Knowing the importance of good villains I have always strived to create real and compelling motivated villains. Villains that in their own way speak to a type or kind of evil in the human condition. Characters that can help us understand what is evil and why, villains that were compelling and capable of creating a world and story where real and motivated heroes could flourish.
In tribute of these bad guys I have consulted and compiled a top 10 list.
10) Name: Trevor
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Affiliation: Black Raven
Motives: To become the most powerful.
Rival: Tassadar, Logar, Mordin
Notable Accomplishments: Over 9000 years built the Black Raven secret society to infiltrate every known culture and organization. Became a Lich and ran the organization to a peak efficency. He was told by Sabel, an insane god, that if he could steal the seals from the Isle he would be made into a full god, the next step as Trevor saw it in his search for ever increasing power. Bringing the full weight of the Black Raven against the Isle from with out and with in, he decimated the Genevan populace and spawned legions of bad guys for groups to contend with. Defeated and outsmarted by Filtch, who inherited the Black Raven from Trevor, Trevor found himself exposed and destroyed by Mordin, Logar and Jerico. The Raven wars was the first real test of the new Genevan council and strength of the Isle, one historians still debate if its pass or fail.
Artistic Meaning: Trevor represents greed, and that it can not be satisfied. Greed for power led him to betray his own king, led him to sacrifice his life and live as a decaying lich, greed caused him to risk the life he had built with immortality infinite power and wealth until he was finally destroyed. If you can not learn to be satisfied and find happiness with out power and wealth, no amount of power or wealth will buy it for you and in the end your quest for such will destroy you.
Quote: "I want the seals I don't care the cost."
9) Name: Tatyanna
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Affiliation: Volturm, Darkness's court
Motives: To be loved, to serve Darkness
Rival: Bella, Tyros, Darkness, Galan, Guy
Notable Accomplishments: In the begining, she loved a man who should be unlovable-- then Derick now Darkness. He gave her the gift of eternal life shortly after he granted it to himself but not just as a puppet as an equal vampire bride. The once truly good and charitable Tatyanna found herself now a monster drinking the blood of peasants and innocence, aiding the man who made her this do the worst things imaginable until her unbeating heart turned numb. She was cast out, exiled by Darkness as he was threatened by her power. She then more than anything else wanted to be loved. Enhanced by the vampiric abilities of beauty and charm she has traveled the world and history looking for the best men and woman she can find and forcing them to love her. In a way, a moral vampirism, as she forces and demand they give little by little until their moral strength is nothing but a hollow shell. Then what does it prove to be loved by someone horrible she moves to the next. Her jar of hearts if you will grows and destroyed an ancient Jong, the Showgun order and colony in Talyun, Hyrule, and Arvan. She eventually decided to layer herself for protection in sheets of secrecy and loyalty of her followers. She even manipulated and forced the Den to release the defeated and imprisoned Darkness, hoping that such and act would grant her true favor in his eyes. He accepted as something that a lesser should do for a greater and so she remains unloved tortured.
Artistic Meaning: Confusing affection for love she seeks ways to comfort and justify, even excuse her evil. Can't one be evil and still be accepted and loved. Why must I be a good person for society to accept me, the good must love and cater to me even if I am a wretched monster. When someone does something bad or becomes a bad person they can either, confess they are bad and strive to correct their character, or justify that it is not them that is wrong but the world for judging them and find ways to cope. Though those ways to cope only only more self destructive and often destroy others with you and in the end never bring the peace that does living a good life.
Quote: "I've been living a lie their is nothing inside. Bring me to life." To Guy is seducing him attempting to gain his love.
8) Name: Horseman
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Affiliation: Dark friends
Motives: To execute the will of the Dark One and while waiting for him whoever evil that opens the seals.
Rival: Logar, Andrea, Swift
Notable Accomplishments: When Thorn released them their massive power shook the earth as war pestilence famine and death reigned. They are four individuals all powerful and evil enough to warrant their own of only seven unbreakable seals which the gods created to house their enemies. Countless millions died under their terror until the heroes were able to put them back in their seals.
Artistic Meaning: While they are powerful and devastating their effect on the game is almost purely the fear of letting them out and the need to keep them contained. It shows that some things some evil needs to be restrained and removed from us and more importantly that it can.
Quote: "What is thy bidding?"
7) Name: Frenchman
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Affiliation: The Merovingian bar
Motives: None, just to do what he must, what he is driven to do, to survive as his environment demands he must.
