Troll Lord Games

Getting into C&C, I decided to break out some old 1st Ed. modules for ideas, starting with the G1-3, D1-3, and Q1 series. In reading them, I realized that the Drow were, at the time, fairly innovative as villains. They were smart, organized, and had access to PC levels. Since then, the drow have been the ultimate D&D villains, and continue to capture people's imaginations like few other "monsters" have.

It's for that reason that I'm actually avoiding the drow in my own campaign. They are overplayed, overused, and possibily over developed to the point of being an impossible challenge.

My question is this, who are the "villains," the masterminds, the intelligent evil in your own campaigns?

Dopplegangers!! In my campaign a large, secret society of dopplegangers, called simply 'The Society', operates behind the scene for thier own agenda. The characters have found, several times, where a doppleganger had replaced political figures across the kingdoms of the cresant. They even found one powerful merchant had been replaced. The dopplegangers are highly organized and evil (Lawful Evil). They can level in any class. Their is a particularly wicked bent of them called the Chaos Doppleganger, which in true form are mis-happen and have 'mutations'. In encountering them, the characters have figured out they are in collusion with the usurper king, Talendon, and also The Faust. He is the preiminent Orc King (actually a Dragon) of the shattered lands, whose war of unification has succeeded in bringing to stead every Orc tribe in the shattered lands.

Of course the party has earned the emnity of The Society now, and are trying to actively bring about it's destruction before it brings about the destruction of The lands of the Cresant.
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Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

-George Washington

I don't know about intelligent evil, but I have a fondness of having orcish villains of feral cunning.

Yeah, orcs are common critters but I enjoy breathing some life into them, giving them goals and distinct personalities. A good, cunning cheiftain, a sly shaman or cautious assassin. They are all fun as they direct the fodder.

On the Canonfire! site for Greyhawk I posted a few articles which show an example of how I flesh out the orcs in my Occupied Ulek articles. This stemmed from a long running Greyhawk campaign I ran using orcs as the primary villains.

A bit of shameless self-promotion:

Part 1:
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules ... =0&thold=0

Part 2:
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules ... =0&thold=0

Part 3:
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules ... =0&thold=0

Well, the very first C&C adventure I ran featured Barggle, up to his old tricks with goblins and a snake. He'll be back soon.

As of next adventure, Lord Dramont will become a new thorn in the PCs side. He's an arrogant half-elven noble (complete with dastardly moustache) that's going to end up making things difficult for them in Yggsburgh.

My baddies are The Death Cult of Begnus. Servants of the only evil god in my homebrew world, they conduct ceremonies in masks, so their true identity is unkown for now. I would tell more but I don't want to spoil things for the players of my online game.
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CK the CK
"My goddess touched me at an early age."

-Grikis Valmorgen, Paladin

The beginnings of my homebrew campaign world and info for my play by chat game:
http://kbdekker.googlepages.com/home

Villians in my games have varied, but for the same reasons I have used Drow very rarely. In many of my campaigns (and like many) humans are the most populous, so humans have become the villains in many of my games... Evil necromancers, vile wizards, and ravaging warlords. In my most recent long-time Greyhawk campaing, the main baddie was a human cleric who was once party of the PC party (used to be played by a player, but was retired). He seperated from the group on his own aims and continually opposed them until his unfortunate death.

Probably my favorite villain was an elf named Myris Erindyl. A high elf with grand ambitions and a sense of superiority that was far greater then any ordinary snobby elf. Myris' lover was human woman named Elaina Belieu who was as bad as they come. Myris tricked her into becoming a lich (a very long story) to fulfil his goals of ascending immortaility. Yes, Myris Erindyl did become immortal, but only for the time being before Elaina Belieu got her revenge...

I guess that would lead me to say that PC races are most often used in my game as villians, in contradition to dragons, devils, evil giants, or whatnot.

........................................omote

FPQ
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

I had a character from 1st level ... too many years ago now ... he was a Lawful Neutral human necromancer called Al Fazhid. He came from Mulhorand in the Forgotten Realms. He was an excellent necromancer and gained lots of new necromantic spells from various campaigns, such as the Horde and Undermountain.

Over time though, he became Lawful Evil. Mostly because of the way that the other players/characters treated him. In one particularly nasty (high level) episode he was on watch when three spectres attacked. He managed to control them and he spent an agonizing few moments wondering whether to drain 6 levels off his main protagonist in the party before she could even wake up... the moment passed and he sent them away. Later, the paladin in the party (no-one actually knew he was a necromancer) became aggressive (he didn't like Al Fazhid casting the death spell on a bunch [a LOT] of orcs) and threatened him in no uncertain terms.

