Evil Plans To Save The World

[Leliel]

So...

This is basically a thread in which we, the boards, show motives for our villains that rank pretty high on the Moral Ambigu-o-meter.

I haven't the Exalted chronicle he's in yet, but I have a Lunar who essentially realized that Fae who calcify have their minds recycle as souls, and having been badly hurt in his past by Oblivion, decides to spite it by feeding Fair Folk to the Well of Souls, taking Creation farther and farther away from the apocalypse.

The problem? Besides the possibility of a Raksha PC, who is liable to object to his siblings being used as gasoline, there's also the fact that occasionally, a soul doesn't reincarnate, but becomes aware nontheless. These "Amanojaku" (thank you, WoD fan projects) are understandably unhappy about being stuck in Lethe and aware of it, so they attempt to possess mortals so that they can live out the life they were supposed to have. The problem with that (besides the fact that it kicks out the host's own soul) is that as people who were not born but still live, an Amanojaku is effectively a part of Fate and yet not, creating tangles in the Loom by simply existing. In normal numbers, they tend to be the least of a pattern spider's concern, but with the new influx created by the calcified Raksha beginning to outstrip the birth rate...Yeah.

So, any other reckless, misguided, or just plain wrong plans for your campaign world's betterment out there?

[Lysander]

There's always the redcloak scenario. Your people are oppressed by another race so you engage in a seemingly villainous plot to empower them. So your plan might be evil to humans and elves, but entirely benevolent towards say orcs or trolls or demons.

[Just_Ice]

Killing everyone to preserve nature's always a fun one.

Also,

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if you've ever seen watchmen...

[Yukitsu]

One of my chaotic evils kidnapped a ton of slave masters and forced them to fight as a liberation and freedom force, torturing and shattering the minds of everyone that stood in my path. Not sure where that falls in the scale.

[Beowulf DW]

This thread needs a theme song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vfDNSW6G4A

[Dust]

An ancient, superior civilization is beset by enemies - mindless predators and dangerous natural creatures.
The leader of this advanced nation constructs a device (a huge rune-covered tower) that allows the species (specifically, him) to turn their/his natural telepathy into full-blown mind control. This is used this to placate the ravenous beasts. It works, and their civilization is safe.

Thousands of years pass. The other races of the world begin to construct their own cities and society, and the Tower has begun to deteriorate. The control over the beasts has begun to slip, and the leader of the ancient people takes drastic action and begins mind-controlling the humans, elves and dwarves as well. He forces them to protect the Tower from harm, to rebuild it as much as they can, forcing them to give up their life energy to keep the thing powered. They're an inferior race, and the lives of a few in exchange for protecting the utopic city of millions is a fair trade.

But more and more souls are needed to keep the Tower operational each year, and the beasts won't stay at bay much longer.

[Zeta Kai]

Seymour from Final Fantasy X comes to mind. The world of Spira has been caught in a spiral of death, destruction, & fear for a thousand years, with no prospect for salvation in sight.

His plan? Kill everyone & everything on Spira, ending all of their potential for suffering. And, due to FFX's metaphysics, it could've actually worked; in their world, the spirits of the dead can return to the world of the living & continue with their existence, & no one need even know that they're Unsent instead of alive. Of course, Unsent spirits can slowly go mad, eventually becoming fiends...

[NMBLNG]

I have a group of mindflayers coordinating world politics to bring prosperity and peace to the world. Because that means a lot of defenceless brains.

[Kobold-Bard]

If all those who oppose me are dead, then no one will oppose me and peace shall reign.

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[jseah]

I have one non-standard villian who is the leader of a fast rising magi-tech civilization. When opposed by the corrupt (depending on your view) church and wealth of the old aristocracy, and every other country in the world appears to be at war with them.

The solution? Invent a Grey Goo disaster that wipes out every area that doesn't have advanced magical infrastructure. Of course, it kills basically everyone in the world but his home country, but as they say "It's my country, right or wrong".

