Unique villain plots

>The villain is seeking to perfect the culinary arts, aiming to create food so amazingly good that people would pay a king's ransom for it
>He's not magical, he's just an ordinary citizen who's really good at what he does
>He's so ordinary that people will easily overlook him in the streets and never suspect the evil plans he will put in motion with his food

Villain is a child who wished to be super powerful so he could do what he wanted.
Has become a super powerful monster with the mindset of a child who refuses to take accountability for his action. It takes what wants by force, refuses to listen to adults, eats lots of candy and doesn't have a bedtime.
Many people are being hurt and even killed by its rampages and temper tantrums.
It appears that there isn't a way to turn him back into a human.
Bonus points if it the child of one of the party.

This is actually kind of neat, but depending on your party, some people will read this as environmentalism propaganda.

An Insane Cleric of a Traveller god, who has a gathered a large following of Paladins / Cult members / Inquistors. He spreads the belief that all forms of permanent settlement are a sin and that all people should be nomadic or suffer the consequences for their sins.
They travel the lands destroying all the buildings of any type of
permanent settlements, offering the former occupants the chance to repent and become nomads or become martyrs.

He's a mercenary commander who just wants to go home to his wife and family. He hates the petty nobles and non-existent monarchy which has allowed the Empire to dissolve into constant infighting. So his solution is to make war so terrible that either all parties will co.e to their senses, or his patrons will never face a challenge again.

He is loved by his men, and is magnanimous to those who do not resist his army. Soldiers who fall out of line are swiftly punished.

But if you are his enemy, and take arms against him, do not ecpect any mercy.

yes but despite your witty observation of "things that are simple enough to be appreciated for what they are" what you describe is actually a trope and what the OP is trying to deviate from.

>>He's so ordinary that people will easily overlook him in the streets and never suspect the evil plans
I have a bit of a soft spot for these villains, maybe because they seem underutilized. I had an idea for a superhero story arc revolving around a nation-spanning criminal cartel, and in the end they trace it back to the leader and he's just a guy who looks like someone's dad living in Colorado or something.

...

Necromancer who is summoning the ghosts of past Presidents/Kings/Nation leaders and tormenting their spirits until they reveal classified nation secrets, then using said secrets to his own ends.

Tropes aren't bad. Trying to avoid tropes BECAUSE they are tropes leads to shit writing.

.. Is that Gengis Khan photoshopped into being a crusader?

Hungry. Must consume. Consume pain and misery.
>proceeds to hide away in big city's sewer and becomes bloated in a few days, while people above suddenly feel quite glad

More or less. Came out of a CK2 AAR/LP forum thing that involved a secret yazidi cult infiltrating the Vatican and the templars crusading for mongolia.

...

Villain makes the entire world immortal, but not impervious to pain or harm.
Overpopulation worries and certain diseases suddenly become big issues.

Neat.

A lich is gathering a great number of sacrifices so that he may gain mortal senses again, as he regrets not being able to feel the pleasures of life, like sex, sleep, taste, but mainly, he misses the feeling of a good ole fashioned morning poo.

On a similar note.
Villain makes himself immortal at the cost of having to feel the pain of every person in the world. Everyone else no longer feels pain.
This causes a number of problems as pain is essential to identifying illnesses, injuries and preventing death.
Also, it turns out the Villain is a masochist and didn't really care about the immortal part..

Villain is Blacksmith seeking to make the ultimate weapon and accompanying armor, he somehow manages steals powerful artifacts, priceless holy relics from different gods, royal jewels and ancient treasures to create weaponry that is increasingly powerful. He uses this weaponry and armor to best the guards during his heists due to its fantastical abilities. He's also the blacksmith that buys junk from the party from during the campaign.

A Nostalgia obsessed Revenant/Lich/Undead, returning to his home after being freed from his tomb.
Wishes to return his home, his town and eventually the world to how it was when he grew up there.

Born in a war torn culture, he seek to unite the world.

