Do you have any interesting stories about a BBEG who, for whatever reason, didn't wind up being a BBEG? Maybe the party killed them too early on, or perhaps they just didn't latch onto that particular plot thread. What happened as a result? How does the former BBEG's story continue from there? I'm curious, please share your stories below. Bonus points if the party somehow convinced them to abandon their plans and join the group.
For my part, In my first campaign that I had ever ran, I had planned on the BBEG being a powerful alchemist, who was obsessed with "perfecting" (achieving immortality without sacrificing her soul, beauty, or relying on outward influence) herself using taboo arcane methods. She was a member of a specific religious order; They were ideologically opposed to the governing faction in the nation the campaign took place in, so she worked in the shadows, eventually selling the sect's knowledge for funding and materials, and later going AWOL, bringing a lot of the sect's members with her. She found a method for cloning using alchemy, and had created a beta-test clone that she used as a spy in a large city, working underneath a military official as his assistant. The party, who was loosely affiliated with the military via the Cleric's religious order, met up with the official and his assistant. The assistant goes missing while gathering something for him, and they go off to find her. They encounter the Alchemist BBEG talking to the clone before chastising it and destroying it, turning it into hideous mass of flesh and caustic gas and making it attack the party while she escaped. They managed to defeat the creature and followed the Alchemist's tracks, and I had hoped they would pursue her after leaving the dungeon, but they decided they were too worn out from the battle with the clone, and that they really had no reason to further chase the BBEG. It is at this point that I realized, that if the party didn't trail her immediately, they would probably never meet her again. Why, you might ask? Well, one of the groups the alchemist sold information to was a radical cult of mages bent on liberating mortal-kind from the influence of the fickle deities. Typical doomsday stuff, basically. After the Alchemist escaped, she sold some old texts to this group. They were relatively small-time before this moment, but using the knowledge gained from this deal, they were able to exponentially speed up the rate at which they performed their key ritual - A modified Soul Cage. Essentially, their main method of "liberating mortals from the tyranny of gods" was to create their own puppet deities and wage a divine war. They wanted to summon powerful extraplanar entities and trap them in mortal vessels, an act they succeeded in a few times already (this was actually the origin of the Sorcerer's aberrant mind abilities, as well as the Monk's homebrew class abilities). The plot then shifted away from the Alchemist and her mad ambitions to the cult and their insanely heretical actions. A bit cliché, I admit, but it was fun all the same. The party managed to almost stop the cult, but failed to stop the summoning's completion, and the campaign ended after they went through the cult's castle to clean up the planar anomalies and contain the havoc as much as possible. The alchemist (whom I really should name, her name is Voltine) eventually kind of just peaced out with her money and resources, and succeeded in her goal of perfection. She escaped to the western continent and became a powerful political figure in another nation, mandating the country's scientific affairs as its Minister of Alchemy. She's served in this position for a little over 200 years. Nobody in the nation questions her about her longevity, nor do they bring up the fact that she has 23 daughters who all look like a teenage version of herself. I tried to sort of emulate the feel of German scientists helping the U.S. with rocket technology after WW2; Their backgrounds might be a bit dubious, but their work benefits society as a whole, so everyone just looks the other way.
Do you have any interesting stories about a BBEG who, for whatever reason, didn't wind up being a BBEG? Maybe the party killed them too early on, or perhaps they just didn't latch onto that particular plot thread. What happened as a result? How does the former BBEG's story continue from there? I'm curious, please share your stories below. Bonus points if the party somehow convinced them to abandon their plans and join the group.
For my part, In my first campaign that I had ever ran, I had planned on the BBEG being a powerful alchemist, who was obsessed with "perfecting" (achieving immortality without sacrificing her soul, beauty, or relying on outward influence) herself using taboo arcane methods. She was a member of a specific religious order; They were ideologically opposed to the governing faction in the nation the campaign took place in, so she worked in the shadows, eventually selling the sect's knowledge for funding and materials, and later going AWOL, bringing a lot of the sect's members with her. She found a method for cloning using alchemy, and had created a beta-test clone that she used as a spy in a large city, working underneath a military official as his assistant. The party, who was loosely affiliated with the military via the Cleric's religious order, met up with the official and his assistant. The assistant goes missing while gathering something for him, and they go off to find her. They encounter the Alchemist BBEG talking to the clone before chastising it and destroying it, turning it into hideous mass of flesh and caustic gas and making it attack the party while she escaped. They managed to defeat the creature and followed the Alchemist's tracks, and I had hoped they would pursue her after leaving the dungeon, but they decided they were too worn out from the battle with the clone, and that they really had no reason to further chase the BBEG.
It is at this point that I realized, that if the party didn't trail her immediately, they would probably never meet her again. Why, you might ask? Well, one of the groups the alchemist sold information to was a radical cult of mages bent on liberating mortal-kind from the influence of the fickle deities. Typical doomsday stuff, basically. After the Alchemist escaped, she sold some old texts to this group. They were relatively small-time before this moment, but using the knowledge gained from this deal, they were able to exponentially speed up the rate at which they performed their key ritual - A modified Soul Cage. Essentially, their main method of "liberating mortals from the tyranny of gods" was to create their own puppet deities and wage a divine war. They wanted to summon powerful extraplanar entities and trap them in mortal vessels, an act they succeeded in a few times already (this was actually the origin of the Sorcerer's aberrant mind abilities, as well as the Monk's homebrew class abilities). The plot then shifted away from the Alchemist and her mad ambitions to the cult and their insanely heretical actions. A bit cliché, I admit, but it was fun all the same. The party managed to almost stop the cult, but failed to stop the summoning's completion, and the campaign ended after they went through the cult's castle to clean up the planar anomalies and contain the havoc as much as possible.
The alchemist (whom I really should name, her name is Voltine) eventually kind of just peaced out with her money and resources, and succeeded in her goal of perfection. She escaped to the western continent and became a powerful political figure in another nation, mandating the country's scientific affairs as its Minister of Alchemy. She's served in this position for a little over 200 years. Nobody in the nation questions her about her longevity, nor do they bring up the fact that she has 23 daughters who all look like a teenage version of herself. I tried to sort of emulate the feel of German scientists helping the U.S. with rocket technology after WW2; Their backgrounds might be a bit dubious, but their work benefits society as a whole, so everyone just looks the other way.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.