuff in the preceding post. To expand on it, I think that the most compelling villains are those that are relatable. By the time you really get to know them, you have some understanding of their motives and how they operate. And perhaps you even have some respect for them.

With your yet unnamed character, who'll I'll refer to as John Nobel as a placeholder, I think it makes him more interesting if he's more than, "Was a brutal pirate for a lark," and "Now trying to take over the kingdom". What if John Nobel truly believes that HE is the rightful heir to the throne? Perhaps he's the last survivor of the prior dynasty. And what if the current queen is deeply enmeshed in dirty politics and corruption. FYI - that's usually how it goes when you're on the throne, no matter your intent. It's just the nature of the beast. At any rate, perhaps John Nobel believes that he can run a "cleaner" government. Sure, he'll have to kill a lot of people to sweep out the corrupt, but he's a hard man willing to make the hard choices.

Maybe the reason he turned to piracy was because he needed to raise funds for the revolution he plans to lead? Or maybe he just a minor noble, far from inheriting wealth and title, and turned to adventurism, because it was better than staying with relations that look down their nose at you with a sneer, and won't even give you enough coin to let you keep up with fashion, much less be anything more at court than Duke Nobel's impoverished cousin, though he is technically a peer. (Think Lord Byron.)

So, he goes to sea, to go fight in some foreign civil war, because that's the sort of thing that dispossessed nobles do. But he doesn't make it there. Instead, the ship wrecks en route, or perhaps is taken by pirates. Maybe John Noble is taken hostage for ransom (that happened a lot back in the day), but his family won't pay for his release (so did that). Thing is, John is a charismatic guy, smart in his way, and he ingratiates himself in with his captors. A few years later, presumed to be dead back home, he's worked his way up the ranks to where he's running his own pirate ship. And now he suddenly has what's always been denied him - coin, power, men loyal to him, respect, and whatever authority he can grab for himself (which can be a lot when it's just your ship and some merchant ship out on the high seas). And now he's bitter about how most of his treated him. He's planning his come back, and he's going to show them all.

I like the idea that he's some sort of Warlock or Priest (or The Chosen) to some sort of watery Power (god, elemental, patron, whatever). Give him the ability to swim at walking speed, breath water, talk to sea life, get allies among the oceanic races, cultists that'll due his bidding, etc. Perhaps it's that power that's filled John's head with the idea that he could rule better, and that he's a legitimate heir? Maybe that Power also helped to stir the desire for conquest in John as well?

A fortune secured, and a band of very loyal, very skilled, and very deadly henchmen accompany him. He starts in on his mechanizations, while slowly and stealthily killing his kinsmen in the right order to inherit his family's wealth and title. He leaves the running of his estates in capable hands, while he goes to court. Maybe he does play the fop, publicly, to take suspicion off of himself. But bit by bit, he starts to amass power to himself. Those that oppose him are dealt with - perhaps they get sick or have an accident. Others perhaps, can be brought to heal through blackmail or leveraged financially.