My villain is named Krillan who is a lawful evil half-orc artificer who strives to become one of the best in inventing. As a child despite his tremendous strength, he has always had the major interest in inventing. Even when people gave him odd looks about his dream and doubted him for his race, he didn't care and worked his hardest for many years. Once he was able to pursue his educations, he went straight to the college board and to different artificers claiming to be able to become one of the best artificers. Theses people laughed at him with all saying "your a half-orc, theirs no way that you can ever be an artificer." Krillan gets really disappointed by this and later drowns upon his own anger to get revenge.
Throughout his life time, Krillan also felt like he was the only one that noticed the flaws of people using magic. You would just see one just use magic whenever they want for whatever purpose, at anytime at all. One spell to dangerous can just simply kill a normal human commoner just like that. With this tied to his anger, he creates a group called the Magebreakers. A group who specializes in technological advancements and seizes to create a controlled system of magic. Alan Kane is a second in command of the Magebreakers that will influence Krillan to do more evil things causing the ideas of Krillan to sprout and not just create and organized system of magic, but to go world takeover.
This will lead to Krillan later in the planned campaign to learn that one who can cast magic must have a very special magic in them to be able to pluck the very essence of magic that surrounds the multiverse.(Think the force in Star Wars). Krillan will later call this special magic akima and learn how to steal the akima from ones lifeform with deep dark science and magic. Krillan will be able to use this akima to turn into a physical substance of matter by going thorugh the Ethereal plane to collect the stolen akima which he will use to forge a fallout 4 style mech with wild magical abilities for the party to fight in the finale.
Sorry for how long it is and be your most honest please. :)
There's a very real and ground motivation - poorly regulated magic can be dangerous.
If I'm honest, once it moves past the initial motivation it becomes extremely cartoon like. That is not me personal cup of tea. I like a opponent with nuance, which I don't feel like yours has. Foundation of the Magebreakers sounds awesome, and an idea similar to ones I've used in my own worlds. However, what is it about limiting or organising the use of magic that is 'evil'?
Take for example in our own world, firearms. Many will claim that a firearm is simply a tool and a reckless user can kill the average person. Some places will simple regulate firearms therefore. The UK chose to do this, we still have people who own firearms (around 1% of UK adults have a firearms licence), but this ownership and therefore use is highly regulated. To the British then, the regulation and order of the item is not an evil act. Now, there will be those in other countries of the world who hold an opinion that this is unreasonable infringement of the individual's rights. Without passing comment on right or wrong myself...the act of regulating or indeed banning a particular tool isn't itself inherently evil. It depends on one's philosophy.
Now, if this was of course the intention...for the villain's plan to seem reasonable to the vast majority. You've got a strong starting point. In fact it's what the early 00's X-Men trilogy was built on. 'These individuals are dangerous, let's take their powers away from them'. Of course this is where we begin to fall into the cartoon-like territory.
So here is where I ask, what happens when or if the party find out that the system built around your villain pushed them toward a darker path? What happens if the party want to try and redeem Krillan?
Beyond that, what if the party come to agree with Krillan and the magebreakers?
I actually had a moment like this in my own campaign recently. My 'Big Bad' was an alliance of people who believed that magic gave some people an unfair advantage and made them lazy. As such they wanted to sever the weave and eliminate the influence of magic from the world. The enemy actually allowed the party free reign to speak to people, wander around the fortress and discover anything they liked. My reasoning here was that a smart enemy would perhaps want to win this party over because of their relative strength. Now in the end the party did choose not to join the alliance and instead interrupted the enemy's plans. The potential however was there, and I had planned for that if the party wanted it.
Remember, this is not your story. It is the story of the party. It is your world and you get to write everything right up until session zero, but at that point it isn't your story, it belongs to the whole group. Players can, and always will test the weaknesses in world building from the name on the NPC you just made up to the motivations of the big bad. My advice is to plan for that to happen. What will your answer be when a player asks what makes limiting dangerous tools (magic) evil? You will need an answer.
