I had an Archmage as the villain for the first chapter of my homebrew. He was kidnapping people from a village and sacrificing them to regain his power that was lost when his youth was restored. The next one was Kevin, a black dragonborn that restored the Archmage's youth to gain his assistance in releasing the ancient black dragon, Kalam. To make things short, I had a few mini-bad guys that hinted at a larger scale operation. Some that didn't tie into the grand scheme of Kalam, the true BBEG, like Womack, the Shadow Dragon, and the Black Feathers, a Kenku clan that is conspiring of throwing Vacori into chaos, just cause that's what they do.
Hello, and thanx for the channel, great work! Personally, I use quite often a 5th category which I'd call "long-term antagonist". The fact is that I prefer to have an "US vs THEM" motive, rather than a "GOOD vs EVIL" one. It's a matter of moral ambiguity and roleplaying depth (just like the simpathy for the tragic villain you mention in the video): and it allows for lots of impredictable developments, 'cause they're ANTAGONISTS and not PURE VILLAINS. Not necessarily your antagonist is despicable: maybe they're someone like you, just with conflicting goals. Which make them great as recurring characters - think of your mercenary party, and a competitor mercenary company hired by the enemy of your party's employer on the same mission ("retrieve that artifact!"). They're not "enemies", actually they're quite similar to you, and there's nothing personal, just a job to be done. Who knows what happen when the two teams meet next time? And then again? Well, on the long term this could generate very interesting dynamics, including growing respect even in competition, and maybe a truce (or even a potential ally, if a potential common foe arises). Or simply, "hey, this is a very complicated mission, we could need a hand, why don't we hire our competitor team?". Not to mention the fact that quite often one or the other of my trouble-seeking players falls in love with an NPC from the competitor team, with the natural consequences of scheming, double-crossing, information sharing, and all that jazz. Such things make the campaign, or at least part of it, go smoothly by itself, the players do all the dirty job by themselves and the DM just reacts, which sometimes is great! IMO, this approach works even better in great-city-based campaigns, maybe by adding not just one but several "long-term antagonists". One could become an ally, with another one the party could decide a "live and let live" approach ("I don't step on your toes as long as you don't step on mine"), some more could develop in full-fledged personal foes of the party, and so forth. My two cents. And again, thanx for your channel, I love it!
Im currently in the works of making a campaign and this is my favorite video in the playlist, with the city building video. As of right now, the Major Villain is a green dragon called Vreska. She isn't necessarily evil towards the party CURRENTLY, but the story is currently that through some unknown means, her clutch of dragons were murdered, and she wants to take revenge on the ones that slaughtered them. She found an ancient text depicting of a means to revive her dead children though artifacts scattered throughout the world, and the party has 2 of these objects unknowingly. So she is looking tirelessly for the artifacts to revive them as the party fights not to get killed and to find the meaning to these artifacts.
Oh man, I dig this. For my first campaign I designed it a bit like Dragon Age, the players decide who they are going to side with. It starts with one merchant lord of a city sending the group to deliver a letter, which turns out to be an assassination attempt on the leader of another city. Meanwhile the group is introduced to one of the WORLD BBEG, but don't quite know that yet. The group has evidently uncovered both their original employer is bad news and that the apothecary they met was also bad news, and have foiled the assassination attempt and are now helping the second leader on a campaign to overthrow the first one. I was joking with a friend that they went from following Giovanni Medici to following the first consuls of Rome, and preemptive defense taking over of other cities. Both rulers want to unify the city-states to make it safer for the people, they just go about it very differently, and with different results and reasons behind it.
@@IcarusGames Haha, nice. In my face-to-face game, the rogue was actually working for the guy running the first city, and only figured out what was going on at the part the second ruler was getting assassinated at. He booked it out of the party with HALF the group. Needless to say the other half squealed on him big time and he got his butt dragged back to the city, escorted by knights (they were only level 1 or 2). So now he works for the second ruler and is more of the alignment of "Well if you win, he can't kill me for messing this up. Sooo..... What's up boss?"