An average joe who is transformed into a hyper-intelligent being after a freak accident discovers that for humanity to thrive in this new workd they must be transformed into something that is beyond human. Even by force if necessary.

A long forgotten former knight tasked with a holy quest to collect magical substance from within a large sprawling and hard-to traverse boggy forest that lay along side an old road.
After many years of searching, he could only find occasional sparkling specks of it collected under the toenails of animals that walked through the bog. His desperation to carry out the vows he made drove him insane, and he devised a gruesome method to retrieve the substance. He began pose as a guide for those traveling along the road that passed near the forest, offering them to take a 'shortcut' through the forest that would save weeks from their journey. After advising them to remove their shoes, (as the bog would take them otherwise). he would then lead them in circles throughout the boggy forest for a few days. In this time he would gain their trust and telling them stories of his glory days as a knight, fighting back any animal that would attack, which of course - he would lead them near the dens of deliberately. Once their suspicious would begin to arise, he would lead them back to the safety of his 'camp' which he claimed to be one day away from the end of the journey. While resting, he would slaughter them one by one in the night, severing their toes and collecting the magical particles from beneath their toenails. He continued this for over the 20 years, and during this time he built up both an large jar of the magical dust and a massive chest filled withered, rotten toes.

The party of course, will meet the knight smiling and waving at the edge of the forest, offering his aid.

A pseudo-nihilistic grandfather taking his idealistic grandson on adventures through your realm, caring not for the havoc caused they cause as they both act recklessly with little regard for the people they encounter.

that's not set in stone

A Postal Robot, who's owners instructions were misinterpreted and auto corrected accidentally to "Stand and Deliver" from "Stamp and Deliver". He now roams the highways, holding up travelers and stealing their valuables.

The psychic manifestation of the combinations of the parties subconscious ideas of what 'Evil' is that came into being as a direct result of their accidental meeting and exposure to psionic drugs in the first session.

A favorite toy from the protagonists youth, having been made sentient due to exposure the protagonists latent power. The toy resents being abandoned once the protagonist grew up.

isn't this the plot of the Incredibles

Could be, I haven't seen it.

A petty villain who was tormented by a bad surprise twist and now hates endings has cast a spell to remove the last chapter of every book in existence. Unfortunately the undo spell was in the last chapter of his magic tome.

...

Steal all of the magical devices within the Three-Kingdom area, just to spite the villain's more successful and famous wizard brother.
Turns out the magical seals of the forbidden temple is not just for show.

The villain is subject to the entire experience of all of humanity, and is motivated solely by the desire to end human suffering, if only to selfishly ease their own pain.

>magical seals

I mean, sure the forbidden temple has their seals perform cantrips for the public every Saturday, but they're also somehow holding back an ancient evil.
Probably because the ancient evil really likes their antics for some reason.

A local hero has been caught as a fake, using a portal to summon the monsters he then "slays". As the jig is up and the angry townsfolk start demanding his head, he gives up all pretense of heroism and opens the portal once again, flooding the surrounding area with monsters and using them to ransom the villagers for a safe passage out of the country.

>environmentalism propaganda

Fantasy worlds almost always have "spirits of nature" of some form. I don't see why it's so controversial that a forest spirit got a shitty attitude from nearby settlements logging.

>I grew up around some very sad people. People were always so depressed, and I never understood why. They lived nice lives; sure, nothing splendid, but they had everything they needed, didn't they? They just didn't understand that the life they have was special, and sacred.
>Sure, it took some robberies, a couple dead people, a couple dead people coming back to life, a few more dead people, several burnt down buildings, a raided armory, and lurking in a crypt for about a year, but hey, look around; people are alive! Telling loved ones they care, doing things to protect each other, standing up in their defense... they're living with purpose! Finally they realize that their lives meant something! After all of this pain, suffering, and despair, they are glad to be alive!
>But this is just the start! The greater the trials, the greater the victory, am I right? The worse things get, the more happy people will be to be alive. It's always darkest before the dawn, wouldn't you agree?
>Gwahahahaha!

