I'm currently homebrewing my own campaign and playtesting it with complete noobs which is the most fun ever. They have no experience with D&D so everything is new. But I believe in first impressions so everything has to be memorable and enjoyable to the audience: the players. First villain in the campaign is a pack of orcs led by an orc priest. They have desecrated the ruins of Chauntea and turned it into a temple for Yurtrus, the god of death and disease. They kidnapped the farmer's daughter for a sacrifice to cleanse their pack of a disease. As the adventurers get closer to the chamber in the tomb, they hear screams from a young girl. I use a little uhh... cruelty to heighten the stakes and make time seem important. So every 30 seconds they are trying to come up with a plan, the orc priest is chopping a finger off. My story is all about actions having consequences, and that includes inaction.
For this same story, I took the time to develop a hierarchy chart for the "bad guys' side". At the top is Korvus Kansair, a human who made a deal with the Duke of Hell known as Abigor. Abigor, being clever and a master of temptation, was easily able to trick Kansair and cross into the material plane using his body as a host. Abigor has a plan to infiltrate the many branches of the governing body of Waterdeep. The executive, judicial, and business classes all have spies. Conversely, Kansair is recruiting monsters from this plane and Abigor is recruiting monsters from Shadowfell. Each job has a "project manager" so to speak. A white adult dragon named Asmodeus (a given nickname because he has created many dragonborn and Asmodeus is the father of monsters) is in charge of recruiting monsters such as giants, trolls, etc. A female vampire was the one managing the crossing over of undead from shadowfell through a portal. The monsters were used to spread the armies of the Sword Coast thin, to the far reaches of Northwest Faerun.
So essentially my story is a D&D House of Cards but there's even more shady deaths. The players have no idea what they are going to stumble upon when they're forced to run West away from Stone giants who overtook Nesme. In their escape they will learn valuable information that may spark the discovery of The Sword Coast Coup.
I recently made a new big bad villain but it's not those so, a side one. Erhhhh. Well. I think I got one. Mostly an idea at this stage but it might help others. I had made a sorcerer/fighter villain who was named "Varis". He was a gold elf from a noble family and they all hate each other. I had a plan that he was going to be a foe who kept just barely escaping. Not a many villain, but just enough to at times hurt them, or even spend their resources enough to where they would try to track him down. First time they met him was last, last weekend. And my little brother's character, a halfing ranger. Put an arrow in his ass. Not kidding. I have stolen Matt Mercer's HDYWDT and my little brother wanted to send the arrow up his ass, as he was running away from them. It was an amazing moment of course, and we laughed and I didn't act like he just barely survived just so he could come back, as he was not surpose to be the big bad villain. But after a few days I was looking through the Monster Manual and came upon
The Revenant. A perfect opportunity to get him back. So if they head back to where his corpse was this weekend, (they are still in the same dungeon) they won't find his corpse. So now they got a revenant hunting them without them knowing. And what I made Varis good at, as I wanted him to return. Is that he is far from a stupid bandit. He has a 16 wisdom and a if I remember 14 intelligence. He is a clever dick and as a criminal has connections, etc, so I'm very excited to see where this is going.
I ran a homebrew campaign that was a semi oriental themed tournament fighter, sort of inspired by movies like Bloodsport. Essentially, an empire of Dragonborn was starting to conquer chunks of the world, and were forcing people to fight in a to the death tournament. The party was sent by the sort of Archmage to infiltrate the tournament to find out why the Dragonborn had become so dang aggressive.
In the tournament, there was a very helpful Dwarf Assassin NPC named Gort. Gort helped the party gather some useful information about the Dragonborn's leaders. The Dragonborn didn't like that, so they had another contestant, Karragan Cretaceous the Fire Genasi, kill Gort by trapping him with an Iron Bands of Bilarro that the Dragonborn provided. Suffice to say, the party learned to really hate Karragan, especially since before that he was already a massive prick.
Karragan died in a match with the Fighter/Sorc half-elf, who set him on fire after he tried to cast Grease on her. So yes, a Fire Genasi ended up burning to death.
