The best villain EVAR (Spelling error intentional)


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As a gm, what was the best villain you've ever thrown up against your players? Did they enjoy him/her/it as much as you did?


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The best villain I've ever thrown (imo) at my players was back in Saga, in a Saga Edition SW game. Unsurprising to the canny, his name was Darth Grall.

I wrote out this huge backstory for him and he was supposed to walk into the Jedi temple, kill a Senator the party was interrogating, and walk out leaving a mystery in his wake as to his identity. As these things often do, they didn't go according to plan exactly.

A two hour encounter ended with a single player character shooting himself in the head(cause he couldn't live in a universe where he could get a cool robotic replacement hand) and another trying to kill the others by barraging the party with missiles. Grall lived through this, mostly because of how suicidal the party was, and because the encounter sour'd them they immediately began calling him Darth "Ball Sack".

In retrospect, he was a little over leveled and the PC's were overtly stubborn, but this was the first time they out right got beaten and they never really forgot it. They would later go on to defeat him, but he would in turn get his revenge on them. Eventually they even teamed up with him before his ultimate redemption and exile at the game's finish. But in time they came to respect him, and acknowledge him as their long running rival who just wouldn't stay down for long.

He's my favorite because he started off as something my players just genuinely hated and ultimately became something they respected/loved.


Teehee. Darth Ballsack. :P
You know you've done well when the characters think up a nickname for a bad guy.
During one of my first forays into gming, I allowed my bf to stat up a serpentfolk wizard to serve as a villain.
I wasn't very good at using him, to my boyfriend's chagrin, but he did manage to use his buffs and survive for some time.

His name was Sheldon. Sheldon Thp-Thp. You had to say the last part by running your tongue out like a snake. His name was what made him memorable; that and the fact he kidnapped a party member who escaped, and he was cornered in his silken bathrobe. A snakeman in a bathrobe is funny no matter how you shake it, right?


I know it's shameful to bump, but I want to learn more. :)

Dark Archive

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Phistophilus the contract devil.

I'm running a campaign for 2 players, a tiefling rogue and an aasimar ninja/bard. The tiefling had a short blurb about being an orphan (Why are tieflings never raised by 2 loving parents?) and accidently killing some woman by setting fire to her house. (She's a pyromaniac who wants to become an assassin.) Her husband Byron (ranger) has sworn to take his revenge on the tiefling. (Yes, she thought a ranger would be a cool nemesis. No, she didn't realise rangers have favored enemy even though she played rangers in the past.)
The tieflings player asked me for a dream/nightmare scenario and I had to come up with one. She also wanted to know about her tieflings heritage, and decided I could probably tell a more interesting story.
So in a 1 on 1 session, she dreamed about a marketplace where she tried to empty the pockets of the rich. She failed, and the man she tried to steal from turned into a contract devil and introduced himself as Phistophilus. (Yes, I know. It's not very original.) Phistophilus then showed her a woman who was sobbing while sitting in front of her house. Phistophilus promised her a baby if she sold her soul to him, she did. Then, the tiefling saw the woman giving birth to a baby girl... Tiefling. (Hey, she didn't say what kind of baby.) The father takes the baby and abandons her at the local hospital, the tiefling then recognises her father as Byron. (Let that sink in for a moment.)
The tiefling then pays a brief visit to her mom in hell, and sells her soul to Phistopilus so her mom can go to heaven. She also agrees to doing 3 "asignments" for Phistopilus, as her soul isn't worth as much the soul of her mother.

She really hates Phistophilus. It's personal...


The Elusive Trout wrote:
As a gm, what was the best villain you've ever thrown up against your players? Did they enjoy him/her/it as much as you did?

3.5 Ender the Ogre mage level 20 warlock

I had two other BBEGs in my world, but I enjoyed them more than my players. One BBEGs had many antagonist weaker BBEGs that he threw at the party, but Ender was the only evil henchman of the other BBEG. When the party first faced him is when the campaign began to break away from the routine and truly threw the PCs into the larger universe.

Xin the LE Monk was another favorite of the party, but I hated him.


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I think his name was dallarius, or danarius, or something like that. He was a nobleman of was wealth and influence, as well as being a somewhat powerful warrior. His problem was that he was hunting some artifacts to open his ancestral mausoleum and the current owners wasn't selling, so he had to be creative in his acquisition methods.

The party met him while guarding an eastern merchant, who seemed very nervous about a box he was bringing home. Of course the caravan was assaulted by bandits, which where easily defeated. Then a hill giant came lumbering in and the party had a tough fight on their hands.

During the battle, several of the players notice an odd pair watching the battle from a small hill nearby, a tall, well-dressed man and what seems to be his small, elderly assistant. The gentleman is obviously reviewing his calender.

The hill giant goes down and the group rejoice! The gentleman looks annoyed, pick up a pair dwarven waraxes and go down to attack the group. He proceeds to wipe the road with them, but he never bothers killing a character who goes down or who flees, they just don't seem important enough.

