The most dangerous NPCs

[Morithias]

This is a thread for homebrew settings/NPCs. Who are your NPCs that you don't want to mess with in your settings.

The most dangerous NPC in my setting is of course the 10 year old Recette. Sure she's only level 1 or 2, but that doesn't change the fact that she's the cousin of the prince and has billions of gold pieces at her beck and call, and that every adventurer in the city of millions is more than willing to work for her. You might be 10-15 levels higher than her, but your +4 sword is no match for her Bracers of Armor and Rings of Deflection that are epic in nature (not to mention merely attacking her is a death sentence in and of itself as everyone in the store will turn on you, and her shop is wal-mart sized and warded against teleportation).

[Craft (Cheese)]

Dragons. In my games when a dragon shows up, and you don't run away from it as fast as you can, you die. Doesn't matter how many levels, magic artifacts, or divine ranks you have. You. Die.


The downside to this is they quickly become tiresome and devolve to God Mode Sue status if you use them too much, but the upside is if you only have 1 dragon show up every few campaigns, the players start to quake in fear.

[kieza]

In my setting, the NPC with the most personal power--the one players really don't want to fight--is the crown princess of one of the protagonist nations. The prince consort is also the royal archmage, meaning that she's been learning magic since she was old enough to say "Daddy, I want to learn that!" Then she manifested as a sorcerer, when she already knew a fair bit of magic, and was able to channel all the raw power of her sorcery through the precise and deadly strictures of wizardry--allowing her to outduel her old man at the tender age of 15. Next, when she decided to go into the military (encouraged for royal scions), her parents had her trained as a line officer in the Marines before clearing her for advanced training as a battle-mage. And, just to top things off, there are signs that she's becoming the recipient of some sort of bloodline magic tied in with the land of the kingdom itself.

I realize this might sound like a Mary Sue, but I haven't gotten to the bad parts yet. Having had all of this power from a very young age, and having gone to the military instead of learning to rule from her mother, she has virtually no restraint. Since she served under a pseudonym to protect her from assassins, virtually nobody at court connects her to the deadly infantry officer that's been leading the country to victory for the last decade. The last time she went home on leave, she took the opportunity to challenge some of the Queen's political opponents in the House of Lords to duels. The first chose pistols, and she shot him in the gut and left him to die. The second chose sabres, and she quite literally cut him off at the knees. The third, a magician of some repute, chose spells for his duel not knowing that she was a sorceress, and they still haven't found the body. The rest forfeit.

Of course, rather than eliminating her mother's opposition, this heavy-handed brutality--killing noble Lords brutally, publicly, and completely legally--has solidified political resistance to the Queen's plans to reform the country into a constitutional monarchy--and they may have a point, if the princess ever ascends to the throne. The Queen has sent her back to the front lines to get her out of politics, and she and the prince consort are reluctantly drawing up plans to keep their daughter from becoming a despotic warrior-queen.

[Milo v3]

The Eternal Bard would be one for all my campaigns (Regardless of setting), as he has knowledge of the existance of a multiverse and is a Epic Level Wizard/Lich. In addition he has knowledge from the real world and basically every important thing in the game world.

Also he has a flare for the dramatic meaning he often causes accidental damage whenever he leaves his "Castle of Moros" or as he calls it "The Doom Fortress of Doom".

[Manly Man]

One of my favorites is a Mastryx, a red dragon great wyrm who rules over a large area of mountain and jungle, and all of the tribes of folks there believe her to be a wild goddess of fire, one that brings the air its comfortable warmth and fertilizes the soil with the ashes of her foes, baptized in her cleansing fires. The scattered tribes, while they do all have their differences and smaller hatreds, like the jungle elves being abhorrent to the jungle orcs and half-orcs, they all consider Mastryx to be one of the few universal truths, and therefore unite under her if she so wishes, and they will all offer themselves, ignoring anything less than the well-being of their goddess. The best part is how not only the tribesmen, but the majority of others nearby still see her as a benevolent force, and the one who, in an adventure I'm planning based on her, wants to get her out of the way is a greedy buttmunch of a conqueror anyway.

