>fan of tolkien
>enjoy designing new worlds and making good characters
>every bbeg i make inevitably ends up being identical to sauron no matter what i do
I just can't make a cool fantasy villain without drawing inspiration from Tolkien. My villains aren't bad, but they feel samey and boring to me. Any advice?
Well, the obvious answer is to include a character trait that is wholly incompatible with Sauron's personality and archetype.
Even if you drift into old habits, you'll have to put in the work to reconcile the incompatible bits.
More general advice:
1) Start with one trait/belief you find morally agreeable and one trait/belief morally reprehensible. Design the person who has both. (This is good for characters in general, really.)
2) Villains don't exist in a vacuum. A villain that is phenomenal in one story can fall completely flat in another; make sure you're incorporating the heroes and the context of the world into the villain to make them really sing.
3) Try imagining your villain with as small of stakes as possible. When they go for the world, lots of villains start to sound the same, because "the world" is such a huge, all-encompassing target. But if your villain is, like, level 3, who and what he chooses to go after says a lot more about him.
Have your players complained?
Maybe you should start by considering a different motivation for your villain from conquest and seeking power over others. Why you do something affects how you do it, and what sort of person you are.
>Revenge
This is a classic one. Revenge is not concerned with getting anything, like greed is, or fixing anything, like justice is. It's about taking something away from someone else, usually because it or something like it was stolen from whoever is taking revenge. Usually, collateral damage, loss of allies or even death are considered acceptable costs in exchange for vengeance. They usually lack subtlety and may even actively explain who they are and what they're doing, to justify themselves to others and themselves.
This is a woman who dragged herself out of the gutters and lashes out in hatred towards nobility. Comparing this person to the target of their hatred will likely either provoke their reflection or fury.
>Family/Love
Probably one of the most relatable forms of motivation. This is the person who's willing to sacrifice anything, up to and including their morals and body, to protect another person or cause them to prosper. Usually, they tend to work in secret, hiding their works from the person who benefits from them- more often than not because the target wouldn't approve of the methods. They will likely have well-structured plans, but panic if the subject of their affection or protection is targeted. Paranoia is likely for a villain of this type, and they will almost certainly be a good actor so to hide their true colors.
This is the prince of a kingdom who connives and kills in secret to ensure the safety of his father the good king and the other members of the royal family. He will likely be charming or even hold feelings toward a member of the party, but any threat to his father or siblings will be noted with silent hatred.
>Survival
This is rarely justified for a powerful villain (save for immortality seekers), but can be useful for an enemy of smaller scale. This person needs something to live, from blood to water, and does not care how they get it- it is literally, or nearly so, a matter of life and death, and for them, death is not an option. As they are concerned with protecting their own life, damn the morals, they are more likely to 'fight dirty' or exploit those who they can easily crush. Ironically, despite often using fear to accomplish their goals (which saves them time, effort, and a risk of death, however small), they are generally 'cowardly' themselves, willing to let an enemy have a small victory or pay him off in order to ensure he doesn't interfere with their supply of continued life.
The spice must flow.
>Curiosity
This is actually fairly rare, because the stereotypical person that falls under this (mad scientists) are also typecast as subservant to more generic enemies. This person does amoral experimentation to feed their twisted understanding of the world. They usually ind funding from someone who is either willing to tolerate or benefits from their 'research', their 'research' 'funds' itself, or they need to do additional work to provide for their experimentation. These are eccentric people who see potential where it is not, or are otherwise obsessed with the answer to some obscure or cruel question.
This is the guy who places people in deathtraps to see how long it takes them to die.
Don't forget Madness! Someone who is attempting to attain a goal that seems completely nonsensical. Someone who performs horrific blood sacrifices in a modern setting would be an example. It seems like they're just insane, but a diligent party can find clues suggesting that the bbeg *might* be the only sane one after all.