Honestly, having the nature spirits attack a town for polluting would be awesome.

Villain plots linearly along the x-axis.

Truly, it is the graph of humanity's demise.

One of my players would just silently move to his side. Take out his spear and say 'yeah'.

Logarithmic villain plot on elipsoid, mapped to plane using gauss-kruger method.

...

But which plane of existence is it mapped to?

Abyssal plane, perhaps?
Dear god, he's plotting a gigantic sigil! Or could be the credit score of the ruler of that plane. It is truly abysmal.

Don't forget the jingle when you introduce him.

Living a quiet life while occasionally murdering some bitch?

>Setting takes place after religious rapture
>War between demons, and angels trying to kill them off, mortals get caught in the crossfire
>mortals swear off religion and god, thinking they were also the target of the rapture, and fear another
>Things like necromancy and other things are no longer looked down on as much because noreligion
>Villans are the last remaining priests or holymen who want to prove that the god is still on their side

Villan's son was murdered in street fight. Demands justice from Lord of the City. Lord refuses, now seeking justice by his own hand to avenge his son and restore his honor. All the while keeping his small country intact and fending off Orcs.

A conspiracy of evil wizards and clerics who want the freedom to operate openly and simply harvest whatever human bodies/subjects they need for their rituals and experiments.

They don't want to end the world, well some of them do, they really just want a regime change. As some of them achieve their personal goals, they might switch sides and help the heroes take down the world-ending ones.

If the party does badly enough, some of the bad guys are going to look almost bearable compared to the ones they're left fighting.

>>Villans are the last remaining priests or holymen who want to prove that the god is still on their side
>after the rapture
Sounds like a good time for a rousing game of 'spot the false prophet.'

>The villain's base is located at Mt. Feade, faryland

>So his solution is to make war so terrible that either all parties will co.e to their senses, or his patrons will never face a challenge again.
Obviously, this guy doesn't have the same historical reference we do, so I'll cut him some slack, but seriously this never, ever works

It never works, but we kept thinking it would. "The war to end war" was a thing people legitimately believed.

>Country is run by evil dark wizards and vampires
>However, in order to modernize with other countries and prevent themselves from falling behind, they've instituted enough rule of law and hands off development so that the country could be prosperous and as developed as the places around it
>Ruler's are still pretty much evil in theory, but in practice they're generally pretty chill
>Paladin living in this society is super confused because he knows the rulers are evil and don't deserve to rule, but the streets are pretty clean
>Eventually decides, fuck it, I'll bring war to their estates anyway
>Players need to decide between the prosperity of society even if it means evil people at the top are allowed to rule and possibly do shady evil shit in the background, or if that bullshit doesn't need to be accepted because Papa Paladin can find a better way even if there's instability at first as he essentially goes full-blown terrorist and overthrows the ruling class
>Obvious metaphor for class warfare, insert your own ideology as you go along

Reminds me of one of my game which mindfucked all the people that played

Long story short: Warlock conviced his part to slay some orc bandits and than persuades Paladins and various other races under his banner to exterminate orcs,goblins etc

After gathering-forging evidence on how unredeemable they are... and he succeeded.

All Human Elf and dawrf Empires joined him to exterminate the "Vermin" And wiped them out

Plot twist? The Paladin and other party members found out about this too late when all of the orcs goblins and other lesser races died

Which my warlock said "Well done Paladin and my friends i couldn't have done this without you"

And after realising what the Paladin had done she commited suicide in which the Warlocked used her death as an excuse to gather more power to himself and blaming "Monster sympathises killed her" in whch he pretty much became the world leader in shadow

You mean like the Vulture in the new Spider-Man movie?

Witch whose village was sacked, and daughter raped to death, during the most recent big war has gone totally off her rocker and seeks to impose world peace on the setting by getting rid of the "source" of such violence: men.