My other favorite villain is a fellow I've mentioned before, and unashamedly named after the Queen song 'Great King Rat'. He has an unusually intelligent war troll lieutenant with him as well, who only follows him out of a strange mix of respect and a sense of self-preservation, since were it up to Ilmarush the troll, that bastard would have been dead long ago out of the sheer lack of respect that Great King Rat shows to everyone and everything. Ilmarush is still cruel and more than a little sadistic, but he also has standards that he expects everyone to meet, and that Rat doesn't adhere to something even vaguely resembling honor is infuriating to him. King Rat, on the other hand, is cunning, savvy, and unpredictable; he lends his nature to the fact that his mother was a glabrezu, and him harnessing his demonic nature by becoming a warlock and trying to take over the huge, magic-laden metropolis of Nevermore from his mountainous lair in Brighton Rock. His main aim is to take the city, and from there the rest of the magical kingdom of Rhye. Yeah, really original.

[Loth17]

The most dangerous NPC in any of my campaigns has always been Vaelia the one armed wizard, who just happens to be a ghost. She has made an apearance in every one of my campaigns and the PCs have never figured out how to put her soul to rest and util they do she will continue to spam maximized magic missle at them.

[Anxe]

Sherlock the Warlock of course. He observes the PCs' adventures on his crystal ball. He calls it, "enjoying free cable." His tower is listed on the map as "Crazy Wizard."

[DontEatRawHagis]

In my Dark Sun game:

• The Tembo - My players have one following them, but since it is a lvl 6 and they are lvl 7 I had it perform actions in secret, seldom showing its face.
• Bartenders - My bartenders are known for being badass, it dates back to when I played the Matrix MMO. If you start a fight the Bartender has proven himself tough enough to handle anything. In one case the Bartender took out two enemy NPCs that tried to rob him. Granted they were Minions, but the players didn't know. :P

[Mikeavelli]

The Ancient One: Khergan, a Lich that lives on the Moon. While alive, he bore witness to the event that brought Aberrations into the world, and spent his whole life working to contain them, using questionable, and then outright evil means. He became undead in order to finish his life's work of converting the moon into a magic-fueled death star which protects the planet by shooting gigantic lasers at invading Eldritch Abominations.

[NikitaDarkstar]

If I ever actually try to run this setting of mine (doubtful it'd be in 3.5 if I did, magic doesn't match up well), it'd be a perfectly normal, middle-aged human, who's also the current leader of that settings oldest assassins guild. I don't doubt a group of skilled adventurers could take him one on one... but, that assumes finding him first and you know, getting in a fight with him before you get the better part of a guild of assassins on your rear end.

[Jay R]

If I ever actually try to run this setting of mine (doubtful it'd be in 3.5 if I did, magic doesn't match up well), it'd be a perfectly normal, middle-aged human, who's also the current leader of that settings oldest assassins guild. I don't doubt a group of skilled adventurers could take him one on one... but, that assumes finding him first and you know, getting in a fight with him before you get the better part of a guild of assassins on your rear end.

There's only one way out. It may not work, but it's the only shot you've got:

"Hey! Help me kill this guy and everybody here moves up one in the guild hierarchy!"

[NikitaDarkstar]

There's only one way out. It may not work, but it's the only shot you've got:

"Hey! Help me kill this guy and everybody here moves up one in the guild hierarchy!"

Lol certainly worth a shot. Bound to be some people around who thinks that's a pretty good idea. :) (Hey if I ever run it, and people ever decide to go after him I'd welcome some creativity in it... :p)

[peteleeb]

Rexor, named after a famous villain in the First Conan movie. However he was a Naceo-Demon who harassed my parties for 3 campaigns. Thing was he just couldn't get the better of them but constantly caused a lot of mayhem and frustration for them. Then he would polymorph back to a flea and jump onto the dwarf who never noticed the extra flea in his huge beard... He is my worst villain because he was so annoying. I had fun with him. Several of the players had to leave the room because they were so angry.

[Yukitsu]

Lucifer has proven to be fairly coercive in the Shin Megami Tensei game I'm running.

Other than that, every single NPC I've ever statted, my players have tried to run from. Even a level 1 commoner with a pipe wrench. Hence why Lucifer is so dangerous, they haven't thought to run yet.

[Kalmageddon]

In my current Fallout campaign there's four veteran soldiers of the Enclave, wearing prototype power-armors, brainwashed to be perfect killing machines and armed to the teeth. And they are level 20.
I've put them in the campaign as sort of bonus "bosses", since they have gone AWOL and they are not directly relevant to the main story.

The group tried taking one down at level 9 I think... It didn't end well...

[QuidEst]

Well, my character's backstory was that he was the NPC that you didn't mess with. He was a fearsome black dragon called Ilxedri. The adventuring party that went after him head on got summarily dissolved. Only the rogue was bright enough to sneak around during the short-lived conflict, grabbing a few choice items on the way out. In revenge, Ilxedri razed the nearest temple to the party cleric's god, leaving the cleric's holy symbol on the smoldering ruins. Turned out to be one step too far, and the deity cursed him into a half-elf.

