List of Villain Ideas

Not every campaign has to have a villain, but most do. And those that do need a compelling villain--their actions are what drives the story, after all. Thanks to thousands of years of human storytelling, we've seen just about every villain that might exist, in fiction at least. Coming up with an interesting hook for your villain is a key part of planning for your campaign. So I've created a list of 15 Big Bad Evil Gals/Guys (BBEGs) that can add an interesting dimension to your game. 

The list below is partially composed of BBEGs I have run in the past, but is composed mostly of new ideas specially created for this list. I'm including enough basic information to be able to extrapolate a campaign with; if you want resources on how to do that, look no further. But if like me, you prefer to do it yourself, here are some ideas to get you started. 

1. The Anarchist Royal: This member of the royal family of a burgeoning kingdom (I opted for princess) has learned about anarchy and grown to resent their family's power over their subjects. They have designed a way to destroy the kingdom from within. Their end goal is to destroy all possibility of the kingdom continuing and make efforts if possible to incite the people to rise up. I had my version of this BBEG commit to her ideals so much that she intended to die with the rest of her family to break the royal lineage. You might have this BBEG look to the party for help and not explain what their motives are, revealing their true intentions as a twist later in the campaign. The party will have to deal with investigation of conspiracies, diplomatic interactions, stealthy maneuvers, and a range of political questions about the storyline. 
2. The Artifact Collector: This studious BBEG may not even be evil in your campaign; the idea is simply that a specific person has uncovered information that that suggests a powerful artifact is hidden in some way. They have become so obsessed with the artifact that they will sacrifice anything to get it. Their end goal is to collect the artifact and be the first to use its power. In my version of this BBEG, the collection of the artifact was preceded by finding a series of related artifacts with clues that led from one to the next. Your players might race to collect the artifact before the BBEG can, or they may oppose them in some other way. The powers of the artifact may be why the BBEG is seeking it, or its powers may be a mystery and all they know is that it is highly powerful. The BBEG should be cunning and try to sabotage the player characters. The party will have to deal with discovering lore, tracking the BBEG, solving riddles, completing dungeons, and dealing with powerful magical forces. 
3. The Angry God: This god or demigod's agenda has been disrupted by the player characters. They are furious about this and want to punish the player characters for their meddling in divine plans. This BBEG's range of abilities makes them both formidable and interesting as an enemy, and discovering ways to get the upper hand on them will be a big part of dealing with this BBEG. Their end goal is to make their plan happen, and to rage against anything that gets in their way. In my version of the BBEG, I had an iteration of Gruumsh demand that the player characters help him and torture them when they didn't immediately do so; although I didn't initially intend this god character to be the overarching BBEG of the campaign, he was so persistently evil that my players loved to hate him. This BBEG should be intimidating and show off the lore about gods in your world. The party will have to deal with learning about the gods, dabbling with magic, protecting themselves from the divine, looking for allyship with other powerful beings, and using charismatic skills to deal with the BBEG. 
4. The Necromancer Commander: This powerful necromancer has developed a spell which changes the stakes of violence in-game--they have cursed the player characters, and any living humanoid they kill will be instantly raised as an undead warrior. Now the players cannot freely kill anyone or face the necromancer's wrath. They have designs to cast this spell on other powerful people in the world in order to build an army. They may even be working on an amplifying spell that would make the effect target all people. Their end goal is to conquer as much of the world as possible using their undead army. I suggest making the undead warriors that rise from killed people significantly more powerful than the person who died: the undead should have roughly 1.5x the killed person's abilities, but you could go as high as 2x if you wanted a more difficult and tense game. The party will have to deal with tense combat, strategic decisions about tactics, learning how to counter the necromancer's spells, protecting NPCs, and gathering abilities to better combat the undead. 
5. The Veteran Who Hasn't Moved On: This ex-soldier once fought in a conflict that changed them. They lost the war, but that didn't mean the war ended for this BBEG. They're bent on going out and single-handedly winning it now. Inspired by my homebrew world's Magic War, this BBEG uses their skills as a soldier to wage guerilla warfare against those they perceive as enemies. Their agenda depends on what their war was fought over; in mine, the war was about whether magic should be free, regulated, or abolished (the free advocates won), and so in my world this BBEG would be an old abolishment soldier who's striking against prominent magic users in their community. Their end goal should be an escalating series of attacks that culminate in some important public figure, as part of their agenda is making a public statement. I suggest making this BBEG a stealthy one so that part of the story can be your players discovering their identity and tracking them. To that end, the party will deal with investigation, tracking, interviewing witnesses, learning about the conflict the BBEG served in, and tense surprise combat. 