Wanting to be the best artificer is a sticking point for me. It's not impossible as a motivation, but I think it fails to hit at what makes artificer stand out from other classes.
Like, I understand wanting to be the best swordsman. I understand wanting to be the best at magic. Those are broad, established, and competitive fields. Artificers, in most worlds, are more like magical innovators, inventors, and jury-riggers. I don't think it has the class identity that a wizard has, so going into it wanting to be the best simply to be the best doesn't really mean anything to me. I think it's more important to dig a little deeper and answer the question of why?
What does he envision himself creating with a Mastery of this craft? What dream does he have that the world might not be ready for, that he can render a reality through technological might? Why artifice? Does he belive it superior, or has he just always had a knack for machines?
As a side note: it's also important to remember that the player rules are, largely, for players. Your villain doesn't need to have a player class, because they can and should do things that players cannot. You don't need to necessarily call your villain an "artificer" and assign a subclass and infusions and all that. Your villain could simply be a mad scientist, an inventor, a machinist who's creations earned them power and acclaim, and made them into the formidable figure they are today.
Krillan's insecurities that cause him to lose empathy with others.
Krillan takes other people not believing in him to cause him to try to take people's magic and take over the world.
It's great that Krillan has a personal, character-flaw (insecurity) reason behind 'going bad' but I would suggest that there needs to be something more - a defining incident. Perhaps Krillan builds some great machine or magical device that he believes will prove his value to the world, but his idea is stolen, he doesn't get credit for it, or it's sabotaged by jealous mages. Preferably in doing so, he is also betrayed by his love, his love dies, his family are made destitute etc. so for him there's no difference between his personal tragedy and his artificing tragedy. That is what then causes him to form the Magebreakers (having seen that he'll never be accepted, he chooses instead to destroy).
Be careful of having Alan giving him additional motivation - Krillan should be the one calling the shots. Otherwise, what happens if they take out Alan?
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My villain is named Krillan who is a lawful evil half-orc artificer who strives to become one of the best in inventing. As a child despite his tremendous strength, he has always had the major interest in inventing. Even when people gave him odd looks about his dream and doubted him for his race, he didn't care and worked his hardest for many years. Once he was able to pursue his educations, he went straight to the college board and to different artificers claiming to be able to become one of the best artificers. Theses people laughed at him with all saying "your a half-orc, theirs no way that you can ever be an artificer." Krillan gets really disappointed by this and later drowns upon his own anger to get revenge.
Throughout his life time, Krillan also felt like he was the only one that noticed the flaws of people using magic. You would just see one just use magic whenever they want for whatever purpose, at anytime at all. One spell to dangerous can just simply kill a normal human commoner just like that. With this tied to his anger, he creates a group called the Magebreakers. A group who specializes in technological advancements and seizes to create a controlled system of magic. Alan Kane is a second in command of the Magebreakers that will influence Krillan to do more evil things causing the ideas of Krillan to sprout and not just create and organized system of magic, but to go world takeover.
This will lead to Krillan later in the planned campaign to learn that one who can cast magic must have a very special magic in them to be able to pluck the very essence of magic that surrounds the multiverse.(Think the force in Star Wars). Krillan will later call this special magic akima and learn how to steal the akima from ones lifeform with deep dark science and magic. Krillan will be able to use this akima to turn into a physical substance of matter by going thorugh the Ethereal plane to collect the stolen akima which he will use to forge a fallout 4 style mech with wild magical abilities for the party to fight in the finale.
Sorry for how long it is and be your most honest please. :)
There's a very real and ground motivation - poorly regulated magic can be dangerous.
If I'm honest, once it moves past the initial motivation it becomes extremely cartoon like. That is not me personal cup of tea. I like a opponent with nuance, which I don't feel like yours has. Foundation of the Magebreakers sounds awesome, and an idea similar to ones I've used in my own worlds. However, what is it about limiting or organising the use of magic that is 'evil'?