[Kane0]

Gregor the half orc, a close associate of the party that runs their keep in their absence. He is level 3 to their level 7 but it would be a simple matter to turn the keep and surrounding village against the party at a moments notice, leaving them to the mercy of the two wars ragin on the borders aroud the neutral keep.

[DigoDragon]

In my setting, the most dangerous NPC is Astraxia the Red Dragoness. She started up a cult to spy on various nations and learn about their military strengths. Then she used her cult to build a weapon that shoots lighting, employing it to kill the evil queen of a nation (and take over by posing as the queen's mysterious, but alluring daughter). The country ended up better for it.
After the PCs defeated her weapon and her cult, she went into hiding, only to come back and HELP the PCs defeat a villainous wizard who was making deals with devils. The campaign ended after the wizard's defeat, but the interesting note is that Astraxia has convinced some party members to form a party under her flag to go take out the remains of her original cult (in order to wipe the slate clean for future plans).

Essentially, she's a really skilled manipulator, good at playing the field and nudging events in directions that advance her own agenda. She's not truely evil though. She treats her minions/subjects fairly and won't kill people without a reason.

[Jay R]

In my case, the most dangerous NPC is quite clear.

I run Flashing Blades - role-playing in 17th century France. The most dangerous NPC is Cardinal Richelieu. (He's not the pure villain shown in the movies from 1992 on, but the scheming, amoral, power behind the throne of Dumas's books and the movies through 1974.)

In every single scene with NPCs in it, I know which one reports to the Cardinal - even in a tavern in the Caribbean.

[Telonius]

The proprietor of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe. This person exists in every setting, and is nearly always a retired adventurer of a high-level party. They also always give a minor discount to adventuring parties - which means they have lots of other adventurer friends who will be very upset if anything happens to their source of deals.

Ye Olde Magick Shoppe is also notoriously warded against intrusion and destruction. At one point in a Shackled City campaign,

Spoiler

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Hookface the Dragon was attacking Cauldron. He turned his breath weapon to the shop.

The rest of the block was reduced to smoldering ashes, but Skie's Treasury was left untouched. The party had a lot more respect for the proprietor after that.

[Herabec]

Hrm... In my homebrew setting, one does not mess with any of the Heavenly Knights (particularly Gabranth). Doing so is a one-way ticket to getting curbstomped and having a video posted on Scrytube entitled "World's Dumbest Adventurers".

...

In my Drakengard campaign setting, one does not mess with Caim.

You just...

Just don't.

[Kane0]

In my Drakengard campaign setting, one does not mess with Caim.

You just...

Just don't.

One does not simply attack Caim.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Two of my NPCs have gained a sort of...reputation for being particularly deadly and dangerous.

The first is a fallen deva who seeks to bring the end times, as a way for him to finally get back into the heavens since...if there's no one guarding the gates then there's no one to stop him! Utterly insane, he also didn't look like a threat at all and more like a mad hobo since he went around disguised as a human. Why was he dangerous? Well, whenever the party would defeat him...he just disappeared. He didn't teleport, fly away, planeshift, or anything like that...he just disappeared. All scrying turned up was one of the party members. Eventually, said party member would die of some horrible disease and the next thing they knew, the deva was back. Each party member figured that it was some sort of death curse, that whomever struck the 'killing blow' on the deva was doomed to fall to contagion and their soul/bodies used as fuel to bring him back to life.

...They never figured that he might be a Cancer Mage and whenever they got close to killing him, he turned into supernatural small pox and infected the party spellcasters one at a time while he healed.

The other is the Dragon to the actual BBEG of my Dragonmech campaign and, to my PCs knowledge, the actual BBEG cause they haven't heard sight nor sound of that monster yet. See, they were sent to recover a veritable mountain of a valuable lunar mineral that had come crashing down to Highpoint during the nightly lunar rain. What they found inside was what looked like the remains of buildings and such, which is uncommon...but not unheard of. Inside of the meteor though...they found far more intact ruins and on their second trip inside it (they were forced to retreat the first time), discovered the 'mountain' housed what appeared to be a masoleum of alien, gaunt figures of various colors with strange technology. Technology that they happily stole to figure out what it does later, but the last one they came to was different. It had a black gaunt, it had much shinier looking technology, and most importantly it's coffin had a solid gold lid. They carved the sucker in half, took all the tech inside, and then discovered something weird. Just based on craftsmanship and unknown material...the thing's mask was the most valuable thing in the entire room!

