Awesome villain that you made yourself

[Hama]

I don't want mentions of any villain from any adventure path or a module or anything like that.

I want a villain that you made that was awesome. You know, that one, that your players still talk about even after years and years of gaming.

Mine was count De Brocke. He was a chessmaster magnificent bastard. He was genre savvy to boot and was always one step ahead of the PCs.

He was given a prophecy that a group of heroes was going to end him, and decided to beat the prophecy on his own terms.

During the early levels he actually employed the PCs in order to accurately guess their strengths and weaknesses and how to exploit them.

He made liberal use of scrying and mundane spying as well as inserting NPCs into the party who reported to him.

First attempt at their lives was taken when they were around level 6. But due to incompetence of his dragon, the attempt failed. And PCs wised up.

So there was a serious game of back and forth, him trying to kill PCs, PCs trying to kill him.

Final confrontation was magnificent. And they won a bloody victory and two dead party members.

It was 8 years ago. They still talk about that guy.

[Gheddon]

There have been many POWERFUL villains I have run over the years, but as far as memorable, well that award would have to go Harver "The Carver".
The players had just broken a good friend out of the local jail, but in doing so had also broken out every other convict at the same time. To make matters worse, they came to learn that the small town's overly-fortified prison was just a layover point for the worst-of-the-worst criminals of the region before they were shipped to the capital city where they would be publicly executed. Guilt-ridden, they contacted the local Lord, and confessed their involvement.
The Lord, both livid at their actions and impressed by their honesty, informed them that the town constabulary would round up the lesser criminals, but it was up to them to deal with the most dangerous ones. Three serial killers were among their ranks; Razah "The Canibal", who was said to be raised by wild beasts. He savagely stalked and ate his victims. Lazlo "The Butcher", a monster known for skinning his victims alive. His true identity has never really been known, since he was able to wear a person's face at will (Skin stealer with levels of Assassin). The other was meant to be just a quick distraction but became so much more; Harver "The Carver". This grandfatherly dwarf was said to be discovered in a shack with countless body parts, which he was performing all manner of experiment on. The Lord gave them info in each and sent them after the three and bring them back, dead or alive.
After the first night, the players returned to the Lord's manor with the head of the cannibal, though they were pretty beat up. Since they had expended all their healing during the fight, the Lord offered to send for a healer. Once everyone got comfortable in their separate rooms, an kindly dwarf with a doctor's bag arrived, binding their wounds with bandages and ointments while keeping to lighthearted conversation. At the end he pulled out a syringe with a healing potion mixed with a mild sedative to help them get some rest. I had each PC roll a perception check to notice the bloodstains around the rolled up cuffs of the dwarf's shirt. They rolled sense motive checks to see if this guy was on the level. Amazingly they failed both in spectacular fashion. As they drifted off to medically induced slumber time, the last words they heard were "I can't wait to get you open..."
When they awoke, they were in the basement of the manor, bound to tables. Harver had run a gambit of experiments on them over the past week, up to and including; replacing the dwarf paladin's heart with that of a troll's (giving him a short burst of regeneration if he hit 0 hp 1/day), replacing the catfolk oracles hair with live snakes (just on the head. They gave her 360 degrees of vision), turning the half-drow rogue permanently invisible (which was sort of driving him insane, as per the spell), and partially fused the magus with an ooze (which gave him light fortification and the ability to never be flanked). He had also apparently killed the Lord, his servants, and the original healer the lord sent for.
They players managed to escape, and chased the mad doctor through the labyrinthine basement until they finally trapped him in the wine cellar. After rendering Harver unconscious, they strapped the dwarf to one of the tables with a full waterskin close at hand and had intended to leave him to waste away, alone. The magus had other ideas and beheaded the fiend the moment everyone left the room.
The characters never spoke of what happened in that manor again, but the players still talk about crazy Harver to this day, years later, hoping that somehow the mad alchemist rises from the grave to experiment again.

[Hama]

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NICE

[Icyshadow]

I had a cool idea for a villain in one campaign, but he ended up getting killed before he could become a recurring threat.

[Muad'Dib]

I had a really dark villain that stuck in the collective minds of the PCs.

to avoid a wall of text:

He was a spirit demon who could inhabit bodies. However the bodies he inhabited could not withstand his magic and would fall apart the more he used magic and he would then require a new host. His goal was the sire a child who could withstand his magic and then he could unleash his true power upon the realm.

He raped and pillaged for hundreds of years in attempts to sire a host and after all his foul efforts one elven woman was impregnated. She managed to escape and fled into a city that had been long abandoned and ravaged by a war of magic many long years ago. Wild magic was common here and people avoided it. It was here in this city with the demon closing in on her that she begged the gods spare her and they answered her prayers. Wild magic ran over her and the baby was mysteriously removed from her body.

Hundreds of years passed and a human woman is with an expedition to this abandoned city to study the effects of wild magic and she finds herself suddenly and mysteriously pregnant. She eventually delivers the child and it is half elven. This half elven boy grows up to become one of the Player Characters.

This demon eventually finds out he has a sire on the mortal plane and goes about tracking him down leaving a path of destruction in his wake. In one encounter he left one of the PC's permanently hobbled. But the encounter were he took the skin of another PC's brother that he really drew the ire of the party. Wow I never had players hate a villain as much as this demon. I even got an angry letter from the player about how I killed off her brother. She was pissed both in an out of character.

And because he was a spirit I was able to have multiple encounters with him inhabiting differing bodies.

[lucky7]

Kraatun, a demonic general of a demon horde working it's way south. The PC's, commanders of a military unit assigned to oppose him, only met him in person once, but they knew him by reputation, and had to constantly figure out where he was going to be fighting next. When they finally took the offensive and murdered him, they were extremely satisfied.

[snickersimba]

Our most famous one isn't actually a villian or a hero, hes just kind of someplace that floats in neutral evil.
He is generally regarded as some form of kyton, due to the fact removing the one solid thing on his face causes intense pain on anyone who stares into the abyss.

he is called agony, he never really attacks anyone directly or does anything outright hostile, he normally offers to help people if they do extremely stupid things for him or give him a key. Attacking him so far has yielded one near TPK and around a billion injuries to the LG party members, due to the fact hes not exactly easy to hit and not exactly unexperienced in combat. The party is still trying to figure out what he is and what he wants. He radiates an overwhelming aura of evil and has a constant deeper darkness effect on him.

He was kinda made as a plot device and then the original paladin thought he was creepy and tried to kill him
That paladin was promptly attacked by agony ripping his cloak open and sending a burst of negative energy into his face.

[RDM42]

All of my best villains evolved organically. They weren't intended to be central to begin with, they were just opponents the players latched onto.