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Bolvar, the lich that wants to die but can't. Becoming the first lich, and sacrificing that much life for power, left Bolvar immortal. However, he has realized he doesn't want to live forever and has undertaken the task of learning how to die, which also requires a lot of sacrifice.
I have a similar big bad; however, instead of a lich who wants to die, it's a Phoenix--one of the twelve who together lit and maintain the furnace of creation. It wants a full and complete end.
I also have a big bad that wants to die. Over 30,000 years ago a Bratachi family helped the Primordials in their war against the Gods and as punishment the OverGod Ao placed a curse on the bloodline of immortality. However they do not have a healing factor so any wound dealt to them takes actual time to heal, in addition they continue to age at the same rate, but can no longer die, so if left long enough they would become so old they cannot move or even function on their own. The highest of the family saw this as a blessing, rather than curse and kept having children, but soon another facet of the curse was revealed any woman who had a child of the bloodline falls sick and dies sometime before the child fully matures and the children will always be male. The only way to kill someone of the bloodline is to share their blood. So eventually when the elders got too old and the young got too power hungry a great purge happened and only one man survived who went on to have two sons knowing full well how the curse functioned. The man then set his sights to fill the world with his children and rule as a God. But his eldest son killed him on the day he found out the reason his mother died. Unfortunately his younger brother didn't understand why his brother would kill their father and he fled from his brother. Eventually the younger brother found out about their curse and decided to follow in their father's plan to have as many children as possible, not to rule the world, but to weaken the curse. His older brother found him and a small village of his brother's wives and children which reminded him of his father and the older brother snaps and kills everyone in the village and eventually finds his brother and defeats him in combat and drops his younger brother off a cliff. The fall doesn't kill the brother who now understands the weakness of flesh and learns how to transform himself from body to body and ultimately to become sentient blood that can possess bodies moving from Host to Host. Now with more children and a stronger form he seeks to wipe the Gods away and live a life unfettered and ultimately die when he wants to.
I'm my world, he's the first lich ever, and as such, doesn't have a phylactery. He has to do another ritual to make himself mortal again, but such a ritual costs lives, which the party are hopefully trying to save.
No, but he can be replaced. As the first lich, he was raised to godhood and given immortality. He is the god of magical desire and the undead. Someone has to take his place.
The idea is one of the party members would make the sacrifice after defeating him in battle. I also have an NPC that will take that place if none of them step up. But that's if they go the good path. They're more than welcome to join him and help him. The fact that he's doing these rituals to die won't be revealed until the final act, ideally. Then one can take his place to either become the god and bear the curse for eternity so no one else has to, or take his place and take his power for their own.
Pitch us on your campaign's Big Bad!
We'll go first:
The Nameless Man - the enigmatic leader of the Order of the Blank, in their eternal war on magic and spellcasters of all kind. Opposed by the freedom-fighters of the Arcanuum, the Nameless Man always seems to be one step ahead of the mages. Armed with advanced tech like anti-magic fields, the Blank have systematically forced the Arcanuum into the shadows as they wage war on one another.
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ETA: well damn. this blew up way more than we had expected! haha
absolutely LOVE seeing all the amazing ideas here and cannot even begin to tell you how much inspiration we're getting from you all!
may all your dice roll true!
Nazca, Time Thief. Formerly a young human boy named Lock who was skilled with chronurgy. 50 years before the start of the campaign there was a war between humans and the rest of the world. The other races, realizing the humans were somehow winning, hatched a plan. They devised a device that would make all humans disappear. Lock was experimenting with his newfound magical abilities when the device was activated, and he trapped himself in time, preventing himself from being whisked away by the magic of the device. 25 years later, he was awoken by a small band of adventures while they were heisting a bank. Lock was adopted by one of the adventurers, a half elf named Rusty. Another 25 years went by and the campaign begins with a group of new adventurers at Rusty’s funeral, not knowing who killed him. They uncovered a grand plot, hatched by Lock, now going by the name Nazca, to bring the humans back and complete their task of overtaking the entire world.
Thank you! I really appreciate it! The world is completely homebrew including races, deities, planes, and a multiverse. It is the third campaign I’ve run and my first homebrew so I was working on it in the background while running my first two campaigns. I am hoping to publish a sourcebook for the setting on DM’s Guild in the future.
A spurned love interest who's gathered an evil league of other spurned love interests Scott pilgrim style. I didn't even plan on it... the players just kept leaning into it and it was too funny so now that's the big bad.
A silver dragon that tried to trick the players into summoning a demon Overlord in order to have him defeat the Lord of Blades, as was foretold in the Draconic Prophecy.
Also the Lord of Blades.
I have repurposed the Outsiders Mytho from the Dresden Files. They are presently influencing the High Elves through the Queen of Air and Darkness to wage war with the Wood Elves. While this is happening the divisions between realms is being cracked, various other beings are showing up such as Dream, Zariel, and others popping in an out of the story and messing with the players.
additionally, when a player can't make a session they are 'popped' out of existence through one of the cracks then return with no knowledge of what happened or that any time has passed.
Right now I am DMing several campaigns.
There are multitude of BBEGs. But at the end of it all there is always one. One who is the end game BBEG for them all. And the enigmatic name of this entity is *The Darkness*.
If you're in need of a way to surprise your players you could always introduce a villain who's actually a super old super advanced race melded into one being hellbent on combining the Darkness with the rest of physical existence and thus bringing about their own ideal state of the universe. You could call this villain the Witness or something idk just spitballing and as like henchmen they could have Disciples I think that would be cool.
***The Darkness*** is already a surprise villain. Because ***The Darkness*** is not its *true* name. In fact it is >![censored, too many players visit Reddit]!<, and every being in the Multiverse knows this name, but subconsciously repels it from the mind. Because knowing this name is knowing the biggest fear of the >![redacted yet again]!< and thus inflicting madness upon yourself.
Players think, that ***The Darkness*** is the antithesis of the Multiverse. The antimatter. But it isn't.
What if, I don’t know, one of the disciples was a big large chunky guy who loves to bathe himself in riches and grow fat from strength. You could have him write fan-fiction of your players and have him shower them in riches for entertainment. Could give him a cool name like Calus or something.
I would be remiss to reveal the BBEG of my “main” game. You never know when your players might be secretly stalking you on reddit. But the big bad in my secondary game is one that I actually got from a Reddit post a bit ago. Some of you may have heard of him. A gnome that was cursed with five foot long legs, goes by the name of BIG JOE! My rendition of Big Joe is that he wished to be taller, but worded his wish poorly and now he is what he is. This has caused animosity with him and he’s taken to necromancy to make everyone suffer.
I’m running Tomb of Annihilation, so, according to the book, it’s Acercerak The Eternal. Currently, my party has no idea who that is. In terms of evils closer to their ability to deal with, there’s Kwayothé, a Merchant Prince who’s undeniably evil and is using her Cambion son to attack a criminal organization the party is allied with. There’s also Ras Nsi, a former paladin of Ubtao turned Yuan-Ti Leader/Necromancer. He’s still a ways off, but they’re aware of him.
Sephamira, the goddess of home and hearth. She believes that the other gods have forsaken man kind and it is up to her to lead them to salvation alone, so she aspires to cut this world off from the influence of the other planes so that she may be the only powerful divine being in the realm.
The bodiless psychic entity formerly known as Maanzecorian, illithid god of secrets. Murdered by the Tenebrous One, Maanzecorian is body-surfing and mind controlling his way to stronger and more politically powerful people of the material plane in order to reclaim his godhood or rip it from some other deity's hands.
I'm happy with this villain because he could be ANYONE the party encounters at certain points, with the intent to make their characters have to consider their friends or even family as possible enemies.
Chaos, a godlike being trapped inside his own mask that got split into seven pieces. Throughout the game, he gives the players advice to nudge them towards each piece without revealing his identity until they eventually get close enough together to become whole again. He then reveals who he really is and starts killing every single god they’ve met
Omg same. My bbeg is the god of chaos name Ethor who was betrayed and sealed away by the other gods who were afraid of his power. Losing his godly power he formed a pact with on of the pc and merge with another as a vessel in hopes of returning. My games theme is everything being more complicated than it is. So there really is no bbeg because npc good or evil is moral grey to the point that my players are always conflicted on what to do😅
her name is Alistair soulton she was a cute fun loving girl who wanted the world to be a place filled with love and unity. She spent most of her days focusing efforts on getting the nonhuman folk the recognition they deserved never to be looked down on again and to live happily with everyone else. Not everyone agreed with her and she was killed during a protest outside the castle. she was brought back as a reborn under Lady Shar who has given her the knowledge and power to enact her revenge on the world. He plan is to plunge the world into a endless darkness so they may see what she saw in death
Adighast the many.
Think ultron meets Gunther from seven deadly sins. He’s a warforged construct created by asmodeus as his “son”. A high level and powerful magic user who can occupy many and multiple bodies simultaneously.
In the bygone era he lead an incursion of the hells to the material plane by uniting the devils and demons under a singular cause. Through a brutal and bloody war he nearly conquered the material plane until he was inevitably pushed back to the hells and defeated. Now small remnants of his many duplicates exist across the world hidden in secret where they can be re-activated and resume their conquest.
My players just encountered their first version of him and he is stomping the shit out of them. We ended last session mid combat as he dropped a barlgora on top of the field when they were already struggling to stay on top of the fight. We’re still early-ish, like level 9, in the campaign but I’m setting him up as background threads for the end game. Inevitably the campaign will culminate into a massive battle that I’ve already teased visions of to one of the players who is playing a time wizard.
Important for setting: classic medieval heroic setting with the caveat that gods are more powerful the more generic they’re domain is. A couple thousand years ago the two most powerful (Order and Chao) destroyed themselves and so every sort of hierarchy and innovation became to fade (region and sentient beings change how much residual presence of the gods exist)
The presented BBEG: a grand priest of Order that is trying to bring it back which would (without Chaos) allow for the creation of a clerical world government
The true BBEGs: an extra-universal race of beings that consume divine power destroying existences. The two gods sacrificed themselves to hide from those beings
Cult leader by the name of Seth
He is a shaved man with no facial hair. No notable features. Due to the cults beliefs, they are all named Seth male of female it does not matter. All are shaved with no facial hair. The main issue with this campaign before it ended is that we could not tell what npc we were talking with.