I was once running a mid level game, and have always been interested in using low level creatures against higher level parties. Many parties I've played in and ran have a tendency to forget about kobolds and goblins and even orcs after just a few early levels. I thought It would be fun to keep a persistent baddy from one of their low level excursions. I ended up having a singular goblin escape the parties raid on their den. After the escape, that goblin ended up becoming the boss they killed at 7th level, with all his many minions and tricks up his sleeve. He was an absolute blast to run. Gobek, the goblin king was his name. They had a blast fighting something they generally find trivially easy at high levels. Very successful! Never forget about low level bad guys.
Not a villain I specifically created, but I remember when playing Lost Mines. The party had fought the Glasstaff, and were now confronting Nezznar. I was roleplaying them both as more of a manipulator, treating the players as honored guests, while secretly leading them in the direction they wanted. Glasstaff had offered them a tour of the facilities, planning to lead them into an ambush, while Nezznar offered to collaborate in taking down the Spectator. One of the players asked why all the villains they met were so affable and nice.
It wasn't really a villain, more just a set piece, but I did role-play a Master of Cruelties demon in a Ravnica game. That was a lot of fun, waving my arms around and screaming Gladiator and Warhammer quotes. "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED" and "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD". I was afraid I would overdo it, but based on the players' shocked reactions, they had a good time.
- Thieves Guild master, who has ensured that the noble parents of two of the party members are heavily indebted to him. He's a mastermind-type, playing political games and trying to manipulate others. Ironically he's recently met his end because the party aligned with one of his enemies and tricked him into accepting a cursed item.
- Varren Blackheart, Captain of the Serpent's Tongue mercenary company. This guy is more of a traditional bad guy, his mercenaries acting like an opposing adventurers group that are simply in it for the money. I gave him a massive sentient maul (called 'Maude') that frequently encourages him to smash things up. It was a lot of fun to play a more cynical, materialist villain - less moustache-twirling and more of a realist (run when things go bad, only take the risk if it's really worth the reward, etc). He and a couple of his troop escaped their last encounter with the party, but he's smarting from losing a couple of his lieutenants. Looking forward to bringing him back obsessed with revenge...
Eumenides: a male Erinyes with white wings and OCD (i.e. focused more on Law than Evil):
He looked like an angel, and indeed claimed to be (since Erinyes are believed to be fallen angels), but was actually a herald of Furcas (one of the Dark Eight).
He'd offer missions that seemed reasonable, but actually furthered some political goal in Hell (and/or tempted the PC's to commit evil)
He would do obsessive things like ask PC's to repeat back details multiple times, examine their gear/weapons (to make sure they were ready for their missions), or count any dropped items (arrows, grains of salt, etc.)
Eventually (during a major war), he had a wing ripped off, but a PC grafted on another (black) one from a nearby fallen Erinyes. So currently in my game he has one black and one white wing (which seemed fitting).
The players enjoyed his antics (and thus didn't really want to kill him), but also knew he would always inevitably betray (or 'tempt') them.
Oddly enough, some of the best villains I've made have been Human/Elven/Drawven/etc. - playable races.
Although for pure visceral horror, the Erinyes who butchered most a village in front of the Party, as punishment for the Party's defiance, got the most hatred.
The best of the Playable race villains was, in fact, part of one of my Player's backstories and Family, and occurred completely accidentally. He was head of a thieves guild in one of the smaller towns ( where the Player's Character came from ), and the Party managed to start a Thieves Guild civil war - in fact his niece managed to start it. Then the Player needed to take a sabbatical for personal/work reasons - and so the Uncle decided to kidnap his niece, and offer her up to the opposing side in the conflict as a gesture ( they knew she had started the conflict; the only question was if she operated on her own - she had - or if she'd tried to assassinate one of the other guild captains on her Uncles direction ), and to start peace talks. The campaign then became focused on "rescue Miri", while the Player was away. The Uncle became quite a nuanced and complex villain.
I've found that really good villains grow up with the Party. They have their own origin stories in the Campaign - and the best of the best come about because of the actions of the Party: They killed my Parents, so I'm going to seek out the power to destroy them! They are just characters in the Party's story in their own right, with their own motivations and goals, they react to the Campaign events like everyone else, and like the Party, they develop and learn as well. The Party are Heroes - if they create their own Arch-Villains along the way, it's so much easier to DM ;)
And it makes good sense. Villains don't know they're villains. They think they're the Heroes in their own Story.