One careless, arrogant beating later and the group hates him with all their little black hearts has to offer. They still talk about him to this day, more than 10 years later :D


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If they talk about it ten years later, you've won.


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My party's first adventure had them trying to rescue hostages taken by a local band of orcs. They managed to rescue most of them, but a young boy and his father were among the hostages. They rescued the son but the father died.

The son blamed the PCs for his father's death. At one point the party sat down the young lad (who had taken to pretending he was dead so he could be closer to his father) and told him "your dad is dead so deal with it!" They were quite harsh, thinking it was kind to be cruel.

This young boy then made a pact with Orcus to bring back his father from the land of the dead (as an undead warrior). The boy was then given a copy of the wand of orcus and began turning everyone in his village into ghouls.

The party, meanwhile, had left the little backwater town behind them. Only months later did they return to investigate the loss of several caravans in the area. They thought they were then fighting a typical undead infestation until they reached the town and realized that they were indirectly responsible for the whole affair.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I have two.

One was an ancient elf wizard called simply "Magist", who was actually an ancestor of one of the party members. He was insanely powerful, and had all of the traditional vices of elvenkind and very few of their virtues. He would pop up every now and then, pick on any non-elves in the party, then bugger off for a while. Eventually he was defeated... I think the party wizard literally dropped a mountain on him.

I am under strict orders by my players not to bring him back to life, on pain of a real-life beating.

My actual favourite is Kaylen. Though that should probably be Lord Kaylen. Homebrew ascended "mortal" deity with the portfolio of Time, with an insanely complex backstory that spanned a few thousand years (not all of it in the right order), that included some time as a ghost. And a possessed magical staff. Yeah, it was weird. Especially since he started out life as a woman. Who owned a certain possessed magical staff. Like I said, complicated.

Kaylen is currently undefeated as of the last time he appeared, and the majority of the party despise him beyond measure, because he keeps popping up and screwing with their lives. Usually in a really unpleasant way. There was a time when the party realised that if they scratched the surface of almost any plot, that Kaylen was behind it, either off-screen manipulating the bad guys, or actively sponsoring them in some way. He was their nemesis, the power behind every throne, the guy who kept messing them around... and it sure seemed personal because Kaylen wasn't doing this stuff to anybody else.

One of the PCs eventually figured out that Kaylen was actually on their side. That said PC kept it to himself makes me chuckle to this day. He doesn't know the reasons for the dickish behaviour, but he's given up trying to fight it, because he thinks it's in a good cause. Which it is. A really selfish one, but good.

I keep getting asked if Kaylen's involved in my current plotline. My usual answer is something along the lines of "wait and see", which tends to elicit a groan of anguish. (He has nothing whatsoever to do with it, but they don't know that!)

Not sure I've ever managed to top a party nemesis that they hate that's actually helping them by doing dickish things.


The story would look like a wall of words so the brief version.

So I have tried not to use the tavern trope start which mean that most of my games start off with the players being gathered up for the first time
by a merchant before he heads to the next town and part out of laziness as well part because he my favorite NPC I always use the same guy. My players have kinda seen him as a iconic consent because he will show up no matter when or where they are at threw all the campaigns we have played threw. Well I was going to be leaving my group so we decide to have to do a one shot at level 10(kinda epic for my group) at the end of which they where going to have to fight the Avatar of the human patron god(a lot of pre-existing story) i made a short dungeon but full of souped up iconic monsters from the past year pulse of games. In the last room I got part way in to the description of the same merchant. Before "WELL WHO THE F#*& ELSE WOULD IT BE!!!" busted out of one of my players. Every one loved it, never got to do the fight due to time but every one thought it was awesome that I ended the game that way.


Darth Grall wrote:

The best villain I've ever thrown (imo) at my players was back in Saga, in a Saga Edition SW game. Unsurprising to the canny, his name was Darth Grall.

+1 to using your favorite BBG as your message board face/name


I had a lot of fun with Loris Raknian from Age of Worms. He had a lot of time in play and he showed the PCs he was plenty canny, and an expert showman.

When the players realize what scheme he had going for them, the cries of frustration with Raknian were priceless.

I think they enjoyed Balabar Smenk a little more. Just as much play time, but they foiled him a little more completely.


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The first that comes to mind was Hammer, a mid-level evil cleric of Bane in a FR campaign I ran. I think he may have started off as a random encounter who got away, and he harried the party through several adventures. In his final encounter with the party he had summoned a very large elemental (back in 2e days when you rolled randomly to see what you got) and gleefully bid it attack the group. On the first round the PC cleric banished the elemental to Hammer's horror and the wizard cast polymorph other on him and turned him into a tortoise (he kept his mental faculties). Thus, the Company of the Tortoise was born! They carried him around in a bag with a carrot in it. Every once in a while they would let him out to "run away." They laughed every time they did that. He still comes up in conversations 15+ years after the fact.