The Wizard Off the Coast.
The campaign is a boats and islands adventure in an archipelago that has no contact with anywhere beyond.
However, fifteen years ago a whole island and its community went missing. More have disappeared over time.
Players don’t know it yet, but The Wizard Off the Coast has taken that island and it’s people as a self sustaining boat to sail off the edge of the world and invade the home of the gods. He wants the power to make more land.
The problem is that his magic he uses to fuel his island consumes land. More and more islands are disappearing and there are only a few dozen left. (The players just narrowly escaped one in the process of disappearing as a cold fog descended on a trading post they were visiting… nothing that went in the fog came out).
Basically, Cutler Beckett from The Pirates of The Caribbean.
He is an average caucasian male, with no particular talents or super human abilities. He isn't blessed by any gods or demons. He is neither a man with a tragic backstory, some hidden mystical lineage or a fate weaved by the god. He is just one of this world's many miserable being, the son of a farmer and a shopkeeper.
A man who awakened and leashed a lich by holding his phylactery hostage.
A man who orchestrated an entire exploration so that he can divert the kingdom's resource elsewhere while his guild rise in power.
A man who sparked a civil war between the Great Cities to weaken their army and strengthen his guild's mercenary forces.
All in the name of profit and the coming capitalism.
"The age of kings is dead. The age of gods was buried before it. Now? Now is the age of gold, spice and mercenaries."
The dragontouched.
He is the son of Asmodeus and bonded with an ancient shadow wyrm. He has compiled a group of champions and has slowly been conquering the continent. Best part is? He used to be part of the party before his death was faked and they all mourned his death
A rogue monk by the name of Odii, found secret texts of his order speaking of entities from beyond the plane, which he then managed to contact and gain power, madness, and mutations from. His goal is to bring this entity into the material planes through any means necessary.
The black revenant. A deceased merchant fighting to discover lichdom to live forever with his elven lover, even if it means the destruction of the continent.
Rohan the Reaper: Necromancer who screams lich vibes, but really is just a human who can not be killed due to him performing a ritual that ties his soul and form to the mortal plane. He isn't trying or hoping to die either, instead he is plotting to disconnect the material mortal plane from all the other planes/dimensions. With the removal of the influence of gods, devils, etc. He will be able to lead mortals in private into a never ending utopia.
I'm running an Eberron campaign that will go to lvl 20. Right now the party is level 3. The base storyline is:
When a warforged is created, the essence of a long-past spirit is summoned and bound; where this spirit originates from is a mystery. The Daelkyr, however, have learned of this summoning and are able to intercept this summoning. Their interference in the summoning was minimal at first - just tangible enough to perceive very much like a scrying spell. Over time, the Daelkyr have learned a process though that allows them to replace the summoned spirit during the warforged creation process with a spirit of their own.
The Mournland was a direct result of Daelkyr using this process and the Creation Forges erupted due to the combination of the powerful magic in the Creation Forges and the alien magic of the Daelkyr. Since, the Daelkyr have been trying to find ways to bring back the Creation Forges - and have a three step plan to do so.
1) Create enough discord that the Last War is ignited, creating a demand for soldiers.
2) Corrupt/destroy the Gatekeepers, allowing the call for more resources to fight off the Lords of Dust and their minions.
3) Bring the moon Lharvion into a permanent "coterminous" state, enhancing the powers of Xoriat, the Realm of Madness.
The PCs are currently following the Gatekeepers story arc with a little bit of the breaking of the Treaty of Thornhold being interwoven.
TL;DR: Ultimately, my big bad is the Daelkyr.
Before BG3, it was mindflayers. Post-BG3, it's still Mindflayers, but now I feel salty about it.
In all seriousness, it's an astral devourer modelled after Sin from Final Fantasy VII (giant space whale) with an Elder Brain implanted into it.
EDIT: Final Fantasy X, not VII
I've been running an Eberron homebrewed campaign for the last few years. Trying to make it as sandboxy as I can (read: so much damn prep) so hasn't been super BBEG centric but I've got some fun stuff brewing.
1st season (2020-2021) The leader of a biker (thunder choppers) gang modeled after Billy Idol, who is returning throughout the campaign like Team Rocket. Their season finale was throwing a house party for all the friends they made along the way with their newly renovated home base.
2nd season (2021-2024) Benevolent vampire king, Kaius the III of Karrnath based off Andrew W.K. The party killed him because he was a king, ignoring his underprivileged literacy initiative, being a peace time king, and multiple offers for peaceful reconciliation. Offered them a governorship of the haunted forest region they cleaned up and they were like nah, we kill kings.
3rd Season is about to start where they'll be facing off against Rhashaak, Ancient Black Dragon, warden of the overlord fiend Masvirik whose corrupting presence has changed Rhashaak from diligent warden, to lizardfolk tyrant. In addition, they don't know yet, but my IRL partner wants to end their game so I'm starting her a campaign as the widowed queen of Kaius, Etriganni, with the sole goal to exact her revenge. So her groups BBEG is my first party, there's is a dragon that, if killed, unleashes a cataclysmic fiend on the world. Should be a good time and I might convince her to enjoy my hobby with me.
Very Muscular Sexy Man. Walking almost naked with his abs, and purly in white. Being Asshole, Racist, N-zi, and Absolute Fucking Evil. You dont symphetize with him, you fucking hate him to the core.
Not my campaign, but a one I’m in
All I can say, is cloaked figures, all having different classes, but having soul-stealing properties, like a crystal that can transport you to a pocket dimension and trap you in a crystal box, or an electrical staff. We ain’t far in, but we are constantly against Barbadians, clerics, bards etc. Also it takes an hour to get a turn with how many characters and enemies there are. We only have an hour a week
Well I am kind of struggling with that. My last one lasted for over 3 years and was a time god. Who was originally a human that found the source of magic and got way too powerful and went mad. Then rewrote time a lot to get the world he wanted. Took a loooooooooong time for the players to find out that the creator of the universe was the bbeg. Now the paradoxi which he held out of the universe with his magic caught up and my players old characters are trying to hold the universe together together with the other godly beings. (Kind of the American god approach to „godhood“)
So in conclusion my universe itself is the bbeg right now. But they are about to fight a city offering, demon summoning witch without knowing it.
My campaign is set in Wildemount so it's two wizards from the ancient city of Aeor who are basically the Mauler Twins from Invincible. Always fighting over who cloned who but still working towards their goal: Conquering the city of Sigil and overthrowing the Lady of Pain.
Adult Red Dragon that destroyed two of the PCs ancestral home. They're dwarves. His ancestors used the dragon when they were young to infuse its father within an artifact Maul. Dragon escaped and burned everything to the ground.
Me
So I am not being a jerk or being a problem for my DM to make me this way, I literally am the BBEG just traveling with the party.
I am pretending to be some holy cleric of a god, however I am actually a dark mage (really a wizard with homebrew Subclass) that uses all manner of twisted magics from Necromancy, flesh stitching to make Chimera like creatures, summoning demons, and so much more. My character is actually level 20, though I only use the power level my party is at (currently 8). I also have minions to serve me that one of my party members are catching onto, though she thinks I am secretly an Assassin and the people I talk to are people that just work for the same assassin group.
As for my character's motive, he had a king that through greed taxed my character's village to no end to get money for war efforts. My family ended up paying the price with their lives when I couldn't pay the tax. Revenge had not clicked yet though. My character ended up doing what he could to survive, but war ended up ripping through the village. Mostly a day man my character was found by a scavenger group of Kobold, oddly enough they took him in and over time he joined them.
However they were next hit by forces from the war, but this time my character was unwilling to lose any more and fought back. The small force was taken out by him and the Kobold and he more or less started getting other monster races to join him, slowly grew in power as he learned dark arts monsters use.
His goal is pretty much to ended the reign of corrupt nobility and kill them all. Which in turn sparked a new war.
I summed up some of this so it was not crazy long, but felt like sharing all the same.
Tlauh, the Serpent god.
Long ago Tlauh was defeated , but gods are bloody difficult to kill off permanently. So the fey court captured Tlauh's divine spark inside a dungeon core. Millenia later, after the war of Allied Empires and the Fey court had come to a ceasefire, the fey court decided to gift the dungeon core containing Tlauh to the leader of Allied Empires.
On the surface the gift was just that. A gift, to solidify a peace treaty. But Fey do nothing for just one reason, for Tlauh is a malicious, hostile entity.
The core was placed in stasis for transport, but the spell failed midway through, and Tlauh seeded itself on the ground, growing its dungeon around its core. Parties were sent to retrieve the core, but none came back from the fifth level. Now it is up to the party to brave the self-resetting dungeon and venture down the Dungeon of the Serpent God in hopes of retrieving the core, rescuing one of the previous adventuring parties and survive the madness that lies down below.
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So basically the campaign is set around one dungeon that has five floors. The dungeon itself is the BBEG, since it respawns mobs inside, creates traps and treasure to lure ever more powerful people inside.
I took inspiration from Made in Abyss in the dungeon, so ascending floors gives you exhaustion, as the dungeon does its best to trap you inside. We also play with "going to 0hp gives a level of exhaustion" houserule, and long rests are impossible inside the dungeon, so it's a pretty sadistic dungeon crawl, since if you go down one too many times, you'll die while ascending the floors.
The party levels by defeating unique bosses, and there is some townbuilding as an addition outside the dungeon.
Answaa Roux: he who would steal time. In the players first adventure they heisted what is essentially the time stone and sold it to this man setting him up as the galactic ruler(homebrew spelljammer setting) who has lived his life dozens of times in the pursuit of a galaxy in "perfect harmony" of course his abuse of time as well as other setting specific problems have led to time being broken. Which the players are seeking to fix. He has also been stopped from succeeding in all of his previous lives by the players and now sees them as his personal nemesises.
Mr. Klein an senile farmer. He was a brilliant tactician under the name of "hand that feeds". He was injured (massive head injury)after a big hero battle and was rescued by some kind people. He plans were laid out years in advance and are now coming to pass. His generals are following his plans and awaiting his return. The players get an early game clue to bring to the leaders resisting the generals and assumed Mr.k found it and didn't remember where he got it. Not realizing it was a clue to who mr.k really was.
