Im writing a campaign, and have one of two routes I could go with the villain.
The premise of the campaign is post apocalyptic, mostly in a single large city set within a desert. In the middle of the city is a Tarrasque, chained up and bound. Every 14 days, it awakens, is killed, and is harvested for parts- meat from flesh, leather for its hide, organs for medicine, etc. Then it regens its body and starts again. Modeled the Tarrasque after the first few editions where only wish can really do anything to it.
One of the plot hooks is a series of up to 20 murders taking place, talking about wanting to free the Tarrasque. With each kill, the killer 'levels up' until he obtains the spell Wish, at which point he will free the Tarrasque. And here is my issue. I could either:
1) The killer wants to free the tarrasque to make the remaining people flee the city and stop hiding in their homes, or...
2) The killer is a piece of Vecnas soul with the rest of his spirit and power trapped within the Tarrasque, and he is wanting to free and reunite himself and finish destroying this world. However, one problem im running into with this is why did the killer wait until now to start the killing ritual?
On one hand, I like point number one, as there is slightly less focus of a BBEG and he comes off as slightly, in his own way, wanting to encourage the people of the city to get out and rebuild the world, not just hide.
On the other hand, I can see a lot more as far as world building with option two. One example is a desert necromancer has been sending undead to attack the city. With option 1, i dont have any motivation for him doing so (yet), with option two he is trying to kill what he believes is a city of demon worshippers trying to bring back Vecna, and thus trying to save whats left of the world.
Option 1 has a really interesting motivation if you want it to.
Option 1 is the sterotypical hardcore animal activist. They believe that no creature, no matter how deadly deserves to be imprisoned or in captivity and therefore wants it released. In the real world a bear when it goes into hyperphagia will eat almost anything. In fact this is such an issue that it is common in some countries that bears will get put down (killed) once they have eaten human food. The reason for this is that it can often cause the bear to return to, or seek out, humans in order to get more of that food. They basically learn to associate human beings with food being nearby. It's an understandable motivation for someone to want to save a bear from death in these instances because the bear has done nothing wrong. It's just following its natural instincts.
Perhaps a Terrasque might be the same? Perhaps its occasional awakening is just a natural cycle. In order to survive it needs to awaken, feed, seek out a mate, then hibernate again. Your antagonist might simply believe that the Tarrasque is only following its basic instincts and is not inherently evil. As a result they believe that other humanoids who have trapped, exploited, and even tortured the Tarrasque are the real enemies. A D&D campaign does not need a BBEG. It needs antagonists certainly. But those antagonists do not need to be evil or have inherently evil motivations. In fact it often makes for a more interesting adventure to have an antagonist with understandable motivations.
As for more world building options, you have identical world building options in both scenarios from my perspective. You can still have the necromancer out there...their motivation is just to get some 'fresher' corpses for their work. Perhaps, there's a shortage of magical ingredients out in the wastes that the city has.
Thats one avenue I like a lot! I am trying to not have a single BBEG, as this campaign and city are supposed to be set around a variety of narratives, this being one of them.
Im writing a campaign, and have one of two routes I could go with the villain.
The premise of the campaign is post apocalyptic, mostly in a single large city set within a desert. In the middle of the city is a Tarrasque, chained up and bound. Every 14 days, it awakens, is killed, and is harvested for parts- meat from flesh, leather for its hide, organs for medicine, etc. Then it regens its body and starts again. Modeled the Tarrasque after the first few editions where only wish can really do anything to it.
One of the plot hooks is a series of up to 20 murders taking place, talking about wanting to free the Tarrasque. With each kill, the killer 'levels up' until he obtains the spell Wish, at which point he will free the Tarrasque. And here is my issue. I could either:
1) The killer wants to free the tarrasque to make the remaining people flee the city and stop hiding in their homes, or...
2) The killer is a piece of Vecnas soul with the rest of his spirit and power trapped within the Tarrasque, and he is wanting to free and reunite himself and finish destroying this world. However, one problem im running into with this is why did the killer wait until now to start the killing ritual?
On one hand, I like point number one, as there is slightly less focus of a BBEG and he comes off as slightly, in his own way, wanting to encourage the people of the city to get out and rebuild the world, not just hide.
On the other hand, I can see a lot more as far as world building with option two. One example is a desert necromancer has been sending undead to attack the city. With option 1, i dont have any motivation for him doing so (yet), with option two he is trying to kill what he believes is a city of demon worshippers trying to bring back Vecna, and thus trying to save whats left of the world.
Thoughts on what you think is better?
Option 1 has a really interesting motivation if you want it to.
Option 1 is the sterotypical hardcore animal activist. They believe that no creature, no matter how deadly deserves to be imprisoned or in captivity and therefore wants it released. In the real world a bear when it goes into hyperphagia will eat almost anything. In fact this is such an issue that it is common in some countries that bears will get put down (killed) once they have eaten human food. The reason for this is that it can often cause the bear to return to, or seek out, humans in order to get more of that food. They basically learn to associate human beings with food being nearby. It's an understandable motivation for someone to want to save a bear from death in these instances because the bear has done nothing wrong. It's just following its natural instincts.
Perhaps a Terrasque might be the same? Perhaps its occasional awakening is just a natural cycle. In order to survive it needs to awaken, feed, seek out a mate, then hibernate again. Your antagonist might simply believe that the Tarrasque is only following its basic instincts and is not inherently evil. As a result they believe that other humanoids who have trapped, exploited, and even tortured the Tarrasque are the real enemies. A D&D campaign does not need a BBEG. It needs antagonists certainly. But those antagonists do not need to be evil or have inherently evil motivations. In fact it often makes for a more interesting adventure to have an antagonist with understandable motivations.
As for more world building options, you have identical world building options in both scenarios from my perspective. You can still have the necromancer out there...their motivation is just to get some 'fresher' corpses for their work. Perhaps, there's a shortage of magical ingredients out in the wastes that the city has.
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Thats one avenue I like a lot! I am trying to not have a single BBEG, as this campaign and city are supposed to be set around a variety of narratives, this being one of them.
What if the killer is a Warlock and the Tarrasque is its patron? :)