Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Imzyr 05-29-07, 09:30 AM	I just read the article Ode to Villainy, and it really brought back fond memories of past campaigns as both a player and DM. I was just wondering what past villains were memorable to very one else. Here's mine: We where in Cormyr, dealing with a Cult of the Dragon cell from Sembia. Despite all our best efforts, we where unable to get a hold on their plans or even their agents. It was like they had an inside agent into what we where doing. In fact, it even seemed like some of our actions were actually helping the Cult! As it turned out, our Moon Elf Wizard's familiar (a very arrogant pseudodragon), was actually a counter agent. By the time we figured this out, the Cult had succsessfully created a black dragon dracolich, and nearly destroyed a minor Cormyrian royal house (of which our cleric of Lathander was a member). Our elf wizard was destraught, and we where framed for the whole thing as if we where the Cult cell! It took another 3 to 4 months of gaming to both clear our names and hunt down and destroy the Sembian cell once and forever. As it turned out, the Sembian cult was actually being secretly run by a cleric of Tiamat from Mulhorand, which set up another epic adventure. This was a great campagin that we had real trouble figuring out, had fun getting "screwed," and didn't really mind not knowing what was going on from one mintue to the next. OK now, so what is some of your's?
Shiftkitty 05-30-07, 03:41 PM	As I DM, I've created something that is driving my players up the walls. It's called "The Forever Game" and they're just now starting to make the connections between things have happened in previous session years ago, things that have recently happened, and things that are happening now. Their characters are determined to find out who is running the Forever Game, what their goal is, and how to end it or win it. Nations fall and rise in the course of the Forever Game, and the Butterfly Effect must be taken into account. A minor death in some distant corner of the universe can have a major impact. Only one of the characters has started to realize the intricate weaving of things and is trying to learn how to manipulate it. He described it as a huge spider web... ...which ties in to my resurgence of the drow in my campaign wonderfully... I don't know if you'd consider the Forever Game a 'villain' or not, but I've come up on the group off-game time talking about it and what they plan to do next session. Of course, they always clam up when they realize I'm there. I haven't been a player very often and haven't come up on any memorable villains. I feel so deprived!
ZuulMoG 05-30-07, 05:40 PM	My players are more hack and slash than even I would prefer, so it's exceptionally difficult to have a recurring villain. But, that hasn't stopped me from creating some rather memorable sessions. Like this one scenario set in the End Times of my world's First Age. The PCs were acting as the Heralds of a slain proto-deity, gathering up the artifacts crafted by the other gods of the world to reconstruct his body (icky, yes, but entirely precedented in mythology). They had just fetched a piece from one of the facets (my world was a fourth-dimensional hypercube, with each world/facet largely unaware of life on the others, thinking them all overrun by demonspawn of the Big Bad Nasty Goddess and theirs being the only 'free' facet) which they found really appealing. Each facet had a different setting, and the particular setting was an Asia-style campaign, with ninjas and samurai and all that jazz. The group decided to take a break from the End Times adventure path we'd been on for some months at that point, and rolled a group of lowbie Asian-type PCs. I set them up as a low-ranking samurai being sent to assist a jito with some serious local difficulties and his retinue (a samurai/ninja brother and sister team, a sorceror, a rogue, and a shukenja). They arrived in the town late at night, went to the inn and went straight to bed, and woke up the next morning to hear an old woman singing in the hallway, only to hear her song interrupted by a squawk of terror, several thumps and bangs, and a sickening snap as she fell down the stairs she was lighting a lamp at the top of, and broke her neck. They had several other set-piece encounters that first day, and I also had them roll some random occurrences off my city encounters chart. Over the course of the morning, they learned that in addition to the town being nearly beseiged by bandits that were completely choking off river and road trade, the local mine was overrun by humanoids, and the two mercenary companies the jito had guarding the town were on the brink of open warfare because their leaders were both vying for the same woman's hand. That last event was the basis of the scenario: the woman was a worshipper of the LN (evil tendencies) commerce god, and was enjoying the station afforded her by the attentions of two such men. (The suitors were a paladinish samurai and a monk, both high-level, both exceptionally honorable, and both totally in love and abolutely unwilling to give her up.) A duel was set for