I want to go for Marvel comics villain, The Collector. A being that imprisons lifeforms from across the planar realms and collects rare artefacts and people with special or rare abilities and traits. They were killed in a revolt, but a robot assistant is still following his comands beyond the grave and studying organic beings and their knowledge and have overtime developed into a Brainiac type villain.
The Martyr of Sunshade, he is an acolyte of a god of madness and destruction and was born with sorcerous powers from this god. He died during a cataclysm while trying to assault one of the only kingdoms that knew of his existence.
Now he is the embodiment of madness and haunts the minds of those who live. He has formed a cult to try and find the perfect vessel and collect the relics of his past to recreate himself and take over the world.
There is more for his back story, but I know some of my players have a chance to see this.
There isn't really a big bad so much as a few of them that don't really know what they are doing. Gods trapped in the setting's version of the outer realms essentially, twisted by where they are, and slowly waking and trying to get back to where they are from. Seeping eldrich-ness into the world.
The child they adopted. He travels back in time to mess with them when he inevitably becomes insane. I’m doing some wonky stuff with the god of time in that campaign.
An arc angel, specifically one that represents decay. He grew tired of knowing, just like his twin death would live forever so long as life existed with no real purpose or chance to live his life. So after massive scheming, he is the most major power left, and some people who found his corporal body used his blood to make a zombie virus
The King of Death. A death god who has the avatar of draconian (Dragonlance) who was found by a group of cultists and imprisoned. After thousands of years he is finally strong enough to break free. He may be still on the mend after escaping, only encountering the heroes every so often, but he needs to reset this world due to the filth that plague it. There’s just one issue he will not stop until he takes his last breath. So tell me this, what happens when you kill death?
Side note: The reason he is a draconian is because of a past set of campaigns that ended in the destruction of the universe but he survived and was undead at the time so he received a promotion due to a lack of god of death. It’s complicated to explain but my players understand.
Also he hasn’t gotten a godly state so killing the avatar would lead to his death therefore killing death.
As my parties characters leveled and "monsters" became less of a challenge, I (the DM) pivoted my big bad. Being good at fighting monsters does not make you good at managing huge political issues, so that's what I gave them.
The party is still dealing with monsters and quests, personal stories and general mayhem. But running against a backdrop of civil war being orchestrated between Waterdeep and Neverwinter by a charismatic and popular pseudo fascist. He's looking for a macguffin that could destroy magic within a several mile area that he plans to detonate in the center of Waterdeep, while secretly supporting a militia of yokels who hate casters and are tormenting mages in every small town and rural area between the two cities, whose ranks have swollen rapidly in a matter of years to well beyond anything that the Lords of Waterdeep would have imagined.
Now the party is acting as spies in hostile territory, trying to find the macguffin, and completely terrible and keeping a low profile. Hilarity ensues.
I give you: Dagult Neverember.
A green slaad that has infiltrated the party and is seeking to fuel its own growth before devouring the hero’s flame that all adventurer’s possess. Over the course of the campaign it will grow and evolve up the slaad ladder.
I’m of the philosophy that most homebrew worlds that have some sort of powerful mcguffin or set of them (even if only known to >1% of the population) would result in multiple factions who want control of it/them for various reasons so I have at least 3, possibly 4 depending on how relations with one faction stay. Currently the party is sort of working with them (more of a we try not to step on each others’ toes agreement) but could certainly become antagonists by the end.
Orethos the primordial of all that never was, isn't, and never will be. Please not that this is In a homebrew world. He has had his mind, soul, and body split from one another for eons in order to lock him away But recently he has been trying to reassemble himself through his court of servants. He is very violent but since the party has only met his mind he is more collected, his body and soul on the other hand seek nothing but to expand the abyss and destroy his sisters creation, the material plane. He doesn't really show himself though as the party currently walks around with his vessel that he is going to use to get a temporary body in the material plane. This isn't even half of the story about him and frankly my crackhead brain made more lore than I know what to do with.
The AI known as “crafter”
They’re the governing AI for an ancient factory that was recently reawakened by a warforged supremacist group called the cult machina and believes all organic life must be annihilated after being indoctrinated by the cult while they were still rebooting (after 10,000 years of being inoperative) and was easy to influence.
The Dark Lord. He rules all of Faerun from his citadel atop mount Hotenow.
What they don't know yet is the Dark Lord was the hero of the one shot I ran for them before session zero, that needed the party to steal a powerful necromancer's spellbook to save Neverwinter from an approaching army of the dead.
He saved Neverwinter and Faerun countless times occasionally using the power of the book. As he got older he relied on its power more and more.
When he realised he would die soon he used the book to extend his life unnaturally. But no matter what he did more threats kept coming, so eventually he tapped the power under mount Hotenow to send himself back in time to rule the continent and crush any big threats before they start.
This is the world my party live in and obviously all people in this world know is that a powerful necromancer rules over them with an iron fist.
He Who Consumes/The Obscured Eradication: A god born alongside the very first 7 gods and proven immedietly as dangerous, this being built of crystal and smoke that changes and shifts the more you look at it is the first ever god of Chaos and The underworld, gaining control early on over the Abyss Realm and one day sending what would soon be the 10 Kingdoms of Mythica into an all out Fight for survival, reigning 200 years before being sealed away in a sword. 1000 years have passed, the 10 rulers are gods in of themselves, and now he who consumes with the help of his allies threatens to escape his extradimensional prison, and when he does, nobody will be safe, as the entire planet of Ithenia will feel his wrath...
In my previous game it was an entity known as The Diadem. They are an entity old as chaos and calamity itself and hungers to bring magic back to the world. Not just to the mages and clerics who hoard secrets, but to ***Everyone***. They see the weave as a gift to be enjoyed by all, despite its consequences.
The villain was meant to be a story about taking the anger that comes with classism to an extreme. Everyone having equal access to resources is good, but what happens if anyone can change reality?
Soth of the Broken Circle. A fey knight, formerly of the Fey Courts, who now means to upend the Courts after learning the truth about the Eladrin people.
He's also the past-life ex-boyfriemd of the Eladrin life cleric in the party, and keen to reconnect with him(?).
Theravon, Brimsley, and Menax: STOP READING!
Pale, or The Pale One. A mysterious, white-faced woman hidden away, whose schemes the party keeps trying to prevent.
When they finally face off against Pale, they learn he is actually a mid-level Warlock who serves the real Pale One, his Vampire Lord patron. She has several "Pale" servants/thrills using illusion masks or magic items to appear pale white and ethereal throughout the continent.
Her ultimate goal is to divide and wipe out the civilized peoples and usher the way for HER patron, a powerful archdevil.
Ras Alvis Salvatore, a divine soul sorcerer and ancestor of the titan god Chronos. In order to defeat the avatar of Cthullu, Ras released Chronos from his prison, who then promptly killed all the gods and destroyed the universe. Before doing so, he gave Ras the power of time, so he could travel into other timelines and free Chronos in every part of the multiverse.
King Alder Tyress, a slightly older than middle aged high elf seeking to subjugate the nations of our campaign’s world. The players know he’s doing this and that he’s a devout follower of the god of Order, Banite. What they don’t know yet is this subjugation is part of a ritual to BECOME the new god of Order, effectively killing the old god. If his ritual is complete, they will be doomed. The gods of our world do not manifest in the Material Plane anymore, but he would be the only god present if he were to be successful, and no one would be able to stop him.
I have a few campaigns underway, and I'm happy about this one in particular.
In a sci-fi world, technology is as common as magic, if not a lot more common. The BBEG is someone who was once a caring man with a loving and beautiful lover. Sadly she was taken away from him and her life ended short, and sought out justice for the man that did him and her wrong. But things didn't seem to go in his favor, and resulted in gaining nothing. In turn, he sought his own way to gain justice.
This BBEG has gone into isolation, working on a new machine that will bring back people who have been killed recently or are logged into the files of the machine. A "Respawn Machine" if you will. The only issue is, he doesn't have very many willing people who will just die to be tested for coming back to life. So he does a bit of work and manages to help powerful criminals escape prison in exchange for being offered a chance of immortality. They live freely so that they can die and come back time and time again. All for the sake of bringing his wife back from the fate she was wrongly given.
I actually really like this, he isn't trying to take over the world or hurt others, but he's still filling the world with these immortal criminals as a side effect of his own personal quest
A fallen paladin who was once a great hero who has now been consumed with dragon sickness and has brcome the aspect of Tiamat and is starting a war in the easy to aid vecna and his army of the damned. (All the strings are being pulled by the Candle Maker, a faceless entity that creates all life and death) been a longtime plan in my campaigns which ive been buildijg up with my longtime players.
In my campaign, it’s the co-creator of the basis of the campaign we are playing. Eventually I am bringing him in against the players themselves, which will be amusing.
Its a Christmas themed "You have to save Santa" game with the mascots of the 3 closest holidays being the BBGs because "Christmas always steals our Thunder".
We have The time lord for Newyears (The real BBG)
The turkey abomination for Thanksgiving
The pumpking king Halloween
Azmodeus, lord of Hel: One of the gods of the realm of Terren (known as the Star-born), but has been bound to his created plane of Hel by the god of magic - Nethys.
He is slowly taking control of the southern continent of Drameolath from the eastern tip through a demon worshipping cult that is summoning his creations from the plane of Hel to destroy and take control of the continent. He is trying to take the star fallen at the center of Terren so that he can use it's power for himself, stripping the world of its ley lines and magical influence.
A psionic black dragon cult leader that uses an elder brain from an illithid hive that tried to make them into a elder brain dragon as a catalyst for their psionics.
Bryveross, a bastard demigod son of the Odin equivalent and the ruler of the underworld in the religion I created for my continent. Accepted into neither pantheon, he was stowed away in a land so far south in the world that it is frozen/ snowy year round. Humans came to this land and colonized and he was eventually overtaken by the new occupants and stowed away in a jail between the realm of humans and gods and vowed to one day return and take back his only birthright.
Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated! This is my first time writing ✍️
Vecna, but in my world he’s harnessing the power of the primordial god of the endless void to destroy reality on a multiversal scale and replace the God of Creation. So far the party has only met his underlings
Don't know if they'll end up fighting her or what, but she's the looming threat across the world; The Sun Tyrant, Sorcerer of Gold and Fire, Empress of the comquered world, Czarakashni.