Justice or righteousness could be a decent bbeg as well. Fable 3 is actually a solid example of this, your brother the king has instituted a dangerous and tyrannical rule out of nowhere and the population wants to rebel. After you oust him, you learn of the horrible threat he was preparing for, which would cause widespread panic if the commoners learned of it. After that, you have to decide if he was actually being tyrannical enough or if you were going to play a fucking lute for twelve realtime hours to earn enough money for the army. Fable isn't famous for good mechanics.
I will never stop shilling the Complete Book of Villains.
It is hands down the best character development tool I've ever seen.
It does not matter what system you are using or if you're making a villain, NPC, or PC.
Find it, use it, love it.
Just run The One Ring or something and stop pretending
...
I will tell you a tale, a tale that will let you make great villains and heroes.
Today I will conquer your adventuring party, tomorrow the general store!
I like the coward. Someone who folds like a house of cards, someone who runs away.
He wants to be the BBG but fails at everything he trys
Once upon a time there was a great king, a hero of his kingdom. Born from an era of anarchy and weak men, he brought order to the land upon ascension to the throne, dragging the kingdom from the darkness and into the light of centralization and reformation. He was a great man, a glorious man, a just man. Through conquest and politics he expanded the borders of his kingdom to unprecedented levels, until they spread to the point that they stretched over half of an entire other nation. The King brought law to every corner of his lands and never did he rest. Only he had the will and the vision to lead his kingdom, and so he left it to no man or woman. Every detail was lorded over by he, and he traveled across its reaches to govern every square mile of it. His people adored him and lauded him in accolades and titles for under him the kingdom prospered like never before.
But like all men he grew old, and his children yearned for power. For all his righteous traits and just leadership the King in the end was but a man, and like all men he was fraught with flaws. He hoarded power, and refused to relinquish any bit of it to his three heirs until he died. For they were but children, and how could children be trusted with a kingdom?
Still the people cried for an heir to be named, and wishing to prevent the anarchy that had spawned the great king, he crowned his eldest son. But to him he granted no power nor even income. And while the Boy-King lived a glorious life, he was ultimately treated as no more than a boy by his father despite having grown into a man ages ago. No fiefs were given to him, no estate from which to reap an income from. Thus he was always humiliated before the entire kingdom as he had to grovel before his father, the true king, to pay his accumulated debts.
Cont'd
The boy-king grew furious with his position as a mere puppet, a figure-head of his father. Finally he reached the tipping point with the King's totalitarian absolute rule with no power shared, and rebelled against him to seize power for himself. But the boy-king was horribly outmatched by his better equipped and far more clever father, and the King of the land crushed the boy-king in war. And while the war was conducted in a fairly chivalrous manner there was yet a series of sieges as the King swept through his son's forts. During these sieges the boy-king was struck down by a fell sickness and died. The king's family turned against him, shunning him for the death of their brother/son, and the king himself was wracked with guilt. The once pure, golden kingdom was now tainted by the sin of filicide, a taint that would never leave it.
The King now doubled down over his control of the kingdom, ceding nothing to his two surviving sons and locked their mother in the dungeons in belief that she had turned their eldest against him. He grew paranoid and corrupt, exercising more and more of his power without temperament. Eventually the inevitable happened, and the second eldest son rebelled against their cruel father in the goal to usurp him. Unlike his elder brother, the second son was no fool and had prepared long in advanced. Instead of a chivalrous conflict what broke out was full scale civil war, a resurgence of anarchy. Seeing the King as a weak old man the lords of the land flocked to the side of the rising son. Bit by bit the old king watched his creation rise up against him for what he had done and his own family turn against him.
Down to his last bastion, the old king was struck down by the same fell illness that had claimed his eldest child. While he might have healed from it, a list of the latest deserters was read to him by his bedside. On it was the name of his baby boy, youngest son and most cherished of the brood, and the last member of his house to stay by his side. Now he was truly abandoned by all those he had loved, all because of his refusal to share power. Devastated, the old king's heart broke, shattered, and with it took him to the grave.