Now you've got me thinking real good about my smaller villains... I want to make a campaign a bit like Dimension 20's Adventure Academy, so I've figured that the immoral entity could be a teacher or some school staff that the party pisses off and they're holding a grudge against them. For the everyday antagonists there will be plenty of optoins, as schools potentionally have bullies and mean girlz or just bad dorm neighbors. But I didn't had a tragic villain, so how about this: One of the earliest NPCs that the party meets are nice but weak and simply self-contained, will later turn out to be the crony of a bigger, badder group connected to the BBEG so that poor soul could find means to solve some tragic problems of theirs. Originating maybe from their home town or something. Because that NPC figured out that the resolution could be only found through that bad group, so they willing to do as they say, whatever horrible thing it is. (It will be about some kidnapping, yes, just like in Adventure Academy. I asked my players and they want the mystery but no dead bodies) Could these all work to make conflict? According to my plans they should fight/rivalies with the meanies, avoid troubles with the staff member and sympathies with the crony, and through the crony they end up eye to eye with the main villains. (Not necessarily a plan, but a guideline to say)
Oooh, the big bad! So, mine has connections to both of the main factions I’ve come up with so far. My last comment made mention of how most noble woman would have teacup sized dragons, right? Well, one noble family in particular is composed entirely of women, and has been for centuries because of a curse laid upon them by the gods. I should be more specific-the curse is on the last born-male member of the family, a man who had plans to try and control the known world, and was rather... ah... set against women. Too bad he only had five daughters, all from different mothers, who took exception to this. He did try for another child, because there had been a prophecy that a male born of his family would unite the world, and he wanted to be the one to raise that child if he wasn’t the one spoken of in the prophecy himself. This didn’t go so well as the Gods had also taken offence at his behaviour, and laid a curse on his line that until he was dealt with, no male child would live past a certain age. His daughters, strong warriors in their own individual rights, were the ones to take on the task-which should say a lot about what kind of father he was to them. So the daughters succeeded in killing him, only to later discover that in doing so, they’d activated what I’m going to call a sleeper spell that had turned their father into a lich. They didn’t have the power to destroy him themselves at that time, but, they could seal him inside his own tomb. And they do. More specifically, the four younger sisters give their lives behind the eldest sister’s back to do it, creating a seal that was incredibly powerful that their father couldn’t escape from, while allowing their line to continue through the eldest sister. To say she wasn’t pleased with her sisters' choice is putting it lightly, but it was already done and couldn’t be changed. She went on to have five daughters of her own, and so it has gone on down through the ages to the current generation. Theirs is still a warrior family, marrying for love, friendship and military power (in that order 😹), that is incredibly prominent in the capital city of their world. They want to destroy the lich, but they can’t enter the tomb themselves because doing so would destroy the seal their ancestors placed on it. However, others can enter without breaking the seal, which is where the other main faction, the Council that supposedly runs the city, and the party, comes in. The Council is incredibly corrupt, and they are working with the lich to achieve their goals of destroying the current generation of this family so they (and therefore the lich) can gain control over the male child when he’s born. So they go in the tomb to confer with the lich and lay their plans. The party, however, has a choice to make: do they help the noble family, do they decide they want nothing to do with the conflict, do they join a rebel faction that’s fighting against both sides (this still needs fleshing out a bit), or do they side with the Council? Whatever they decide, eventually, they’ll need to face the lich, because as they grow in power, so will he, and eventually, he will be close to breaking free of his tomb for the first time in over a thousand years. And when he does, it will likely mean the end of the world if the party doesn’t do something about it.
Check out my full HOW TO: HOMEBREW CAMPAIGN playlist here: ruclips.net/p/PL3cwve_r0qbFtopu_ektfE3k9smywAFOB
This series is helping me make social isolation much more interesting and fun.
I'm glad :) stay safe!
My favorite villains aren't evil, they just want the opposite outcome to the party and have the means to achieve it :)
I had an Archmage as the villain for the first chapter of my homebrew. He was kidnapping people from a village and sacrificing them to regain his power that was lost when his youth was restored.
The next one was Kevin, a black dragonborn that restored the Archmage's youth to gain his assistance in releasing the ancient black dragon, Kalam.
To make things short, I had a few mini-bad guys that hinted at a larger scale operation. Some that didn't tie into the grand scheme of Kalam, the true BBEG, like Womack, the Shadow Dragon, and the Black Feathers, a Kenku clan that is conspiring of throwing Vacori into chaos, just cause that's what they do.
Hello, and thanx for the channel, great work!
Personally, I use quite often a 5th category which I'd call "long-term antagonist". The fact is that I prefer to have an "US vs THEM" motive, rather than a "GOOD vs EVIL" one. It's a matter of moral ambiguity and roleplaying depth (just like the simpathy for the tragic villain you mention in the video): and it allows for lots of impredictable developments, 'cause they're ANTAGONISTS and not PURE VILLAINS.
Not necessarily your antagonist is despicable: maybe they're someone like you, just with conflicting goals. Which make them great as recurring characters - think of your mercenary party, and a competitor mercenary company hired by the enemy of your party's employer on the same mission ("retrieve that artifact!"). They're not "enemies", actually they're quite similar to you, and there's nothing personal, just a job to be done. Who knows what happen when the two teams meet next time? And then again?
Well, on the long term this could generate very interesting dynamics, including growing respect even in competition, and maybe a truce (or even a potential ally, if a potential common foe arises). Or simply, "hey, this is a very complicated mission, we could need a hand, why don't we hire our competitor team?". Not to mention the fact that quite often one or the other of my trouble-seeking players falls in love with an NPC from the competitor team, with the natural consequences of scheming, double-crossing, information sharing, and all that jazz. Such things make the campaign, or at least part of it, go smoothly by itself, the players do all the dirty job by themselves and the DM just reacts, which sometimes is great!
IMO, this approach works even better in great-city-based campaigns, maybe by adding not just one but several "long-term antagonists". One could become an ally, with another one the party could decide a "live and let live" approach ("I don't step on your toes as long as you don't step on mine"), some more could develop in full-fledged personal foes of the party, and so forth.
My two cents. And again, thanx for your channel, I love it!
Im currently in the works of making a campaign and this is my favorite video in the playlist, with the city building video.
As of right now, the Major Villain is a green dragon called Vreska. She isn't necessarily evil towards the party CURRENTLY, but the story is currently that through some unknown means, her clutch of dragons were murdered, and she wants to take revenge on the ones that slaughtered them. She found an ancient text depicting of a means to revive her dead children though artifacts scattered throughout the world, and the party has 2 of these objects unknowingly. So she is looking tirelessly for the artifacts to revive them as the party fights not to get killed and to find the meaning to these artifacts.
That's awesome!
Great content man!! I’ve been writing a short homebrew, and your video really gives a methodic way of creating I was looking for. Thank you 🙏🏻
Oh man, I dig this. For my first campaign I designed it a bit like Dragon Age, the players decide who they are going to side with. It starts with one merchant lord of a city sending the group to deliver a letter, which turns out to be an assassination attempt on the leader of another city. Meanwhile the group is introduced to one of the WORLD BBEG, but don't quite know that yet.
The group has evidently uncovered both their original employer is bad news and that the apothecary they met was also bad news, and have foiled the assassination attempt and are now helping the second leader on a campaign to overthrow the first one.
I was joking with a friend that they went from following Giovanni Medici to following the first consuls of Rome, and preemptive defense taking over of other cities. Both rulers want to unify the city-states to make it safer for the people, they just go about it very differently, and with different results and reasons behind it.
Big fan of letting the players make a choice and watch them burn the world around them down.
@@IcarusGames I love the feeling of delivering them the meme. "Congradulations.. you played yourself."
In my game, one of the players grew up in a brothel and all of his "sisters" were named after Queens.