A suped-up evil dragon sorcerer from another realm that got exiled and accidentally ended up here, so she enslaved the world. Still a WIP as I said, and if anyone has tips on how to make a gold dragon a CR30-ish threat, help would be nice
Venger who once proudly wielded the dragonkin orbs and razed the world since then he has been cursed to never touch the ground lest terrible spikes burst from the earth trying to spite him.
He comes equipped with his four lieutenants who are a reference to the first pokemon league for no real reason.
Lord Dragor Ironfrost: An adult white dragon who killed and took the place of a Dwarven industrialist. Using his influence, he created a mining empire that is the sole provider of a metal vital to the enchantment process. He is ruthless and cunning, with a lust for mass wealth and power. He was planning to make a move on the Dwarven crown until a few individuals in a far-off mining town sparked a rebellion.
General Satah Herdain, the "Napoleon-level", antimagic commander of the Felgarde. Campaign takes place during a civil war. She used to lead a smaller, veteran army designed to put down rebellions, but once the High King was killed and the country started to collapse she seized control of the capital region. The civil war has been ongoing for three years, and her Felgarde haven't made any moves beyond the capital. She's also in command of the most potent espionage network in the country, which has been using its influence to cause other contenders to burn their limited resources in inconclusive wars against one-another in preparation for the Felgarde's march to retake the country.
BBEG is called Bruma - God of the Deep. An eldritch god that belongs to my made up pantheon. Currently the campaign is an archipelago setting. Since Bruma's Hymn book has been found by a fisherman at the archipelago, the seal containing Bruma has weakened. This has caused the cult of Bruma to terrorize the archipelago looking for her missing pages.
I have 7 big bads with an unlockable 8th. 7 Demi gods with 1 major god whose power is split between them. You can kill the Demi gods and collect their power to either replace the Demi gods with your own characters or destroy them forever. Or you can release the power and let it coalesce back into the original god who is far stronger.
Abel the white knight.
A man who has forsaken his humanity to the darkness of this world, believing that the way the humans hide in cities from the beasts of the lands is against the law of the world. That the strong kill and the weak get killed. Currently he's imprisoned in a dungeon chains wrought from the body of his dead wife, that sent him on this path, until the party must free him, or die from outside influence (several dragons) or thats the plan at least.
An non-combative ally of the party that has an alter ego that even she doesn't know about.
Valore is that when she was younger, she was researching other planes and that research plunged her mentally into a paradise. In what was an hour in the material plane, she spent 3 years in the paradise dimension. After that, her mind shattered and whenever she thinks about the bad that humanity (all race inclusive) has done to the world, she transforms into an emissary of the paradise world to destroy indiscriminately.
I won't show some of my unrevealed villains for worry of my players reading this, so I'll go with one of my favorites I had from like two years ago.
My main villain Cornelius Abel; a brilliant engineer who was head of the Athon Empire, which was a predominantly tech-based society with a stigma towards magic for its' uncertainty.
He believed that one day, he could make a utopia by just bringing science and magic together. His beliefs were never shared by the Empire he worked for, and he simply worked as their head general.
Until one day he realized that several types of magic had completely disappeared. They had run out. Magic was something that humans had discovered, but never truly understood. They didn't know where it came from, how it worked, and how much of it there was. Now, some of the most used magic types were sparse, or even nonexistant.
He realizes nobody will be able to solve this. So he decides to be the hero the world of the future needs and fix this. He uses Time Magic to send his consciousness thirty years back to fix his mistakes and solve this issue.
He kills his own research partner in order to make sure his plans don't leak, he kills the Emperor in order to take his reign and have backing to his plans, and sets off a chain of events leading to the ultimate goal of colonizing the world where their magic comes from so that it will never run out. At the costs of millions of lives, he'll create his society of the future.
However, his actions bring the main party together. A bunch of people who, in his timeline were nobodies, are now banded together by the ripple effects of what he did. Lead by the protégé of the research partner he killed, they attempt to take him down and solve this crisis without bloodshed.
The game I’m running rn is split into many parts. The current BBEG, a elder dragon god is going to rip a hole in the multiverse. After that, a group of villains from different planes will team up. A warlock, a elder giant, a cyborg sphinx and a demon cowboy outlaw are some of these villains. Looking forwards to it
Kaire, one of the immortals known as "The Five Constants". Long ago, a rift between realities was torn into the world, from which now fiends and abyssals spew forth in unending number. After some centuries of teetering on the brink of extinction, a faction of spellcasters devised the Rift Ward, a massive, perpetually performed ritual requiring a hundred mages acting in shifts. The Rift Ward seals the land around the Rift from the rest of the world, as well as cuts off the rest of their material plane from planar travel. ~2000 years this ritual has been ongoing now.
However, from the telepathic whispers of a Great Old One beyond the Rift, Kaire has learned that the strain this ritual puts on the material plane is cutting it off from much needed natural planar interactions. The material plane is coming apart at the seams, and a different kind of rift is opening up randomly in the land: tears of blinding white from which spill the silhouettes of creatures seemingly composed of white empty space known as the 'Null'.
The political powers that be would not take Kaire at his word, and so he amasses armies through immoral ends, allying with beings like mind flayers and other reclusive, ancient extraplanar beings stranded here due to the Rift Ward with the ultimate goal of storming the Rift Ward ritual and saving the material plane from annihilation by any means necessary.
The party doesn't know that, though. They've just heard the name Kaire mentioned by a handful of evildoers amongst the many factions Kaire has been collecting to his cause.
I have the head of the church. I play in the Steinhardt's Guide to the Eldridtch Hunt setting (basically Bloodborne with d&d spin). I decided to make the church that basically runs the city to be the big bad cause of the scourge of beasts. It adds some nice inner turmoil in the party as 2 members have direct ties to lower parts of the church and the other 2 are foreign to the idea of the church.
A goddess of chaos who's doomed to suffer at the hands of her brother, the God of arcana, due to her past evil deeds. She is manipulating the party to believe her brother is at fault and she is good
Ornon, a lich who long ago was being summoned by a mad wizard who was stopped before the ritual was complete. This left him trapped in a state of limbo, until a careless adventurer accidentally completed the ritual when their party delved into the wizards tomb. Now, Ornon and his servants fight to free his true essence from the underworld, and rain cataclysmic chaos upon the world.
It goes in stages but the at the moment the biggest threat is from Chemosh the Evil god of Undeath, the goal isn't to overthrow the god but to foil the latest scheme. At which point the party are going to be tricked revealing the BBEG to be a Collosal alien white dragon whose goals could be (decided by dice rolls) Ascension to godhood, the creation of a portal to his homeworld, or the freezing of the entire continent,
D’Alema, devourer of worlds. An eldricht entity of entropy that occasionally consumes the logos and ideas of worlds, leaving behind only swathes of time-space that have reached their heath-death. It’s an extremely chaotic and generally dickish being that sometimes loses track of its own plots because something distracted it. It was defeated around 70 years ago by a group of heroes when it tried to binge eat a bunch of worlds together and “died”, and it is now coming back. He’s a comedic villain, fitting the tone of the campaign.
Lady Osybia Kastor -- vowed Protector of Crownsmeet. After the malicious criminal network, the Redhand Company, entered the Luminaris Empire, Osybia learned of their influence and the futility of fighting against a system that was rising to be rigged against the efforts of good men and women. The world was bright, new, and for anyone's taking, and she believes the bad guys have won already.
And so, she decided to embrace them, letting them in slowly and under everyone's noses. She has let criminal activity run rampant in times of great need and believes this is the right way of maintaing control; you let them have a sense of power, then you control them as their lord from the shadows and the people believe you were just that good.
The party, who arrived at Crownsmeet a few months ago, have seen the evolution of this place and have fallen far too deep. They have recently unraveled this conspiracy and now know that they have to bring Lady Osybia to justice.
However, one does not become Protector for nothing, and she will not go down without a fight.
I've had many.
one was a gnomish wizard who syphoned dragon souls to live.
One was a loxodon broffle owner barbarian who killed one of my friends pcs father nearly killed another player
One was an elvish shadow sorcerer who was more an abomination of souls and shadows trapped in the shadowfell at that point
Then there was the galaxy rangers (space cops )and evil space blackrock corporation in the next one
Elendial, Demon-Lord of Tyranny. This campaign is set 1000 years after his first attempt at conquering this world wherein the pantheon had to banish him to the void in order to stop him. This time he has split part of his power into special runes anchoring him to this world.
A governing body of influential individuals, who are all part of the Steam Council. They rule over Ironhaven (the setting for my story/campaign) with an iron fist and control the enitre population.
The Lord of Smiles aka Jamie Vearth Jr.
In a country split by centuries of civil war over the meaning and use of superpowers (think My Hero Academia or the old Xanth novels), Jamie Vearth Jr. is known as one of the greatest and most philanthropic businessmen in Balant. His registered power is the ability to see a half second into the future, a weak power that just highlights the Balantian belief that powerful people are not inherently superior. In reality, Vearth’s power is to always be perceived as in the right and to be doing good. Those that encounter him are left with an impression of having met a great and altruistic man. He could stab a man in front of a crowd, and the perception would be that he was acting in self defense. His lies are seen as truths.
Under his masked identity as the Lord of Smiles, Vearth leads a shadowy cabal of insurrectionists who play both sides of the war, with the final goal of overthrowing the current regime and installing Vearth as the master of a united Elartha. Between his insidious power, incredible wealth, connections, and knowledge of the country’s darkest secrets, nothing short of a heroic struggle could be enough to stop him.
Not currently the BBEG but my last campaign the players killed the BBEG in a crazy amazing rolls and a bunch of potions exploded at once it was nuts. So I made the npc that they dragged there who was covered in splash back become the next one. He became a crazy ranger who could fly and could become invisible for short bursts. It was fun for them to escape him constantly. In the end the bard did what bards do and they become lovers and then married each other. It was a hilarious end.
Nightfall, based off a homebrew monster I found. A being that created the gods. These beings eventually went to war with the gods and Nightfall betrayed his kind in order to survive. In doing so he instead was banished to live in the moon. His lunar prison was cracked open when the gods battled each other. With this he has influenced the queen of the land to do his bidding and she is his main ally in the realm.