noon that day, to the death, for her hand. The duel had been fought thousands of times by that point. The samurai and paladin were both devotees of the Goddess of Time, and both died by each others' hand in the duel. So she was preventing tomorrow from coming until the outcome changed. (Yep, stole the plot from Xena, used Groundhog Day for inspiration too.) Thus far, everyone she'd asked to change things had failed, and now she's scraping the bottom of the barrel: this group of shabby little tag-alongs and their newbie samurai-in-training master. So, the PCs learn of the duel, show up at the appointed time and place, some (samurai and ninja no less, our assistant jito is taking his duties to his new lord seriously, and trying earnestly to resolve this thorny problem) attempt to interfere, and are summarily killed by the mercenaries from both companies, present to 'keep it fair'. You shoulda seen the looks on their faces. Jaws dropped. Multiple PC deaths in the first session, yipes! Another got bored and killed a guard (told you they were hack-n-slash), was apprehended, and flogged to death for trying to escape. The last two, battered and bewildered, retreated to the inn to lick their wounds (and doubtless await whatever new PCs the wind blew in). When I told them they heard a big boom that night and midnight, they checked it out and found that the marketplace had been annihilated by an explosion from the fireworks and military rockets merchant's wagon, killing all within. They shrugged and went back to bed. And they all (all, as in the samurai and ninja too) woke up the 'next' morning, hearing a familiar old lady's voice singing near the top of the stairs. Most of them were all 'Huh? WTF?!?', but two of them, catching on faster, said they were immediately rising and going out to try to catch the little old lady. They blew their initiative rolls though, and she still died, this time with two of the PCs standing over her suspiciously. And whackiness ensued. I'll give them props though, Breend was going to give them ten days to fix things, and they not only stopped the duel by exposing the girl as a heartless and thoroughly rotten human being, they also: apprehended an accountant skimming from the jito, prevented the explosion in the marketplace he set to cover his thefts, and even saved the little old lady, and all while keeping the assistant's gear in decent shape (he'd had an equipment mishap roll on my city events table on day one, and it carried over to each repeat day, so every morning, the same fault in his gear had to be meticulously repaired so he'd present the proper appearance. And it only took them three days. My personal favorite moment was when all five of them staked out the warehouse (On the inside no less, the noobs!! It is to laugh.) the next night, hoping to catch the arsonist. One can only imagine the looks on their PCs' faces as they witnessed a rocket streaming in through one of the grease-paper windows, trailing sparks, to land smack in the center of the rocket merchant's cart... and everything went white. Of course, they'd seen it purchased scant hours ago by a man working on the jito's staff, so they knew whodunnit, they just needed to figure out why, which the ninja handled with alacrity. And I know it was some of my best work ever, because if you say 'Groundhog Day with Ninjas' around any of my players, they all smile and nod. And you know, now that I think of it, the villain(ess) in this scenario didn't die, she just lost a ton of face. And she wound up making trouble for the PCs too, spending her hoarded gold on assassins and bribing the bandits to target them.
MerrikCale 05-30-07, 08:52 PM	I've listed mine in the Book of Abeir-Toril thread. I'll cut and paste some of the entries I put in there. Ragnin Dragonskinner, founder and leader of the adventuring band, Fangs of Dragons. An oppurtunistic, evil group found mostly in the North. The base of operations is located in Waterdeep but the group travels far and wide for coin. The group's reputation is that it does not fail. In fact, it has only failed once. When they were hired to destroy a rival band, the Noble Wolves. Ragnin and his company will not stop until they right that wrong and earn the coin..... --------------------------------------------------------- Captain Hoyer Locke, pirate captain of the Black Fury. Captain Locke's has a powerful crew that he places heavy reliance on. His consort is a shou mage. There is also Marans, the wereshark ranger, and Nwampan Tol, the brutal Chultan warrior. He also controls two smaller pirate ships. All of this control is obtained through magic provided by his superiors, Luskan and the Arcane Brotherhood, who are very interested in the destabilization of this growing city -Neverwinter- of the North. ---------------------------------------------------- Malehorn Trask was once a great knight in a local but well respected order in Cormyr. At the request of a local lord, his order investigated disappearings in a nearby town. It turns out a local vampire wizard was responsible. The Order attacked and lost. All but 3 were killed in the slaughter. Trask and his two leiutenants, Kane Sgroi and Lydamur