Another was a halfling npc they befriended in a city adventure. He accompanied them willingly on several local adventures to the betterment of the party. When the adventure took a turn into a nearby dungeon, the party was completely taken aback when the friendly halfling turned out to be a traitor who led them into a nasty trap that he had been planning all along. They defeated the trap and the halfling, but boy did they have some words to share with me about him after that session!

A few others were Master Boxed Set favorites that I made up for 1e. I don't think they were player favorites as much as they were my favorites. Lord Chumley the Rainbow Knight (level 30 fighter) who had a prismatic sword and rode a different dragon into battle every encounter got groans every time he showed up.

That same Master campaign saw a random encounter sea hag floating by the PC's sea vessel on a patch of seaweed. The 25th level magic-user PC did his level-best to annihilate that damn sea hag (even though she did not a thing to anyone) only to watch all of his spells roll off her back (iirc she had like 90% magic resistance). He couldn't believe she survived. *grin*

Ah, good times. *wipes a tear*


Baleful polymorph can be hilarious... Never had a big bad defeated by the spell, but I had a big bad cast it on a player, thusly condemning him to a squirrely existence. The effects, in this case, were funnier than the villain that hatched them.

I did once employ a lich who tried to explain an evil plan to a few standing pcs.
His name was Mordred, I think (not original, but I was still brand-new to this at the time).
No one remembers his name, but this one player still remembers fondly stabbing him during the middle of any monologue every time they encountered eachother.

Liberty's Edge

I had one opponent that got a big response from the players. in 1e/2e days, i had a higher level wizard who disliked one of the pcs. while they were fighting the summoned monsters, one pc spotted the drow wizards and tried to attack. the whole party got mad at the wizard when they read the to do list left by the teleporting wizard. the pcs were well below tormenting priestesses, repairing shoes, doing laundry...............squash petty bugs(the pcs) hehe


Do you usually just make up your villains on the fly? Or do you plan them out painstakingly?


The Elusive Trout wrote:
Do you usually just make up your villains on the fly? Or do you plan them out painstakingly?

I plan mine out. So many of them are struck down before even getting in a word, but I think that's better than not having a background should one be pressed.

However sometimes the pc's make their own villains. In the very first game I ran, the party let a single enemy mook live only to have him chase after them, and tho defeated they kept sparing him. It was maddening for the npc, and his whole story emerged from their actions, as he kept hounding the party. I'd say there have been a few others like that, but mostly I prefer a little depth, even if the party doesn't see it.


The Elusive Trout wrote:
Do you usually just make up your villains on the fly? Or do you plan them out painstakingly?

i had the time to make Avatar Kyras in to a Monster took me all day. other BBG i will make up something 1-2hrs


The best villain I ever created was one that the party REALLY wanted to kill but he was more valuable to them as an ally. He was an information broker, so they turned a blind eye to the fact he ordered murders, extortion, arson, could incite a riot in their kingdom and was a tad insane.
They first met him when they found out he sold the plans to break into their castle to an assassin who captured and tortured (vivisectionalist) a character. When confronted, he readily admitted his actions and explained it was to show them that they needed him to protect them from things they could never understand or see coming. They chose to dance with the devil they knew as opposed to the unknown.
I cannot count the amount of times they wanted to kill him as he would kill people they needed, or sabotage plans all in the name of some higher plan they they were only told the basics of. His name was Ahkavady. But he was commonly known as the Hoo-Doo Man.


Ahkavady wrote:

The best villain I ever created was one that the party REALLY wanted to kill but he was more valuable to them as an ally. He was an information broker, so they turned a blind eye to the fact he ordered murders, extortion, arson, could incite a riot in their kingdom and was a tad insane.

They first met him when they found out he sold the plans to break into their castle to an assassin who captured and tortured (vivisectionalist) a character. When confronted, he readily admitted his actions and explained it was to show them that they needed him to protect them from things they could never understand or see coming. They chose to dance with the devil they knew as opposed to the unknown.
I cannot count the amount of times they wanted to kill him as he would kill people they needed, or sabotage plans all in the name of some higher plan they they were only told the basics of. His name was Ahkavady. But he was commonly known as the Hoo-Doo Man.

OOooo! How delectably evil. :3

Well, it's not like you didn't give them a choice.


That's what makes a great villain. They force the heroes to make a choice, and to live with the consequences.

NOTE: The assassin that went after the party was a 20th lvl alchemist. They met this person at 1st lvl, and through there actions and/or inactions they left this scrawny nerd to be beat on a consistent basis. Eventually that nerd grew into a homicidal maniac who resented the party.


I remember having a different IRL dm who merely played a tribe of bugbears as horrifying.
Our characters were trying to save some kidnapped children and beat a scouting party on the way there.
We took the time to look in their pouches for healing potions and were summarily punished with... sleeping gas.

