I am going to be starting a new campaign soon. It is an Evil campaign where the ultimate goal is world domination. Looking for various ideas of how they might "Take over the world."
Counterfeiting rings to become rich and Poisson the economy. (magic aura might help with this)
Craft Wondrous Item: Book of Faces (Cursed Item)
Profession: Politician
Or have them all be rogues and work to UMD a device that turns the focused derision of all the other hero pc classes into a death ray.
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As a general suggestion, you might read through a few adventure paths since they usually involve some kind of world beating plot that heroes must thwart. You just have to switch out the situation and make your heroes the facilitators of the scheme and their opponents the 'good guys'. In short, give them some all-powerful McGuffin to strive for - an artifact to assemble or ritual to complete. Along the way they'll leave clues or otherwise attract the attention of 'heroes' who will try to stop them.
As a specific suggestion, I played a character once that went over to evil and, as a high level character gained control of a secret mithril mine which he used to destabilize the economies of the neighboring territories and finance terrorist attacks against dwarves (he was a dwarf himself and trying to drive is brethren to his cause of dwarven supremacy). He also tried luring the various heroes, who might oppose him, into suicidal adventures so he could confront them piecemeal instead of as a group.
So in my case the McGuffin was the mithril mine. By the time he got to carrying out his plots he had graduated to NPC in the campaign (I still got to make his plans) but his function was to give the new characters something to do.
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In the game I was running a while back, there was a group with a smaller goal, but if you make it bigger, it would work...they had a drug they were peddling that slowly destroyed the will...very addictive...and then they were brainwashing the unfortunates.
This small army was slowly being trained for criminal enterprise...but you could expand on that...what about taking some of the brainwashed and giving them another substance that would trigger adrenaline in huge quantities, along with endorphins, to numb any pain and reinforce violent behavior...make a template and level them as barbarians, as needed...
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Way of the Wicked AP by Fire Mountain Games. Buy it. Read it. Love it. Tell them how much they rock for writing for the black hats. Fanfic might be a bit much, but only a bit, slashfic is almost definitely too much. Almost definitely.
Lay the ground work – talk with your players about expectations on an evil game and what they consider evil. Some people have issues believing that evil is more than just murder-hobo paladins who don’t stop at monsters. Some think that it’s a great way to do some spontaneous PvP. Others just like to role-play the other end of the spectrum. Some like the “squick factor”. Make sure everyone’s motives jive or at least aren’t going to drive each other way screaming or attempting to gouge their eyes out with a brass d4. Personally, I’ve found it’s easier to mix a bit of evil into a party than have everyone evil, but I’ve also been pleasantly surprised and have played in a few successful all-evil groups over the years.
Make sure that you have something that will keep your PCs working together (whether it be a goal, a patron, a curse, a religion, etc.) – make sure it’s not something that is likely to suddenly “expire” halfway through the campaign.
Make sure that you know what motivates both the players and the characters. Evil campaigns are NOT forgiving on either the PCs or the GM and don’t have the ability to rely on PCs to “do the right thing” that drives a lot of normal adventure assumptions.
Expect things to go very sideways until both you and your players are used to the different game style (unless this isn’t new for you, in which case, revel in the experience, per normal).
Remember that the PCs aren’t heroes. I cannot stress this enough. There should and will be a lot of “what’s in it for us” and the “well you have to save the world because you live on it too” gets over-used a lot. I recommend writing a lot of “conspiracy”, “revenge” and “misinformation” plotlines.
Your players are basically going to be making themselves into the BBEG’s of your campaign world, but they are going to want to be a lot smarter than most BBEGs are. Run with this. Expect the PCs to have a base amount of stuff over the normal WBL and make them burn it by making sanctums to keep the mobs with pitchforks and various “balance enforcing” outsiders away. Expect them to do horrible things for insane profit, but remember that they are evil, so they aren’t getting the boons and good will most good aligned PCs would get.
At higher levels, play the “good guys” (ie their opponents) as smart as PCs normally play – most evil PCs will have clones lined up or the ability to return as undead. Once this happens, don’t be afraid to set them back on their heels every so often with a bit higher than expected challenges. Evil campaigns are generally a high-risk / high-reward sort of venture and can be a lot of fun.
Good luck!
-TimD
I've posted some ideas before on evil campaign ideas. At least one has been used before.
All of them could easily be a stepping stone to world domination.