[Mikeavelli]

It's actually a big part of my campaign world.

A powerful organization of wizards and diviners exist in my campaign world, they're aware that at some distant point in the future (thousands of years later) all divination ceases to work. Every string of fate is adruptly cut, the timeline for the entire world just adruptly ends, and they're not sure why.

They've been preparing, for at least the past few hundred years, and continuing on until the inevitably apocalypse, to avert the end of the world. Since most of the senior members have turned to lichdom or other less-than-ethical means to prolong their lives, and they see their goal as safeguarding the existence of everything on the prime, they aren't nice people. Several adventures have involved this group wanting some Macguffin that the Players are also after, refusing to explain (outsiders don't get to know their secrets or goals), and being supremely egotistical about it.

They also see themselves as protectors of civilization, keeping at bay all the monstrous beasties adventurers usually kill, but in the process it gives them the right to be ***** to everyone.

It will eventually come to light that the prophecized end of the world is a cosmological death/rebirth cycle that's necessary for the health of the world as a whole. Averting it will inevitably result in the world descending into something resembling Athas from the Dark Sun Setting.

[mucat]

Spider Robinson did an interesting variation on this in Mindkiller (though the book already exhibited a lot of the flaws that would make his later writings -- in my humble opinion, of course -- so painful to read...)

Spoiler warning, as this gives away major plot twists.

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The antagonist is a neurobiologist who has developed a technique that amounts to mindrape; he can read a subject's brain and erase specific memories, knowledge and personality traits.

He finds the idea of messing with people's minds obscene, but he has a tiger by the tail. He knows that if he walks away and lets science take its course, others will soon discover the same things he has...leading either to the end of civilization or to a dystopian hell on earth. So he has been using a combination of deceit, murder, and (reluctantly, when deceit and murder won't do the job) mindrape to prevent anyone else from discovering it.

If he had to keep this up forever, it would be hopeless, but he has a specific time window in mind: he wants to keep his research secret until he can learn to enhance minds instead of destroying them, and elevate humanity to a new level of enlightenment.

When the protagonists finally learn the truth, they choose to save the scientist's life and join him, rather than let an amoral third party seize the knowledge...so in Robinson's view, the guy is not a BBEG but an anti-hero. Readers' milage can and does vary. But it would make a hell of a dilemma for PCs in a game...

[Swooper]

Ernir of these boards runs a game, where there's a cabal of necromancers desperately raising an undead army to save the world from destruction from Lovecraftian horrors. How often do the necromancers get to be the lesser evil, eh?

[Jack_Simth]

"The world must be in balance"

Someone finds out (possibly the hard way, when a plane he had been visiting collapsed) that Good and Evil must be kept in reasonably close balance with each other. And he's seeing signs that good is gaining the upper hand. So to prevent the world from coming to an abrupt and messy end (killing everyone), he's systemically seeding wars, famines, plagues, and other nastiness all over the world. The good of the many, after all.

[Godskook]

Obligatory link.

[ryleah]

I've got a CE Githyanki 13 Dread Necromancer who's sold his soul to Asmodeus, provided an advanced Ulgurstasta with a sacrifice (one of his cohorts), killed a woman on her birthday after poisoning her party, and eventually intends to absorb the atropal being born into his world, all in order prevent the rise of the dracoliches, which would in turn prevent Lillith from sucking the plane into hell, and at the same time prevent a horde of intelligent abberations from sucking the plane (and possibly lillith's layer of the inferno) into the far realm. Oh, and he's a P.C.

[Ashram]

Killing everyone to preserve nature's always a fun one.

Also,

Spoiler

Show

if you've ever seen watchmen...

Seconded on the first example. I once had a wizard (Yes, not a druid, but a wizard) who was certain that the civilized races were slowly destroying the world with expansion and magic, and their belief in the gods (Or as he called them, "divine crutches") was making people weak.

His answer: Destroy everyone so that nature can repair itself.