They ate three of them whilst we slept.
I still don't know if that was unreasonable. I mean, it's not like we were stripping them of armor and what not...

I guess that's a little off-topic though.


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Allokai'ir, a nasty, ancient lich that collected magic items who plagued more than one of my players' parties. In their first encounter, they explored a dungeon that was one of many the lich used to lure in adventurers. When they finally encountered him, they were given an offer: leave all your magic here, take this big chest full of coin, and leave. They were skeptical. "Take the money and walk away," was the final offer. They refused. A wizard was disintegrated, then the paladin charged through a prismatic wall hidden by an illusion and was the next to die.

He was a constant thorn in their sides. Once a favorite NPC ally of theirs succumbed to the effects of a crystal hypnosis ball and led the party into one of Allokai'ir's traps. Another time a fallen paladin joined forces with the lich, sabotaging the group by taking a magical gate (one of a connected pair) the party used for quick travel and sunk it to the bottom of the ocean.

Eventually they found out that the lich was using all the magic items to power a device that would allow him to syphon divine power and become a god. They threw a wrench into that plan. It was only partially successful. Now the lich is a demigod. Funny thing is, had they let it alone, he would have ascended to godhood and been out of their hair. Now he's the god-king of an expanding evil empire and they're on his radar for once again foiling his plans.


Maybe not the best one ever in the history of ever, but the only one I can think of right now is Longtooth from Rise of the Runelords.

Spoiler:
When Longtooth attacked Sandpoint, my Bard and Rogue players drew his attention and kited him through the streets, trying to minimize the damage to the civilians while trying to stay alive themselves. He ended up fleeing the raid, and they met him again in Jorgenfist, where they struck a deal with the red dragon. However, the didnt keep their end of the bargain and refused him access to certain objects of loot from the fortress, ending in him fleeing (as he had lost to 2 of the party once before, and with all 5 of them present, he was too smart to fancy his chances). I had him leave threats for them, had him plan and against the players and emphasized for them what it exactly it might entail to have a red dragon for a sworn enemy. They scryed on him, and for awhile the bard was scared that he was attacking his hometown, so the went and checked. Generally they were a bit more wary, but it pushed them over the edge when he attacked Turtleback Ferry. Looking through the ruins for survivors, and taking care of them at fort Rannick, made my players completely drop all other issues, and go full-on dragonhunter-mode, going to magnimar to outfit themselves with the right gear, and hunting Longtooth far into the Wyvern Mountains, before finally defeating him in glorious battle that nearly killed 2 of the party, and killed the Witch's familiar. I got alot of fun out of an NPC that was only briefly touched on in the AP, and that made myself, and my players quite happy :)

So yeah, that happened :)

-Nearyn


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Best villain for our group in recent memory.

For those too lazy to see the above thread:

I recently concluded our second game in our current campaign, and I am so proud of how my players handled themselves, I felt I should share it with all of you. Hopefully, it will serve to inspire you.

The PCs (sorcerer/dragon disciple, fighter, and paladin) all hail from the same small town, which they've had to defend from escalating waves of true devils.

Not having any idea what these horrible monsters were, where they came from, or why they were attacking the town, the PCs launched an investigation. After several dead ends they had precious few answers. However, they did pick up on a rumor of a great sage to the north who specialized in creatures from other worlds. Though the PCs didn't know what they were fighting, they knew it to be unnatural, and so they set out on a quest in hopes of finding this great sage: Paegin.

After traveling for many days (encountering a number of minor hazards along the way and finding a folding boat in one encounter) they came across a covered wagon to the side of the road. It's wheel had broken on a boulder and a hunched figure in a heavy cloak sat next to it crying in frustration at not being able to repair it.

The party's paladin approached the stranded traveler and offered to help.

When the PCs came close, they realized too late that the traveler wasn't crying in frustration, but was laughing in chaotic glee. The traveler/gnoll in disguise leaped up out of his heavy cloak and blew his battle horn. Suddenly, a quartet of dire hyenas bearing four elite gnoll warriors with guisarmes burst forth out of the nearby woods along with a pack of regular hyenas. The cover on the wagon fell away revealing no less than ten more gnoll warriors armed with spears and tanglefoot bags. From the sky came a black-furred gnoll in dark robes--the bandit leader--riding upon a flying, phantasmal, demonic dire hyena. The gnolls glued the fighter and paladin to the ground with their tanglefoot bags, while their leader surrounded the PCs in a burning hot wall of fire that would slowly roast the alive. Many of the minor gnolls taunted and cackled in glee as they readied actions to engage any enemy who might yet come through the wall of fire.

Once the tangling goo became brittle, the fighter and paladin attempted to escape the ambush by fighting their way out of the magical oven (killing many of the standard gnolls and taking lots of fire damage as they did so), but it was to no avail. The elite gnolls would charge in on their dire hyenas and bull rush them back into the flames of the ring of fire (causing them to take damage a second time).