Vapnek. These poor unfortunates became the wizard's spawn. Over 150 years later, the wizard was killed and the threesome were released. They have a created a new order of Knights, The Dhorgal Nath, which means "The Dead Men". The order now numbers nearly 50 and form a formidable force. After several unsuccessful attempts at creating a kingdom, they may have finally hit their mark. The Dhorgal Nath went in and cleaned up Nesme after its recent devastation. The Nath claim to worship Selune and therefore, conduct all their business at night. The general populace considers them at least quircky perhaps downright odd, but no one yet suspects the truth. They are too busy rebuidling and praising the Nath for removing the trolls and giants. And if the occassional residents disappears, well, that wouldn't be the first person to flee for greener pastures or be taken away by the trolls. ------------------------------------------------ Lorelaine L'dhanna, elven sorcerer, was an original member of the Noble Wolves along with his brother Coraith. Like others of his family, he was born with the dragon blood powers of a sorcerer. During the first adventure for the group, Coraith was killed and many of the band mistakenly believed the untrustworthy Lorelaine was responsible. The fact is he took off after his brother's death and did not mourn. Instead, he left the band behind with tomes detailing an ancient brotherhood of warlocks. Lorelaine now lives in a tower in the High Forest studying this so called Brethren, attempting to discover what they plan to do in thier attempt to conquer and manipulate. He has discovered that they are now in control of the Arcane Brotherhood and, thus, control Luskan. He believes there may be other operations, as well. Lorelaine is now trying to gatheri a force for counter measures. He hopes someday to recruit his neice, the sorceress, Ashyr, and perhaps the rest of the current Noble Wolves. He may find that a difficult proposition. ----------------------------------------------------- Roa Vir, Priestess of Shar, was born in a small town in Calimshan. Her father was a very minor noble and merchant who quickly lost it all (including his life) in a failed attempt to increase his status. As a young girl, Roa was sold into slavery eventually winding up in Amn. Another slave taught her the dogma of Shar and Roa became a devout follower. She rose quickly in the ranks of the slaves' cell eventually killing her way to freedom. Roa has since migrated north to Neverwinter to counter the recent goodwill created for Selune with the construction of her new temple, The House of the Light Guiding. She is being assisted by an albino monk, Tamer Domo. From that, she has established a power base of her own. The thieves' guild has become beholden to her. Their leader, Xillis, has come to her for help. Local Pirates, the Furies, have begun to make headway inot the city's underworld structure, particularly in smuggling. A gang war is brewing and Roa Vir has set her and her god up to reap the benefits -----------------------------------------------------
Aegis_Chiron 05-31-07, 11:02 PM	I've been a player more often than DM, so I'll give you the best villian I remember facing. In Temple of Elemental Evil There's a troll with a Ring of Fire Resistance. We had him down the 1 hp 3 different times, and each time we then failed to hit him for a few consecutive rounds. In the end, he still has his ring, and his life
Blackheart 06-02-07, 01:42 AM	In a rather quirky campaign ran by a friend of mine, we had been pestered by some strange magical mishaps over the course of months of gameplay that eventually led the party after a mage that nobody seemed to have a clue about in Mistledale and surrounding regions. Following the baddie for some time, we came upon a portal that whisked us into a dungeon-like structure with multiple layers and different challenges much akin to a classic NES game in set-up. We spent quite a few sessions and eventually came to find our nemesis residing in a large, sterile white, seemingly infinite-spaced chamber with no defined walls, ceiling, or floor, though we stood on solid "ground". We knew this was "the fight" and we held fast to the tactics we had honed. Some of us charged, and half of those...fell? The floor had gaps that if you fell through, you would end up in a random location within 100'...and if there wasn't a floor there, you fell that round, too. It was frustrating and insanely fun trying to navigate through the room to reach a foe who knew every step that could be taken. None of us had flying or teleportation of any sort memorized or available to us, nor did we have True Seeing or other divinations that could have helped. We started throwing down items on "safe" areas, but it was time consuming and earning us no edge in the combat. The room itself was more a villain than the mage, which we dispatched after an excessively long fight. When all was said and done, a door appeared allowing us to continue forward...and right into a chamber housing the wizard's master. We had fought a sub-boss! Truly a video-game inspired adventure, but a moment in my gaming career that I doubt I'll ever forget.
