Post/Author/DateTime	Post
blindcynic 03-28-07, 03:09 PM	Hi all, I have been DMing pretty much straight since I was 11 yrs old and didn't understand most of the rules. (I am going on thirty now) Anyway I would like some ideas and past campaign baddies from your campaigns. Please be sure to include some of the plot bits to. For me and my players the Role-playing part is the key. I don't care too much about the crunch (though that's fine too) My players enjoy my DMing style and all that, but I want to do some different stuff. Like take some of your original material and use it etc. As a gift here is one of my past villains and her web/motivation plot: Here goes PC's had a BBEG wizard who was gaining political power and found out just how bad he was. They ended up accidentally killing him when they tried to capture him. Turns out BBEG wizard had a wife, she actually ended up being PC's prisoner for awhile to, while they determined if she was a villain. When they held her against her will she saw two of them commit a crime that they had condemned her husband for. (Charming and tricking city officials) After off and on role-playing one of the PC's forms a relationship with said Wizards wife: Wizard's wife's name is Raina. (Low and behold she's hell bent on revenge) PC's discover her evil alignment with spell and later her intentions. They decide to take her to a prison and pay guard to keep her without sentencing so they can keep her imprisoned for a couple of monthes while they do something else. PC's come back to release her, feeling awful for what they've done. (Turns out one of the PC's was hiding a crime by locking her up and shutting her up) That PC (A NE rogue/sorcerer) makes terrible bargain with her, which she accepts out of fear. He lets her go free so long as she never tells or he will imprison her indefinitely. During PC encounter she gets bitten by Were-bear and flees thinking herself a freak. PC's go off on other adventures Raina becomes good aligned as consequence of lycanthrope a la werebear but still has semi-negative feelings for most of PC's. Hates two of them, especially the one that threatened her. Still thinks kindly of the one she had a relationship with. Raina remarries some rich merchant guy, together they are making a fortune until PC's ruin her and her new husband's mercantile bliss when they help declare war on opposing nation. Her husband had strong merchant ties to said nation and was killed, by being stoned to death in the street as a traitor by public. Raina snaps, takes it on herself to bring PC's to justice for what they have done to her, she specifically blames two of the PC's and makes a deal with another villain of there's. Knowing the PC's as she does she buys/hires what she feels will help her best with what little of the fortune she has left. She makes a deal with a villain of the PC's she knows and thus a bizarre collaboration begins BBEG Wizard's wife: A BBEG in her own right! Raina Daerbonlily Rogue 4/Ranger 2 Afflicted Were-bear Quick note: The PC's of this adventure plot were mostly good aligned. the two she hated were a NE rogue/Sorcerer and a CG Fighter/Rogue/Vigilante that used blackmail and extortion to get what they wanted and later spells and lies to keep the authorities from knowing other crimes they were guilty of. The party leader was a NG Cleric/Combat Medic and the other members were a CG Barbarian/fighter (whom she had the relationship with), an NPC (who helped out with a party gap) NG Wizard and a LG Monk. In the campaign she succeed in bringing down most of the party with Bears, hirelings and untimely attacks. She would track the party's movements and lead local governments to believe the PC's were up to no good (Ie. Tomb robbing or selling national secrets) The party always wondered why they were having so much difficulties with Authorities and people they had never met. Only after three or four of these encounters did they clue in that someone was initiating them. Even though she was 4 levels lower than the nearest Party member in XP she made up with it by being a "good" aligned villain who never lied. Her were-bear minions also made for some exciting encounters and the PC's just never figured it out. Even after having seen her get bitten by a were-bear...but it was about three monthes since it happened in real time. I keep good notes.) When they finally did encounter her, it was one of the most memorable gaming experiences I have had. Even though she and the people she was with, managed to kill the Rogue/Sorcerer and accidentally kill the Barbarian/fighter the PC's including those ones, loved it! (Of course the Rogue/Sorcerer is back having made a deal with someone for a spell, but that's another story) If you use this kind of idea where a good person is after the destruction of the PC's I recommend they tell on the PC's, to authorities. Detect evil and detect lie usually doesn't work cause the villain can probably honestly say the PC's are doing something bad. (Such as provoking monster activity, looting a tomb, stealing, harbouring a fugitive, talking to a rival nation etc.) Good PC's have definite troubles when facing good authorities, it's not like they can just kill them, and it forces interesting RPing.