He was consistently left to fend for himself and the rest of the party would not come to his aid - except for one. The biggest, meanest, strongest fighter you ever saw took it upon himself to protect this wizard. Essentially, he was 18/00 in strength and despite everyone casting 'Strength' on him it seemed to have no effect. Except, that was, for Al Fazhid. He had devised a spell of his own to raise strength to 25 for short periods of time.

To cut a long story short, at the end of this particular adventure the treasure was piled up to choose from - including a staff of the magi. Al Fazhid had had enough. Picking up the staff of the magi, he cast a spell which teleported himself back to his own abode (VERY protected) half a world away. To this day none of the other characters have tracked him down. This, despite him giving mummy rot to the paladin before he left (this was 1e).

Now, Al Fazhid has become a villain with a long and interesting back-story. He wasn't evil originally, but circumstances made him so. He has learned that no-one will look out for him, so why should he look out for anyone else?

We've been facing drow consistently, and a few undead, but now that we've done as much damage as we could have (I still think I should've been allowed to torch the whole place), we're off in the wilds, and have recently encountered my brothers... I mean, orcs. Bastard, evil, naughty things that are only good for one thing -- bleeding. No, two things. Bleeding... and dying.

Other than that, since I'm not the DM, I don't really know the plans.

Edgar the Marquis of Talworth, I'm playing him off a a cooly evil tactician that analyzes everything. Orcs are pretty common but they are smarter, meaner and more well organized than most descriptions of them.
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We have a strange campaign here at home, there really isn't a villian per se. Everyone is very grey, whether they represent "good" deities or "evil" deities. The good guys can do something atrocious, the evil guys can suprise you with an act of altruism.

It's tricky but it has worked so far for us and the party loves the moral debates that happen almost every session.
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Heh. As I type this, it sounds cheesy as all get-out, but it worked pretty well. Good enough in fact that I'm thinking of tweaking it a bit and using it again.

Set in the Palladium Fantasy world a number of years ago, I used a slight variation on the Goa'uld as my villains. Back during the Elf/Dwarf war the Runemasters had tried to create a system of portals to take advange of the Ley Lines and Nexus' that thread the continent/world. While they were successful in establishing a small and tentative network, they had to be careful about when they actually used them. During certain times of the month and year, the magic flows along the lines much stronger. One of their first early attempts to use it in fact was during an Equinox. There was some serious surprise when what seemed to be servants of Anubis suddenly walked through the Rift that the Runemasters had just opened.

Basically, I ran them as strong psionics types and they took over people as you see in SG1. Fully "mature" Goa'uld looked like Mind Flayers. They used Rune magic and a couple of other funky bits.

Made the Diabolist in the party happy, because his was the only character that had a chance to be able to operate their equipment.

Between the Goa'uld, the shapeshifters, those nutty folks wanting to bring back the Old Ones (cthulhu ripoofs), elves wanting to reestablish the Elven Dominion, Western agents stirring up trouble, and Wolfen territory creep... the party never had to worry about finding stuff to do.

Evil NPCs usually are behind many of the plots IMC. As for monsters, I have used Mind Flayers and beholders as major villians. Also fiends have played big parts in past games. Humanoids are my favorite low level foes for my players.
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Never throw rocks at a man with a Vorpal Sword!

I would talk more about my villians but I'd probably offend some people on the board as we use real life religions and sects in my game!
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Big Iron Vault Your friendly neighbourhood gaming magazine. Check out our new webcomic, The Heindrich Project!

The "big" villains in my world are the Elemental Lords and the Dark Gods. They have designs to bring about the downfall of the Gods of Man and return the world to the broiling chaotic conflict that existed before the Gods were "born".

The Elemental Planes in my world are not quite like the Elemental Planes of standard fantasy worlds. Part of that has to do with what the Gods did when they pushed back the Armies of the Elemental Lords while binding and sealing the Elemental Planes.

As for more "mortal" villains, there are the Ice Elves (in the Hakurian Trade Tongue), these dreadfully jealous and vicious beings live far, far into the icy Northern reaches. They despise the adaptability of man and the other demi-human races who freely hold dominion over the entire globe, while the Ice Elves find it far to uncomfortable and potentially deadly to spend anytime in a place that is warmer then 70 Degrees Farenheit. Between them and the rest of man, are the Snow Elves, who are more or less ver close cousins to the Sun Elves with mostly just a skin, hair and eye color difference.