Dioxin 06-03-07, 06:24 AM	This was probably my favorite campaign. It's a long story, but I'm going to leave out most of the names, since the names themselves aren't important. Here goes. Our group took turns DMing this campaign. The entire grand plot arc took over two years to draw to a close, and I was lucky enough to DM its final chapter. In our game, there were two main deities of evil. One was a largely unknown power of psychological terror and hidden corruption, the other was a known to everyone primal force of destruction that possessed an alien mindset and a burning hatred of the mortal races. The Deceiver and the Destroyer were in a constant war for dominance, but with one being virtually unknown, their rivalry was even more hidden behind veils of obfuscation and secrecy. Throughout the campaign, whenever I had a chance to run the game, I tried to bring back elements from previous sessions into the latest plot, even if sometimes those elements didn't initially appear directly connected to what was currently going on. Several of my co-DMs also did this on occasion and with great skill. Sometimes recurring or related NPCs and even earlier retired PCs would run into the players in chance encounters, but other times the connections ran far deeper. For example, an expensive but seemingly non-magical gem rewarded to the PCs for their part in saving one kingdom from foreign invaders was revealed several sessions later to be a legendary artifact of healing crucially needed by a powerful Prince of the royal family from the PC's home kingdom. He was wasting away from a terrible disease inflicted by minions of the Destroyer, and offered the PCs direct patronage if they could cure him. So now delivering the gem from the PC's stronghold to the capital while evading the Destroyer's minions became the focus of another adventure. Someone else then took over the reigns of DMing from me for a while, and used that same Prince to lead the unsuspecting PCs into releasing a demon lord. Yes, the Prince turned out to be a secret minion of the Deceiver, and in hindsight his actions and motivations actually made perfect sense. None of us players ever once bother to check on the man's background or motivations after accepting his patronage all those sessions ago, even when we found his assignments becoming increasing odd. The villain's big revelation was extra entertaining because the original player/DM who though up the character as a support cast NPC for a one off session didn't even intend the man to be evil, much less a BBEG. The revelation was an extra jaw dropper moment for that player. The PCs defeated their evil patron, lied non-stop to the higher authorities to deflect the blame, and with a lot of help, mostly set things right in the end. They even managed to do all that without exposing themselves and getting executed for their folly. Here, they also had their first solid encounter with the Deceiver and its style of plots, as well as an inkling of the grand conflict brewing between the two evil gods. On another occasion, the party were investigating why assassins were targeting the group and trying to steal one particular PC's heirloom sword, a sword that the PC inherited sessions earlier, which came to his family through the PC himself in the first place as an indirect consequence of an even earlier adventure when the party went back in time to track down an insane time travelling villain and prevent the destruction of all future history. Later on that PC found out a Baron and minor NPC they had encountered in the past had been resurrected, through the powers of the Deceiver, and was misleading the people of the present by setting himself up as a wise, almost messianic figure returned by the grace of the virtuous gods. The returned Baron had wormed his way into the government and gained much influence. He wanted the PCs killed and heirloom destroyed because it contained a royal inscription in the old tongue that was direct proof that in the past age, the Baron orchestrated something that would be considered sacrilege in the modern day. Much detective work and cloak and dagger style fights followed. So anyway, that's a sense of how the game progressed. The more it went on, the more the players got a sense that everything was connected, and that they were being manipulated by forces beyond their view in a grand plot - the exact nature of which they weren't too sure on, but the deadliness of which appeared all too real. All of us who DMed tried to maintain this atmosphere. Now, I wasn't exactly some super DM by any means. I didn't plan out all of the details 10 sessions in advance. Most of the connections to past plots I created much later, but I tried to ensure they always made sense in retrospect, and kept the PC's interests without breaking suspension of disbelief. In the second last plot arc, again DMed by another different player, the PCs are hunting after a supposed legendary treasure, only to find themselves thrown through a hidden portal on the high seas into the Destroyer god's home realm. They find themselves in a nightmarish mockery of the material world, with maddening rules and strangely inverted yet frighten similar societies to those of their homeland. In that realm, a PC finds out she bears an uncanny resemblance to the supposedly dead daughter of the equally deceased queen that ruled the "through the looking glass" version of the group's home kingdom. After she tries to hold her own in the insane political area, barely survives dangerous cases of mistaken identity, and generally struggles to survive, she turns to the enemy of her enemy and calls out to the Deceiver for aid. They negotiate a deal for her to kill her evil "brother" in return for the Deceiver to bring the party home. Unfortunately, she ensures the return of her companions by heroically sacrifices herself in the big fight against her supposed brother. To escape, the party is forced to leave her behind. When it came to my turn to end the campaign, I tried to tie every