I've been entertaining the thought of DMing, and when I mentioned this to my group, my DM sent me a character sheet on the same day.
I think it's a sign that he needs a break and wants to play.
That said, I was only in the rough draft phase, and only have one villain prepared. I need ideas for more.
Concept:
Necromancy was a dead magic, but no more. The art is back, and it's easier than ever. One need not magical training/inclination to invoke it, so long as they have the will and something to trade. Thus the quick rise of many necromancers and hordes of undead.
The roads have become unsafe, and the lines of communication broken. Barons and dukes have become less cooperative as they worry about their own people/crops. The Gods grant spells to their most faithful, but are otherwise distant. It's up to the PCs to find a way to seal off the magic once more.
My first villain is a minor noble who is trying to kill the sun so he can discard his mortal husk and become a wraith.
I need some other villains, mostly mortals and undead, but other types that would fit into this world (perhaps fey) would be interesting too.
tl;dr
I don't need fully formed concepts, any ideas you'd like to share of undead/necromancer villains (perhaps ones you've encountered or run) would be great.
You could always look into the Carrion Crown adventure path. I find the APs so nice to have because you have so much less work you need to commit every week to keep your group going, and your campaign doesn't have to end just because you've run dry on ideas or inspiration (has happened to me many times!).
Lichkin.
Proper ladies with parasols--and wraiths under their parasols!!!!
A Huge undead head with elephant legs/landsquid legs emerging from its dripping neck wound.
Skeleton palanquin carriers.
Incorporeal swarms.
Zombie murders of crows.
Skeletal wildlife.
Death-thieves, that are able to draw the life-force from opponents and use it to animate the dead, use enervation, etc.
Gnolls that turn slaves into sausage. Undead, wiggly, sausage.
Animated, flying, bone blades.
Vampire dire bats.
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Take a look at Ner'Zhul could probably give some good inspiration for a necromancy villain. As in the first version of Ner'Zhul, not the warlord of draenor version, yeah talking about WoW.
Ra's Al Ghul kind of villain, could be an interesting necromancer, a man obsessed with not dying so much, that he rejuvenate his body all the time.
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Might I suggest looking into 3.0's GHOSTWALK campaign setting? Its gallery of villains sound like great sources of inspiration for your campaign.
Also: Do NOT neglect the other side of the coin that presents itself quite clearly in this setting, which is to say puritan villains and angry mobs who persecute Good-leaning necromancers, as well as any who fall on the wrong side of their "us VS them" mentality.
You could also brush up on your Bangsian fantasy movies (Beetlejuice, The Frighteners, etc.) to find villains/antagonists who somehow manage to strike fear even into the dead. Someone like the character Otho from Beetlejuice, a pretentious dabbler who knows just enough necromancy to screw with the dead in ways that hurt them without appreciating that that's what he's doing, sounds like a shoe-in character for the setting you're talking about.
I really like the wraith parasols. The others could make some interesting encounters, though not villains themselves.
I'll try to look into Ghostwalk/Carrion Crown, but these aren't books I have.
I know some people are for White Necromancers (and I have no inherent problem with that), but in this setting it is inherently evil. Those angry mobs are the PC's backup, if they can be mustered.
How easy is "easier than ever"? If it's a simple enough process you could have someone who manipulates others into creating undead, perhaps without them even realizing what they're doing until the zombie horde they just raised eats and turns them.
I could also see someone who is precision bombing towns with the intent of creating the fabled "Shadowpocalypse".
Google the Complete Necromancer handbook. It may be 2e but it's great...
Worms that Walk are not quite undead, but they are certainly well suited thematically for an easy path to unlife.
Compared to liches, they are much more accidental- they are what happens when a tainted caster's soul clings to our world, forcing itself upon the very vermin that consume their flesh. While you can certainly try to become one...they are much more along the lines of flukes born of the moment (which might be a sorcerer bleeding out in a back alley, VERY willing to make some deals)
Due to the sudden 'miracle' involved in their creation, they seem much more prone towards chasing big plans that have...questionable ends. Worms that walk may easily be the type that have a bloated ego about their power because....really, the world tried stopping once, and see how far that went. So they are the ones that are more likely to go for explosions and think that things will go well after making deals to let otherworldly powers into the world.
I think they are more appropriate than liches for this kind of setting since liches are in it for the long game- they picked that form because they did not see themselves as having the skill to obtain proper immortality in their lifetime. They are conservative, highly defensive with their key weakness, and more than willing to play the waiting game (since waiting 100 years means most interloping heroes will be long dead). And since this setting is all about a new, exciting fast track to power.... yeah... not a great combo.
Not to say that you can't have aspiring liches (because it sounds cool, and that is the logic of our aspiring necromancers). Particularly if things go....a little wrong (how about accidentally making the phylactery into the wrong kind of object because they miscarried the 2 in the coordinates? How about having the lich stepping out from a burning oven?)
A death cult that sincerely believes that everyone would be happier/better off dead or undead. Very friendly, very affable, very forward with their doctrine. For the most part they don't force the issue openly if people insist on still wanting to live even after hearing their sales pitch, but there are some rather dark rumors about their clandestine activities.
A fallen priest of some holy deity that decided his celestial allies, be they angels or Archons, shouldn't stop fighting after he spent all that time caste Gate to bring them here.
Now Undead Angels are making attacks on seemingly innocent people...
A giant, snake like construct built entirely out of right arms.
It kind of looks like a mix of a skeletal structure and just a hand reaching for whatever poor fool it targets (treat as a bite attack with grab, followed by 6 claw attacks while grappled).
The general implication is that it is part of a larger entity that is trying to build its form in the material plane.
-Plague breaking out due to overabundance of zombies (okay, that's more of a plotline than a villain)
No, that just means you are just not being creative enough. Who says it can't be the villain.