6. The Beastmaster: This BBEG can come from a variety of backgrounds: Druid, Ranger, Wizard/Sorcerer/Warlock to being with, but anyone who has learned some magic will work. This BBEG has mastered the ability to control animals. They can turn mundane animals into frightening creatures and convince even familiars to join their cause. Their end goal is to command an army and give animals dominion over humanoids. This BBEG may be aggressive and attack settlements where animals are harness for work, or they may be quietly massing an army of creatures somewhere out in the wilderness. Fighting with the Beastmaster means also fighting an array of controlled animals. The party will have to deal with natural magic, an array of transforming enemies, the ethics of killing controlled animals, and fighting to keep their animal companions by their sides. 
7. The Knowledge Eraser: This BBEG may be deranged or simply bent on an extreme idea; in any case, they seek to destroy stores of knowledge all over the land. I suggest using a magic user for this BBEG, which would allow them to cast fire spells to destroy entire libraries. They strike first at local libraries, targeting unique texts, and work their way up to the greatest stores of knowledge in the world. Their end goal is to free humanity from its undue reverence for history by destroying any trace of it. They might also focus on magical texts as an effort to reduce the potential of spellcasters. The party may be enlisted by civic authorities to investigate the destructions of texts, or they may encounter the BBEG themselves while dealing with texts. The party will deal with the various lore of your world, discussions of the value of historical records, investigating an elusive person, speaking with experts about the lost information, and learning about the different cultures in your world. 
8. The Mad Scientist: This inventor character can be whatever interpretation of a mad scientist you prefer, but here's my version. This BBEG has spent their life tinkering with gadgets and gizmos and has had a revelation: their inventions could change the world. But their attempts to promote their inventions haven't worked, and now they intend to convince the world of their genius by force. Their end goal is to punish those who underestimated them, attain renown, and implement their inventions in society. The exact nature of this BBEG's inventions is up for grabs. I opt for someone who specializes in mechanical clockwork devices, who has a collection of intimidating homunculi to use in combat. These handy devices can hold the party off while the BBEG escapes for another encounter pretty easily. You can also justify pretty much any invention you like to push the story along by using fantasy logic. The party will deal with interesting combats, a variety of strange ideas, gauging the public awareness, questions about the validity of the BBEG's inventions, and lots of appearances from the BBEG's homunculi. 
9. The Corrupt Official: This character holds a position in government and appears to be an upstanding member of the law. But secretly, they are corrupt to the core. They siphon official funds, they pull strings to get favors, they control people through their rank--and it's damaging the settlement they govern. Discovering the source of the corruption could be the core of the campaign, but you could also choose an openly corrupt official who's hard to get to for your BBEG. You can choose a smaller town if the atmosphere of fewer people being more directly impacted works better for your story, or a larger city if you want to really focus on the mystery of the corruption. Their end goal might simply be to amass wealth and power, or they may have a more concentrated agenda like obtaining a higher post or running competitors out of town or business. This is a more storytelling/roleplaying campaign, but you could add some combat by having the BBEG hire mercenaries to fight the party. The party will deal with political intrigue, investigating the government, the experiences of the common people in town, questions about what to do to fix the government, and lots of opportunity to portray a truly slimy BBEG. 
10. The Reclaimer: This character began as a very normal person, but they suffered a great loss and prayed for help. They received a blessing from their god and became instantly powerful, and their god tasked them with reclaiming a lost temple. That temple now lies at the heart of a thriving city that now uses the temple to worship a different god. Their end goal is to destroy the heathens who profaned the temple and reestablish the worship of their god. This BBEG has a very different flavor depending on which god you choose for them: an evil god means fighting against hatred and injustice; a good god means that the repurposed temple in the city has been diminished (but if the party is evil, it would function as normal); a neutral god makes the whole question of reclaiming the temple much more of a debate. As with others on this list, this BBEG may begin as an ally or questgiver, only to reveal the truth of their mission only after the party has cooperated. The party will deal with questions of morality, navigation of both dangerous and highly populated areas, learning lore of the gods in your world, fighting a variety of divine creatures, and negotiation with the gods. 