[Serpentine]

This one's just a vague future idea I've been messing with, although it has come up in passing in my current campaign. There is a demi-god level Druid on a mini-continent inhabited by dinosaurs (a cross between Jurassic Park and Dinotopia, I suppose). She's surrounded the place with various natural defenses to keep anyone else away, but a few have still gotten in. She's devoted to the dinosaurs and determined to have them rise again - not particularly at the expense of other creatures, but she thinks they're grand and wants them to have a chance.
I typed up a big bunch of background here, but then I realised all you need to know for this purpose is this: there is a whole continent that is pretty much completely uninhabited by man or beast, that is up for grabs if the right person can switch off the device that's keeping it uninhabited.
The Druid is arranging things to hasten the switching off so she can take her dinosaurs there to breed and develop, but that's pretty neutral, or even good. What makes her villainish is this: the main continent (you know, usual fantasy stuff, where all the people live) is between the dinosaur continent and the empty continent. She's intending to march the whole lot - hundreds of thousands of dinosaurs, at least - straight across. She can control them, but her control is not complete and she doesn't particularly care about the wellbeing of anyone in her way. It's not taking over the world-scale villainy, but it will do a LOT of damage across this continent.
The party, should this ever happen, can help her, oppose her, or find another way, or whatever else if they're able.

[TroubleBrewing]

I don't know if this qualifies, as it is in a Spycraft game, not D&D.

Our DM decided to run two separate campaigns of Spycraft, with one party acting as the BBEG (in this instance, Big Bad Evil Group) for the other group. He decided that the BBEG would be aware of the other party's existence, but not vice versa. Members of both parties hang out regularly, so listening to them tell us about all of the "crazy stuff" that they've had to deal with is pretty hilarious.

Our group is a cell of Eastern European freedom fighters who live in a former Soviet Bloc nation. The government of this country is corrupt and oppressive, but is recognized by the UN and the USA as a legitimate leader in a "democratic" nation. Thus, our group is classified as a terrorist organization, when in reality, we are merely fighting to throw off the chains of an oppressive dictatorship. The other group, a US black-ops cell, has made it their goal to hunt us down and kill us. The BBEG consists of three players and myself, with a combined total of 30 years gaming experience. The other group have a combined total of about 5. Not the smartest choice the DM ever made... His "good" group is going to get squished like a bug on a windshield.

[Irreverent Fool]

In the Campaign I'm currently running, the pantheon is ruled by a council of elemental lords (Fire, Earth, Water, Good, Evil, Chaos). A war long ago resulted in the offspring of the goddess of Evil taking her power and then the proverbian throne. He now rules like Zeus -- ie: as the king of the gods.

I won't go into more detail as it's likely dull to anyone not in the campaign. Suffice it to say that this god of Evil created humanity and they revere him as a creator god. They (especially not the clergy) have no idea of the true nature of the being they worship. The other races have inklings, of course.

Not sure if any of my players are on these boards, so if anyone knows who Ryaxdelon the dragon is, read no further

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The current 'villain' is a disguised duergar wizard who has taken the place of the dwarven king in order to further his plans to create a device known as the soulforge. Once he has used the soulforge to gather enough souls, he will finish fabricating the prison created with help from emissaries from the other gods and imprison the god of evil, thus freeing the world from the corruptive force of the dark throne.

In addition to gathering unwilling souls and preventing them from moving on or being resurrected, the other side effect is that the soulless vacuum left in the bodies is filled with negative energy, creating monstrosities which strike out at any living thing and drain fractions of soul energy away (reflected as wisdom drain in all their attacks). I treat 'soulless' as a template, leaving these creatures with all of the abilities they had in life, making them dangerous opponents. The soulless cannot be properly destroyed and have regeneration akin to that of the tarrasque. When reduced to 0 hp, they become inert and after a time rise up again with an extra 'undead' HD and some other minor bonuses which means whatever doesn't kill them makes them stronger. The established method is to stuff them into magically-treated barrels and seal them in vaults (a la Return of the Living Dead). The party has figured out that throwing them into lava pits or using disintigrate works too.