...So they took it. And triggered the emergency shut-down of the cryogenic chambers that were keeping the lunargaunts (re-fluffed ethergaunts) in stasis. Awakening the crew to a massive construct that is in actuality the first attempt by lunar creatures to create a mech and is piloted by a great wyrm lunar dragon mech symbiote, making said mech (with it's accompanying crew and fleet) the single greatest threat to all of Highpoint. That...doesn't bother the PCs that much, they're working on building a solution to that problem except for one problem...every night, one of them has a horrible nightmare about the maskless black lunargaunt vivsecting them and, when they wake up, find themselves covered in wounds matching those in the dream. Every night and they can't help but shake the feeling they're being watched during the day. Lunar creatures seem to be zeroing in on them, actual assassins have tried to attack them, and all in all the entire situation had them on edge. So finally, breaking up their original plans, they went to a city to sell their loot and sold the mask to a shopkeeper and stayed the night.

The next morning the shopkeeper was dead.

The PCs promptly beat path out of town and for a week or two everything seemed to be okay...but then the nightmares started again and they've fought a red lunargaunt (and it almost killed them). The simple truth is, they managed to royally tick off the leader of the black lunargaunt council by stealing it's mask, the mark of it's station and prestigue, and being a high level sorcerer/wizard...it's scrying them every day and casting Nightmare on them at night to keep them on edge and exhausted before finally moving in for the kill.

[Alleran]

The Nameless Lich. He's basically Scrooge McDuck, except he's also the only demilich in the entire setting.

Other than him, the Lady of Pain. Because she's the Lady, berk.

[Roguenewb]

Ragnorra, mother of monsters?

Honestly, though, it's probably Ashardalyx. A powerful dragon ruler of a continent that is trying to follow the path of Ashardalon and become a balor-fueled dragon. He's also one of the small handful of beings on the Prime in my setting that know about Sigil, and in fact, he's responsible for why so few people on the Prime do know...he hates the planar city, and has long been trying to erase their power and influence on "his" plane. Unusually for a red dragon, he's CN. He just wants power...he doesn't want to abuse it, he just gives himself whatever he wants. And he feels he doesn't have to lie, so the players are unlikely to believe him when they meet.

[Lvl45DM!]

Ok so in a campaign I ran a while back there was a strong Faerie element. The Winter and Summer court were getting annoyed cos a new court was rising, calling itself the Undercourt. Basically city based Faeries, where i took existing faeries and swapped some stuff around to make em city based. So there had to be a UnderPuck, known as the Busker. He was this guy who looked like a bard that could so some cool busking tricks with torches and swords.

First time the party fought him due to a misunderstanding he pulled out four glowing short swords and proceeded to fight with them while juggling them. He took out the partys two tanks in the first round and the thief and the cleric were mesmerized leaving only a druid and a mage who both cast spells at him that he deflected back at them. Fortunately he's a pretty chill guy and didn't kill any of em.

But as the campaign progressed the party got in his way more and more and he got nastier and nastier each fight, slicing fingers off and draining charisma and wisdom permanently. The party absolutely hated him but eventually learned to stay out of his way. Then once they got tough enough to take him I brought him back for his last hurrah in a big epic showdown. Halfway through a fight with his minions he steps out from behind the big red curtain and I played his theme song. I wanted to give him a cool send off y'know? Problem is the party saw him looking all cocky and just ran away. I ended making him the final Big Bad just cause he was the only powerful UnderFae left

[GnomeGninjas]

This is a thread for homebrew settings/NPCs. Who are your NPCs that you don't want to mess with in your settings.

The most dangerous NPC in my setting is of course the 10 year old Recette. Sure she's only level 1 or 2, but that doesn't change the fact that she's the cousin of the prince and has billions of gold pieces at her beck and call, and that every adventurer in the city of millions is more than willing to work for her. You might be 10-15 levels higher than her, but your +4 sword is no match for her Bracers of Armor and Rings of Deflection that are epic in nature (not to mention merely attacking her is a death sentence in and of itself as everyone in the store will turn on you, and her shop is wal-mart sized and warded against teleportation).