A good old legion. A necromancer who decided being a lich was too passe with obvious weaknesses, and they decided to try something new.
It gives an excellent excuse for metagaming- the enemies all know how you fought before, and yes, they are tailoring themselves to stop you.
Of course, from a gameplay perspective, there needs to be an actual weakness. I suggest using the original bodies used by the necromancer as the 'brain stem' of sorts- they are the ones with the greatest connection, and they are the ones acting as nodes, holding the whole thing together (have the collective break down into small, oddly cunning groups after that- an occasional callback seeking revenge). You still have to track nodes down one by one though.
Maybe check out the Dustmen from Planescape?
An Alchemist/Enchanter/Necromancer, who has ensorcelled minions that:
- Fight, die and then go: BOOM!
- Rise up as undead, fight again, die again and then go BOOM!
- a primalist bloodrager- undead bloodline and spirit totem; some people frown on it because its probably not RAW, but you could add eldritch heritage[sanguine] to really make it memorable (sanguine is one of the wildblooded bloodlines and technically probably not available with eldritch heritage). there don't seem to be many melee villains on the list but this one would definitely fit the flavor
- a blackblade magus- combines some normal necromantic spells with darker trades, powers his blade with others' lifeforce; his mysterious blade could even be connected somehow with the reawakening of necromancy
- a graveknight anti-paladin would be a dangerous direct opponent, charismatic enough to influence others towards evil, and so full of bitter hate that his goals would be truly terrifying
- an influential church leader... of a good church... give him levels in something like bard rather than cleric... he inspires people and has risen quite high in the church structure, and people assume he has their god's blessing because he can heal and do other magic, but he's grown frustrated with the population's disinterest/loose morals/whatever... so he actually broke the seal to allow necromancy again in order to scare people back to faith... he begins to actively work against the PCs in order to prevent them from discovering his secret
- this is a bit more extreme, but you could even have the whole undead thing be largely a distraction... if there was like some terrifyingly powerful evil artifact that had been split into a bunch of pieces and anyone who managed to reassemble it would rule the world/become a god/whatever, an evil genius might have figured out how to unseal necromancy with no intention of using it just to distract everyone while he assembles the artifact... you could even make him like some kind of investigator or something that nobody would expect as the main villain...
Check out the Gravewalker Witch. She can do fun things like randomly possess a mindless undead in the area to cast spells and suicide bomb the players while hiding her own body.
Graveknights work also.
How easy is "easier than ever"?
I'm not going to apologize for how poorly written this short may be. Hopefully it serves to give an idea.
Around him, the clash of steel as his comrades engaged the bandits falling upon the caravan. In front of him, the Bandit King. A foot taller than him, draped in furs and jewels, the man could be mistaken for a noble if not for all the scars.
The guard sucks in a breath, and rushes forward with a battle cry. His slashes are blocked by efficient shield work. Then his sword is wedged in the shield, and a moment later the heavy blade comes down, severing his sword hand.
He marvels at the sight as pain lances through his arm, then the wind is out of him as he's kicked in the gut and sent sprawling.
The Bandit King advances. He glances around desperately, ready to give anything. But the other guards cannot get to him, and no one has yet died, no dead soul to bargain into servitude, as he has seen others do before.
Then the blade is above him, and he flinches, raising his arm to shield himself. If only I still had my sword hand!. There's a hissing sound like air escaping from a balloon, as his hand and blade reappear at the stump, transparent with a silver glimmer. As the Bandit King's sword connects with the phantom blade, it corrodes and rusts. As he slashes the phantom blade forward, a black rot spreads through the Bandit King, and comes bubbling out of his mouth as the giant of a man drops to his own knees.
The guard tries to steady himself to rise, but the other arm hangs limply at his side, his fingertips blackening as the dead blood begins to pool. With every beat of his heart, his dying arm responds with a faint tingle and nothing else. He runs away, for there is no going back for him now.
I do like the idea of a manipulator expert enough to trick others into invoking the magic for his gains. That could be a great main villain, with other villains beneath him.
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The good intentions paving the way to hell are always fun.
The villain trying to resurrect a dead spouse is a little overdone.
But I like chaoseffect's idea about the cult thinking they are helping people. To build on it: they make everyone into intelligent undead so that they can have eternal life. Perhaps this cult does not believe the promises of the gods, and wants to take matters into their own hands. They would raise already dead bodies as non-intelligent undead for labor and for defense. Their slogan, of course, is "you'll thank me later"
Another good evil villain (not necromantic) is from Warcraft III, when Arthas decides the only way to stop the undead from spreading is to kill and destroy the bodies of the living, so they cannot become undead. So you have an army of undead and an army of paladins and fighters both racing to kill as many living people as possible.
"Adopted" kids:
Children disappear but in reality have been adopted by undead in order to protect them. This can be like the movie Mama, or the undead monster is also a child who wants to turn the children into undead so it has playmates that don't break or go away.
3 Plot twists:
Choosing between the lesser of two evils:
Revenge! Halfway through the adventure fighting the evil undead hordes the PCs realize that they are only there as revenge for some even more horrible injustice that was done to the people who created the hordes. In this case the PCs are hired as protectors only to realize both sides are evil.
Along the same lines, villains who are Ghosts who can only be destroyed by killing some major nobles in revenge for the way they died. The PCs have to do SOMETHING because the ghosts are killing local innocents.
Children is a fun one:
Children are the villains, like the original Star Trek "And the Children Shall Lead" or Children of the Corn. The PCs fight through horrible abominations and learn they were summoned by children. The children have some childish motivation like being mad they can't get candy, and cause havok with their newfound powers. The PCs can't just go killing the children, so have to find a way to convince them to stop.
Maybe check out Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" for ideas about caretaker undead.