GoriceXII 03-28-07, 03:39 PM	I think that's kind of a cool twist--basically the players ironically being the catalyst of everything bad in a bystander's life, that bystander becoming a villain. (it's a little like in the Incredibles--I remember thinking "that's actually a COOL IDEA" when the villain is introduced) Very clever. In my current campaign the villains so far are all red herring villians. For instance one of them is a lich--but the lich is only opposing them because another red herring villain has his phylactery and is forcing him to oppose the country the pcs come from. The would be conquerors claim previous territorial ownership and so on as being their right to attack. They have aligned themselves with humanoid groups and even giants in order to pursue this. However the real villains are a group of elves who are trying to restore what they perceive to be elvish greatness. They are almost like a terrorist cabal--they intend to create as much war among the 'lesser' races as possible, ultimately reveal that it was all an elvish plot, and then use this to force their elvish nation to break a spell that had been used ages ago. This spell was a forgetting spell, used after a war that had required the forging of terrible weapons and the use of awful magics that were in fact evil to wield but awesomely powerful. These elves believe that the ends justify the means and if it requires the use of superweapons to rebuild a world more safe for them then so be it. However the 'good' elves prefer to withdraw, adapt or teach rather than force the appalling humans, humanoids and others that their ways are destructive and grotesque. In the context of my game one of the few places where humans and the more good or neutrally aligned demihuman or humanoid races get along well is the Republic of New Edom, which is why they have made that the epicentre of their war.
bloodtalon 03-28-07, 05:02 PM	i am running a straightfoward one the bad guy is a fereal half ogre (i know by the rules he cant be a feral half ogre but it just sounds so nice and is very sterotypical) barbabrian/cleric/ravager. his levels are barbarian 6/ cleric 3/ ravager 2 ecl 13 he is leading a horde of human barbaians, a couple orc tribes and a band of ogres attemting to bring more power and glory to his god by destorying a fledgling nation (about 20 years old) and grinding all his god's most hated rivial temples to dust now the party is part of the army apposed to him and right now they are doing recon and hit and run missions to slow down his advance till they can figure out how to defeat him.
Prator_the_Legendary 03-28-07, 05:26 PM	Technically this isn't a villain from an old campaign, since I haven't used her yet, but still, I thought it might be of interest... http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=816727 The villain presented in there is kind of a work in progress, but I think I've got her mostly figured out... She is a Necrocarnate, one who draws power in the form of Necrocarnum from the bodies of the recently deceased. I also determined that Necrocarnum for her was like a drug, which she has become totally dependent on. In my campaign world, there is no epic level. Characters just reach 20 and cap there, by the will of the gods. The Necrocarnate, Jianetta, spent years in a jungle environment doing nothing but hunting every living creature she could find, killing it, and taking its necrocarnum to feed her desires. Eventually she reached level 20, and discovered that, no matter how badly she wanted more of the black stuff, she couldn't handle it anymore. She wasn't capable of getting stronger so she COULD handle it. But she couldn't quit. She needed more, More, MORE!!! Necrocarnum-crazed, she developed a very elaborate plot to destroy the physical incarnation of the gods' power on her world, a silver spire in the middle of a desert. By destroying the spire, she hoped to end the block on her power so she could get more necrocarnum. To that end, she decided to gather the energy of a 1000 HD worth of souls in a magical black orb, to be later released on the spire. Rather than just going out and killing a thousand people, though, she used her money and influence to arrange adventure-type setups where adventurers, heroes, and other high-level people would be sure to investigate. Then she would kill them and use their HD-heavy souls to fill the orb that much faster. Imagine a character who is willing to do things that will possibly destroy the world, just to get high...