Take for example in our own world, firearms. Many will claim that a firearm is simply a tool and a reckless user can kill the average person. Some places will simple regulate firearms therefore. The UK chose to do this, we still have people who own firearms (around 1% of UK adults have a firearms licence), but this ownership and therefore use is highly regulated. To the British then, the regulation and order of the item is not an evil act. Now, there will be those in other countries of the world who hold an opinion that this is unreasonable infringement of the individual's rights. Without passing comment on right or wrong myself...the act of regulating or indeed banning a particular tool isn't itself inherently evil. It depends on one's philosophy.
Now, if this was of course the intention...for the villain's plan to seem reasonable to the vast majority. You've got a strong starting point. In fact it's what the early 00's X-Men trilogy was built on. 'These individuals are dangerous, let's take their powers away from them'. Of course this is where we begin to fall into the cartoon-like territory.
So here is where I ask, what happens when or if the party find out that the system built around your villain pushed them toward a darker path? What happens if the party want to try and redeem Krillan?
Beyond that, what if the party come to agree with Krillan and the magebreakers?
I actually had a moment like this in my own campaign recently. My 'Big Bad' was an alliance of people who believed that magic gave some people an unfair advantage and made them lazy. As such they wanted to sever the weave and eliminate the influence of magic from the world. The enemy actually allowed the party free reign to speak to people, wander around the fortress and discover anything they liked. My reasoning here was that a smart enemy would perhaps want to win this party over because of their relative strength. Now in the end the party did choose not to join the alliance and instead interrupted the enemy's plans. The potential however was there, and I had planned for that if the party wanted it.
Remember, this is not your story. It is the story of the party. It is your world and you get to write everything right up until session zero, but at that point it isn't your story, it belongs to the whole group. Players can, and always will test the weaknesses in world building from the name on the NPC you just made up to the motivations of the big bad. My advice is to plan for that to happen. What will your answer be when a player asks what makes limiting dangerous tools (magic) evil? You will need an answer.
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Thank you for this I honestly have not though about this but I do have a few ideas that could give my villain a lot more EVIL background.
Wanting to be the best artificer is a sticking point for me. It's not impossible as a motivation, but I think it fails to hit at what makes artificer stand out from other classes.
Like, I understand wanting to be the best swordsman. I understand wanting to be the best at magic. Those are broad, established, and competitive fields. Artificers, in most worlds, are more like magical innovators, inventors, and jury-riggers. I don't think it has the class identity that a wizard has, so going into it wanting to be the best simply to be the best doesn't really mean anything to me. I think it's more important to dig a little deeper and answer the question of why?
What does he envision himself creating with a Mastery of this craft? What dream does he have that the world might not be ready for, that he can render a reality through technological might? Why artifice? Does he belive it superior, or has he just always had a knack for machines?
As a side note: it's also important to remember that the player rules are, largely, for players. Your villain doesn't need to have a player class, because they can and should do things that players cannot. You don't need to necessarily call your villain an "artificer" and assign a subclass and infusions and all that. Your villain could simply be a mad scientist, an inventor, a machinist who's creations earned them power and acclaim, and made them into the formidable figure they are today.
Currently you have:
It's great that Krillan has a personal, character-flaw (insecurity) reason behind 'going bad' but I would suggest that there needs to be something more - a defining incident. Perhaps Krillan builds some great machine or magical device that he believes will prove his value to the world, but his idea is stolen, he doesn't get credit for it, or it's sabotaged by jealous mages. Preferably in doing so, he is also betrayed by his love, his love dies, his family are made destitute etc. so for him there's no difference between his personal tragedy and his artificing tragedy. That is what then causes him to form the Magebreakers (having seen that he'll never be accepted, he chooses instead to destroy).
Be careful of having Alan giving him additional motivation - Krillan should be the one calling the shots. Otherwise, what happens if they take out Alan?