The party sorcerer had better luck. The tanglefoot bags missed him entirely and he made his concentration checks to cast invisibility and fly despite the ongoing damage from being inside a bonfire. A moment after the sorcerer took to the air, the leader of the gnolls hit those within the circle with a lingering fireball (causing 10d6 damage to the PCs right away, and once again whenever they were bull rushed into the area by the surrounding gnolls).

Though the fighter and paladin were killing gnolls left and right, the deadly trifecta of lingering fireballs, the ring of fire, and the bullrushing enemies was wearing them down fast.

Early on in the encounter the gnoll leader kept his distance, relying on his long range lingering fireballs and his minions to decimate his enemies. When the battle was nearly won, the flying invisible sorcerer had finally caught up to the gnoll leader and opted to drop his folding boat on the enemy sorcerer below!

The moment he declared his intention, the table went quite, then suddenly everyone burst out laughing at the clever idea.

A giant sailing ship came crashing down upon the unsuspecting gnoll leader and his phantom steed, dealing relatively small amounts of damage, but destroying his steed and pinning him helplessly under hundreds of pounds of wreckage in the process.

When the other gnolls realized that their powerful spellcasting leader had fallen, many of them scattered, while others moved to defend their lord and master.

The sorcerer was moments away from coup de gracing the leader when one of its minions called Peagin's name.

The sorcerer stopped in confusion. "You're the great sage Paegin?" he asked.

"Yes! Yes! I am Paegin! Famed sage and diabolist. Spare my life and I will give you anything, tell you anything! Just allow me to live."

The sorcerer fought off a few more gnolls arriving to save their leader. He then let the wounded Paegin out from under the wreckage with the condition that he would call off his bandits.

Much too far to call off his men from slaying the fighter and paladin in time (who were both out of healing and on their last legs), Paegin instead used his last fireball to incinerate the remaining elite gnolls before they could bring further harm to the dragon disciple's allies.

When the party reconvened, Paegin again offered them his deal. However, since he could not be trusted, nor could the PCs be trusted to spare a creature they knew to be wholly evil; he conjured up a magical contract (which he typically used for getting souls on behalf of his infernal masters) which, when signed, prevented the PCs from ever again bringing harm upon Paegin. In return, Paegin would give them all that he had, tell them anything they wanted to know to the best of his (extensive) knowledge, and prevented him from betraying the party before his given intel could be put to good use. A breech of the contract would cause the offending party (even Paegin himself) to be stricken with a curse of the ages.

It was the only way such an evil abomination could trust a devout paladin not to kill him, much less live up to his word. The party sorcerer inspected the contract closely for traps (magical or scripted) and determined it to be genuine.

The three PCs (even the paladin) signed the eternally binding contract, thereby magically consigning themselves to its terms. Paegin lived up to his word: He gave the PCs all the treasure he had upon him (and upon the bodies of his deceased minions) and answered all their questions about the devils invading their town. Finally, the PCs had made some progress.

It was at that time that I turned to my paladin player and informed him that, because he signed an infernal contract and was associating himself with a being known to be evil, that he had fallen and would have to seek atonement.

"Not quite," my paladin player said, "it's not considered associating with evil if you arrest them and turn them into the proper authorities is it?"

"No, I suppose not," I responded.

"Then that leaves only the contract, which was signed only because it was the only way for my character to get the information he needed to protect his town, and as such, is considered an altruistic act, correct?"

"Yes," I told him, "that's right."

Paegin, believing himself to be smarter than he really was, began to walk away towards freedom and life--his end of the bargin having been concluded. However, the PCs (having realized the loop hole in the contract) stopped him, placed him in shackles, and took him with them to be turned into the proper authorities to be tried as a bandit (much to Paegin's protests).

I am so very proud of my players for (1) being creative enough to drop a boat on a superior enemy, and (2) for finding an "alternate ending" that not only got them what they needed, but kept the bad guy from having things his way and kept the paladin from falling from grace.

Anyways, I just wanted to share the sheer awesomeness of it.

Naturally, Paegin escaped the authorities and became a reoccurring villain, one whom the PCs could never personally bring to harm.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

A while back, I ran a 1st to 20th level campaign loosely modeled after the original Final Fantasy video game. Well, by loosely modeled, I mean completely ripped off. There were four elemental orbs that had to be captured and re-attuned to restore the balance of nature, each guarded by a powerful ally of the big bad guy. The first one, the Lord of Earth, was a lich necromancer, named Valencia, after a bag of oranges sitting near me while I was doing adventure prep. As it turned out, he became one of the more memorable characters in the campaign. First, the PCs confronted him aggressively, attacking him probably before they were truly prepared. They defeated him, nonetheless, after a harrowing battle. As their prize, they claimed a minor artifact he wore, the Crown of Undead Majesty, which allowed the wearer to cast control undead 1/day, among other things. It was pretty powerful, and for a party that averaged around 8th level, it was just enough rope for them to hang themselves. They had been pursued for some time by a death knight, and with the crown in hand, they thought they had the perfect tool to deal with him. Except... wouldn't it be even better to use the death knight to take out a nuisance NPC who had tried to shake them down earlier, a half-orc sorcerer hiding out in a local rogues' guild? In the end, the body count of this targeted assassination approached two dozen, they alienated the local dwarf High Priest, and they lost track of the death knight about the time the duration of the command wore off...

Meanwhile, it occurred to them that liches are immortal, and they became obsessed with Valencia's phylactery. Over the adventures that followed, they tracked his reincarnation, tried multiple times to scry on him, occasionally succeeding. Finally, after determining his phylactery was actually the ring of elemental command he used to subvert the elemental orb, they confronted him again, in full force, destroyed the leaders of his undead army, defeated him, and de-attuned the ring, allowing them defeat Valencia once and for all.

In the end, he succeeded as a villain because he was just a big hassle. :)


I used Imeckus Stroon from KM -- high level evokes wizard. The first time the PCs killed him, a contingency popped up a resilient sphere around his body -- just enough time for his dust mephit familiar to pull out and use the scroll of teleport, taking the corpse to where LB Stroon had a paid-up death insurance plan.

And then thenext set of PC enemies hired Stroon...

Eventually they wentafterhim inhis home, and after a number of misadventures (the transdimensional medusa guard, the fireball inthe library -- "are you sure?" I asked, just before all the immensely valuable loot went up in flames), the PCs finally found a way to keep himfromcoming back....

Liberty's Edge

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My namesake.

It was in a 2nd AD&D campaign set in the Forgotten Realms. He was the son of a Red Wizard and a Crime Lord. He had a smuggling network that crossed the breadth of the world. Bases in near every city. A wealthy man. When they started he was 7th level to their 1st. By the time the campaign wrapped up he was 16th. Human Dual Class Thief/Wizard. He had an alias for every community. He was a Villain that always had an escape plan. It became a party goal to try and stop him from escaping and a couple of times they almost did. They loved it because every escape plan was not contrived but well thought out and they could see it coming and couldn't stop it.

Because he wasn't always the main bad guy, but sometimes theyd just run into him and it would become a side quest. They pretty much shut down his operations, but could never quite end his career. To this day (and this campaign ran from 1989-1993 and then he popped up a few more times in other campaigns set in the forgotten realms as a source of information or a plot development, to this day they talk about him.

Kelthas Dread


Strahd, 1st edition dnd.

'nuff said.


I was not around for 1-3rd e.


About two years ago, when I began GMing Pathfinder, I incorporated Crown of the Kobold King into an adventure path. Had to make some changes cause its 3.5 and pimped up the main villain. REALLY pimped him up. Enough to make a heroic encounter. Enough to make a tale to be told for a thousand generations.

And all was well. The tension was building. All the mooks the party encountered praised the BBEG in fear. Going gets tougher until they finally reach the BBEG's lair and meet him. He gives his Big Bad Ass speech. Initiatives rolled.

First round of combat: the inquisitor casts Hold Person. BBEG fails his save. They disarm, gag and bind him.

Although it was a real disappointment for me, the inquisitor's player, who was plaing RPGs for the first time, got a real kick out of it. And the BBEG was fun to pimp up, even if he didn't live up to the expectations I set for him.

Lesson learned? ALWAYS check that your BBEG's Will save is up to par.


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The most Hated and Loved villain I've yet used was a cohort that the team left for dead after raiding a temple to an evil deity. They killed the cultists but the paladin's cohort fell in combat and they never checked if he was alive or not. They left him there to eventually stabilize and recover on his own.

He ended up becoming an Antipaladin of the very deity that they had been fighting, and when he first encountered the team again he used his knowledge of them well. Silenced the Sorcerer, Sundered the Barbarian's ONLY weapon, and used Dominated villagers to shield himself from the paladin. Though they survived, the party was furious that an Enemy would know their weaknesses so well until the sorcerer realised who he was.

They tried to redeem him multiple times until he ended up dying from friendly fire, after which the paladin buried him in his family's crypt. First time I ever saw a team actually debate resurrecting an enemy.


Morganstern wrote:

The most Hated and Loved villain I've yet used was a cohort that the team left for dead after raiding a temple to an evil deity. They killed the cultists but the paladin's cohort fell in combat and they never checked if he was alive or not. They left him there to eventually stabilize and recover on his own.

He ended up becoming an Antipaladin of the very deity that they had been fighting, and when he first encountered the team again he used his knowledge of them well. Silenced the Sorcerer, Sundered the Barbarian's ONLY weapon, and used Dominated villagers to shield himself from the paladin. Though they survived, the party was furious that an Enemy would know their weaknesses so well until the sorcerer realised who he was.

They tried to redeem him multiple times until he ended up dying from friendly fire, after which the paladin buried him in his family's crypt. First time I ever saw a team actually debate resurrecting an enemy.

Man, I like this =)


When a campaign lasts a long time and everyone involved enjoys it, it's fun to get some resolution.


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I had one villain, a chaotic evil elf sorcerer who led goblin armies and plotted to blow up half the world for fun, who came across as so charming and affable that the players forgot they were supposed to fight him every time they met.

They also ended up working for him by accident a couple of times. He paid them generously, too! They only remembered that the minor chores they were doing for him were helping him gain control of ancient constructs of nation-destroying power after he'd thanked them for their good work and left.


Umbral Reaver wrote:

I had one villain, a chaotic evil elf sorcerer who led goblin armies and plotted to blow up half the world for fun, who came across as so charming and affable that the players forgot they were supposed to fight him every time they met.

They also ended up working for him by accident a couple of times. He paid them generously, too! They only remembered that the minor chores they were doing for him were helping him gain control of ancient constructs of nation-destroying power after he'd thanked them for their good work and left.

I think that's pretty much this to a "t".

Shadow Lodge

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I had one villain, a chaotic evil elf sorcerer who led goblin armies and plotted to blow up half the world for fun, who came across as so charming and affable that the players forgot they were supposed to fight him every time they met.

They also ended up working for him by accident a couple of times. He paid them generously, too! They only remembered that the minor chores they were doing for him were helping him gain control of ancient constructs of nation-destroying power after he'd thanked them for their good work and left.

This reminds me of an experience I had one time with a party I was running First Steps 3 for. I'd run the scenario several times before, but had never encountered, nor expected, this.

Spoiler:
The party makes the exchange, their valuable item for the Azlanti's non-valuable item. They have a very brief chat, and then the bad guys get up from the table, and with plenty of time - since they expected a fight to begin - slowly and casually walk away from them and out the door.

The party didn't move, maybe also expecting something to happen. Bad guys got away.


Har!

Silver Crusade

His Lordship Ilmyrn Ragnorak Drow Anti-paladin. It just so happened that a player character of mine had a real love/hate minus the love relationship with drow....and so Ilmyrn was born always 2 or 3 levels above the party level and appearing every 2 or 3 session to try and throw a monkey wrench in the party's plan. Sometimes successful sometimes not.

So fast forward to the party now at 18th level, Having just returned from a quest that determined where a high level conclave would be taking place that included Mr.Ragnorak.

Oh yes, a R&R before a serious big battle....wait, what happened as they ride into "their" town they find a burnt smoking ruin where once their was a decent sized town along with a rather unhappy populace saying things like "why didn't you protect us".

Of course Ilmyrn was behind it and took a special joy in eviscerating the PC's storm giant bouncer from their bar.

OK so the battle is starting, the fighter PC and Ilmyrn are facing one another while the others are busy with mooks(what's that sound, oh it is me patting myself on the back.

Initiative is rolled and Ilmyrn goes first.Unbeknownst to the PC's, Ilmyrn is in possession of a rather unique weapon The flying scimitar of tusmit +5 Vorpal weapon that he can launch a range attack and have it return to his hand in the same round...So he rolls a natural 20 and removes the head of our hero before he gets to act.

Sad but true, the PC's managed to conquer the day but not the guy who really wanted it.

This happened 20 years ago and I still hear about it, That is how you know you have a great villain.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Lord Orbius the beholder.

Close friend and confidant of the party, manipulating them with skill to do exactly what he wanted them to do, fooling them the entire time he maneuvered the city into his telekinetic grasp.


Any others?


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Well, there was the time I ran a Palladium fantasy game and the "heroes" were survivors of a genocidal campaign by orcs and their demonic masters. I say that in quotation marks because the party consisted of an elf paladin, a wolfen longbowman, and a kobold shaman (kobolds in palladium are kind of like evil goblin-dwarves), thrown together by circumstance. So, they encountered a robed, bearded guy with a staff who hired them to recover some artifacts. One of my players knowingly dubbed him "the Gandalf." So the robed magician introduced them to a priestess, to accompany them. So the newly constituted party ambushed a few cultists and sacked a temple. About the time they were sacking the temple, they realized that the temple actually seemed to belong to the Gods of Light. When they went back to confront their employer, he had already ensorceled the priestess and was using her to manipulate the locals. The "wizard" was actually someone with a demonic pact masquerading as a wizard; he was behind the demonic invasion and the orc raids in the first place...

Man, were my players kind of pissed.


I would be, too.

Grand Lodge

There was a villain in a Dungeon issue that had a high level lich with his phylactery. So, the when the PCs destroy his gem phylactery the Tarrasque that the lich had soul trapped inside pops out as a final laugh and death sentence to them. So, much fun.


Ginglebrix wrote:

Strahd, 1st edition dnd.

'nuff said.

+1 on this.