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my campain I have lovingly named 'a lesser of two evils' its a pretty open-world for my players but there are two 'villains' one being a tyrannical religious government known as the white order. the other though is my fave. his name is Mortlock, a wizard so powerful that through events even he doesn't understand (the players have the opportunity to find out later though) his very soul was entwined with the etherial plane and the weave itself, giving him magic rivaled only by the most powerful of gods. the fun thing about him is that he is lawful evil. he stands by his ideals and life under his rule isn't that bad, as long as you don't get in his way. it's set up so in a fight the party would not stand a chance considering for most of his actions I don't roll or even cast a specific spell. he is both their greatest threat and their greatest ally. it's also extremely useful as a DM because as its an open world where I don't lead the party in any particular direction I can use Mortlock when things are derailing to 'control the derailing'. he is also very fun to roleplay because he is very calm, smooth and charming. he always has a plan and loves to manipulate others into doing his bidding.
Have your players create background stories for their characters, even if it is just bullet points, but I always offer a magic item in return for the background and usually get pretty good results. I ask that the background includes an antagonist, ally, and place.
When the main story line begins to ebb a bit, I pull out an encounter that is tied to the background of one of the characters. This pulls your players further into the game, and gives them a sense of how their actions have consequences.
Once the campaign has gone on long enough, you can bring back enemies they've defeated in the past to haunt them as well.
I guess my advice really boils down to make your players do it. Haha.
My actual best villain, was an intelligent weapon called Bloodwand who possessed the person wielding the weapon. I think the first person they met was a swashbuckler with a rapier that was covered in blood, and the blood wouldn't stop dropping from the blade. During the first encounter when the players thwart the swashbuckler, the sword clatters to the ground turns into a pool of blood and seeps away. They didn't realize who the villain was until they came across a wizard with a bleeding staff. It's so good! You can take it a bunch of different ways; instead of an intelligent weapon, it's a demon trapped in the weapon, it's a lich's phylactery, it's a trapped evil dragon, you fill in the blank.
I'm in the process of writing a campaign in a homebrew world, and I have my main villains set out. However, I would like some bad guys to use for sidequests, etc. That's where you come in. Who's the best bad guy you've ever created? Some rules:
1. No tragic villains you don't want to kill. I want villains you love to hate, not good guys who are only robbing so they can afford medicine for their puppy.
2. No BBEGs. I want sidequest villains.
I gave an ullitharid the Eye of Vecna.
He's pretty straight forward. An arrogant lich happened upon a mind flayer colony and the ullitharid consumed the lich's brain. He just want's to wield that power to restore the Illithid Empire to it's former glory.
I did not create her, but Yusdrayl from The Sunless Citadel is a villain I have developed. The PCs freed Calcryx, who I changed into a pseudodragon, and then Calcryx joined the party. This allowed a reason for Yudrayl and her kobold minions to pursue the PCs. At random points in future adventures, Yusdrayl will pop up and cause trouble.
This thread is a little old, and contributions probably don't matter, but I got one. He was an above average soldier of my BBEG, and not even one of the main generals or anything. His whole thing that made the party HATE him was his smugness. He simply used a rapier, and one homebrew magic item called a mirror monocle. You used 500 gold to copy the effects of one magic item and put them onto a normal item for the battle or until dismissed. He had 1500 gold, and the two items. The characters had legendary weapons that the campaign themed around, and yea. He copied powers of a sword that had strength based powers, then another of them that was wisdom based. The party then broke his sword and took the monocle, and he just said, "Huh, guess you're worth fighting. You guys have no chance still.", as he put up his fists, and he was a fighter. The party then beat him down, until he died. They still hated him.
Well, I just came up with a cool villain. He's a Sahuagin Baron. The BBEG (lich) killed him, and put a mutilated, four armed skeleton inside of his corpse. The lich is using him to control the Sahuagin and use them for his own purposes. When the body is killed, the particles of flesh will disperse, leaving only a skeleton held together by fell energy. The skeleton is still alive (unalive?) so I get kind of a double boss battle.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Well, I have currently a small side quest boss as well (just dial it down a bit so not BBEG). A carver collector or a monster that collects the dead corpses the party live behind and slowly gets stronger (+1/4 of creatures hp to its own) and gains different abilitys to what it gets (dragon head:breath Weapon, rust monster fins:disintegrate weapons, wings from a creature: gains harlf that creatures flight speed, ect) and gives off small loot to reward the party for its corpses it has inquired and depending on the monster the bigger the reward (note please change this to suit your game or just take it out intirely) but as all villains are evil even this cute corpse collector is evil to. Over time the corpse colltor will raid graves tombs and beral sites the party go in or go close to it. The creature then brings back treasure from the places and victims (it kills anything that stands in its way) it has robbed and gives this to the plays as a thank you (again you can take ti's out if you want to) this could get them in deep trouble for mass genicide, ribby and burlgry from the local law inforcement. The creature finally has enough hp (you deicide when it is) to go and fight the party and move onto the next party or the party willingly go hunt it down. Now when fighting the creature it has a special ability (can take out to, or make it a kedary action /3 per day/) , the creature only takes damage-its max hp -(34 blugoning, hp is 24,end damage is 10 points of blugoning).