I don't think that she would be that dangerous for people 10 levels higher than her. She wouldn't be imune to everything and if you find a way to affect her then she dies. Her billions of gold wouldn't help her much if there is a surprise attack. Killing her could be kind of hard but once you do taking her loot, leaving the store, and teleporting away wouldn't be that hard. You could probably find a kingdom to flee to that would protect you in exchange for some of Recette's stuff. The prince might not even attack the kingdom that is sheltering you because starting a war might not be worth it for punishing somepeople for the murder of a rich kid who you can bring back to life.

[Morithias]

I don't think that she would be that dangerous for people 10 levels higher than her. She wouldn't be imune to everything and if you find a way to affect her then she dies. Her billions of gold wouldn't help her much if there is a surprise attack. Killing her could be kind of hard but once you do taking her loot, leaving the store, and teleporting away wouldn't be that hard. You could probably find a kingdom to flee to that would protect you in exchange for some of Recette's stuff. The prince might not even attack the kingdom that is sheltering you because starting a war might not be worth it for punishing somepeople for the murder of a rich kid who you can bring back to life.

Okay, except resurrection is very common in my settings, and like I said, any adventurer out there is willing to work for her. Sure you might get away (assuming you somehow manage to get out of the store with 80-100 other people calling for your blood), but even if you do, as soon as she's brought back, everyone is going to be calling for your blood.

About the only place that is "safe" for you to go is the north eastern red and blue warring states, which surprise, are often travelled by the merchant Lord Kane, and just as kings are harsh on those who kill their rulers, Kane would also want your blood, he can't have people thinking murdering merchants and getting away with it is something you can do.

Sure the Prince might not declare war, but there's not a single country out there brave enough to question him. "Hey we have evidence this group of people murdered my cousin can we have them captured and brought back for trial?" Oda, Kenshin, the Amazons, none of them would not hand you over.

And even if you do somehow get away with it, you somehow manage to escape the long arm of the law, well murder for profit is a 100 year sentence in the abyssal prison (and that's assuming the sentence isn't made longer since you killed a child), so you'll get to live large for a short while, but in the end riches do not determine karma in world 1, you can't bribe the devils, demons or gods, enjoy your time in the abyss.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Dragons. In my games when a dragon shows up, and you don't run away from it as fast as you can, you die. Doesn't matter how many levels, magic artifacts, or divine ranks you have. You. Die.

What dragons are you using. GW2-style Elder Dragons? Dragons that are basically Khyber, Eberron, and that one other guy? Sixty-foot long scaled winged firebreathers who eat five buffalo a day when not hibernating? If it's the first, you should probably be able to take them down at epic levels, specifics depend on ingenuity and preparations. The second, your view is justified. The third, you should be able to take down by high levels with little chance of death.

[jseah]

Part of the backstory for a setting I have been constructing for a certain magic system involves the total destruction of a magitech civilization.

The primary character responsible for the entire knowledge singularity, and thus indirectly the cause of the whole magitech business and apocaplytic war, invented a very simple spell. A calculator spell.
While she is rather useless at anything but science, armed with a supercomputer in a spell, the resultant knowledge singularity propelled the agrarian society through the industrial age and into an information era within a space of 6 years. (This was not done alone, of course)

Long after the war, when everyone is dead, that young woman still exists by managing to upload her mind into an array of magic somewhere deep in the Ethereal plane (Ethereal plane is a true 4th dimension in this setting) and has been continuing magitech development in relative peace for the intervening 6 generations, recording her results into a 'library' of magical information storage (it does not appear anything like books).
Since then, she has perfected the various magitech devices and made them more efficient to avoid the same pitfalls the last time they were used, including a grey goo weapon that can quite easily destroy the entire world, and was the direct cause of said magical singularity last time it was launched. That weapon has since been re-engineered to be a general replication/construction device that can build anything out of thin air; using it to deconstruct the world would be trivial.
Additionally, she understands 4 dimensional magical physics and the things she can do in the real world are often considered impossible. 6 generations of magitech development when she was not restricted by... well, being in meatspace, has not been wasted and she more or less embodies the idea of Post-Scarcity.

Quite apart from being the oldest thing still alive, she has spawned multiple copies of herself that share memories and thoughts but act independently. They split and merge as needs arise but she watches the world and waits for a time when it is safe to re-introduce magical technology. The magical library/laboratory deep in the Ethereal is literally her; being a purely mental construct in magic, she IS the library as much as the library is her.

Plainly she isn't hostile or the world would be burning right now. As of the present (aka. the interesting times), she has mostly given up interfering in the world and is simply waiting to return.
Of course, anyone who successfully replicates anything resembling a calculator spell would certainly get a visit, with an offer of knowledge and cooperation.