The witch is expirmenting in ever more powerful curses and enchaments to make a world where men do not exist at all more viable. The results of such expirements are genderswap if you are lucky, body horror or mindrape if you are not. If someone doesnt stop her, she plans to unleash the fruits of her research on a massive scale. Her work is intentionally designed to be difficult-to-impossible to reverse, so anyone already victim to it will need to recover her research to have any hope of being cured.

This is basically Griffith, or any number of metal gear villains

A citizen of a country who recently went through a war of fantasy-esque War of Secession proportions. His family lost a lot due to their vehement support of this war, which further stoked his hatred for this victorious kingdom. Now he's going to do whatever it takes to have his revenge on this kingdom that so deeply wronged him, his family and his country's honor by himself if he has to.

I kind of like the villains whose motives can be either seen as villainous or noble depending on where the characters' best interests lie.

i really, really like this. golden idea user

>Villain who wants to get revenge on the noble who killed his family. Unfortunately for him, the killer died years ago, peacefully passing in his sleep surrounded by his family. His life was one dedicated to good deeds as a paladin of light, and upon his death his soul was whisked away to Elysium as a just reward (the villains parents were probably evil cultists or whatnot)
>So in response, he's decided to traffic with dark gods, set nations to war and devastate countries, unseat the gods of Elysium, crack a hole straight through to the afterlife and lay siege against heaven entirely to kill one guy, again.

I'm always a fan of villains with petty motivations, but absurd and ridiculous means and determination.

>The dark world is a shithole that everyone hates
>Fuck it, let's take over the light world

>Days of their Unlives", "The Bold and the Bearded" and "Two and a Half Halflings".
What a wasted opportunity to mention Paladin Falls

No, but it does happen quite a bit.

The kingdom's ruler has always relied on the counsel of a line of oracles/prophets who see the future through their dreams and visions. The villain is some kind of dark entity that only exists in dreams and unconscious thoughts. He is using his powers to alter the dreams of the oracles in order to manipulate the king into unknowingly performing the ritual needed to summon him into the waking world.

Kind of like Inception but different

now that's a fucking villan, the party better not get to him until he's already exacted his revenge and drags that fuckin paladin down with him.

Kind of like if the Emperor of Japan in Gulliver's Travels had any ambition and was also a dick.

wouldn't he have a really shitty reputation as a guide if he killed everyone that the guided?

The party's gotta get him after he's managed to kill the guy, and then just turns to them, shrugs, and says "I'm good."

bump!

An ancient good cleric whose ethics are so alien that he appears evil be modern standards. The gods can't interfere due to the technicality.

that's fucking badass

I might steal this, sorry.

>villain is a sorcerer who thinks that society is in a moral decay, and is trying to conspire to conduct a human sacrifice of the entire capital city (which he views to be the most immoral city) to become powerful enough to cast a spell that will force everyone in the world to act in accordance to his moral views, which are essentially Confucian in nature.

Not to mention that it could have been Two and a Quarter Halflings.

You should call him Al'tri Ight

>Villain raises a mass of skeletons and teaches them how to play orchestral music. Forms the largest orchestral band in the land, and using magic to creating a living stage, marches them across the land, playing the loudest, most boisterous music around.

Not if nobody lived to tell others. The road / forest might get a bad reputation for being dangerous / filled with banditsand wild animals, all the more reason to have a guide and protector for the forest.

The villain is immortal, so long as someone is looking at them. If nobody is looking at him, he dies.

He's trying to get a popular reality TV show

A wizard really liked a limited run promotional sauce offered by a restaurant, and he causes interplanar chaos after the promotion ends in an attempt to find it again.

I liked The Edge Chronicles too.

I like this

Side villain includes a general that believes it is time to cull the mass population and starts leading his legion to wipe out mass amounts of people.

Reminds me a bit of Ego from GOTG2.

I once had a group of ecoterrorist druids be the main villains. Nasty fuckers who kidnapped children from the town and brainwashed them, and were exceedingly good at guerilla warfare. Fun villains to run because really, their hearts were in the right place, as the barons of the towns were assholes

>He's going to declare the entire town lava!

except they follow the teachings of free market jesus, not confuscious