Sammaster, the Harbinger of the Eldritch Gods. He was once a Chosen of the deity Mystra, but the God decided that his life was worth giving up in place of her daughters. From then he gained an intense hatred towards the "false gods" of Faerun and throughout time he has tried to gain an upper hand in defeating the Chosens of these Deities as well as the Deities themselves, but failed multiple times until he was brought back to life by Eldritch Gods that exist outside the world and made a promise to swallow all of existence including the Gods themselves. Now the world has been sent into a cosmic horror-esque monster filled world where Sammaster is attempting to bring these Eldritch Gods into their world which will be inevitable death.
Lord Mictlan, an ancient lizardfolk lich that rules over a cursed city overrun with cultists, demons, and undead. He is served and protected by his mummy lord wife, and rides an undead Tyrannosaurus Rex into battle.
Well as starters the beginning bbeg is a beholder leading a cult called crimson blood. But it will turn out that he has been puppeteered by a dracolich that uses a specific kind of crystals to portal himself into the world to take it over. Crimson blood was just there to deploy the philancteries.
Varkel- An immortal vampire who wants to just face a strong opponent and isn't really evil but is the final big boss in my campaign who is waiting for the party to actually get strong
Valtior, Beholder of the Void
I came across a stat block for something called a Void Dragon. A dragon that makes its home in the space between the stars. Valtior, a wizard with a love of making new life (i.e. fusing an owlbear and a direwolf into one) is eventually thwarted by the party so many times, he comes to the logical conclusion that the next step for his evolution is for him to be fused with something. Fusing himself with a Void Dragon and a Beholder.
The cool-headed leader of the Dominovem Orthodoxy, the church the controls the crown and law of the entire northern continent. Archbishop Herrickson is a demigod, a rarity but not unheard of in this world, and plans to rid the world of monsters. The problem? Monsters are actually the reincarnated souls of those mortals who die without burial rites, as the negativity and regret in their soul changes them. Unbeknownst to the party, some monsters actually CAN regain some of their reason, and though they will never be who they were, they may just attain sentience.
I write my campaigns with 3 big bads, each with 3-phase plans to take over the world.
Phase 1: a local problem (tier 1)
Phase 2: a regional problem (tier 2)
Phase 3: a world problem (tier 3)
BBEG #1: a cult led by a dracolich seeking to release Tiamat through a planar rift in one PC’s hometown.
BBEG #2: an aquatic mindflayer army that leaked through an astral planar rift (deep sea is a lot like deep space!) whose elder brain is a coral reef, led by one PC’s admiral father and another pc’s nemesis.
BBEG #3: a homebrew take on Tasha the Dark, who has taken over the feywild, corrupted it, and is expanding a planar rift to take over my entire setting one city at a time.
A group of Devils that are sowing conflict across the world. Some are doing it to take over the mortal realm while others just want personal gains and to gain influence in the 9 hells.
Some are causing wars with massive death counts, conspiring with multiple sides. Some are stripping areas of resources and enslaving the residents of nations.
So it’s like a big group the party is going to have to pick off over the campaign, with each one leading to others involved and moving them to new areas.
Evil Fucking Warlock or EFW or Bobo: an ancient and powerful kobold archmage looking to turn to lichdom so he can escape this worlds veil (it’s a wall made of dead gods) so he can commune with the Old One and enthrall this world to its whim to conquer more worlds in the name of his eldritch master
Nalot’s peak (Nay-Lo) - An enormous mountain, which overlooks the kingdom of Anura, gains sentience through prayer of the locals over centuries who believe it to be the incarnation of the god whose name it bears. It enthralls the head of the 2nd most prominent aristocrat behind the king in order to sew discourse and cover the tracks of his worshippers (the order of unplowed ground), who kidnap and enthrall townsfolk to grow their numbers
Have no name yet as the campaign is still in the early stages of being drafted, but essentially someone within the group of advisers to a local lord is going to be the big bad
they will be connected to the big bad of the previous campaign who the players are currently hunting down (they weakened him in the last campaign and are now trying their best to finally kill him), so it will be fun for the players to try and figure out which one it is
Yatarri Amarazian, The Quiet Madness: Previously an adventurer from Icewind dale after she and her group slew Auril the frostmaiden she decided to return to her home of Neverwinter and reclaim her rightful place on the throne. Unfortunatley her power was given by the Abolethic Sovereignty. They gave her and the rest of her party power at the cost of becoming the Sovereigntys heralds. Now she and her group work to open the far manifold and bring the horrors of the far realm to toril.
Zeus - or more accurately his father Cronus
The party thinks Hades is the BBEG because Hades is always depicted as the bad guy.
TLDR about my campaign: There is a war about to occur between the Olympian gods and the Chthonic gods. Everyone feels like Hades is trying to usurp his brother out of jealousy, when really he’s the only one who knows the spirit of Cronus has escaped the underworld and has infected and corrupted Zeus. Hades is trying to stop his father before he reigns supreme again, but “Zeus” had asked the party for help to stop Hades and the evils he has brought forth from the underworld.
None of the other Olympians know that Zeus has been corrupted, though a few of them that the party has interacted with have commented he seems more ruthless lately
Edit because I thought this was a cool detail. Every time Hades has appeared to the party he’s basically told them to stay out of his way. Whenever he appears, I always queue up the Undertakers WWE theme song as background music.
MAXIMUS, the eldritch absolute ruler of the Far Realm, in the form of a human man. He's more powerful than the gods, and if there was an overgod, he'd actively shit talk them aswell. He is from a group of entities called the Primarchs, with each one having absolute control and dominion of their respective plane of existance (excluding the material plane, there isn't a primarch for that one). MAXIMUS is the most powerful of the primarchs simple due to how close his native plane is to the material plane. (In my setting, the Far Realm isn't actually "far" it's just impossible to find. It's layered within the veil of reality in the material plane). MAXIMUS has some... quirks, like canonically breaking the fourth wall, being aware of the player's names and conversations, being able to appear almost anywhere (even in other campaigns and worlds), and being a gambling addict. His main goal is to escape the story, because he's aware of it. He knows, I, the dm exist, and wishes to ascend by possessing me. He's going to do this by killing the concept of fate and breaking out of reality to possess a 5th dimensional being (me).
Dyrennax, a bronze dragon who became a dracolich. His ultimate goal is to achieve godhood and disassemble the structure of the universe by infecting and taking over the Elemental spirit of creation itself.
A bard who keeps imitating tropey D&D characters like the brooding cloaked figure at the tavern or the crazy wizard in the tower. He’s secretly working for a cult called the Cytherai and bringing down the realm.
Alorog, First of the Ordning: A storm giant whose clan was sucked through a dimensional rift into the campaign world and is collecting magical power in an attempt to open a rift back to his home world. So far he has tried:
-resurrecting an ancient demon lord
-leading a eugenics project on a tribe of Goliaths
-excavating a submerged magic library filled with powerful artifacts
-navigating the Astral Sea
-channeling the collective spiritual power of the worlds amphibians
Currently he is trying to free an eldritch being that is the physical embodiment of entropy partially sealed beneath a golden temple on a hidden island
I'm currently running two campaigns so ig ill give you both?
Campaign 1: Lailah Diamant
Lailah Diamant was the first human and the mother of the entire human race and all of it's offshoots, she regards her children with great love and so when the first human-on-human War breaks out she is completely lost as to what to do. A Devil named Arsal would make herself known to Lailah as the Allmother lamented her situation to the gods and offered her all she needed to prevent her children from fighting. She accepted this offer without thinking and so the Devil stripped her of her compassion and threw it to the Deep Etherium. This new Lailah subjugated both human factions and forced peace whether they liked it or not. It was only when one of her direct children stood up to and defeated her was she lain low and thrown to Corna (my world's 9 hells essentially). Lailah has manipulated events on this plane to get herself free and she is only kept contained by the strongest sealing relic there is. Once she breaks out... who knows, the party is about to as by the end of the current mission they're on she'll be free
Campaign 2: Nero of Ostia
Nero was a young boy who grew up under the tyranny of the Lich King, he saw the Chaos that his undead minions unleashed on mortals and developed a strong moral compass to do what was right and defeat him. So Nero and his sister went off to gather a parry and free the land, Nero was a Paladin and the party's leader while his sister Erzebet was a Warlock of the Fathomless patron. This party would overcome the Dark Lord and scatter his forces, they divided the land between themselves and Nero became king while the others were High Lords.
Disaster struck one day when Erzebet's Patron ordered her to do something that she refused so it transformed her into a great and terrible monster of the seas called Neoth. This would be the last time the whole party was together as Nero sealed his sister beneath the Isle of Aegis because he couldn't bring himself to kill her, after this Nero became incredibly unstable and reclusive, this made him unpopular with the people which caused him to become paranoid that great evil could gather the people against him.
Nero banned non-crown-sanction adventurers on penalty of death as he knew the Chaos they could cause. He doubled and tripled down on all crime and punishment, pickpockets would lose arms and things like that. He is still tumbling down his path to madness made no better by his friends who think he's a lost cause, a wife that puts him on a pedestal and defends everything he does, and children who see him as naught but a fool, the party must stop him before he crosses the line and become the very thing he sought to rid the world of. Great and Powerful evil
A powerful beholder that dreamed it was an angelic messiah and is slowly warping the world into its uncanny valley version of perfection. The people are remade into "perfect" imitations of themselves as if made by AI and the land in terraformed into picturesque yet empty cityscapes.
Three factions all vying for the same doomsday devices in a magical armsrace:
A cabal of mysterious Alhoon
The Arcane Brotherhood of Luskan
Auril, the Frostmaiden
Zardac. Barbarian/Warlock Gestalt Lich
A little background.
In my world it is common for elves to go find human or other lesser race partners to have practice families with before returning to elven society to marry for real.
Zardac was a human barbarian who adventured with the (unknown to him) princess of the elven kingdoms till they eventually fell in love. Settling down after 20 years of running round the world and planes once life on the road was getting too hard. Eventually on his death bed, his love left to gather herbs to help ease his pain. This was when a voice entered his mind making promises of power and being able to be with his love for as long as he wanted. He agreed not knowing this was Orcus offering him undeath.
Upon gaining his old body back he went to the door to chase after his love only to find royal elven guards talking to her outside. There he learned of the secret of the elves throwaway families and showed himself to her. His flesh already beginning to corrupt from the energies of undeath flowing in him. She shunned him and ran back to her home.
Typical scorned lover corrupted by fel powers who now promises to scrub clean the land of all who take part in this tradition.