Nothing says player hate like "a deck of many things with no good cards at all". (Though to be fair, that may have been a 2E version of Strahd.)

-TimD


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
The Elusive Trout wrote:
I would be, too.

And this was in the pre-Sidious era, too. So, yeah. :) I had never seen players so intent on murdering an NPC before.


Most of my villains have too much backstory to easily summarize. There was this one throwaway minor villain who still makes me smile, though. The party had several times interfered with the missions of field agents of a neighboring island magocracy with a very strong demonic taint. This was way back in 2nd Ed D&D, but I already had the equivalent of tieflings and this particular island nation had lots of them (the remainder of the population being cambions and full demons). So some of these agents had things like claws and scales, but even the most human were generally recognizable by their zebra-striped hair and odd-colored eyes. Eventually, the party got sent a message from a senior field agent containing an ultimatum to hand over a certain item at a certain place and time or else face retribution.

The time and place was noon in a bar in the desert city the party was in. The party decided to get there extra early and set up an ambush. When they arrived at this place, a dive, they were pleased to see they had beaten the opposition there. The place had just a few bored locals seeking refuge from the heat and a bored barkeep washing up dirty mugs and decanters. The party bribed the barkeep to say nothing as some of them took advantageous hiding positions. The rest of them took up positions with a table with a good view of the door.

By the time noon was almost upon them, the place had filled up a very little, and there had been some customer turnover but when the agents arrived they did so with a bang. Literally. They teleported in to a corner table. One of them, more imposing than the others and with his black and white hair styled into something like a tall Mohawk cut, briefly exchanged sneers and threats with the party and then the party decided to spring its trap. So the fight was on. Of course, when the fight began most of the locals (agents in pretty good disguise) joined in and it soon developed that there were some invisible opponents as well, some of them capable of backstabbing. However, at least the enemies they'd originally known about seemed to be rolling poorly, although they had pretty good defenses. Spells were flying around willy-nilly and the party wizard had just expressed his very vocal frustration that his Vampiric Touch spell via Spectral Hand hadn't given him any hit points when he hit the leader with it. It didn't feel like normal magic resistance, which was the only thing he could think of that might explain it.

Then one of the other players decided he wanted to get a better vantage point to fire at the enemy leader, who at this point had taken refuge behind an upended table. He looked around the interior of the room and asked what he could see that might work. I told him the top of the bar was probably the best spot and mentioned that the bald barkeep was still behind it, apparently still washing the same dirty decanter, just watching the fight with a slight smile, apparently enjoying the free show.

Quote:
[flash of insight] "Agh! That guy, that guy there! HE'S the leader. The other guy's an illusion. Wait, they're ALL illusions!"

Well, no, they weren't. Not ALL of them, anyway, but enough of them were to cause confusion. And as the guy who'd just shown he was the most dangerous opponent in the room prepared to fire on the him, the "barkeep" lifted his Decanter of Endless Sewage (it tapped into an Abyssal sea) and activated its geyser function.

The party still managed to win that fight. They even managed to kill the enemy leader before he could Dimension Door away. But they never forgot being fire-hosed with Abyssal sewage (save vs. disease).

Lantern Lodge

My favorite villain was a troll slaver who was in the employ of an evil baroness. The PCs had to acquire some things from her and Arg found them. He was not an overly hard fight but I made it a point to have him talk throughout the encounter. Most of the stuff he said to the PCs just made them want to kill him all the more.

Scarab Sages

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Flame a huge red dragon from the early days of Dungeon Magazine, (From the Ashes). I was a player, not the GM, but it was probably the most memorable villian and final battle for our group.

This was way back in the days of 1st-2nd ed, and he beat us several times when we tried to defeat him. Finally, we loaded up for bear, spending several levels compiling every item we could think of to defeat him.

When we confronted him, we seriously injured him, but he ended up defeating us. With the wizard and fighter in negatives and bleeding out, the rogue paralyzed with 2 hps and the ranger (this was me) and bard small piles of ashes, only the druid remained. He used his knowledge of Flame and their past battles plus a truly inspired string of extremely offensive and exceptional insults (that left most of us going OMG at the table) to incite the dragon. Then he dared him to eat him. The insults were so colorful that the GM admitted he could not imagine the dragon NOT eating him.

Whereupon, the 10 hps remaining druid got swallowed whole, taking a remarkably low 9 hps of damage. Then, he shapeshifted into a polar bear in the dragon's throat, healing himself in the process. When he clawed his way out, the dragon (who unbeknownst to the party had only 12 hps left) perished in the process. The party was saved and we had an epic story in the process. Needless to say, we were VERY nice to the druid after that!

What makes this story even cooler was the fact that the druid never before and never after used shapeshift. He really didn't like it that much and tended to forget he had it when it could have been useful. We completely forgot about it because at 13th level he had never used it. This is the main reason none of us saw this coming, instead thinking he was using his last breath to spit defiance at the dragon.

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