Orcs are another terrible and gruesome enemy of man, who are touched strongly by the Dark Gods. They are purely evil and dangerous enough to put the fear of death into even a powerful armed party of adventurers. These are not your bog standard 1HD Orcs, even 1 of these guys should TPK a prepared 1st level adventuring party with 6 members. While rare, there are cases of entire human villages located along the high mountain border to the lands of the Orcs just disappearing, leaving nothing but empty buildings and some remains of very momentary struggles.

The forces of Unklar and the Red Caps. With more to come!

Treebore wrote:
The forces of Unklar and the Red Caps.

Ah yes. In my upcoming campaign they are definately going to be some fun villains. I initially resisted using the Aihrde setting, clinging madly to my beloved Greyhawk but the more and more I read of the Codex and of the A series....

Yeah, Aihrde kicks ass. Now if only the C&C RIng of Brass books would come out....

We've got lots of great monsters and evil characters in Aihrde starting with Unklar's minions.

Witch Queen

Ungern

Morgrl

Dark Faeries

Red Caps (goblins)

Nargulf's Reavers (goblins/orcs)

Other evil priests and bandits.

My group hasn't faced all of them yet, but like most in Aihrde, they are aware of the many evil creatures that have been sited.
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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

The Tree.
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History teaches us that men behave wisely once they've exhausted all other alternatives.

I like the folkloric array of beasties there.

For my campaign, I'm waiting on rolling out the Ungern until the great crusade in another three levels or so.

Rhuvein wrote:
We've got lots of great monsters and evil characters in Aihrde starting with Unklar's minions.

Witch Queen

Ungern

Morgrl

Dark Faeries

Red Caps (goblins)

Nargulf's Reavers (goblins/orcs)

I have created so many villains over the years.....in my two current games I am very fond of my latest creations:
Zam Redar, a "thousandspawn of chaos" human-looking fellow with the all-seeing third eye on his forehead, born from the flesh of the fallen god during the time of Armageddon. He is famous for having created the last great ancient empire, forcefully uniting the many lands of the world under his tyrranical rule, with the aid of the Scpetre of Dragonkind to control the dragons as his minions, until his own daughter, Lady Poe, betrayed him. She and his other children took his immortal form and encased it in a magical coffin, which they fed to an ancient Purple Worm where it remained undiscovered until some errant adventurers killed it six centuries later.....now Zam Redar seeks to unite the remnants of his old empire, part of which is ruled by his immortal daughter and her witch-lords.
Lady Etierre, a rogue and adventurer, pirate extraordinaire, who steals a magical throne from an ancient city, and discovers that she can use the throne to project powerful illusions across a wide area. She travels with her pirate brethren, using the throne to make them look like a royal pageant, from the mythic city of Aldruminyes, traveling from one sea port to the next, offering beautiful, expensive gifts in exchange for like (and real) gifts from the locals. A side effect of her gifts is a strange possessiveness and sudden, intense swelling of angry emotions in the recipients, which when her entourage leaves, explodes in to violence as the illusions disappear and reveal only worthless trinkets and garbage! Part of her side story is that the REAL queen of Aldruminyes, one of teh sacred keepers of the ancient throne, is seeking her to reclaim it. Plus, the throne is not all it seems, as a dark wight haunts the bearer of the throne, seeking to recover the soul of Vagros, an ancient sorcerer trapped within, for the throne is actually designed to serve as a phantasmal prison for ancient enemies of a lost empire, but the undead bodies of these sorcerers will not rest until their souls have been released from the thrones.
Red Elves: I also grew tired of drow as enemies, and my villainous elves are actually fair-skinned and albino dwellers in the depths, elves who we captured six centuries earlier in a great war with the goblins. These elves were prisoners of war, who embraced the demonic god Shaligon to seek strength against their goblin captors. In so doing, they freed themselves and became the rulers of the goblin kingdoms, and now work as an elite aristocracy using goblin thralls to their own ends. Red Elves, as they are known, are distinguished by the ritual tattoos and scarring that they inflict on themselves in the name of Shaligon, and as the means by which they cast magic (their own skin becomes their spell book!)

To keep PCs on their toes, the dark elves of my game are actually benevolent, gypsy-like (i.e. they speak in Romanian accents and move in caravans) folk who disdain war and make fine illusionists and rogues!

For my current Ravenloft game lots of zombies and a few ghouls under the sway of the Cult of Thasmudyan, Lord of the Undead from The Complete Book of Necromancers.

I have several linked adventures with the Cult emerging in cities in Darkon after Azalin disappeared in the Grand Conjunction.

Also a pirate captain my pc's defeated and was drawn into Ravenloft with. He escaped without their knowledge but they will run into him after he has undergone changes.