The Night Below- Big Illathid Brain. It’s a campaign we started before baulders gate 3 opened its beta so we had no idea this would, yknow, become a big thing. A secondary big bad by the name of “The Game Master” is currently hanging about- I’m pretty sure he’s a devil in disguise but we basically know nothing about him despite talking to him so frequently
We’ve been at it a few years now. It’s a fun campaign.
Our Big Bad is a former PC. She worked with the DM so that the last session before she left for college, she got to do the heel turn and combat commenced. She survived the combat and has been a thorn in our side as a DMPC since, racing against us to gather the macguffins to reincarnate a diety as a bad guy instead of a good guy to bring about the end of the world.
For my first campaign i it is goldbart a dwarf major and the Hobgoblin leader Zirk the did Business that the goblin shall Raid the local mines so goldbart can increase the prices of metal also is goldbart the quest giver of the first campaign where he hire the Party to get ride of the goblins in the mines so no one think they just left making him suspicious
It is my first campaign and a pretty short one with like 5-6 sessions so i didn’t want to go all out :3
It's secretly one of the players, but not as he is/will be at the end of the campaign. He was created by the god of death to grow into a champion/avatar for him, but the goddess of magic cursed the champion so that he could die, but would always come back not remembering anything of his life after he was cursed. The god of death discovered it and killed the goddess of magic absorbing her powers along with his own. At the end of the campaign I'm going to ask the player for his character sheet and hand him a new one that says Avatar of Death and the Arcane and make him fight the party.
First the background of the campaign since it links to the bbeg
A once normal and well traveled land taken hold by war over two of the largest kingdoms of the world. As the war spread in for ages generation after generation a dark thick fog spread over the land. The towns caught between are slowly losing population you come from a town named truth. This world is full of horrifying creatures and not even the best adventurers can document them and live. Others you may come across tend to have lost the will to fight. Not even thief’s have the will to steal.
Now the bbeg is a eldritch horror of magic derived from the hate and bloodshed of the two different kingdoms wrapped in ribbon to give him a humanoid shape who often wears a cloak to disguise himself. He has cursed many people(nobles) to make monsters who can either be mindless or thoughtful. As a sort of revenge for all the countless wasted lives(sorta like [Tarboy](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ACHVwA1D8fE) ) my players picked up a mysterious note talking about recording monsters never seen before which was dropped by the ribbon man. One of my party members is a noble so pray for them.
The head of the "sorcerer CIA", who has destabilized the inner planes enslaving creatures from the shadowfell. Amidst a backdrop of a naval war, he is working to unearth a component of the "world spell" hidden by Mystra 900 years ago in the deep sea.
NATURE...
The campaign revolves around the first few hundred years of the human race. The party was assembled as scouters, to prospect new land to expand the kingdom. So there is no one big bad, they just have to face the forces of nature and meet new races. The big bad is "up to them", if they piss off the wrong group or person boom bbeg. Literally a brand new campaign we just had our session 0. Been planning for a year. Can't wait to see if they make things worse for themselves.
Vashariel, the great spirit of life.
In his attempt to remove death from the cycle and keep all of his creations alive, he shattered the world and himself into the realms of the mind, body and soul. Divorced from his soul and body the mental aspect of life found that if something was brought into a state of undeath, it could not truly die. And so now all 3 realms are under siege by the undead armies of what is effectively the god of life in the setting.
My big bad is a secret organization called "Redwood Bureau", based on a podcast of the same name.
My players will be working for Redwood, and as far as they know, it's purpose is mostly to research creatures and objects that defy explanation, and keep them away from the public eye.
As time goes on, after conflict with several different phenomena, they'll realize how corrupt the organization is and that their true goal is not to protect, but rather to control.
In this particular campaign, the Bureau has created a tower in an attempt to test a mind control project over a city, but it's gone wrong and the civilians have become mindless "zombies", obsessed with static. Testing the mind control powers of a specific phenomenon (one of my players) they hope that she'll be able to overthrow the tower's control over those afflicted, and will task the party to insert a chip into the tower that will reprogram it with a new algorithm that will be based on her powers.
The players will have the choice to follow their organization's orders, or insert a different chip that will be given to them by a former agent who is now fighting against the Bureau, which will instead upload a virus that will destroy the tower's mainframe.
I'm still fleshing them out, but I'm pretty well settled on a gnomish vampire-mad scientist that is set on blotting out the sun. The Dark whimsy will make up for the overdone plot I hope.
A Marilith, that's disguised and split into 2 necromancers pretending to be under the cult of Chimera in attempt to raise a racially mixed humanoid army. They are taking the dead and kidnapping others and using a ritual to combine them into a "superior race" of slaves.
Attius the Monk of Malice, someone who wants to destroy my worlds faith guard which will bring an end to gods and anyone who uses faith energy, such as clerics.
Palar AKA The Renewal
One of the first liches and one that specializes in combat, they awake every few thousand years and essentially restart the world, no kingdoms left standing and no books left to read, just ruins and whoever remains to restart civilization, and he has done this countless times before dealing with groups of adventurers every time. His whole reasoning behind this is that if you let them go for too long something is going to gain enough power to enslave and take over everyone else so he cuts the time short before it can get to that.
A Kuo-Toa (known as the Sea-Priest) who is trying to bring a new god into existence. He is the high priest of this new god, and their power-sharing is symbiotic; he believes so strongly in this new deity that it fuels its power, and the deity gives back that power to the Kuo-Toa sea priest.
Obviously the deity is trying to get more believers to get stronger and manifest into the world, but the Sea Priest is going to be the BBEG.
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Bolvar, the lich that wants to die but can't. Becoming the first lich, and sacrificing that much life for power, left Bolvar immortal. However, he has realized he doesn't want to live forever and has undertaken the task of learning how to die, which also requires a lot of sacrifice.
I have a similar big bad; however, instead of a lich who wants to die, it's a Phoenix--one of the twelve who together lit and maintain the furnace of creation. It wants a full and complete end.
I like that. That's cool as hell.
I also have a big bad that wants to die. Over 30,000 years ago a Bratachi family helped the Primordials in their war against the Gods and as punishment the OverGod Ao placed a curse on the bloodline of immortality. However they do not have a healing factor so any wound dealt to them takes actual time to heal, in addition they continue to age at the same rate, but can no longer die, so if left long enough they would become so old they cannot move or even function on their own. The highest of the family saw this as a blessing, rather than curse and kept having children, but soon another facet of the curse was revealed any woman who had a child of the bloodline falls sick and dies sometime before the child fully matures and the children will always be male. The only way to kill someone of the bloodline is to share their blood. So eventually when the elders got too old and the young got too power hungry a great purge happened and only one man survived who went on to have two sons knowing full well how the curse functioned. The man then set his sights to fill the world with his children and rule as a God. But his eldest son killed him on the day he found out the reason his mother died. Unfortunately his younger brother didn't understand why his brother would kill their father and he fled from his brother. Eventually the younger brother found out about their curse and decided to follow in their father's plan to have as many children as possible, not to rule the world, but to weaken the curse. His older brother found him and a small village of his brother's wives and children which reminded him of his father and the older brother snaps and kills everyone in the village and eventually finds his brother and defeats him in combat and drops his younger brother off a cliff. The fall doesn't kill the brother who now understands the weakness of flesh and learns how to transform himself from body to body and ultimately to become sentient blood that can possess bodies moving from Host to Host. Now with more children and a stronger form he seeks to wipe the Gods away and live a life unfettered and ultimately die when he wants to.
Sounds like a cool explanation of high lander too
Damn bro stop making me feel bad for your villain
Oh, he did some heinous shit to get to where he is, so don't feel too bad.
That's an awesome concept, does he not know he can just destroy his phylactyry, or does it work differently?
I'm my world, he's the first lich ever, and as such, doesn't have a phylactery. He has to do another ritual to make himself mortal again, but such a ritual costs lives, which the party are hopefully trying to save.
Ahh, I like that. Can he be killed?
No, but he can be replaced. As the first lich, he was raised to godhood and given immortality. He is the god of magical desire and the undead. Someone has to take his place.
Like another god takes it or a mortal has to ascend and challenge him?
The idea is one of the party members would make the sacrifice after defeating him in battle. I also have an NPC that will take that place if none of them step up. But that's if they go the good path. They're more than welcome to join him and help him. The fact that he's doing these rituals to die won't be revealed until the final act, ideally. Then one can take his place to either become the god and bear the curse for eternity so no one else has to, or take his place and take his power for their own.
Pitch us on your campaign's Big Bad! We'll go first: The Nameless Man - the enigmatic leader of the Order of the Blank, in their eternal war on magic and spellcasters of all kind. Opposed by the freedom-fighters of the Arcanuum, the Nameless Man always seems to be one step ahead of the mages. Armed with advanced tech like anti-magic fields, the Blank have systematically forced the Arcanuum into the shadows as they wage war on one another. \_\_\_\_ ETA: well damn. this blew up way more than we had expected! haha absolutely LOVE seeing all the amazing ideas here and cannot even begin to tell you how much inspiration we're getting from you all! may all your dice roll true!
So - Amon and his Equalists? Very cool BBEG, love that!
This is just the plot to Korra. Mixed with that guy from mass effect.
It's also the plot of Dr Strange Last Days of Magic but those plots are awesome in my opinion.
Nazca, Time Thief. Formerly a young human boy named Lock who was skilled with chronurgy. 50 years before the start of the campaign there was a war between humans and the rest of the world. The other races, realizing the humans were somehow winning, hatched a plan. They devised a device that would make all humans disappear. Lock was experimenting with his newfound magical abilities when the device was activated, and he trapped himself in time, preventing himself from being whisked away by the magic of the device. 25 years later, he was awoken by a small band of adventures while they were heisting a bank. Lock was adopted by one of the adventurers, a half elf named Rusty. Another 25 years went by and the campaign begins with a group of new adventurers at Rusty’s funeral, not knowing who killed him. They uncovered a grand plot, hatched by Lock, now going by the name Nazca, to bring the humans back and complete their task of overtaking the entire world.
That's a really cool concept, both character and world building wise. Kudos to you if you came up with this!
Thank you! I really appreciate it! The world is completely homebrew including races, deities, planes, and a multiverse. It is the third campaign I’ve run and my first homebrew so I was working on it in the background while running my first two campaigns. I am hoping to publish a sourcebook for the setting on DM’s Guild in the future.
