Insane illusionist suggestions

[Avigor]

I've decided to use Dungeon Dad's Wingless Wonder as a springboard for dropping an insane illusionist wizard BBEG who basically has both the misty visions and mask of many faces invocations despite not being a warlock and having basically no functional charisma cause NPC (or wisdom, cause insane), and I'm wondering what suggestions the playground might have for what kind of shenanigans he might get up to.

Please keep in mind this is a new party (not sure if they'll meet him next session but they're literally level 1 now, I'm thinking he'll use far step and/or invisibility of some sort to skedaddle upon his reversion) and I'm more intending on setting the stage for a long-term villain who is more about pranking the party giving twisted "thanks" for freeing him, not killing them (at least, not yet). Maybe he monkey paws their random whims (from spied on conversations), maybe he sends them weird dreams, maybe he tries to "gift" them something he doesn't actually own while in a disguise so they have to make insight checks to have any clue something is off before the actual owner comes calling utterly confused by their "wait, this wasn't stolen, so-and-so gave it to us" story, that kind of thing.

I'm contemplating the idea of having other subplots as well, possibly even give them reason to try and intentionally invoke his "help" (which would probably do something ludicrous). Also debating on a name, the meme part of my mind is instantly screeching UNCLE SHEO at the top of it's lungs but I'm not so sure if I want to quite go that far (also I'm not sure if any of my players would get the reference, tbh, and if they did they might get the wrong idea about this power level, even though he will be quite beyond them upon his initial appearance).

If it makes any difference, setting is the Sword Coast, we ended session 0 with them taking a mission from a Neverwinter job board to go investigate a giant spider sighting in the Neverwinter Woods, I'm basically planning on giving them a little battle and then discovering a ruin wherein they find at least one WW (I might use two if they kill the first and the scream doesn't nix them, basically have the first turn out to have been someone who might have been more sane and able to help).

[kingcheesepants]

He can give the party treasure that's made via creation and disappears after an hour. Or impersonate party members and cause any sort of damage to their reputations. Or use Hallucinatory Terrain to get them lost or go unwittingly into a dangerous area. Or put up a bunch of Magic Mouth that sing embarrassing songs about them in every town. Use projected image to spy on them. Use mislead to make them think that they're chasing him but actually they're chasing a phantom and now they're in someplace they shouldn't be and have to explain themselves to the guards. and of course the classic, showdown with the bad guy but it's actually a Simulacrum all along.

It would probably help though to think through the nature of his madness. Has his penchant for illusion made him think that all the world is illusory? Does he have some sort of orange and blue morality where the things he cares about are just totally different from society at large? Is he trying to test the party in an effort to get their aid for some actual big problem only he knows about but nobody believes him?

[Rukelnikov]

I once had a similar kind of "antagonist" he was lich who was the weakest of a group of hermit archmages (a couple liches among them) and none of the other archmages took him seriously. So when the party entered the archmages demiplane which had a ran down old temple of Mystril and some other ruins, he took the chance and showed himself imposing to the party, and cackled, and went on some evil rants that he never actually followed thru. While the party was exploring some deserted ruins in the demiplane he made himself appear as several different characters (all in nearby but different locations), to give the impression that there was a small group of people living there, later on he revealed to the party that those people they'd been talking to and helping were none other than "The Master of Terror!" as the lich had taken to calling himself.

He was just very bored, and had been reflecting on his life choices for the past couple centuries, so when the party appeared he just wanted to have someone pay him attention and live his past fantasies of being an archvillain but which he didn't really wanted to anymore, they were just that, fantasies, which I thought was fitting for someone whose main schtick are illusions.

After that campaign ended that character ended up having cameos in other adventures.

[Unoriginal]

I don't get why being a NPC would mean having no functional CHA.

As for being insane, that doesn't stop one from having high WIS, either.

For the rest, keep in mind that having a random trickster messing up with the PCs can be *extremely* annoying for the players, especially if the trickster is too powerful for them to do anything about.

I would suggest picking up one concrete goal for the spellcaster, and have their actions, no matter how random they seem, be actually tailored to move toward that goal.

For example: the Illusionist wants revenge on the person who imprisoned them, and think the PCs would be great to do it if they were stronger. So Illusionist arranges (via disguises, rumors, maps placed at the right place to be found, etc) to direct them toward a bunch of dungeons that'll make the PCs stronger... or kill them and as such show they wouldn't have been able to handle the revenge.

EDIT:

Name-wise, I think the Illusionist calling himself "Uncle He-Os" would be fun.

It evokes the names of pulpy characters (such as Robert E. Howard's works, or the Masters of the Universe franchise), plus gives the impression the Illusionist *thinks* he is a friendly, familiar figure.