I have made 2 campings were this ends up being the bbeg as the party doesn't kill it emedately.
This is what I have multiple possible BBEGs lined up just so my game doesn't play out I would have thought it would go.
I learned this when my BBEG was a beholder and the bard crit suduced it and exploded the campaign since I had no other routes to go down.
Well, I have currently a small side quest boss as well (just dial it down a bit so not BBEG). A carver collector or a monster that collects the dead corpses the party live behind and slowly gets stronger (+1/4 of creatures hp to its own) and gains different abilitys to what it gets (dragon head:breath Weapon, rust monster fins:disintegrate weapons, wings from a creature: gains harlf that creatures flight speed, ect) and gives off small loot to reward the party for its corpses it has inquired and depending on the monster the bigger the reward (note please change this to suit your game or just take it out intirely) but as all villains are evil even this cute corpse collector is evil to. Over time the corpse colltor will raid graves tombs and beral sites the party go in or go close to it. The creature then brings back treasure from the places and victims (it kills anything that stands in its way) it has robbed and gives this to the plays as a thank you (again you can take ti's out if you want to) this could get them in deep trouble for mass genicide, ribby and burlgry from the local law inforcement. The creature finally has enough hp (you deicide when it is) to go and fight the party and move onto the next party or the party willingly go hunt it down. Now when fighting the creature it has a special ability (can take out to, or make it a kedary action /3 per day/) , the creature only takes damage-its max hp -(34 blugoning, hp is 24,end damage is 10 points of blugoning).
I have made 2 campings were this ends up being the bbeg as the party doesn't kill it emedately.
This is what I have multiple possible BBEGs lined up just so my game doesn't play out I would have thought it would go.
I learned this when my BBEG was a beholder and the bard crit suduced it and exploded the campaign since I had no other routes to go down.
Hard to class him as a 100% villain, but there was this one pirate NPC named Slick Drave who thought he was the hottest man alive (he wasn't) and creepily flirted with all of the player characters (regardless of gender). When he died, the table went wild...the guy was just so annoying EVERYONE hated him!
Another good one was a condescending, posh mayor whose name I don't recall: he refused to believe that a goblin attack was impending, leaving the characters to fight it off alone. His death was also celebrated.
The best out-and-out villain, though, was an assassin known as Sister Aspersia; in my heist campaign, she worked for a rival crime lord, and appeared intermittently to sabotage the characters' efforts and then run. When they finally caught her, they took the opportunity to slaughter her...even in front of her employer and all her forces. All that mattered to them was killing that rival.
One more solid villain was a curt, constantly masked figure called the Iron Knight, a man with a rabid hatred of orcs and goblinoids. The party's goblin, whose tribe he had slaughtered, finally killed him after multiple indecisive encounters, and promptly hacked his body apart and smashed his head like a baseball. Another definite contender for most hatable villain, at least as far as the goblin was concerned.
my best villains are the ones that have enough ways to escape. as well as Fade in and out at whenever they want. really pissing off and frustrating the players to the point they actively hate the villain inside and outside of the game. making it their number 1 priority to hunt down at all costs. can be used for many type of enemies from hags to cambions, cultists and luitenants of lords etc. or even a simple Phase Spider as random encounter that can phase out of grapples and more to keep annoying the party.
His name is quiet literally “Jonny.” He’s hard to describe, charismatic if not endearingly psychopathic. Takes on the form of a middle aged man in black suit, actually a nigh omnipotent “carnemancer” a type of mage specializing in creating horrific flesh monsters. I introduced two NPCs who the player characters got really attached to just so they could watch two of his “skin dogs” rip them to shreds. The look on their faces was priceless 🤣😂. Cool villain that I really got the party to HATE.