razorboy 03-29-07, 10:34 PM	A villain plot in an epic planescape game I ran some time ago (the current game I'm running is a module so it's not really my villain or plot): 1) A peaceful world on a Material Plane was protected from most evils in the multiverse by a kind and benevolent god. One day the god disappeared and the world was left wide open and unprepared for a massive demonic invasion. The high priest of the god somehow escaped the invasion and became determined to find out what happened. 2) He basically finds out that some force destroyed his god, and is determined to go back in time and prevent that from happening so that his world or his god was never destroyed in the first place. He gathers a small group of dedicated followers, allies and other survivors and sets out to find a way to resurrect his god. 3) Through powerful divinations he finds a ritual that can allow time travel powered by several forgotten artifacts and sets out with his followers to find those artifacts. 4) How do the PCs enter the picture? The priest wants to make sure that everything goes without a hitch so he decides to use divinations to find out if there is anything that might hinder the rituals: the PCs! So he arranges for the PCs to be assassinated. Well this doesn't work and the PCs are now determined to find out who's out for their blood and stop him 5) Enter various quests, hopping across planes, gathering information, trying to protect artifacts from whatever (seemingly) malevolent force is trying to steal them, and so on. 6) Eventually the priest manages to cast the ritual and travel back in time with his allies, only the players are thrown back into the past with him. Anyways, turns out that the priest's travelling back in time violated an essential law of the multiverse that could destroy the entire multiverse and that his god sacrificed himself to preven this from happening. The PCs must track down the priest amidst a demonic invasion and put an end to his madness and find a way to get back to their own time. Some plot twists: The priest was never evil, and neither were his allies. He was LN, some of his allies were actually good. He was a cleric/wizard/mystic theurge, and his allies included a golden dragon, a fallen aasimar paladin, and a couple of others that I can't remember now. However, his quest blinded the priest and he basically went to any and all lengths to accomplish his goal and recruited some nefarious people to go after the PCs, so they assumed that he was evil and wanted the artifacts for evil purposes. Ultimately the whole thing was a paradox, the PCs realized it eventually and when they travelled back in time they had an added challenge of stopping the priest from their own timeline, but also killing his past version (so that he never escaped the destruction of the world and starts the cycle anew). The priest sending assassins to take out the PCs made him their enemy in the first place, and led to the PCs ruining his plans just like the divination said. The irony is that if he would've done nothing, the PCs would not have come after him. Cliche, I know, but I enjoyed the look on the PCs faces when they discovered the reason behind the priest's hatred for them.
yellowdingo 03-29-07, 11:51 PM	Villiam the Bloody 1st level wizard Description: likes to get around naked and bloodsoaked in the sewers beneath the city...uses Iron spikes with magic missile varient for Autohit thrown Missile weapon. Intimidates the hell out of third level warriors familiar with regular clothes wearing wizards. Current Plot: Has Orc Reavers abducting street children from city during night...
Kyle_the_DM 03-30-07, 12:54 AM	Not so much a plot but an interesting encounter idea that will soon be making my players crap their pants (hopefully not IRL). The players have been doing more than a few jobs for a noble family, whose matriarch will only meet the players in a private bath house. The matriarch is only visible from the shoulders up (in the cheesy bubbles hiding the goods bit from the movies) and is accompanied by a couple servants who wash her back, bring her towels, and aid the players in removing/donning their armor so they can get in the large bathing pool to talk with the noble woman. What the players don't know yet is that the matriarch is really a yuan-ti halfblood with a serpentine body from the waist down and the servants are pureblood yuan-ti that look completely human. I think it will be interesting to see the battle play out as the purebloods attempt to grapple the players and drown them in the bath water while the halfblood hangs back and waits to enter melee, especially since the players will have no armor or weapons with them in the bath. So what do you think?