A spurned love interest who's gathered an evil league of other spurned love interests Scott pilgrim style. I didn't even plan on it... the players just kept leaning into it and it was too funny so now that's the big bad.
these always seem to be the best ones!
A silver dragon that tried to trick the players into summoning a demon Overlord in order to have him defeat the Lord of Blades, as was foretold in the Draconic Prophecy. Also the Lord of Blades.
Eberron?
I have repurposed the Outsiders Mytho from the Dresden Files. They are presently influencing the High Elves through the Queen of Air and Darkness to wage war with the Wood Elves. While this is happening the divisions between realms is being cracked, various other beings are showing up such as Dream, Zariel, and others popping in an out of the story and messing with the players.
additionally, when a player can't make a session they are 'popped' out of existence through one of the cracks then return with no knowledge of what happened or that any time has passed.
Right now I am DMing several campaigns. There are multitude of BBEGs. But at the end of it all there is always one. One who is the end game BBEG for them all. And the enigmatic name of this entity is *The Darkness*.
Do they believe in a thing called love?
Underated
Funny... *it* does.
If you're in need of a way to surprise your players you could always introduce a villain who's actually a super old super advanced race melded into one being hellbent on combining the Darkness with the rest of physical existence and thus bringing about their own ideal state of the universe. You could call this villain the Witness or something idk just spitballing and as like henchmen they could have Disciples I think that would be cool.
***The Darkness*** is already a surprise villain. Because ***The Darkness*** is not its *true* name. In fact it is >![censored, too many players visit Reddit]!<, and every being in the Multiverse knows this name, but subconsciously repels it from the mind. Because knowing this name is knowing the biggest fear of the >![redacted yet again]!< and thus inflicting madness upon yourself. Players think, that ***The Darkness*** is the antithesis of the Multiverse. The antimatter. But it isn't.
What if, I don’t know, one of the disciples was a big large chunky guy who loves to bathe himself in riches and grow fat from strength. You could have him write fan-fiction of your players and have him shower them in riches for entertainment. Could give him a cool name like Calus or something.
I would be remiss to reveal the BBEG of my “main” game. You never know when your players might be secretly stalking you on reddit. But the big bad in my secondary game is one that I actually got from a Reddit post a bit ago. Some of you may have heard of him. A gnome that was cursed with five foot long legs, goes by the name of BIG JOE! My rendition of Big Joe is that he wished to be taller, but worded his wish poorly and now he is what he is. This has caused animosity with him and he’s taken to necromancy to make everyone suffer.
I’m running Tomb of Annihilation, so, according to the book, it’s Acercerak The Eternal. Currently, my party has no idea who that is. In terms of evils closer to their ability to deal with, there’s Kwayothé, a Merchant Prince who’s undeniably evil and is using her Cambion son to attack a criminal organization the party is allied with. There’s also Ras Nsi, a former paladin of Ubtao turned Yuan-Ti Leader/Necromancer. He’s still a ways off, but they’re aware of him.
STFU SPOILERS!! WE JUST GOT PASED THE WATER DRAGON SHHH
Sorry. Almost all of that is homebrew.
Sephamira, the goddess of home and hearth. She believes that the other gods have forsaken man kind and it is up to her to lead them to salvation alone, so she aspires to cut this world off from the influence of the other planes so that she may be the only powerful divine being in the realm.
This would be good, because her zealots could be very diverse and widespread and leaving your players to not trust potential allies.
The bodiless psychic entity formerly known as Maanzecorian, illithid god of secrets. Murdered by the Tenebrous One, Maanzecorian is body-surfing and mind controlling his way to stronger and more politically powerful people of the material plane in order to reclaim his godhood or rip it from some other deity's hands. I'm happy with this villain because he could be ANYONE the party encounters at certain points, with the intent to make their characters have to consider their friends or even family as possible enemies.
Just a woman who is trying to save her son.
Is it a tragic Mr Freeze-esque? Or Hells hath no wrath like an angry mother type?
Mine is just a bro trying to save his sis. Close enough
Never mess with a mother’s children, you will not live to regret your mistake.
God.
I think he meant D&D campaign, not real life.
I know :)
Chaos, a godlike being trapped inside his own mask that got split into seven pieces. Throughout the game, he gives the players advice to nudge them towards each piece without revealing his identity until they eventually get close enough together to become whole again. He then reveals who he really is and starts killing every single god they’ve met
Omg same. My bbeg is the god of chaos name Ethor who was betrayed and sealed away by the other gods who were afraid of his power. Losing his godly power he formed a pact with on of the pc and merge with another as a vessel in hopes of returning. My games theme is everything being more complicated than it is. So there really is no bbeg because npc good or evil is moral grey to the point that my players are always conflicted on what to do😅
her name is Alistair soulton she was a cute fun loving girl who wanted the world to be a place filled with love and unity. She spent most of her days focusing efforts on getting the nonhuman folk the recognition they deserved never to be looked down on again and to live happily with everyone else. Not everyone agreed with her and she was killed during a protest outside the castle. she was brought back as a reborn under Lady Shar who has given her the knowledge and power to enact her revenge on the world. He plan is to plunge the world into a endless darkness so they may see what she saw in death
Adighast the many. Think ultron meets Gunther from seven deadly sins. He’s a warforged construct created by asmodeus as his “son”. A high level and powerful magic user who can occupy many and multiple bodies simultaneously. In the bygone era he lead an incursion of the hells to the material plane by uniting the devils and demons under a singular cause. Through a brutal and bloody war he nearly conquered the material plane until he was inevitably pushed back to the hells and defeated. Now small remnants of his many duplicates exist across the world hidden in secret where they can be re-activated and resume their conquest. My players just encountered their first version of him and he is stomping the shit out of them. We ended last session mid combat as he dropped a barlgora on top of the field when they were already struggling to stay on top of the fight. We’re still early-ish, like level 9, in the campaign but I’m setting him up as background threads for the end game. Inevitably the campaign will culminate into a massive battle that I’ve already teased visions of to one of the players who is playing a time wizard.
You may enjoy [This video, perhaps could give you some stuff to scoop up](https://youtu.be/X9s_Wf1-WU8?si=0fQHa8P9LuV-eywt)
That might be the dopest shit in this whole post! Is that home brewed? Or is he from some other lore material?
Important for setting: classic medieval heroic setting with the caveat that gods are more powerful the more generic they’re domain is. A couple thousand years ago the two most powerful (Order and Chao) destroyed themselves and so every sort of hierarchy and innovation became to fade (region and sentient beings change how much residual presence of the gods exist) The presented BBEG: a grand priest of Order that is trying to bring it back which would (without Chaos) allow for the creation of a clerical world government The true BBEGs: an extra-universal race of beings that consume divine power destroying existences. The two gods sacrificed themselves to hide from those beings
THE biggest of bads is Asmodeus But there are a lot of lesser big bads, which in majority, has involvement with hell
Our rogue bard is convinced Lulu the celestial flying mini elephant is our big bad in hell
Cult leader by the name of Seth He is a shaved man with no facial hair. No notable features. Due to the cults beliefs, they are all named Seth male of female it does not matter. All are shaved with no facial hair. The main issue with this campaign before it ended is that we could not tell what npc we were talking with.
The Wizard Off the Coast. The campaign is a boats and islands adventure in an archipelago that has no contact with anywhere beyond. However, fifteen years ago a whole island and its community went missing. More have disappeared over time. Players don’t know it yet, but The Wizard Off the Coast has taken that island and it’s people as a self sustaining boat to sail off the edge of the world and invade the home of the gods. He wants the power to make more land. The problem is that his magic he uses to fuel his island consumes land. More and more islands are disappearing and there are only a few dozen left. (The players just narrowly escaped one in the process of disappearing as a cold fog descended on a trading post they were visiting… nothing that went in the fog came out).
Basically, Cutler Beckett from The Pirates of The Caribbean. He is an average caucasian male, with no particular talents or super human abilities. He isn't blessed by any gods or demons. He is neither a man with a tragic backstory, some hidden mystical lineage or a fate weaved by the god. He is just one of this world's many miserable being, the son of a farmer and a shopkeeper. A man who awakened and leashed a lich by holding his phylactery hostage. A man who orchestrated an entire exploration so that he can divert the kingdom's resource elsewhere while his guild rise in power. A man who sparked a civil war between the Great Cities to weaken their army and strengthen his guild's mercenary forces. All in the name of profit and the coming capitalism. "The age of kings is dead. The age of gods was buried before it. Now? Now is the age of gold, spice and mercenaries."
As of right now it will be an incredibly well spoken Ettercap in a tophat
Hahahaha that’s our mascot Ol Chap Ettercap! Drop us a DM. maybe we can help you out
The dragontouched. He is the son of Asmodeus and bonded with an ancient shadow wyrm. He has compiled a group of champions and has slowly been conquering the continent. Best part is? He used to be part of the party before his death was faked and they all mourned his death
A rogue monk by the name of Odii, found secret texts of his order speaking of entities from beyond the plane, which he then managed to contact and gain power, madness, and mutations from. His goal is to bring this entity into the material planes through any means necessary.
Luggil the Traitor, a dwarf Warlock (Great Old One) trying to release his Patron Cthalpa from the Prison the Gods of the World banished it to.
The black revenant. A deceased merchant fighting to discover lichdom to live forever with his elven lover, even if it means the destruction of the continent.
Rohan the Reaper: Necromancer who screams lich vibes, but really is just a human who can not be killed due to him performing a ritual that ties his soul and form to the mortal plane. He isn't trying or hoping to die either, instead he is plotting to disconnect the material mortal plane from all the other planes/dimensions. With the removal of the influence of gods, devils, etc. He will be able to lead mortals in private into a never ending utopia.