I had a king slime who hired the party once to kill a entire species, they helped at first after they were promised a huge amount of cash, but later decided to stop. the king responded by tossing them into a dungeon and claimed there was gold in there. there was no gold, it was a death trap. they escaped, and later came back to kill him. You would be surprised how much PC's want a traitor dead. also helps that the king was extremely powerful and forced the party to flee. And that is how a king slime became more hated than most of my main quest villains.
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I'm currently homebrewing my own campaign and playtesting it with complete noobs which is the most fun ever. They have no experience with D&D so everything is new. But I believe in first impressions so everything has to be memorable and enjoyable to the audience: the players. First villain in the campaign is a pack of orcs led by an orc priest. They have desecrated the ruins of Chauntea and turned it into a temple for Yurtrus, the god of death and disease. They kidnapped the farmer's daughter for a sacrifice to cleanse their pack of a disease. As the adventurers get closer to the chamber in the tomb, they hear screams from a young girl. I use a little uhh... cruelty to heighten the stakes and make time seem important. So every 30 seconds they are trying to come up with a plan, the orc priest is chopping a finger off. My story is all about actions having consequences, and that includes inaction.
For this same story, I took the time to develop a hierarchy chart for the "bad guys' side". At the top is Korvus Kansair, a human who made a deal with the Duke of Hell known as Abigor. Abigor, being clever and a master of temptation, was easily able to trick Kansair and cross into the material plane using his body as a host. Abigor has a plan to infiltrate the many branches of the governing body of Waterdeep. The executive, judicial, and business classes all have spies. Conversely, Kansair is recruiting monsters from this plane and Abigor is recruiting monsters from Shadowfell. Each job has a "project manager" so to speak. A white adult dragon named Asmodeus (a given nickname because he has created many dragonborn and Asmodeus is the father of monsters) is in charge of recruiting monsters such as giants, trolls, etc. A female vampire was the one managing the crossing over of undead from shadowfell through a portal. The monsters were used to spread the armies of the Sword Coast thin, to the far reaches of Northwest Faerun.
So essentially my story is a D&D House of Cards but there's even more shady deaths. The players have no idea what they are going to stumble upon when they're forced to run West away from Stone giants who overtook Nesme. In their escape they will learn valuable information that may spark the discovery of The Sword Coast Coup.
I recently made a new big bad villain but it's not those so, a side one. Erhhhh. Well. I think I got one. Mostly an idea at this stage but it might help others.
I had made a sorcerer/fighter villain who was named "Varis". He was a gold elf from a noble family and they all hate each other. I had a plan that he was going to be a
foe who kept just barely escaping. Not a many villain, but just enough to at times hurt them, or even spend their resources enough to where they would try to track him down.
First time they met him was last, last weekend. And my little brother's character, a halfing ranger. Put an arrow in his ass. Not kidding. I have stolen Matt Mercer's HDYWDT and my little brother wanted to send the arrow up his ass, as he was running away from them. It was an amazing moment of course, and we laughed and I didn't act like he just barely survived just so he could come back, as he was not surpose to be the big bad villain. But after a few days I was looking through the Monster Manual and came upon
The Revenant.
A perfect opportunity to get him back. So if they head back to where his corpse was this weekend, (they are still in the same dungeon) they won't find his corpse.
So now they got a revenant hunting them without them knowing. And what I made Varis good at, as I wanted him to return. Is that he is far from a stupid bandit. He has a 16 wisdom and a if I remember 14 intelligence. He is a clever dick and as a criminal has connections, etc, so I'm very excited to see where this is going.
I ran a homebrew campaign that was a semi oriental themed tournament fighter, sort of inspired by movies like Bloodsport. Essentially, an empire of Dragonborn was starting to conquer chunks of the world, and were forcing people to fight in a to the death tournament. The party was sent by the sort of Archmage to infiltrate the tournament to find out why the Dragonborn had become so dang aggressive.
In the tournament, there was a very helpful Dwarf Assassin NPC named Gort. Gort helped the party gather some useful information about the Dragonborn's leaders. The Dragonborn didn't like that, so they had another contestant, Karragan Cretaceous the Fire Genasi, kill Gort by trapping him with an Iron Bands of Bilarro that the Dragonborn provided. Suffice to say, the party learned to really hate Karragan, especially since before that he was already a massive prick.