Thats' an...interesting interpretation of a Tolkien vampire..
Tolkien first age vampires were bats or ladies. I don't know how that's actually wrong. The heavy metal jacket she has on less so though
That pic is horrifying, but adorable at the same time. What's the source?
The simplest thing I can think of is to get away from the setting entirely, decide 3-4 traits that define Sauron, then go the near-opposite direction.
Example:
Try a cyber-punk campaign and decide the villain is in no way similar to Sauron.
Sauron is a commander of a vast army
Your new villain is a lone-wolf (A thief or hacker maybe)
Sauron is ancient beyond belief
Neo-Villain is new as new can be; a fresh AI, or cloned prodigy
Sauron's downfall is his pride. He never once believes anything could defeat him other than an army.
Neo-Villain is hyper-paranoid, constantly making redundant security measures in his base, and killing old allies who might betray him. He doesn't even suspect a large enough force could be mustered to simply overwhelm his defences.
I don't know where you got that from. The only two vampires mentioned were pic related and when Sauron took on the form when he got his shit kicked in by Huan. Both were meant to be horrifying to look at, not pleasant.
Keep in mind not to fall for the lulrandumb kind of insanity. Insane characters should have consistent internal logic. They don't suddenly get cravings for goat cheese which must be served on a stone plate just because.
Their goals and means of achieving them may be convoluted or extremely nonsensical, but as long as it's consistent with itself, you're golden.
...
>Your new villain is a lone-wolf (A thief or hacker maybe)
Sauron made a point of soloing a civilization with social engineering and only ever took to commanding armies when he couldn't mindfuck things into submission
>Sauron's downfall is his pride. He never once believes anything could defeat him other than an army.
Neo-Villain is hyper-paranoid, constantly making redundant security measures in his base, and killing old allies who might betray him. He doesn't even suspect a large enough force could be mustered to simply overwhelm his defences.
This description just describes Sauron. To be clear, he didn't believe anyone could choose to destroy his redundantly reality warping mind control super weapon, and he was right. He responded to Aragorn because Aragorn called him on the plantir, did the best possible impression of isildur because elrond raised him with a numenorean guilt complex, and declared that he could crush mordor with a handful of men and that Sauron could guess why. Sauron was the master of paranoid redundant security measures, there is no conceivable force that CAN overwhelm them, and its by divine providence that he's defeated.
Make the bright lord instead. He would genuinely be a greater threat.
Copy other villains for a while. It's a little hacky, but if you know you're just going to copy Sauron otherwise, it could shake you out of it.
Copy other Tolkien villains. Set your party against Smaug or Melkor or Ungoliant.
Speaking of The One Ring does anyone have a link to any of the supplements? Found the core books but couldn't turn anything up other than those.
The Monolith faction of Stalker. Sure, they sound crazy for believing in some wish-stone in the center of the Zone, and have gone absolutely loco about it, but there are reasons behind that.
When you make your BBEG, don't make a villain. Make a protagonist. Make a character who wants something that's honestly good and wants it with the force of a thousand suns. He doesn't do horrendous things to get it, but he will do what is necessary. He is an expert tactician, with tons of resources, and a cadre of people following him because he's honestly doing something good. It's just, it isn't good for the players and the people they care about.
That will make a great antagonist. The guy who makes the players doubt what side they're on. They guy who shows them the stakes they're fighting for and makes them understand the lines they'll have to cross to achieve their goals.
And win they beat him, he will swallow his pride. His last breath will be to cast a blessing on them, and to say "Good luck."
>Curiosity
I wish more people would do eldritch horrors that are curious about what they've found. All too much you see ones which are ultimately uncaring because they operate on a much larger scale, but the ones that are curious seem to me like they'd make better villains, simply because in part they don't understand why the little pink things are running away when they just want to know more.