Rival: Many
Notable Accomplishments: Starting as a simple low level necromancer with a shrewd business sense and understanding of economics he began to barter and manipulate. Seeing that people also do what they perceive as their immediate best interest he lost all faith in the notion of choice. And thinking if choice was not real and people simply reacted than he could get anyone to do anything he wanted. This philosophy has proven most profitable as he has one trade at a time seemingly become all powerful. He knows all there is to know about anything he can know, seems to have the ability to grant any wish to any person for a price, though it is unclear if this is due to some wish granting power or just clever manipulation and tracking of previous deals and favors owed him. He has in his debt long lists of powerful demons humans and others which serve him and his interests with out fail. Yet his plans and efforts are never tainted maliciousness or intended to harm for the sake of harm. He simply brokers deals for profits and executes exactly what is brokered. Many PCs have called him an enemy yet most of them have asked for his help.
Artistic meaning: He represents a purely casuist philosophy and shows what can happen when that philosophy reaches its natural apex stating that with no choice there is not right and wrong no good and bad, simply how things are.
Quote: "Choice is an illusion. Granted by those with power to those who have none." All the time.
"You see there is only one constant. One universal. It is the only real truth.
Causality. Action, reaction. Cause and effect."
Causality. Action, reaction. Cause and effect."
6) Name: Raquel Al - Thorn -- Serpent of Darkness
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Affiliation: Darkfriends, Drow of the underdark
Motives: To destroy his father Raquel Al- Shatel
Rival: Raquel - Al Shatel
Notable Accomplishments: From the begining of his life he was on the wrong path. Kidnapped from his father's home and raised by drow as an instrument of revenge against the hero who had caused them so much trouble. It was the physiological impact on Raquel of facing his own son that allowed Thorn to obtain the seals and release the horseman. For this deed, and to balance the creation of the isle, the dark gods of the universe all promised a portion of their power to the Serpent of Darkness. He was the first High Priest of the church of Malekite and the voice of the Dark One's forces while Ishmael slumbered. He have manipulated kingdoms committed genocides and let loose the horseman on the world more than once.
Artistic Meaning: He shows the danger and folly of obsession. Particularly hatred. All he did and all the pain he caused all stemmed from the fact he was raised to hate Raquel with out reason. Hatred for the sake of hatred with out cause is foolish tragic and too common in our real world.
Quote: "Come and See" Proclaimed as he opened the first seal and released the horsemen.
5) Name: Dark One -- Abbadon the God of Perdition. Leaf blighter, father of lies, the Dark Lord, the End.
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Affiliation: The True order of the Multiverse
Motives: To reclaim the multiverse by unraveling the order that sprang from the void of chaos in the beginning.
Rival: The Isle of the Winds, Zeus.
Notable Accomplishments: Every religion and creation story starts the same. From the chaos or the void came order or that the gods structured the chaos to make order. That primal chaotic force is the Dark One. Just as something structured randomly was generated by the chaos so to did the chaos randomly become self aware. This happened after Zeus was king of the heavens and it was from him Addadon strove to remove the multiverse and do all it knew how to do -- chaos. Despite having the self aware presence locked in the seals, many manifestations from alternate futures, legends and most notably Ishmael, discussed later, have defined the world on a level unimaginable. Many times the entire world, the whole of the story and every decision in it are defined by the metaconflict of Dark One verses the Light.
Artistic meaning: In the way he is the true nature of the multiverse that the gods fight against to maintain a bright world, the dark one shows how mankinds true nature of sloth and selfishness must and can be fought against to build a better, if not perfect, world. And to not fight it just because its the natural state is a mistaken philosophy.
Quote: "..." Chaos does not speak it is simply a force.
4) Name: Darkness
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Affiliation: Black Raven, His own
Motives: To twist all free will in the world to his own.
Rival: Cumin, Raziel
Notable Accomplishments: His mortal life ended by Lord Cumin his strong evil was so powerful that is self incarnated as a vampire. To known record the oldest and most powerful. His powers are diverse and all reaching, the scariest of which is his ability to reach into ones dreams. This world of dreams is as helpful to him as it is mysterious to the rest of us. He is evil and he IS evil. No light in his soul, no delusion about being on the right side, no sympathetic fall from greatness ... his is a magnificent villain for his simplicity and how he shows that evil really isn't that complicated.