11. The Ultimate Planner: This character can come from any background, but they are remarkable for their intelligence, foresight, and practicality. Whatever happens, they have already foreseen it and prepared accordingly--they are never taken off guard. In terms of actual presence in the game, the players should always be able to approach this BBEG, but will always be foiled by a last-minute action that required planning in advance. Your players storm in and cut off all the exits? This BBEG has installed a trapdoor that leads to a tunnel and their escape. You'll keep your BBEG one step ahead of the players until the finale, when they critically miscalculate and the players triumph. Their end goal can be flexible, but by way of example that honors the planning skills of the BBEG, let's say that they want to use their judgment to maximize everyone else's life, effectively dictating their actions and erasing free will, which the BBEG doesn't see as a problem because efficiency is more important. The party will deal with trying to get a step ahead, anticipating the BBEG's actions, questions about free will, lots of planning of their own, and plenty of surprises from the BBEG's plans. 
12. The Mistaken Medium: This character has made a living from their magical ability to discern things that cannot be seen. They often read fortunes and foretell their clients' challenges. They have seen a striking vision of a world that terrifies them: they believe an important public figure (perhaps the leader of a settlement) will cause the apocalypse with a future decision. They become bent on stopping this from happening, and at any cost. Their end goal is to prevent the world ending by assassinating this figure. The party might catch onto this BBEG's actions when the BBEG kills someone close to the leader in an effort to derail them; investigating the murder leads to the BBEG's trail. This BBEG might be able to predict the party's coming for them or may use their gifts to intimidate the party. They may also share their visions in order to convince the party they are helping. The party will deal with omens of the apocalypse, protecting a public figure, investigating the BBEG's trail, questions of fate, and whether the party believes the BBEG. 
13. The Urban Terrorist: This character lives in a big city and has been run down by city life. Think of the main characters from movies like Taxi Driver and Falling Down, people who have gone rotten and lash out violently. This BBEG is filled with hatred and they take it out on the signs of decay around them. Their actions may still be percolating by getting into bar fights intending to kill someone, and they may have moved onto more devious actions like poisoning the water supply or burning down buildings with people inside. Their end goal is murky even to themselves--they only know that they will feel even worse if they don't destroy something or someone. The biggest struggle in dealing with this BBEG is in finding them in the sprawling city and being able to tie them to their crimes. The party may be contacted by city officials looking for help or may chance upon the site of one one of the BBEG's attacks. The party will deal with doing dangerous work surrounded by bystanders, questions of morality, depictions of rough city life, tracking work, and grappling with meaningless violence.
14. The Specimen Collector: This depraved individual has ceased to consider themselves a part of humanity; in their minds, they are a god among humanoids. But their interest in the lower forms of life around them has driven them even madder. This BBEG is on a quest to catalog the differences between individual humanoids, and they do so by capturing people, experimenting on them, and preserving the body for a grand display of their work. Their end goal is to have incontrovertible evidence of their theories about anatomy and biology, and they crave the approval of a particular expert on genealogy. The party's time with this BBEG may begin when the first few people get abducted by the BBEG, or it may be when the expert on genealogy is contacted by the BBEG--their disgust at the BBEG's work inspires them to contact the party for help. The party will deal with disturbing scenes of experimentation, learning about the game's lore for the different races, questions of scientific ethics, anticipating the moves of a deranged person, and investigating disappearances and murders.
15. The Harbinger: This individual was raised in a highly religious household and came to fear their god. In my world, this would fit well with the Dalton Church of Pelor, a dark version of the sun god who requires sacrifices to rise each morning. This BBEG, after being raised in such a dark and disturbing worldview, has lost sight of reality. They believe that the animal sacrifices are no longer enough to satisfy the hungry sun, and they commit to sacrificing one humanoid each day. Their end goal is to preserve the earth by indefinitely sacrificing people. This makes this BBEG especially committed to their goal. Dealing with this BBEG means that the party will be investigating a string of disappearances or murders; you could also have the party see the BBEG kill someone and get away and have the party learn about the extent of the crimes as they investigate. This BBEG might have been killing people for only a day or two before someone catches on, but you might also decide he's been at it for a month before people in the busy city really notice. The party will deal with investigation of disappearances and murder, religious lore from your world, questions about belief, disturbing scenes of the sacrificial church, and the potential for involvement from the gods in your world. 

That's 15 different BBEG ideas. If an idea appeals to you, run with it. Feel free to change anything at all to better suit your world, your story, and your take on the BBEG. Remember that a compelling BBEG is one you can portray in an exciting way, so be sure to use ideas that you think you could perform well for your players. And of course if your players are interested in one of these ideas, it's hard to go wrong by giving them the villain they really want. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: a one-shot based on Alice in Wonderland, naming conventions in my homebrew setting, and the value of individual introduction sessions for a campaign. Until next time, happy gaming!

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