Karragan died in a match with the Fighter/Sorc half-elf, who set him on fire after he tried to cast Grease on her. So yes, a Fire Genasi ended up burning to death.
Hombrew: Way of Wresting, Circle of Sacrifice
I was once running a mid level game, and have always been interested in using low level creatures against higher level parties. Many parties I've played in and ran have a tendency to forget about kobolds and goblins and even orcs after just a few early levels. I thought It would be fun to keep a persistent baddy from one of their low level excursions. I ended up having a singular goblin escape the parties raid on their den. After the escape, that goblin ended up becoming the boss they killed at 7th level, with all his many minions and tricks up his sleeve. He was an absolute blast to run. Gobek, the goblin king was his name. They had a blast fighting something they generally find trivially easy at high levels. Very successful! Never forget about low level bad guys.
Not a villain I specifically created, but I remember when playing Lost Mines. The party had fought the Glasstaff, and were now confronting Nezznar. I was roleplaying them both as more of a manipulator, treating the players as honored guests, while secretly leading them in the direction they wanted. Glasstaff had offered them a tour of the facilities, planning to lead them into an ambush, while Nezznar offered to collaborate in taking down the Spectator. One of the players asked why all the villains they met were so affable and nice.
It wasn't really a villain, more just a set piece, but I did role-play a Master of Cruelties demon in a Ravnica game. That was a lot of fun, waving my arms around and screaming Gladiator and Warhammer quotes. "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED" and "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD". I was afraid I would overdo it, but based on the players' shocked reactions, they had a good time.
"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
-Actual conversation in a game.
Two villains I enjoyed playing with:
- Thieves Guild master, who has ensured that the noble parents of two of the party members are heavily indebted to him. He's a mastermind-type, playing political games and trying to manipulate others. Ironically he's recently met his end because the party aligned with one of his enemies and tricked him into accepting a cursed item.
- Varren Blackheart, Captain of the Serpent's Tongue mercenary company. This guy is more of a traditional bad guy, his mercenaries acting like an opposing adventurers group that are simply in it for the money. I gave him a massive sentient maul (called 'Maude') that frequently encourages him to smash things up. It was a lot of fun to play a more cynical, materialist villain - less moustache-twirling and more of a realist (run when things go bad, only take the risk if it's really worth the reward, etc). He and a couple of his troop escaped their last encounter with the party, but he's smarting from losing a couple of his lieutenants. Looking forward to bringing him back obsessed with revenge...
Eumenides: a male Erinyes with white wings and OCD (i.e. focused more on Law than Evil):
Oddly enough, some of the best villains I've made have been Human/Elven/Drawven/etc. - playable races.
Although for pure visceral horror, the Erinyes who butchered most a village in front of the Party, as punishment for the Party's defiance, got the most hatred.
The best of the Playable race villains was, in fact, part of one of my Player's backstories and Family, and occurred completely accidentally. He was head of a thieves guild in one of the smaller towns ( where the Player's Character came from ), and the Party managed to start a Thieves Guild civil war - in fact his niece managed to start it. Then the Player needed to take a sabbatical for personal/work reasons - and so the Uncle decided to kidnap his niece, and offer her up to the opposing side in the conflict as a gesture ( they knew she had started the conflict; the only question was if she operated on her own - she had - or if she'd tried to assassinate one of the other guild captains on her Uncles direction ), and to start peace talks. The campaign then became focused on "rescue Miri", while the Player was away. The Uncle became quite a nuanced and complex villain.
I've found that really good villains grow up with the Party. They have their own origin stories in the Campaign - and the best of the best come about because of the actions of the Party: They killed my Parents, so I'm going to seek out the power to destroy them! They are just characters in the Party's story in their own right, with their own motivations and goals, they react to the Campaign events like everyone else, and like the Party, they develop and learn as well. The Party are Heroes - if they create their own Arch-Villains along the way, it's so much easier to DM ;)
And it makes good sense. Villains don't know they're villains. They think they're the Heroes in their own Story.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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my campain I have lovingly named 'a lesser of two evils' its a pretty open-world for my players but there are two 'villains' one being a tyrannical religious government known as the white order. the other though is my fave. his name is Mortlock, a wizard so powerful that through events even he doesn't understand (the players have the opportunity to find out later though) his very soul was entwined with the etherial plane and the weave itself, giving him magic rivaled only by the most powerful of gods. the fun thing about him is that he is lawful evil. he stands by his ideals and life under his rule isn't that bad, as long as you don't get in his way. it's set up so in a fight the party would not stand a chance considering for most of his actions I don't roll or even cast a specific spell. he is both their greatest threat and their greatest ally. it's also extremely useful as a DM because as its an open world where I don't lead the party in any particular direction I can use Mortlock when things are derailing to 'control the derailing'. he is also very fun to roleplay because he is very calm, smooth and charming. he always has a plan and loves to manipulate others into doing his bidding.