Artistic Meaning: That beneath everything and all the faces evil may wear it is just the desire to execute your selfish will regardless of the cost to others.
Quote: "No matter how bright the sun or how hot the fire, the Darkness always returns, it is like the one true constant. All shall fade." Musings he makes to a group of PCs while studying the campfire.
3) Name: Ishmael - Navigator of Chaos, Leader of the Chosen, Fallen Son of Thunder, Crownless King
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Affiliation: Forsaken
Motives: Hold Zeus accountable for past crimes and build a perfectly just world.
Rival: Galan, Atrayu, Raquel, Zeus
Notable Accomplishments: Once Samuel blessed son of Thunder where he led his people and worshiped Zeus ushering in an era of peace and prosperity for his people. He then learned his mother had been raped then killed by Zeus in an attempt for the King God to high his sin. Ishmael then entered a Holy Crusade to stop the tyranny this unjust god inflicted the world to. Seeing himself as the only true hero willing to sacrifice everything so that the multiverse can be made right he was the one that created the Dark One's doctrine and teachings, he who gave the Darkfriends purpose and direction, he who is the true mastermind and driving force behind all the Dark One's success. It was he who first learned how to navigate the random forces that are chaos magic and taught that skill the other forsaken opening nearly unbounded power. However he does not just want to release the dark one and welcome oblivion he has also been searching for and sculpting the perfect candidate to rebuild the just world after the current one is erased. Now as his plan and schemes are unraveling he is becoming more desperate to achieve his goal as he knows only he can.
Artistic Meaning: Where do I begin? That the boundaries of morality we set up for ourselves have to be obeyed no matter the reward of abandoning them, because when you say the ends justify the means you soon become what you hoped to stop. That when you confess no moral authority there is no guidance for your ethical behavior.
Quote: "How long does a paint try to correct a flawed painting before picking a new canvass" Said to Olivia in attempt to explain why he needed to destroy the world.
2) Name: Malekite -- Prince Regent of the Crystal Empire, Sith Emperor, One Winged Angel, Angel of Death
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Affiliation: DemiGod of Death under Hades
Motives: To brutally afflict the good, prove that all mankind is evil and gain as much power and position as is possible.
Rival: Many but primarily Logar
Notable Accomplishments: The original DD villain. First son of the Empress, may she live forever, Andrea she loved him but saw evil from the beginning. Established a large underground church and army that seeks to serve only him. Destroyed the Showgun order and conquerred Midgar. Defeated the God Sabel, tricked Logar into making him a DemiGod, and forced many dieing souls to do his bidding. He is heartless, ruthless and beautifully brutal. Siding with the "good guys" when it suits him is relationship with the forces of light is complicated and dramatic. Every character and every storyline has involved Malekite and his ambitions to at least some degree.
Artistic Meaning: Vain ambition and power for the sake of power may gain you power and position but nothing that gives you true happiness.
Quote: "Only fools go where angels fear to tread" Spoken to a group of adventurers who ventured to the underworld and were not allowed to leave alive.
1) Name: Khan-- Spear of Goser, Fist of Pain, Lion of the Goserain, Glorious Strategist
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Affiliation: Church of Goser, Church of Tyr, Ishmael's forces
Motives: Unknown
Rival: Galan/Jarod priest of Marduk
Notable Accomplishments: Khan is my favorite villain because of both how real he was and how difficult he was to deal with. A gifted master of strategy. He never enters a scenario for which every contingency is not already calculated and covered. His strategic mind left little room for morality. More PCs have fallen to Khan and his plots than any other single villain. Yet he operated with a code of honor that was impeccable and unquestionable even by his enemies, often leaving them wondering if fighting him and stopping him was the right thing to do. And eventually it was that streak of honor Galan used to change his loyalties to the light. Currently in the underworld with mysterious motivations. Does he intend to help Ishmael open the red prison or has he set up the ultimate plan to stop if from happening? His true motivations are a mystery but if the past is any indication he will achieve the goal he has in mind.
Artistic Meaning: That no one soul can be so far in the dark they can not find the light. That no matter how evil are how wretched a man or a view point some good can be found in there and should be nurtured. The most important lesson of all.
Quote: "I have released the prisoners" Said upon delivering the dead bodies of all the citizens of Babylon to the high priest of Marduk in honor of their agreement.
There it is my take on the top 10 DD bad guys. agree? disagree? comments?
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