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View Full Version : DM Help What does my non-evil "BBEG" want?



Galithar
2020-06-09, 05:00 PM
I have an idea for a "bad guy" but I'm struggling with deciding what it is that they want.

What I do have is that they are a neutral aligned Druid. They are a pseudo necromancer. They don't actually use normal necromancy magic, but do use magic to animate plant matter that fuses with corpses (both zombie like and skeletal).

I know their motivation ISN'T just making more of their pseudo undead, but I need them to be at conflict with the locals and/or PCs for some reason. This conflict doesn't have to be absolute, and I would actually prefer a form of conflict that can be settled non violently if the PCs choose to attempt that.

sktarq
2020-06-09, 06:05 PM
a few ideas

A) Preserving sacred groves, ley lines, or magical nexus is an obvious one.

b) Having friends, but the druid doesn't connect to people well, and they find these vegetation/corpse hybrids have "personalities" they do connect with.

C) Driving out this annoying fungal infestation or slime mold that is killing a lot of local wildlife. but the druid has found the corpses can destroy them without sacrificing a natural living being...and corpses of intelligent creatures retain a bit of intelligence and thus be left to keep an area clear. It's unfortunate about the humans but the forest as a whole is worth it.

D) The druid is working on getting them to be able to tend other plants themselves with low level magic to improve the health of the plants or even allow farming to be less impactful maybe.

E) The druid thinks there is a future undead invasion coming soon. They think these vegetation/corpse hybrids will be very good at destroying them. Able to resist most of their attacks and with enough innate magic to overcome damage resistance. Perhaps if the players could change the things that will bring such an event the druid will not need such a defensive force.

Nifft
2020-06-09, 06:57 PM
Nice setup.

I like when the antagonist is a Big Bad Ethical Guy.

In addition to the good ideas above...

F) The local civilization has been trying to expand. The druids drove them back, but that's not enough. They'll try again. This guy sees civilization as an out-of-control infestation which needs to be trimmed back lest it wreck everything. So, he's going to expand his grove, just as they tried to expand their cities. It's not retaliation, it's fair play.

G) The new gods themselves aren't evil, but the local lord has been forcing his subjects to convert, and that's not okay. So this BBEG was called in by the local druids to even the score. He's a hardliner dead-set on reversing the conversions by any means necessary. He's heard rumors about torture and some really horrible forced conversions, so he feels anything he does in retaliation is justified. He's a mix between a professional operator and a religious fanatic.

H) "What if Necromancy is just a misunderstood part of nature? What if I could redeem an entire branch of magic?" This guy is a mad scientist, and he's got a mad science theory, and he sees so much value in proving his theory that any incidental harm caused along the way is unimportant. He doesn't mean any harm, but he doesn't care about much except his mad science.

I) "I remember the dream. Every word, every note, every drop. It's impossible, though. Nobody can know what I'm talking about... except you. You will know. You will see, for I have seen it twice and I will see it again." -- the Druid is bonkers, but he might have been driven bonkers by some special prophetic knowledge. One of the PCs is special, the one who will know, and the others are basically garbage which he views with distaste. He does things because he knows those things must be done. He's implacable, and might be insane -- and he might actually know something.

G) Something is awakening. These new not-quite-undead things aren't entirely under the control of the local druid, but he's doing his best. He's surprised by the things, but he's taking steps to control and understand them, for example he's figured out how to make them happen when and where he casts a spell (and these are under his control for a time) instead of just spontaneously forming and doing whatever, which is what happens if he doesn't make them. He wants the PCs to forgive and forbear while he figures out how to deal with the changes. He's got a great new weapon, but no particular desire to use it on anyone. He doesn't trust the locals in his grove, obviously -- I mean, they wouldn't invite him into their treasury, would they? -- but he can handle it. He hopes. Something is awakening, but he's trying his best.

Xapi
2020-06-09, 07:25 PM
For a druid, the most obvious answer would be the safekeeping of a species and/or biome against the town's intentions to develop economically.

Another possibility might be some sort of (not unnatural) monster that threatens the town that the townspeople wish to have killed (by the PCs?) while the druid considers it an endangered species that needs to be saved, maybe even transported to it's natural habitat.

False God
2020-06-09, 08:28 PM
Well, why is he fusing plants into corpses? And what is he doing with the creatures he creates?

Is he "neutral" in an indifference sort of way, or in a "balance of nature" sort of way?

Conflict with the locals is easy: "townsfolk" are by nature wary of undead, and the naturally do some hunting in the nearby woods, so to run into undead of course feaks them out! Top it off, the townsfolk also used to bury their dead in the woods (maybe as an offering to nature) but BBEG just sees the corpses as "useful materials" with no attached sentimental value, so the townsfolk feel like their years of "good offerings" to the forest are being thrown back in their face when Uncle Jimmy starts walking around again.

This comes back to "what is he using the creatures for?" Maybe there is some "bigger threat" that he's fighting, some kind of "nature elemental" that causes nature to grow out of control, so as a "balance of nature" guy he's using the dead to fight the living. Something the "nature monster" can't affect.