Have your players create background stories for their characters, even if it is just bullet points, but I always offer a magic item in return for the background and usually get pretty good results. I ask that the background includes an antagonist, ally, and place.
When the main story line begins to ebb a bit, I pull out an encounter that is tied to the background of one of the characters. This pulls your players further into the game, and gives them a sense of how their actions have consequences.
Once the campaign has gone on long enough, you can bring back enemies they've defeated in the past to haunt them as well.
I guess my advice really boils down to make your players do it. Haha.
My actual best villain, was an intelligent weapon called Bloodwand who possessed the person wielding the weapon. I think the first person they met was a swashbuckler with a rapier that was covered in blood, and the blood wouldn't stop dropping from the blade. During the first encounter when the players thwart the swashbuckler, the sword clatters to the ground turns into a pool of blood and seeps away. They didn't realize who the villain was until they came across a wizard with a bleeding staff. It's so good! You can take it a bunch of different ways; instead of an intelligent weapon, it's a demon trapped in the weapon, it's a lich's phylactery, it's a trapped evil dragon, you fill in the blank.
I gave an ullitharid the Eye of Vecna.
He's pretty straight forward. An arrogant lich happened upon a mind flayer colony and the ullitharid consumed the lich's brain. He just want's to wield that power to restore the Illithid Empire to it's former glory.
I did not create her, but Yusdrayl from The Sunless Citadel is a villain I have developed. The PCs freed Calcryx, who I changed into a pseudodragon, and then Calcryx joined the party. This allowed a reason for Yudrayl and her kobold minions to pursue the PCs. At random points in future adventures, Yusdrayl will pop up and cause trouble.
This thread is a little old, and contributions probably don't matter, but I got one. He was an above average soldier of my BBEG, and not even one of the main generals or anything. His whole thing that made the party HATE him was his smugness. He simply used a rapier, and one homebrew magic item called a mirror monocle. You used 500 gold to copy the effects of one magic item and put them onto a normal item for the battle or until dismissed. He had 1500 gold, and the two items. The characters had legendary weapons that the campaign themed around, and yea. He copied powers of a sword that had strength based powers, then another of them that was wisdom based. The party then broke his sword and took the monocle, and he just said, "Huh, guess you're worth fighting. You guys have no chance still.", as he put up his fists, and he was a fighter. The party then beat him down, until he died. They still hated him.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
Well, I just came up with a cool villain. He's a Sahuagin Baron. The BBEG (lich) killed him, and put a mutilated, four armed skeleton inside of his corpse. The lich is using him to control the Sahuagin and use them for his own purposes. When the body is killed, the particles of flesh will disperse, leaving only a skeleton held together by fell energy. The skeleton is still alive (unalive?) so I get kind of a double boss battle.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Well, I have currently a small side quest boss as well (just dial it down a bit so not BBEG). A carver collector or a monster that collects the dead corpses the party live behind and slowly gets stronger (+1/4 of creatures hp to its own) and gains different abilitys to what it gets (dragon head:breath Weapon, rust monster fins:disintegrate weapons, wings from a creature: gains harlf that creatures flight speed, ect) and gives off small loot to reward the party for its corpses it has inquired and depending on the monster the bigger the reward (note please change this to suit your game or just take it out intirely) but as all villains are evil even this cute corpse collector is evil to. Over time the corpse colltor will raid graves tombs and beral sites the party go in or go close to it. The creature then brings back treasure from the places and victims (it kills anything that stands in its way) it has robbed and gives this to the plays as a thank you (again you can take ti's out if you want to) this could get them in deep trouble for mass genicide, ribby and burlgry from the local law inforcement. The creature finally has enough hp (you deicide when it is) to go and fight the party and move onto the next party or the party willingly go hunt it down. Now when fighting the creature it has a special ability (can take out to, or make it a kedary action /3 per day/) , the creature only takes damage-its max hp -(34 blugoning, hp is 24,end damage is 10 points of blugoning).
