Hey all.

I'm currently writing a campaign, been posting quite a few questions here for it, but here's a new one.

The campaign at current point of writing is slated to be against a god of chaos cult. They kidnap people, and want a magic mgufin to channel this gods power. Bring him to the waking world. At the end of this arc, the cult is probably defeated, and the mgufin trades hands with the next bbeg. Hoe this happens depends. It might even happen before this, idk.

This big bad I want to be present throughout the first arc. The goal is to have the villain after a spot of power like a crown or something. Really evil guy, but not the parties problem. Then the new bbeg has his goals cross with the parties, and now he is their problem.

The villain itself wants a place of power to find the mgufin. That's the only reason, but I want them to feel like a power hungry villain rather than one after a specific goal if that makes sense. The mgufin will allow them to become a god, rise above the gods, and take control over what they see as a corrupt system. Userp the gods. I want this goal to come out in a big confrontation.

So here's the challenge. I need two convincing villains, and I need to make them the same person. How do I go about making an outwardly power hungry villain that is obviously evil, and transition them into being a cynical nearly mad villain who only believes the end justifies the means, and that none of this matters anyways. I need to make it believable that throughout it was the same person, and I need the twist to be something impactful, thus the foreshadowing dilemma. I need this villain to be present throughout, since only one part of the first act will have him garenteed present, and that isn't enough time for the planned scope.

For context of the current plot points planned, they are as jotted below.

-Party meets with different motivations at a destitute town.

-NPC let's them know all their goals are connected. To be figured out, I don't have many players yet.

-Party finds ruins with cult chaos magic. Cult not obviously the perpetrator. Mystery stuff.

-Party goes to the next city. It is a pirate city. Goal is to gind information, and go out to find this. Most of this is very WIP.

-Party goes to the next city after finding out goblins are involved. This city is very well studied in goblin activities, and is under siege from goblins. At the end of this bit, goblins have the mgufin and either barely manage to, or are stopped from handing it off. To be decided. Either way, mgufin either ends up in the hands of the cult or the big bad.

-Party goes to the final city in this arc. This city has information on the cult, and is where big bad is. The city is a warrior theocracy, the big bad very likely believes in this god, but not fully.

-Big confrontation somewhere after between cult and Party. Either as a last stand from the cult because they don't have the mgufin, or a timed battle to stop the cult from summoning their god.

From here, its all WIP completely, and where I need help. Who is this person, if they have the mgufin, why are they after the party? Probably because the party wants the mgufin, but how do they conclude the big bad? How do I handle this. That is my biggest question. Any help is appreciated.

Have the villain start off as the Mentor to the party. Setting them on the road to finding the items needed to "disrupt" the ritual, only to find out he is using them to pursue his evil ends. Play it like Gandalf in means of truly helping the party, but when he leaves them later he sheds the mentor personality, perhaps leaving a body that looks like him so that the characters have a grief scene and then the later betrayal and the realization that they, the "good guys" gave the power to the bad guy. 

Quote from Grayfax >>

Have the villain start off as the Mentor to the party. Setting them on the road to finding the items needed to "disrupt the ritual, only to find out he is using them to pursue his evil ends. Play it like Gandalf in means of truly helping the party, but when he leaves them later he sheds the mentor personality, perhaps leaving a body that looks like him so that the characters have a grief scene and then the later betrayal and the realization that they, the "good guys" gave the power to the bad guy. 

 BAHAHA-

I think the biggest question I have about this is less "how" and more "why". Why do you want to do this big reveal? What does making your two big bads the same person allow you to do that you couldn't do with two separate characters? Is it just for the force of the reveal? If so, I think you should reconsider.

In my opinion, it's a doomed enterprise to plot out your D&D campaign out in a series of story beats e.g. "the party will go here, get X, meet A, then go there, fight B, lose X...". One of three failure conditions will occur: 1. Your party will go off the rails and you will burn out trying to compensate, 2. Your party will stay on the rails and become disgruntled as they realize that they are not driving agents in the story, 3. Your party will stay on the rails and not become disgruntled and you will still burn yourself out as you desperately weave a tighter and tighter safety net to keep scenario 1 or 2 from occurring.

Ask me how I know.

I think it's easier and ultimately better to avoid plot beats and reveals and instead stick to merely outlining the campaign's key elements, like this: 

There is a person, *Name*. This person wants *goal*. To get it, they plan to *Act*. If not interrupted within *timeline*, this will result in *Result*.

This allows you to adapt your worldstate dynamically and develop a plot in response to the players' choices, rather than retroactively justifying the plot beats you need to happen in order to follow a set story. It also saves you from having to "foreshadow" any "reveals"; clues to the world's mysteries will arise naturally as your players wander around and bump into things. They'll feel much more accomplished and invested discovering something on their own rather than having it Revealed at the Prescribed Moment.

Trust me on this. You don't need prescriptive story planning to have a meaningful campaign experience; in fact the two run counter to each other. If you're wondering "how do I make this moment happen", you are fundamentally asking the wrong question.

To the first comment, I need an overtly evil villain. The twist isn't meant to be about betrayel, it's supposed to shed light on a bigger plot, and add a sense of sympathy. If he starts as a mentor, the twist will be too twisty. By presenting a hate able villain, I can focus the hatred. Hatred is the emotion I want, not betrayal. 

For that second point, I have two counters. 1, the story is extremely free flowing. I have found that if I don't build a skeleton for the plot, I can't properly foreshadow, describe, or expect anything properly. When I say they go from x city to y city, it's not that they Will go, it's that the plot will guide them there. This quest, will lead them to y city. A plot without a structure is harder to hold together for myself. 2, like I said above, it's meant to be a twist not for the sake of it, but because of A, inspiration in a specific kind of villain, and B, to set up a third arc. The twist is to change the trajectory from a story about a cult and a power hungry human to a story about the gods, and who we are under them. This twist is an exact parallel for what I want the party to experience with the world. And no, I'm not married to any of this. I am open to change, I'm just wanting to get an idea for if I do get all the plot points to make this happen, how I can foreshadow it. The twist is just a lone dude coming clean if the party doesn't have experience with the person. A twist is only a twist if there are emotions and history behind it. You can't twist nothing.

Quote from Canimanamino >>

I want them to feel like a power hungry villain rather than one after a specific goal if that makes sense. The mgufin will allow them to become a god, rise above the gods, and take control over what they see as a corrupt system. Userp the gods. I want this goal to come out in a big confrontation.

So here's the challenge. I need two convincing villains, and I need to make them the same person. How do I go about making an outwardly power hungry villain that is obviously evil, and transition them into being a cynical nearly mad villain who only believes the end justifies the means, and that none of this matters anyways

I feel like you're wildly overthinking this. The McGuffin does all this work for you -- the formerly pragmatic, power-seeking villain gets corrupted/driven to madness by the Thing and becomes a wannabe god

The problem is, for the plot to work how I want, he needs to be like that before the Mgufin. His goal was to rise to a place of power strong enough to search for this item. He is doing all of this to get that thing, and that thing allows him to change the world for the "better". The end goal is change the campaign from looking to the horizon, to looking to the heavens. And I want a driven, pragmatic villain to spearhead that twist.

Then he's just hiding his true motivations in the first part of the campaign. The chancellor is trying to overthrow the king, but then o noes, the rebellion was just a ruse to let him put his real plan in motion, or whatever

Again, it seems like you are trying to make it more complicated than it needs to be

That is currently the plan, but I'm trying to figure out how to seed the villain into the first act. They only .eet the villain for sure in the later bit of the first act, but I want them to be foreshadowed or appear before that. Just stuck on how to do that.