Of course that likely means the BBEG isn't really evil, and a good long talk with the townsfolk could probably straighten things out.

Zhorn
2020-06-09, 10:10 PM
The idea that springs to mind immediately for me are

1) Shift the focus from plants to fungus (some form of myconid off-shoot or parallel species)

2) Communication between them and the locals is limited to non-existent.

3) Their view of the world is one of unity "all will assimilate", literally making everyone "one with nature". Not as a conquerors mindset but as a 'for the good of all'.
Corpses turned into new fungal-folk are little more than spore spreading automatons, causing much of the conflict as they don't distinguish between 'willing host' and 'viable host'.
Living converts tend to go down the "one of us. one of us" route and from the outside perspective it looks more like brainwashing/enslavement than anything else.
In either case the host undergoes a fairly rapid (not instantaneous) transformation into a non-speaking myconid-like form. During transformation, the 'infected' are praising the transformation, trying to convince anyone nearby to join them, this is wonderful, become one with the spore, etc.
If you've seen the Futurama episode "A beast with a billion backs" think of when Yivo attaches to people and how the go from extreme panic and fear to supporters of joining with Yivo. Only in this case it is a permanent one-way deal.

4) the head druid (BBEG) just has no concept of anyone not wanting to become part of this new fungal society, since everyone who gets within range of them is already infected or quickly quickly become so, unable to verbalise any disagreement with their methods. They are not malicious, and would be perfectly reasonable to deal with if only someone could get to them before being converted.

NichG
2020-06-09, 10:33 PM
If you want to make it really complicated, you can have the BBEG mostly be doing BBEG-stuff in retaliation/response to previous aggression that wouldn't be obvious to outsiders. So for example, this druid set up outside of the town and made their plant/undead stuff, maybe provided healing services and the like for the locals, was generally a good part of the community. A radical Pelorite (or equivalent) priest moved in and started agitating against the druid, but the townspeople had relied on the druid's services for some time and weren't really getting into it. When a plague struck and the druid identified the vector and was trying to get the public to respond appropriately, a small group of radicals agitated by the priest led raids against townspeople who followed the advice, burning their homes. The druid lashed out in response, slaying the radicals and the priest, but now the community is terrified of them and the church has moved in to investigate and the plant undead are starting to be a really bad look for the druid, leading to a bunch of escalating confrontations where priests have been harmed or driven off (though conspicuously not killed).

Since things have been escalating, the druid has been looking for ways to resolve the situation and protect the villagers he sees as his people from harmful outside influences. The villagers aren't certain they want to be protected like this, and are freaked out about the undead.

If everyone calmed down, the church might be convinced or shown that the original priest that moved in had massively overstepped the bounds of their position and doctrine, and that the druid's reaction was also an over-reach but ultimately didn't imply hostility against the townspeople. But now there's a bunch of stuff on the line - the church and town might set a precedent if they let someone get away with murder, and the druid feels they did right by the villagers and isn't going to be a token sacrifice to the ideals of the law and civilization, etc.

Galithar
2020-06-09, 10:54 PM
If you want to make it really complicated, you can have the BBEG mostly be doing BBEG-stuff in retaliation/response to previous aggression that wouldn't be obvious to outsiders. So for example, this druid set up outside of the town and made their plant/undead stuff, maybe provided healing services and the like for the locals, was generally a good part of the community. A radical Pelorite (or equivalent) priest moved in and started agitating against the druid, but the townspeople had relied on the druid's services for some time and weren't really getting into it. When a plague struck and the druid identified the vector and was trying to get the public to respond appropriately, a small group of radicals agitated by the priest led raids against townspeople who followed the advice, burning their homes. The druid lashed out in response, slaying the radicals and the priest, but now the community is terrified of them and the church has moved in to investigate and the plant undead are starting to be a really bad look for the druid, leading to a bunch of escalating confrontations where priests have been harmed or driven off (though conspicuously not killed).

Since things have been escalating, the druid has been looking for ways to resolve the situation and protect the villagers he sees as his people from harmful outside influences. The villagers aren't certain they want to be protected like this, and are freaked out about the undead.

If everyone calmed down, the church might be convinced or shown that the original priest that moved in had massively overstepped the bounds of their position and doctrine, and that the druid's reaction was also an over-reach but ultimately didn't imply hostility against the townspeople. But now there's a bunch of stuff on the line - the church and town might set a precedent if they let someone get away with murder, and the druid feels they did right by the villagers and isn't going to be a token sacrifice to the ideals of the law and civilization, etc.

Lots of good ideas here! As I have come to expect from my fellow playgrounders, but I think this one from NichG is my current favorite.

I think I could really get into playing up this conflict where the ACTUAL guy that was being evil (even if he also thought he was legitimately doing good, he just overstepped) is already out of the picture. The conflict with this not quite standard druid with some kind of spooky servants however is at an all time high because he's the one that forcibly removed the ones that were doing direct harm.

I'm open to more ideas and discussion of course, even if I don't use them maybe it will spark creativity for someone else!