Thought I might start an interesting thread, see if it flies.
Here goes:
I get my inspiration for villains from anime music videos. Seriously. Example: Recently I watched a video called Hold Me Now, with footage from Princess Tutu (not a name that engenders villany, I know). The song is by Nessa Gronvall (foreign, I'm terrible at identifying languages other than Japanese and English...) and has an amazing beat. I reccomend it to anyone who likes mood music at game.
Anyhow, the video gave me the inspiration for a bard/battle dancer were-crow. Odd, but the short version of the backstory is hes an inhereted lycanthrope, and because of his nature was solicited by a crew of Kenku. After his refusal to help, the kenku kidnapped and imprisoned the woman he loved (im thinking princess, with the whole performer/royal audience thing) and are blackmailing him for her freedom. One million gold, or some such nonsense. So he's become a mercenary, and used his skill at dance as his perform skill to turn into a fighting style. Rarely changes form unless extremly stressed, and uses the feat (cant remember which) to disguse his spellcasting with perform dance checks.
Seriously, who would take the guy seriously as a threat, dancing around the battlefield in white pants and vest, until he suddenly bursts into feathers, beak, claws, and tears into the softer PCs while the fighters vacantly join the dance to disguised ottos irrisistable dance spells? I see some potential.
If this thread lives or dies, its okay. I just havent had such a good "villain inspiration" as this one in a while, and wanted to post it. So what gives the rest of you inspiration for your nasty BBEGS?
My inspiration for the bad guys.... I would have to say it comes from the dark inner core of my being.. LOL. I like to think of what I would like to play if I was to play an evil character. Sometimes, I will sit down with a character sheet, a PHB, DMG, and MM and browse until I have the perfect BBEG to throw into the fray. I have even taken past characters and found a good template to throw on them and see what I get. The Great Paladin, with a 1/2 fiend template, turn Blackguard type of thing, or maybe even a monk that surrends his will to a succubus. That sort of thing makes for a good villian in my mind.
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Fiction--Zelazny's Amber series is a hoot. A whole dysfunctional family with too much power, arcane and otherwise.
They just come to mind because that's what I was most recently thinking about.
The Borgias. The last book by Mario Puzo. Has some real jacked up individuals in it.
Real people I have had to deal with.
People call me a pessimist, but therein lies my penultimate "lemonade outta lemons" style stunt.
Oh Heath, nobody beats a Zelazny bad guy too. And the Amber series was so chock full of them. For some other good ones, read Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness (my persoanl favorite) and Jack of Shadows.
Let me just say, I LOVE a good bad guy. I guess it all goes back to Vader... So when I write or plot an adventure, I need a mean and nasty set of evl doers. look everywhere for inspiration. Movies, music, books, music videos, neighbors...
I got the idea in my head for a classic bad guy. Undead knight of some ancient order. Then I turned on the TV. The Jackie Chan cartoon was on, and the bad guy was a dragon. Then the dragon's spirit get trapped in a henchman's body. From there it wrote itself and was one of the bad guy's I've ever run.
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I'm definitely going to check those out.
I glean old books at a 1/2 price bookstore; first I look for Moorcock's more obscure titles, then Zelazny among others.
I also keep an eye out for Clark Ashton Smith (I found a complete Zothique paperback from the early 70's once a long time ago...) and a few other guys, but I'll definitely pick those two up.