I have made 2 campings were this ends up being the bbeg as the party doesn't kill it emedately.
This is what I have multiple possible BBEGs lined up just so my game doesn't play out I would have thought it would go.
I learned this when my BBEG was a beholder and the bard crit suduced it and exploded the campaign since I had no other routes to go down.
Well, I have currently a small side quest boss as well (just dial it down a bit so not BBEG). A carver collector or a monster that collects the dead corpses the party live behind and slowly gets stronger (+1/4 of creatures hp to its own) and gains different abilitys to what it gets (dragon head:breath Weapon, rust monster fins:disintegrate weapons, wings from a creature: gains harlf that creatures flight speed, ect) and gives off small loot to reward the party for its corpses it has inquired and depending on the monster the bigger the reward (note please change this to suit your game or just take it out intirely) but as all villains are evil even this cute corpse collector is evil to. Over time the corpse colltor will raid graves tombs and beral sites the party go in or go close to it. The creature then brings back treasure from the places and victims (it kills anything that stands in its way) it has robbed and gives this to the plays as a thank you (again you can take ti's out if you want to) this could get them in deep trouble for mass genicide, ribby and burlgry from the local law inforcement. The creature finally has enough hp (you deicide when it is) to go and fight the party and move onto the next party or the party willingly go hunt it down. Now when fighting the creature it has a special ability (can take out to, or make it a kedary action /3 per day/) , the creature only takes damage-its max hp -(34 blugoning, hp is 24,end damage is 10 points of blugoning).
I have made 2 campings were this ends up being the bbeg as the party doesn't kill it emedately.
This is what I have multiple possible BBEGs lined up just so my game doesn't play out I would have thought it would go.
I learned this when my BBEG was a beholder and the bard crit suduced it and exploded the campaign since I had no other routes to go down.
Hard to class him as a 100% villain, but there was this one pirate NPC named Slick Drave who thought he was the hottest man alive (he wasn't) and creepily flirted with all of the player characters (regardless of gender). When he died, the table went wild...the guy was just so annoying EVERYONE hated him!
Another good one was a condescending, posh mayor whose name I don't recall: he refused to believe that a goblin attack was impending, leaving the characters to fight it off alone. His death was also celebrated.
The best out-and-out villain, though, was an assassin known as Sister Aspersia; in my heist campaign, she worked for a rival crime lord, and appeared intermittently to sabotage the characters' efforts and then run. When they finally caught her, they took the opportunity to slaughter her...even in front of her employer and all her forces. All that mattered to them was killing that rival.
One more solid villain was a curt, constantly masked figure called the Iron Knight, a man with a rabid hatred of orcs and goblinoids. The party's goblin, whose tribe he had slaughtered, finally killed him after multiple indecisive encounters, and promptly hacked his body apart and smashed his head like a baseball. Another definite contender for most hatable villain, at least as far as the goblin was concerned.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
my best villains are the ones that have enough ways to escape. as well as Fade in and out at whenever they want. really pissing off and frustrating the players to the point they actively hate the villain inside and outside of the game. making it their number 1 priority to hunt down at all costs. can be used for many type of enemies from hags to cambions, cultists and luitenants of lords etc. or even a simple Phase Spider as random encounter that can phase out of grapples and more to keep annoying the party.
His name is quiet literally “Jonny.” He’s hard to describe, charismatic if not endearingly psychopathic. Takes on the form of a middle aged man in black suit, actually a nigh omnipotent “carnemancer” a type of mage specializing in creating horrific flesh monsters. I introduced two NPCs who the player characters got really attached to just so they could watch two of his “skin dogs” rip them to shreds. The look on their faces was priceless 🤣😂. Cool villain that I really got the party to HATE.
I had a king slime who hired the party once to kill a entire species, they helped at first after they were promised a huge amount of cash, but later decided to stop. the king responded by tossing them into a dungeon and claimed there was gold in there. there was no gold, it was a death trap. they escaped, and later came back to kill him. You would be surprised how much PC's want a traitor dead. also helps that the king was extremely powerful and forced the party to flee. And that is how a king slime became more hated than most of my main quest villains.