blindcynic 03-30-07, 10:53 AM	That's awesome! I appreciate each and every reply I have gotten. Let's keep'em coming. Back when I played 2nd Ed I had villain who recurred so many times the PC's started choosing spells and weapons and armour etc. Specifically to get him. My villain didn't have anything fancy either, well not really. There initial encounter with him was harmless enough, he used his charisma and charm to convince the PC's that guarding his caravan of goods was the right thing to do. Eremis introduced himself honestly, he was a noble from a wealthy house and needed to move goods that were protected. He would rather avoid anything bad happening to his things and as long as the PC's were always completely loyal to them he would pay them double their usual fee. Mostly he seemed to want specific magic items and have them guard the shipments. Other times it was like it was his secondary motivation and he seemed very brutal and cold. They did a couple odd jobs for him guarding cargo and picking up things for him that were really harmless. Then he asked the PC's if they would kidnap a young noblewoman for him. Who had stopped answering his letters...PC's didn't like that idea and told him that was the wrong thing to do. They also told him if anything happened to that young noblewoman something would happen to him. Eremis being Eremis, he didn't like being told what he could and couldn't do. So he did it anyway consequences be damned, he paid another outfit/ (anti-party) to kidnap young noblewoman. The PC's came for him as they said they would...but Eremis had already shipped her off somewhere else. He wouldn't tell them where unless they let him go. So PC's had to let him go; They saved the noblewoman from death and dismemberment by Eremis... Eremis had them on his radar now though and paid good money for information on each of them. Who they were, what they did, who they loved and hated etc. He kidnapped someone precious to each of the PC's via that same Anti-party. He ended up killing all of those people precious to the PC's save one. PC's could never find him after that, or when they did he was pretending to be someone else. Someone they couldn't just walk up to and kill. Not without getting slain in the process. Plus he seemed to have too many abilities, sometimes he was a melee fighter who nearly slew the group's fighter. Other times he was a magic user that hurled a fireball into their midst with a wand. Whenever the PC's thought they had captured him, someone with influence and resources, in Eremis's name would write them a letter taunting them for their stupidity. Later when they left or checked on the victim in the cell he would truthfully say: "I am not Eremis" With detect lie the party had to believe him and let him go. He followed them everywhere with his money and influence, or his scrying mirror. He wrote letters to them taunting them about what crime he was going to do next. What poor noblewoman was next. What magic item of there's he wanted, in exchange he would pick a different girl. Once they even paid him off and he still captured the same girl and mailed pieces of her back to the PC's. After almost a year of chasing him and either not catching him or having to release him (happened twice I think). PC's decided to set a trap for him. They managed to kill him, only to discover he was still alive and using every resource at his disposal to kill them! His methods had changed too. In actuality Eremis was two people, twin boys who had hid that from the start. As adults one of them had a grisly habit of slaying young noblewomen and the other well he liked magic so much as long his brother helped him get magical items he would help him get the girls. Serros the twin died first and then Eremis out of revenge chased down and slew one of the PC's and died in an epic battle. When me and two of my players left over from that group saw the prestige we called each other up right away and talked about Eremis. Whenever we talk about best villains of all time...Eremis is my best villain so far. He was about two level's higher than anyone in the player group and had about double the usual amount of magic items. (Increased his survivability) Eremis the Master of mirrors Human Wizard level 5 dual classed Bard 4 Equipment of Note: Mirror of Scrying, wand of fireballs, wand of monster summoning V (I think) his twin brother Serros Human Fighter 5 dual classed thief 4 Equipment of Note: shortsword of dancing and longsword+4, boots of flying
GoriceXII 03-31-07, 07:52 AM	I also like to take villains (as you did) from fiction and adapt them to games. Sometimes you come across a cool idea for an antagonist or situation and if you are just going to game them hey, why not? I like how you put him to use, the slimey creep...
taradusis 03-31-07, 08:54 PM	THE BIG EASY An incubus who has created an island "paradise"called new bohemia.Has been corrupting young mages thru "free"love,magic mushrooms and lies.Has seen to it that no one has married in his group.Has made them despise their elders.Gotten them to create pornographic art.Takes them on field trips to "wow" the un-enlightened,tries to lure young apprentices away from their teachers.Think of a charlie manson type without the murder and focusing on young mages.I also have this on my 'RANDOM AQUATIC NOTES"thread on the D+D general board.;)
Octavian_5 03-31-07, 09:04 PM	Ah, yes. Question: does this count for d20 modern as well?
GnomeNinja 04-01-07, 10:14 PM	In my most recent campaign, while I worked out the details of what I had intended to be my first adventure, I put my players in a Zombiegeddon setting. At that time, i was aiming for something of a horror atmosphere, so one of the best touches were the villains, two outsiders I made up. They had no mouths or facial features on their black skin except for massive, milky white eyes. I gave them 5 levels of wizard each and a level of cleric. I managed to scare the hell out of the party's wizard, when he was knocked out and captured by the villains. when the final battle came around, these necromancer outsiders were sitting in the back of a wall of zombies, hurling spells at the party, and every blow the party threw at them, they healed with cleric magic. It scared the hell out of the party. It was one of the best initial adventures I had ever made, and those villains made the best horror villains ever.