I love making villains, they're a highlight of my games (IMHO) and I've made a few that I'm very proud of; but what about you? What was the best villain you've made? What was his evil plans? I'd love any submissions whether stories or full stat blocks. Did your players love to hate him? Did they fear his villainous might? How did his plans crumble around him? Or did they?
Btw sorry for all the questions; feel free to add or omit at your leisure. I'll post mine in the actual forum and would love to know your take on my favorites so be sure to check them.
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Sidikus Kane CN Duergar Fighter10
He was a Dark Knight version of Bane, after I saw the movie, I knew I wanted to use him in my Kaer Maga campaign. He was introduced to the PC's as a people's champ by publically murdering a crime-lord the PC's had a lot of problems with. Right after the PC's reached a sort of peace with him, Kane publically murdered him, leaving the PC's kind of knowing he was trouble but unable to find fault with his results. He then took over the Freeman's Guild and lead a bloody slave revolt in the meat gate. They set up defenses in the district to defend from the different gangs retaliation. He gave speeches of following the PC's heroic example to free the people from the criminal oligarchs; it put the PC's in an akward position. He was so huge that he was large, and had a secret addiction to steroid-like mutagens to grow even larger and stronger. When bloodied, his mutagen tank would rupture and lose his massive strength. He wielded a pair of gauntlets that looked like dragons and could topple foes if he struck the ground, they could also do one breath weapon per gauntlet.
His plan was to destabilize the Xoriat District to lead his people (secretly the Scions brotherhood of the seal) into the brotherhood vault to open the seal. The PC's had to track his past down to even figure out what he had planned, dealing with ninja's and eventually finding an old prison he grew up in.
Alazar CE Psychonaut Alchemist 12
I got the idea for this guy from MGS Psycho Mantis. He had an alchemical experiment blow up on him, leaving his body wracked and needing a containment suit of poisonous air to survive. He was fond of playing mind games on the heroes and was an ultimate chessmaster. He was also in the Kaer Maga campaign and was the hidden master of Kane; he was in touch telepathically with the entity beyond the seal and set Kane loose in a speed Xanatos Chess Gambit. The hardest part for the PC's was after defeating Kane was finding out his plan was just a diversion (unknowingly); and meanwhile this guy put everything into motion while the heroes were on a wild goose chase. He unlocked and harnessed the power of the godpool and even got to use the chair that takes over people to fight the PC's as faceless citizens. He enjoyed using astral projection to "face" the heroes, while being relatively safe. He eventually got mythic powers from the godpool and sycceeded in unleashing the seal. It was awesome
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Wasn't pathfinder but in the Necessary Evil setting for savage worlds, I made an African dictator whose quest for the A bomb left him with atomic powers. He was dubbed the Atomocrat (Atom + Autocrat) and quickly became one of my favorite characters.
Besides the origin story he was something of a minionmancer who controlled an elite corps called the Killer Bees, which were children stolen from all around the world and raised to be soldiers (Africanized). None of them were child soldiers though. Was a blast to play.
I've yet to face a really memorable villain. The 2 DMs I've had have a problem in that there are too many villains so I don't really get invested in any of them and often forget their names. In fact, one joke towards the end of last campaign started being "Who were you again? We got so many enemies it's hard to remember them all". Only one campaign had a main villan and there was very little memorable about him.
I've also only GMed one campaign which was never finished since I realized it's pretty bad and the players didn't seem all that into it. Though I'm oping the main "villain" for the next campaign I'm playing is more memorable.
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Currently, my party is really HATING a priest named Gulthias. They released him back in the sunless citadel outside of Sandpoint in Devil's Platter and now following as many leads as they can in Magnimar.
It's been a wild ride where the party gets more and more desperate to track him down and vanquish this vampire once and for all. They've gone from being nice and friendly and asking around to breaking into libraries when denied access, frequent up-all-night hunts, overzealous crime scene investigations (WHAT DOES THIS FOOTPRINT MEAN?!?!), analyzing their constant nightmares, etc...
It doesn't help that they keep getting sidetracking following the advice of an ancient thassilonian toy dragon that randomly answers "yes or no" when asked a question. (They sort of assumed it's some ancient divination device.)[Side note: A big thank you is in order for The Alexandrian blog]
Yeahhh I think I'm gonna have to steal that Bane-inspired Sidius Kane guy of yours, Jack for my upcoming CotCT campaign. He'd make an excellent enemy for Blackjack for my PCs to help vanquish.
Currently, my party is really HATING a priest named Gulthias. They released him back in the sunless citadel outside of Sandpoint in Devil's Platter and now following as many leads as they can in Magnimar.