The souls will ultimately end up freed once the god is imprisoned, not that anyone appears to know that.

Ultimately, the 'king' will need the party's help to gather certain artifacts the god of evil has used to cement his power (basically item familiars which make him more powerful while leaving him vulnerable to said items seizure).

obnoxious
sig

[Talon Sky]

In my current campaign, the Duskblades serve as a kind of secret, elf-only order to ensure the survival of the elven race. A war with the drow had the elves running, so one of the more powerful members of the Duskblade Knights worked with the drow to seal the entire race of elves into a dimension of perpetual stasis, save for himself and his daughter (a PC in the game).

In his mind, he's protecting the elven race by keeping it all locked away. If they're not actually alive, they can't die.

I have a group of mindflayers coordinating world politics to bring prosperity and peace to the world. Because that means a lot of defenceless brains.

Can I put this in my sig? ;p

[Endarire]

Your purpose of being created is to show the gods how foolish they are.
You have masterminded the 'corruption' of countless worlds, turning the gods' worship to you.
You have turned mortals' existence into a game, subtly training them to become stronger and more violent.
You tempt those who reach you with offers of genuine power in exchange for fighting against the 'tyrants' who made you.

Yet...

You care for the creation you were charged to protect.
You enjoy watching mortals train to enhance themselves.
You attempt to better the multiverse by giving power to 'wicked' forces, only to have 'righteous' forces overthrow them.

[kestrel404]

In the last Earthdawn campaign I ran, I handed the PCs a prophecy, in which they (or a group much like them) cure the mad gods of their madness.
What I didn't tell them, until very near the end, was that in order to do this they would also have to release Death himself from his eons-long imprisonment.
By releasing death, he would be free to collect all those who had once died - effectively killing anyone who had ever been raised from the dead. This is in a world where a 'raise dead' potion is considdered standard equipment for low level adventurers heading somewhere dangerous.

They weighed the consequences, and decided that curing the mad god who ruled over the giant civilization of mad slave traders, as well as the others who were just as bad, would be a fair trade and they completed the prophecy.

[Chineselegolas]

At a LARP I was at a few months ago, we had an interesting situation where a Mass murderer fanboy, a vampire, an undercover cop and a gangster all teamed up to sacrifice 50 people to the devil.
The service which we received for this mass sacrificing to him, he went out and drove Cthulhu back into the sea to sleep for the rest of time.

Yep. A group of 4 people who all evening had been working against each other for their own ends suddenly put aside there differences to commit mass murder in the name of the devil. To save the world.

[chiasaur11]

Evil plans to save the world? Should we wait till they're unfurled? I mean, they'll go down in history.

Ahem.


Well, there's always sacrificing the few to save the many in the nastiest way possible.

Leading Orcs to outlying farming villages to convince the king that it's a real threat, letting the aliens vaporize a hapless planet and kill the local friendly AI so as to buy time for Earth, that kind of jazz. Nasty, but not usually bad enough to lead to "Sure, you have a point. But with what you did, well, we're killing you anyway. Nobody who pulls that is likely to stop with one atrocity."

[Windquake]

**Spoilers about a movie and comic book ahead**

Well there is always the Ozymandias plan from The Watchman (both the book and the movie).

Basically, when someone pointed out that taking down the local hood does nothing about what is really wrong with the world (wars, poverty, starvation, exploitation, etc), Ozymandias (a super-hero) decides to create a fake alien invasion to get the governments and peoples of the world on the same side. Of course, his plan involves killing hundreds of thousands (millions in the movie), so the heroes have to stop him.

You could easily adapt a similar plan to D&D or Pathfinder and go with it.

Windquake

[Chilingsworth]

This thread needs a theme song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vfDNSW6G4A

This link is dead :(
Just thought you should know.

[Saint GoH]

This link is dead :(
Just thought you should know.

As was this thread until recently...




















Oh wait. Contributor I am to this crime.