It's because everyone's stuck in the Lovecraft thing of it, I think, the whole "you are merely a mote beneath Azazazathoth's pinkie toe" thing and the vibe of cosmic insignificance it engenders. They genre themselves into doing that and only that.
Which it's hard to blame them for, I guess. Eldritch horrors that are curious wouldn't really be all that different from regular aliens in most circumstances.
>It's because everyone's stuck in the Lovecraft thing of it, I think, the whole "you are merely a mote beneath Azazazathoth's pinkie toe" thing and the vibe of cosmic insignificance it engenders. They genre themselves into doing that and only that.
What better way to show that we are to them as bacteria are to us, than to encounter their microbiologists?
I would love to see an eldritch horror trying to chase people with a butterfly net.
Several of them are in the Archive, including Horse Lords of Rohan and Erebor.
But that's exactly why I said that making them interested would make them much more like how people would expect to see regular aliens, Greys and so on. Why are they always abducting and probing people again? For their research. What's the difference between that and what you're suggesting, other than an extra degree of weirdness if your horrors move through non-Platonic space or something?
You're assuming they're doing it out of scientific curiosity though. You could have a child-like eldritch horror that has basically found a new toy but doesn't understand a few crucial concepts like death or madness.
You have no imagination. Go read some Fafhrd and Grey Mouser or some Discworld
Movie Sauron is a ridiculously small archetype for a medieval fantasy villain. Theres so many more ideas out there. Look at Steerpike from Gormenghast, fucking protagonist gone twisted killer, brilliant stuff
This
Its really good
>You're assuming they're doing it out of scientific curiosity though.
Not really. Their motive doesn't matter at all if they're incomprehensible beings, which, if they're "eldritch horrors," "eldritch" in the sense of "strange" and not just "tentacle monsters," they are. Greys are the same. Although most stories I know do tend to play up the suspicion that it's scientific curiosity driving them, there's really no way to say: they could just be little green psychos. Even the idea that they have a concept of a "scientific method" is left vague unless communication is established.
>You could have a child-like eldritch horror that has basically found a new toy but doesn't understand a few crucial concepts like death or madness.
But this is also an aspect of the Greys. Look at any classic representation of the type of alien I'm talking about and it's abundantly clear. Large forehead, large eyes, spindly arms, shorter than people -- the archetypal Grey shares these traits with human infants and appears as a pale human being with neoteny. I don't see how making an "eldritch horror" that acts in the same way and is described in the same terms would amount to little more than a reskin, tonally speaking.
Anybody got a PDF?
Thanks!
Take a break from villains. I was talking the other day about running a game based on The Cremation of Sam McGee. You don't really need a villain for that shit.
For that matter, think about how well the Hobbit still (sort of) works without Smaug. The story is a bunch of dwarves rolling through middle earth simultaneously pissing everyone off and doing a terrible job keeping a big ass pile of treasure secret, which results in a big dramatic battle. Smaug spends very little time being a villain, and a great deal more time being the reason nobody has snatched this treasure while the dwarves were away.
Even in LotR, Sauron takes little direct action that the party sees beyond vague palantir nonsense and the reader's presumption that he takes some active role in leading the orcs. He's the motivator for the travelogue. You could have another reason to go somewhere, another reason for many nations aligning into a two sided war, etc. Really only lesser evils like Sauruman, the wraiths, and the like show up and act like villains throughout the story. In fact, if you've got some reason to travel to Mordor and the war is perceived from the outside as being about the orcs, you could get through a good deal of a story without revealing who Saruman and the wraiths are taking orders from. So even without changing up your dark lord that much, handling can drastically change the feel of him.
>I just can't make a cool fantasy villain without drawing inspiration from Tolkien
Well, Tolkein has some of the most boring villains in fiction, so I'd say you should branch out and expose yourself to some new stuff.
The baddies from Conan seem keen on stealing hot chicks (Thugra Kothan for example).
Could that be of interest for OP?