It's been a wild ride where the party gets more and more desperate to track him down and vanquish this vampire once and for all. They've gone from being nice and friendly and asking around to breaking into libraries when denied access, frequent up-all-night hunts, overzealous crime scene investigations (WHAT DOES THIS FOOTPRINT MEAN?!?!), analyzing their constant nightmares, etc...
It doesn't help that they keep getting sidetracking following the advice of an ancient thassilonian toy dragon that randomly answers "yes or no" when asked a question. (They sort of assumed it's some ancient divination device.)[Side note: A big thank you is in order for The Alexandrian blog]
Yeahhh I think I'm gonna have to steal that Bane-inspired Sidius Kane guy of yours, Jack for my upcoming CotCT campaign. He'd make an excellent enemy for Blackjack for my PCs to help vanquish.
That's awesome, I hope the PC's hate him as much as mine did. I played CotCT and that would be cool. I remember how he was so hated but it killed them that he was so cool about them. Of course he was playing them. That Gulthias priest sounds cool too; I'm currently running RotRL and Sandpoint is amazing. What's the story of Gulthias if you don't mind? The Devil's Platter and the Hinterlands in general seem ripe for further adventure; I'm wondering what your take in it was.
One of my favorite villains in a game was back in the 3.0/3.5 days (3.5 came out a little over halfway through the campaign and we converted) I ran was when my players requested an "old-school, kick-the-door-in, collect-the-macguffins-to-save-the-kingdom" style game. I tried to figure out a villain who would be motivated to setup a bunch of dungeons with the keys to defeating her hidden within. I decided upon an ancient vampire sorceress who wanted to end her existence, but retain immortality of sorts by becoming a legend. So she created items that would help to insure her demise, placed them in dungeons around the continent, then attacked the PCs home kingdom and dared them to locate the keys necessary to enter her fortress and defeat her.
For added fun, the player of the party's sorcerer decided to go the amnesiac route for his character background. He eventually discovered he was the reincarnation of a legendary archmage who had died centuries ago and had been the villain's mentor/lover back in her mortal life.
The party managed to collect all the macguffins, storm her fortress, kill her (I made her an epic-level sorceress vampire lord with an epic version of haste that allowed her to act twice in a round. The final battle itself took about 3 hours to play out.) only to discover 1) that her death at their hands had been her plan all along 2) she was a load-bearing monster. And of course their teleportation out of her crumbling fortress got re-routed to a nearby mountaintop so they could watch her fortress collapse while the sun rose behind it.
My players had a blast with that game.
That is a great take on a plan, desiring to die and to be remembered as a legend; I have to remember that. Love amnesia PC's; I had one or two. This is exactly how to do bad guys right: 2-3 hour battle, lead up, plot twists, love it.
Wasn't pathfinder but in the Necessary Evil setting for savage worlds, I made an African dictator whose quest for the A bomb left him with atomic powers. He was dubbed the Atomocrat (Atom + Autocrat) and quickly became one of my favorite characters.
Besides the origin story he was something of a minionmancer who controlled an elite corps called the Killer Bees, which were children stolen from all around the world and raised to be soldiers (Africanized). None of them were child soldiers though. Was a blast to play.
I'm not familiar with Savage Worlds, but that guy sounds good. The evil team sounds great, I love the evil team stuff; sounds like a foxhound type dynamic maybe.
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RotRL/3E Modules Spoilers!
The PCs were looking for missing adventurers to find the hidden varisian grove this famous apple of health comes from and the missing adventurers who sought it out before them before the swallowtail festival.
My RotRL game has this major powerplay going on between Karzoug and his ancient Dragon General. Each have plans to wake up and slay the other once and for all and claim dominion over this world.
Karzoug had a powerful red dragon general named Ashardalon who ended up betraying Karzoug and allying with the Runelord of Wrath (He thought he'd make a better, greedier runelord). Ashardalon was mortally wounded by a Varisian hero and the Dragon only survived by infusing his heart with that of a powerful pit devil and left to some unknown location. The battle wrecked the land and turned it into dry escarpment now known as Devil's Platter. Earthfall occurred not long after and the dragon's cult of personality dispersed. Many took undead forms to await the coming back of Ashardalon. Gulthias became a vampire, but was slain a thousand years ago at an ancient Ashardalon compound and the stake that slew him grew into a mighty tree which spawns the apple.
12 years ago, Nualia met a Druid. They adventured a little bit before their separate visions of wrath got the better of them. The druid was called to serve Ashardalon and and study the Gulthias Tree and it's thorny spawn while Nualia sought out Malf out in Thistletop.
I like the stuff you added into RotRL, sounds really good.