What are some of the best character motivations or inspirations that you’ve thought of?

What are some of the best character motivations or inspirations that you’ve thought of?
Either a PC or a villain
Pic related was similar to my first character, a Paladin who was saved from a demon by an angel when he was a kid. He dedicated himself to that god in an attempt to impact people like that event impacted him.

A character who is a second generation demi-god but has absolutely no power like their parent. They're constantly trying to live up to the mantle in front of them but they never have to power to achieve the same things

Just a hireling who is supposed to retrieve materials for an artificer. He just murderhobos through monsters to get rare ingredients and to get stronger.

Essentially boils down to "I just wana get my only family back", but I like playing characters who aren't really in it for the power or glory, and who aren't "adventurers" out of choice.

im adding a villain to my current campaign that's basically the Lich from Adventure Time.
Pic unrelated, but its another one of my favorite villains

Kumiho who works for a reverse mystical East Indian Company.

...

I always liked to have the team of villains so they can interact with each other as well, gives me the chance to show off their personalities more

Viking who wants to be a great warrior like his grandfather.

GOLD!

In a CoC Campaign, the "biggest villain" is a cultist who want to bring Hastur on earth, but it's not for power or destructing the earth, he just want to bring entropy, to shaken the actual world, developing art and helping everybody (in his own manner). He's not even hostile to the pc's, and welcome them with his arms wide open (and it's up to the player to decide what they really want to do...)

Best villains team are almost antagonists villains, that might even try to team up with the pc's, or try for example to lure the pc's into attacking another bad guy (but not as the friendly quest giver, more like by leaving a trail to lead them to another guy).

A Lonely warlock that just wants a friend.

A university teacher in CoC who wanted to protect the humanity from the things behind the curtain. He was using all the magic and books available to do so, not letting the other player to delve into that, to protect them from the corruption, and he ended up as a god's living prison within an old egyptian pyramid, as his ultimate sacrifice for the humanity.

ive always liked the idea of a powerful enemy who doesnt have animosity for the players, who wont have them killed but just tries to keep them occupied for a while.
Better yet, i want to run a game where the PCs are, unknowingly, working for the bad guy

Villains of a CoC game set in 1920s.

Want to destroy the world via Cthulhu because it rejects who they are (gay couple)

A tiny ranger with a massive napoleon complex and a mile-wide mean streak, hating mostly everything and as a result alienating them all and being left all alone. The few times he's been magically enlarged he has turned into a massive bully kicking around all that are smaller than himself. Completely unable to see the hypocrisy in his thoughts or actions, or that it might be why he can't find friends or love he desperately craves.

I'm not very creative.

A mercenary who does stuff for money.

A princess who took up armor and killed her tyrant of a king, leading her kingdom to a brief moment of prosperity and democracy.

...Until a neighboring kingdom invaded, took over, and sealed her in some kind of magic prison. She was released 100 years later by researchers in the area, only to find both her kingdom and the invading kingdom had fallen over time, and herself as an undead husk, only able to hold on for a century because of her unbridled rage for her kingdom's aggressors, and thirst for vengeance.

Once it was evident no vengeance was to be had, she instead dedicated her "life" to protecting the weak from tyranny and the abuses of nobility, to honor her former kingdom.

tl;dr: Essentially a death knight with a disdain for nobility fighting for freedom and justice.

That campaign died and I'm still sad.

I like creating characters who are good at heart but somewhat... difficult to deal with.
So far I've played
>Human Fighter (orphan) who got bullied as a child, got buff to fight back bullies and then got isolated for being too violent.
He later joined the military just to find a spot to fit in. He started out rather grumpy and silent, but in time grew to love the group he was assigned to. He never showed it to them though. He died during an elven attack.

>Human mage who was a weak and sick child and only got into magic out of accident/boredom.
He had major social anxiety and had to flee home because muh evul mages guild. He became an adventurer out of pure naivety.
Sadly that group of players disbanded. He continues as an NPC though.

My current char is my favorite though. Will follow in a second post just in case this one's too long.

My current char is an aasimar cleric who lies about his past, because he lost all his (childhood) friends roughly 40 years back. The event that started it all was his best friend dying by pure accident. Made him lose his faith, abandon his group and choose life as a hermit.
He only became an adventurer again because an old friend asked him for a favor. He's kinda suspicious of his current group, because he got thrown into some major "we run the world in secret" kinda story.

I love you.

An evil but honorbound man who keeps making too many promises to good people. He just wants to be done with it all and but "Pacta sunt servanda" is more powerful than the grave. Just as one quest ended, another begun.

Went from level 5 to level 20 with this one. We started out as an evil party so I made an undead assassin who just wanted to finish the last contract he had before he died. Just as I did that, we got another quest, and then another, and another. Half way through the campaign we lost a player, gained two, a character died, and another character was swapped out making my character the only original character (and the only evil character). The GM scrambled to re-write the plot and we set off on a new adventure with my increasingly grumpy undead assassin in tow.
By the end of this story, he'd seen it all: Met a dozen gods, half a dozen demigods, been to several other planes, lost every friend he had twice over, lost his fortune twice over, lost all his signature weapons and armor, gained and lost a kingdom, died about seven times, worked for both sides of an apocalyptic war, and finally ascended to demigodhood. In the end, he was just tired of it all and rejected the call to defend the world and retired to raise the three children he had picked up along the way. Sometimes evil characters just hang out with the good guys too long and end up joining in.

A poor alchemist's apprentice that gets lured into the desert by his master, who tries to use him in a ritual for some strange god so he can make a warlock pact. Except, for some reason, the old god took the master as the sacrifice, and forged a pact with the apprentice, and now the apprentice has woken up covered in his master's blood, filled with strange visions and no idea what the fuck is going on.

I'm so stealing this idea, user.

Making it just the one gay artist using the mythos revealed to him in dreams to fuck over the ones who took his lover away.

Thinking of having the lover be turned in by his rich and influential family to prevent his shameful lifestyle from tarnishing their reputation and then he gets the whole From Hell treatment. Possible redemption arc if the players break him out of there and figure out a way to fix him.

I'm working on something new but I;m not sure if it's good or not.

So there is a character, who is a normal human, who wants to help a group of people who have enhanced their bodies with machines to the point of madness, Pic related for inspiration, become the dominant "species" in the world. At first all you know is he believes them to be the only way for humanity to survive in a world of monsters and stuff but later on it turns out he is a machine himself and he was programmed to believe this. So in reality he had no choice.

Is this lame?

what series is this from - I always see this stuff posted, and I've never been able to find the bloody name of the thing

A knight champion who died to save his kingdom from an invading horde of savage barbarians from across the sea that nearly destroyed the world.

Having been struck with his death wound in a battle against the leader of the barbarians he wandered into the forest and laid by a tree to rest, swearing that he would awaken shortly and return to his lady so that they could be wed, just as he had sworn to do when he left for battle.

He died, but was content knowing that with his death his world would be forever free of the evils he had fought.

He awoke eons later to see his world consumed by the fires of apocalypse, and learns that all the worlds that hung from the World Tree that unites them have fallen from its branches and down into Hell, where they have shattered and been utterly destroyed.

Realizing all his struggles have been in vain and that there is nothing left for him to save, he embarks on a final quest out of his broken world and into hell, desperately seeking his lady so that he may uphold his promise to her before reality itself is destroyed.

Pretty sure it's the 100+ ep Romance of the Three Kingdoms series from China.