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I'm working on a pair of villains: the Lexicon and the Librarian, for my campaign. It's Pathfinder where I can use it, straight 3.5 everywhere else, and gestalt.
The Lexicon is finished. He's a level 10 Sorcerer//Truenamer Illumian Unholy Scion with all of the Power Word spells up to level 5 (Races of the Dragon), dark speech, etc. His schtick is the use of language as a weapon; he's a spellcasting enemy. His meat shield is going to be his mother, an Illumian warrior of some kind (since Unholy scions are pretty much constantly in control of their mothers, I figured I'd make her the meat shield.) He's a thin, robed and hooded figure that floats off the ground (thanks to the fly spell) and is covered with glowing runes. The claws that come from the unholy scion template actually manifest as letters that trail off his fingers into jagged points of magical energy.
It's the Librarian I'm having trouble with. Any ideas for an evil female warrior who zealously protects knowledge? I've thought of monk, duskblade, and warblade, and I may indeed use those, but I thought I'd solicit some of the great creative minds around here for help. One thing I am totally stumped on is what weapon to have her use. A flail, hhopesh, or spiked chain for its versatility? A bastard sword for the skill involved? Something else? And any ideas what she should look like? It may just be fatigue, but I've gone utterly blank.
For the libarian, I suggest you try a high level fighter/binder. One can mix and match the various abilities and weapons proficiencies with the right vestige, or two, or three...
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Initially, I'd make her martial half a Duskblade - that gives her melee punch and some blasting capacity. After that, I'd make the other half a Wizard/Master Specialist/Abjurant Champion, concentrating on protective and disruptive spells. The total becomes a verstatile spellcaster that can kick ass in melee.
As for the weapon - how about a scythe? It looks cool and scares the crap out of enemies. Be sure to give her Weapon Focus and Improved Critical, and everyone will give her a wide berth.
Re: the duskblade half.
[b]Arcane Channeling (Su):
Beginning at 3rd level, you can use a standard action to cast any touch spell you know and deliver the spell through your weapon as a melee attack. [Emphasis mine]
So, you could make the martial half pure duskblade, or you could give the Librarian just enough levels to have Arcane Channeling. If you followed the above advice and made the other half a mage of some kind, you could use the spellcasting from that class to funnel into your Arcane Channeling. That would leave the martial half of the NPC free to multiclass into something like fighter (or whatever) and pursue some Weapon Specialization / Greater Weapon Specialization / Improved Critical / Weapon Mastery goodness.
Cool villain ideas!
EDIT- As for the weapon, the spiked chain is the most efficient if you want to mess your party up with tripping, disarming, etc. It may be a little cliched, however, depending on whether you or a player have used it frequently before. A fellow player of mine in a friend's campaign just statted up a duskblade which is going to use a flail, so I'm kind of psyched about seeing that in action. Flails unusual enough and just sound painful enough that most people seem to kind of cringe inside when an enemy uses one.
I would not recommend the bastard sword: the marginal boost in damage really doesn't compensate for the exotic weapon proficiency feat you have to burn.
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Sounds like an almost unanimous vote for duskblade, so I'm definitely going for that. Any ideas for aesthetics & character design? I'm thinking chainmail under a Seoni-style cut-out robe in dark red with a couple of books hanging at the sides of her belt, a bandoleer of scrolls, a matching midnighter-style cowl under a hoplite-style helmet (open face, nose guard, etc.) that's embellished with "wings" that look like folded pages. I'm actually starting to think of a hammer of some kind for her weapon. (probably a warhammer)