single lose plot threat to a single pivotal moment with a big payoff. Here's how I set it up. The PCs became aware that in the recent past, the Lost Queen, an heir to the throne with unusual wisdom, conviction, and moral character came within a hair's breath of uniting the factious nobles under her banner and ushering in what most believe would have been a new golden age for the kingdom. Unfortunately, she was assassinated literally days away from ascending the throne. An unholy tome, once belonged to the corrupt Prince and subsequently turned over by the PCs to the Royal Mage as "evidence" of their own innocence in the demon lord releasing fiasco, had since driven the Royal Mage mad. Under its influence, he came to believe that if the avatar of the Destroyer was summoned and bound into a resurrected body with a soul of enough virtue and will, such as the Lost Queen, the returned soul could control the avatar's vast power and use it to unite the entire continent under an eternal age of peace. The group also found out their deceased companion was the Lost Queen's daughter, raised in secret by her allies after she herself was slain. The stage was set. The PCs end up in a race against time to stop the Royal Mage from sacrificing the entire royal family in a profane ritual to summon a being of near unlimited power that if fully manifest, would most likely consume the world. The players fight through hordes of minions, but arrive too late to stop the sacrifice. In one last showdown, they manage to defeat the Royal Mage and then with sheer tenacity slay the partially formed avatar of the Destroyer that bursts forth from the mage's own body. However, the dark vortex leading to the Destroyer's realm refuses to close, and the blood soaked cocoon the mage was protecting fails to crumble. Then, to the player's shock, the cocoon bursts open to reveal their deceased companion - living, breathing, and surrounded by the most sinister of shadows. She spreads her hands in a gesture of peace, and in an impossibly resonate and powerful voice, thanks the players for their role in tipping the scales of power and vanquishing the Destroyer. The Deceiver then goes on to reveal how every step along the way, it was responsible for nudging the players in just the right direction, all leading up to this point. It was the one that prompted the players to unknowingly secure the artifact used to heal its minion. It placed the players in the situation to release the demon lord, then deliver the corrupt tome to the only man with the means to one day perform the necessary sacrificial ritual to summon the Destroyer's avatar. The player's actions in revealing the evil lurking in the highest echelons of power also gave the Royal Mage ample reason to examine the tome, thereby giving the Deceiver the perfect avenue to plant the seed of insanity and inspire the idea of resurrecting the Lost Queen and ushering in a new golden age. Of course, in reality the Royal Mage was resurrecting their deceased PC companion, who after slaying her "brother" became de-facto ruler of her own kingdom within the Destroyer's realm. By the setting's cosmology, only a portal powerful enough to call forth an avatar of the Destroyer was powerful enough in turn to allow the Deceiver to manifest its own avatar inside its enemy's realm, and only could a monarch of that place harbor a spark of divinity so anathema to the realm and yet still cross its threshold. The "treasure map" which led the group to the realm to begin with, of course, arrived courtesy of the same benefactor. By using the Baron to thrust the PCs into politics and prompt them to investigate the royal histories, the Deceiver gave them just enough information to stop the Destroyer from fully manifesting and devouring the world, but not enough information to stop its own grand plot to gain entrance into its enemy's realm. Who inspired that time travelling madman to lead the PCs to encountering the Baron in the first place? Your guess is as good as mine. :D As the stunned players readied themselves for one final showdown, the Deceiver reminded them there was no need. The group had secured a grand victory. They just genuinely saved the kingdom, possibly the world, from certain doom. With the royal family gone and the group soon to be hailed as the saviors of the rest of the kingdom, they would have unrivaled influence over the surviving nobles. In the meantime, the Deceiver's war would take centuries, if not longer. The war would fully occupy the attention of both deities in a realm far removed from the material plane. Without the influence of supernatural evil upon the kingdom, those with the wisdom and resolve actually could usher in a new golden age. Barring that, the PCs were still guaranteed a life of adulation and luxury at the very least. The resonating voice faded to one familiar to the PCs' ears. "And if one day," the new Queen of Nightmares asked before departing, "longer after your children's children have faded to dust, I do return to claim all of creation, who are you by then to care?" Faced with what was at once an unparalleled victory and a stunning defeat, one player character answered, "Well played, my friend, well played." And before you ask, the players could have avoid this outcome if only they tried to reason with the Royal Mage. He even gave them a chance for dialogue by actively trying to sway such obviously valiant yet misguided heroes to his side of thinking. But the players wouldn't even hear him out and went in with swords draw and spells blasting as soon as he said "So here we are." If they had succeeded in swaying him temporarily over to sanity, the incompletely summoned Destroyer avatar would have inhabited the dead PC's body and tried to fight its way out. If they won, the Deceiver would have been gracious enough to reveal its now defunct plot and send them off with promises of future conflict and the godly equivalent of an "and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids." Alas, 'twas not to be. :nonono: