How would you use Merlin as the Big Bad?

I'd use his real Welsh name and not his shitty English one, for one. Then it would depend on the kind of campaign I'm running, but it could be fun to take inspiration from the Hellblazer arc that does exactly this.

Evil wizard from the future manipulating his younger self in the present to hatch a scheme that will bring about the future where the evil wizard is LAW!

Only way to defeat him is to go EVEN FURTHER BACK IN TIME and kill him as a baby.

BUT! Only a paladin can do it!

He sees the oncoming technological revolution and the disappearance of the magical world. Even though both worlds have a lot of the same flaws, he can't bear to live without the magical tapestry.

So he seeks to perpetually sow discord and war amongst all the nations. In order to save his patient he must continually devour its organs and over and over again.

By the time your party gets to him, he's not absurdly evil or deranged but eternally sad and melancholy.

I'd make him a psychotic druid who wants to kidnap a royal child and sacrifice it to the Old Gods.

So, basically I'd just use the "real" Merlin.

Be pagan.

Last of the Druids betrays his kin to aid the greater Christian forces of King Arthur. Merlin is already the bad guy.

!!!!

I love this idea. Avenge your tribe by adventuring through the hordes and creatures of "Christianity".

It's basically the plot of Marion Zimmer Bradley's, "Mists of Avalon."

Written primarily from the perspective of Morgana, Mordred, and the Fae. They make Merlin out to be quite the character.

use the Merlin that actually exists in myth and not the tv version?

he was a crazy forest hermit spawn of the devil who conned the kingdom into believing a sword he himself enchanted to pick his own candidate (spawned via his rape magic) to the throne had divine mandate knowing full well that it would all collapse eventually due to time travel shenanigans

not to mention the shit he did to his wife

his pretty much the defining "no sense of right and wrong" wizard what more do you want?

>arthur's witch sisters hypnotized him into creating incest babies

Damn, old timey magic is straight up evil

There can be multiple villains within a single faction, villains allied to other villainous factions, and usually have a hand in creating other villains
Campaigns only have 1 BigBad(EG)

youtube.com/watch?v=98Tr5H1jvQU

>Not posting the best Merlin

Then why does Buffy have a Big Bad for every season, with none of them being the ultimate final boss?

>Not posting the best Merlin

No Beard/10

With a coat that fine you don't need a beard.

well Arthur was in fact Uther's son, he wasn't some random puppet candidate, Merlin came up with the sword in the anvil to hopefully smooth over the process but still everyone wanted to throw down with Arthur since they wouldn't follow a boy king out of nowhere and got their shit wrecked as a result

He's protected the world for thousands of years, sealing powerful Magic away from unworthy hands.
However now, you NEED that Magic, or at least some of it to save your entire nation.
But he's seen nations rise and fall, and instead sees the dangers you could wreak after the defeat of that evil.

So you must protect your lands while you can, and plan how to wrest it from his grip, and if that involves defeating him and taking up his position as guardians of the vault? Responsible guardians who use its power for good? So be it.

>the party's anonymous benefactor is in fact King Arthur who after being taken to Avalon learned the secret of multiverse travel and is attempting to recreate the Round Table on a transdimensional scale to battle evil across all realities

would any in your party be full chivalrous to join?

Uther who Merlin magically disguised to look like another man whom Uther had once called friend.

So he could fuck another man's wife.

That he started a war for.

That resulted in Arthur, the bastard king.

Morgan had more right to the throne than Arthur. But maybe not so easily guided.

Depends on what I was playing. If it was a game of Rifts, he'd be an evil and spooky alien monster.

Can it be in space?

no, the Arthurian myth represents what Veeky Forums hates most about fantasy

Who else do you think the Vorlons kidnapped across history?

Being cool?

all that chivalry shit is lame, Sir Fuckface the Valiant my OC is far superior to any of that pretentious literature crap they try to teach you in school

Merlin goes mad and enacts a plan to turn all mortal women into futas

One of the interesting things about Merlin in the earlier stories, Le Morte d'Arthur and before, is how inscrutable he is. The idea that he took Arthor from Uther and fostered him obscurity with the goal of creating a great and noble king is a later addition, as is the idea that he's aging backwards through time.

Merlin in the earlier stories is a mysterious wizard, possibly sired by the devil, who helps Uther for his unknown reasons, including using illusions to let Uther rape a woman. He then demands Uther's child as payment, vanishing. He has the child raised in obscurity and manipulates events to ensure the child's ascent to the throne. But... why? Merlin's goal in doing all this isn't given.

He's also responsible for one of the darkest parts of the Arthurian cycle, one often omitted from modern re-tellings. Merlin made a prophecy that the product of Arthur's incest, Mordered, would kill him and destroy his kingdom. Together, they rounded up all the male children in the kingdom born on that day and has them pushed out onto a stormy sea in a leaky ship, so that the babies would be drowned without bloodying their own hands. Merlin was willing to kill a literal boatload of babies in order to keep Arthur on the throne, showing that whatever his goals are he is ruthless in his pursuit of them.

He lingers for a while longer, saving Arthur's life and guiding him to Excalibur, but not long after Nimue takes him out of the story altogether, and we are left with more questions than answers.

That's a wizard for ya baby

He's been and still is the power behind the throne of the nation since times immorial, and is a huge fucking asshole about it. He manipulates everything and everyone going around in the state, via coercion, threats, blackmail, bribery, loans, debts, money and every other tool he can think of.

>villainous
>not doing the greater good