@@IcarusGames Haha, nice. In my face-to-face game, the rogue was actually working for the guy running the first city, and only figured out what was going on at the part the second ruler was getting assassinated at. He booked it out of the party with HALF the group.
Needless to say the other half squealed on him big time and he got his butt dragged back to the city, escorted by knights (they were only level 1 or 2). So now he works for the second ruler and is more of the alignment of "Well if you win, he can't kill me for messing this up. Sooo..... What's up boss?"
Now you've got me thinking real good about my smaller villains...
I want to make a campaign a bit like Dimension 20's Adventure Academy, so I've figured that the immoral entity could be a teacher or some school staff that the party pisses off and they're holding a grudge against them. For the everyday antagonists there will be plenty of optoins, as schools potentionally have bullies and mean girlz or just bad dorm neighbors.
But I didn't had a tragic villain, so how about this: One of the earliest NPCs that the party meets are nice but weak and simply self-contained, will later turn out to be the crony of a bigger, badder group connected to the BBEG so that poor soul could find means to solve some tragic problems of theirs. Originating maybe from their home town or something. Because that NPC figured out that the resolution could be only found through that bad group, so they willing to do as they say, whatever horrible thing it is.
(It will be about some kidnapping, yes, just like in Adventure Academy. I asked my players and they want the mystery but no dead bodies)
Could these all work to make conflict? According to my plans they should fight/rivalies with the meanies, avoid troubles with the staff member and sympathies with the crony, and through the crony they end up eye to eye with the main villains. (Not necessarily a plan, but a guideline to say)
Oooh, the big bad! So, mine has connections to both of the main factions I’ve come up with so far. My last comment made mention of how most noble woman would have teacup sized dragons, right? Well, one noble family in particular is composed entirely of women, and has been for centuries because of a curse laid upon them by the gods. I should be more specific-the curse is on the last born-male member of the family, a man who had plans to try and control the known world, and was rather... ah... set against women. Too bad he only had five daughters, all from different mothers, who took exception to this.
He did try for another child, because there had been a prophecy that a male born of his family would unite the world, and he wanted to be the one to raise that child if he wasn’t the one spoken of in the prophecy himself. This didn’t go so well as the Gods had also taken offence at his behaviour, and laid a curse on his line that until he was dealt with, no male child would live past a certain age. His daughters, strong warriors in their own individual rights, were the ones to take on the task-which should say a lot about what kind of father he was to them.
So the daughters succeeded in killing him, only to later discover that in doing so, they’d activated what I’m going to call a sleeper spell that had turned their father into a lich. They didn’t have the power to destroy him themselves at that time, but, they could seal him inside his own tomb. And they do. More specifically, the four younger sisters give their lives behind the eldest sister’s back to do it, creating a seal that was incredibly powerful that their father couldn’t escape from, while allowing their line to continue through the eldest sister.
To say she wasn’t pleased with her sisters' choice is putting it lightly, but it was already done and couldn’t be changed. She went on to have five daughters of her own, and so it has gone on down through the ages to the current generation. Theirs is still a warrior family, marrying for love, friendship and military power (in that order 😹), that is incredibly prominent in the capital city of their world. They want to destroy the lich, but they can’t enter the tomb themselves because doing so would destroy the seal their ancestors placed on it. However, others can enter without breaking the seal, which is where the other main faction, the Council that supposedly runs the city, and the party, comes in.
The Council is incredibly corrupt, and they are working with the lich to achieve their goals of destroying the current generation of this family so they (and therefore the lich) can gain control over the male child when he’s born. So they go in the tomb to confer with the lich and lay their plans. The party, however, has a choice to make: do they help the noble family, do they decide they want nothing to do with the conflict, do they join a rebel faction that’s fighting against both sides (this still needs fleshing out a bit), or do they side with the Council? Whatever they decide, eventually, they’ll need to face the lich, because as they grow in power, so will he, and eventually, he will be close to breaking free of his tomb for the first time in over a thousand years. And when he does, it will likely mean the end of the world if the party doesn’t do something about it.
Just asking because of your name, are you of Croatian descent?