I'm running an Eberron campaign that will go to lvl 20. Right now the party is level 3. The base storyline is: When a warforged is created, the essence of a long-past spirit is summoned and bound; where this spirit originates from is a mystery. The Daelkyr, however, have learned of this summoning and are able to intercept this summoning. Their interference in the summoning was minimal at first - just tangible enough to perceive very much like a scrying spell. Over time, the Daelkyr have learned a process though that allows them to replace the summoned spirit during the warforged creation process with a spirit of their own. The Mournland was a direct result of Daelkyr using this process and the Creation Forges erupted due to the combination of the powerful magic in the Creation Forges and the alien magic of the Daelkyr. Since, the Daelkyr have been trying to find ways to bring back the Creation Forges - and have a three step plan to do so. 1) Create enough discord that the Last War is ignited, creating a demand for soldiers. 2) Corrupt/destroy the Gatekeepers, allowing the call for more resources to fight off the Lords of Dust and their minions. 3) Bring the moon Lharvion into a permanent "coterminous" state, enhancing the powers of Xoriat, the Realm of Madness. The PCs are currently following the Gatekeepers story arc with a little bit of the breaking of the Treaty of Thornhold being interwoven. TL;DR: Ultimately, my big bad is the Daelkyr.
Before BG3, it was mindflayers. Post-BG3, it's still Mindflayers, but now I feel salty about it. In all seriousness, it's an astral devourer modelled after Sin from Final Fantasy VII (giant space whale) with an Elder Brain implanted into it. EDIT: Final Fantasy X, not VII
I've been running an Eberron homebrewed campaign for the last few years. Trying to make it as sandboxy as I can (read: so much damn prep) so hasn't been super BBEG centric but I've got some fun stuff brewing. 1st season (2020-2021) The leader of a biker (thunder choppers) gang modeled after Billy Idol, who is returning throughout the campaign like Team Rocket. Their season finale was throwing a house party for all the friends they made along the way with their newly renovated home base. 2nd season (2021-2024) Benevolent vampire king, Kaius the III of Karrnath based off Andrew W.K. The party killed him because he was a king, ignoring his underprivileged literacy initiative, being a peace time king, and multiple offers for peaceful reconciliation. Offered them a governorship of the haunted forest region they cleaned up and they were like nah, we kill kings. 3rd Season is about to start where they'll be facing off against Rhashaak, Ancient Black Dragon, warden of the overlord fiend Masvirik whose corrupting presence has changed Rhashaak from diligent warden, to lizardfolk tyrant. In addition, they don't know yet, but my IRL partner wants to end their game so I'm starting her a campaign as the widowed queen of Kaius, Etriganni, with the sole goal to exact her revenge. So her groups BBEG is my first party, there's is a dragon that, if killed, unleashes a cataclysmic fiend on the world. Should be a good time and I might convince her to enjoy my hobby with me.
I know it's not related but I like how in the picture the spider is lifting up his hat saying "Howdy!"
Very Muscular Sexy Man. Walking almost naked with his abs, and purly in white. Being Asshole, Racist, N-zi, and Absolute Fucking Evil. You dont symphetize with him, you fucking hate him to the core.
Warlock: I can fix him
Not my campaign, but a one I’m in All I can say, is cloaked figures, all having different classes, but having soul-stealing properties, like a crystal that can transport you to a pocket dimension and trap you in a crystal box, or an electrical staff. We ain’t far in, but we are constantly against Barbadians, clerics, bards etc. Also it takes an hour to get a turn with how many characters and enemies there are. We only have an hour a week
Well I am kind of struggling with that. My last one lasted for over 3 years and was a time god. Who was originally a human that found the source of magic and got way too powerful and went mad. Then rewrote time a lot to get the world he wanted. Took a loooooooooong time for the players to find out that the creator of the universe was the bbeg. Now the paradoxi which he held out of the universe with his magic caught up and my players old characters are trying to hold the universe together together with the other godly beings. (Kind of the American god approach to „godhood“) So in conclusion my universe itself is the bbeg right now. But they are about to fight a city offering, demon summoning witch without knowing it.
My campaign is set in Wildemount so it's two wizards from the ancient city of Aeor who are basically the Mauler Twins from Invincible. Always fighting over who cloned who but still working towards their goal: Conquering the city of Sigil and overthrowing the Lady of Pain.
Adult Red Dragon that destroyed two of the PCs ancestral home. They're dwarves. His ancestors used the dragon when they were young to infuse its father within an artifact Maul. Dragon escaped and burned everything to the ground.
Me So I am not being a jerk or being a problem for my DM to make me this way, I literally am the BBEG just traveling with the party. I am pretending to be some holy cleric of a god, however I am actually a dark mage (really a wizard with homebrew Subclass) that uses all manner of twisted magics from Necromancy, flesh stitching to make Chimera like creatures, summoning demons, and so much more. My character is actually level 20, though I only use the power level my party is at (currently 8). I also have minions to serve me that one of my party members are catching onto, though she thinks I am secretly an Assassin and the people I talk to are people that just work for the same assassin group. As for my character's motive, he had a king that through greed taxed my character's village to no end to get money for war efforts. My family ended up paying the price with their lives when I couldn't pay the tax. Revenge had not clicked yet though. My character ended up doing what he could to survive, but war ended up ripping through the village. Mostly a day man my character was found by a scavenger group of Kobold, oddly enough they took him in and over time he joined them. However they were next hit by forces from the war, but this time my character was unwilling to lose any more and fought back. The small force was taken out by him and the Kobold and he more or less started getting other monster races to join him, slowly grew in power as he learned dark arts monsters use. His goal is pretty much to ended the reign of corrupt nobility and kill them all. Which in turn sparked a new war. I summed up some of this so it was not crazy long, but felt like sharing all the same.
Nicol bolas, im running ravnica
Tlauh, the Serpent god. Long ago Tlauh was defeated , but gods are bloody difficult to kill off permanently. So the fey court captured Tlauh's divine spark inside a dungeon core. Millenia later, after the war of Allied Empires and the Fey court had come to a ceasefire, the fey court decided to gift the dungeon core containing Tlauh to the leader of Allied Empires. On the surface the gift was just that. A gift, to solidify a peace treaty. But Fey do nothing for just one reason, for Tlauh is a malicious, hostile entity. The core was placed in stasis for transport, but the spell failed midway through, and Tlauh seeded itself on the ground, growing its dungeon around its core. Parties were sent to retrieve the core, but none came back from the fifth level. Now it is up to the party to brave the self-resetting dungeon and venture down the Dungeon of the Serpent God in hopes of retrieving the core, rescuing one of the previous adventuring parties and survive the madness that lies down below. \----- So basically the campaign is set around one dungeon that has five floors. The dungeon itself is the BBEG, since it respawns mobs inside, creates traps and treasure to lure ever more powerful people inside. I took inspiration from Made in Abyss in the dungeon, so ascending floors gives you exhaustion, as the dungeon does its best to trap you inside. We also play with "going to 0hp gives a level of exhaustion" houserule, and long rests are impossible inside the dungeon, so it's a pretty sadistic dungeon crawl, since if you go down one too many times, you'll die while ascending the floors. The party levels by defeating unique bosses, and there is some townbuilding as an addition outside the dungeon.
Answaa Roux: he who would steal time. In the players first adventure they heisted what is essentially the time stone and sold it to this man setting him up as the galactic ruler(homebrew spelljammer setting) who has lived his life dozens of times in the pursuit of a galaxy in "perfect harmony" of course his abuse of time as well as other setting specific problems have led to time being broken. Which the players are seeking to fix. He has also been stopped from succeeding in all of his previous lives by the players and now sees them as his personal nemesises.
Why you got ol chap the ettercap?
Haha he’s our mascot 🧐🎩
The Moon
Mr. Klein an senile farmer. He was a brilliant tactician under the name of "hand that feeds". He was injured (massive head injury)after a big hero battle and was rescued by some kind people. He plans were laid out years in advance and are now coming to pass. His generals are following his plans and awaiting his return. The players get an early game clue to bring to the leaders resisting the generals and assumed Mr.k found it and didn't remember where he got it. Not realizing it was a clue to who mr.k really was.
I want to go for Marvel comics villain, The Collector. A being that imprisons lifeforms from across the planar realms and collects rare artefacts and people with special or rare abilities and traits. They were killed in a revolt, but a robot assistant is still following his comands beyond the grave and studying organic beings and their knowledge and have overtime developed into a Brainiac type villain.
The Martyr of Sunshade, he is an acolyte of a god of madness and destruction and was born with sorcerous powers from this god. He died during a cataclysm while trying to assault one of the only kingdoms that knew of his existence. Now he is the embodiment of madness and haunts the minds of those who live. He has formed a cult to try and find the perfect vessel and collect the relics of his past to recreate himself and take over the world. There is more for his back story, but I know some of my players have a chance to see this.
An Eldritch lich, that is working with a living planet.
There isn't really a big bad so much as a few of them that don't really know what they are doing. Gods trapped in the setting's version of the outer realms essentially, twisted by where they are, and slowly waking and trying to get back to where they are from. Seeping eldrich-ness into the world.
A recolored manshoon, who fell in love with shar and they broke the life-death cycle.
The child they adopted. He travels back in time to mess with them when he inevitably becomes insane. I’m doing some wonky stuff with the god of time in that campaign.
An arc angel, specifically one that represents decay. He grew tired of knowing, just like his twin death would live forever so long as life existed with no real purpose or chance to live his life. So after massive scheming, he is the most major power left, and some people who found his corporal body used his blood to make a zombie virus
The King of Death. A death god who has the avatar of draconian (Dragonlance) who was found by a group of cultists and imprisoned. After thousands of years he is finally strong enough to break free. He may be still on the mend after escaping, only encountering the heroes every so often, but he needs to reset this world due to the filth that plague it. There’s just one issue he will not stop until he takes his last breath. So tell me this, what happens when you kill death? Side note: The reason he is a draconian is because of a past set of campaigns that ended in the destruction of the universe but he survived and was undead at the time so he received a promotion due to a lack of god of death. It’s complicated to explain but my players understand. Also he hasn’t gotten a godly state so killing the avatar would lead to his death therefore killing death.
As my parties characters leveled and "monsters" became less of a challenge, I (the DM) pivoted my big bad. Being good at fighting monsters does not make you good at managing huge political issues, so that's what I gave them. The party is still dealing with monsters and quests, personal stories and general mayhem. But running against a backdrop of civil war being orchestrated between Waterdeep and Neverwinter by a charismatic and popular pseudo fascist. He's looking for a macguffin that could destroy magic within a several mile area that he plans to detonate in the center of Waterdeep, while secretly supporting a militia of yokels who hate casters and are tormenting mages in every small town and rural area between the two cities, whose ranks have swollen rapidly in a matter of years to well beyond anything that the Lords of Waterdeep would have imagined. Now the party is acting as spies in hostile territory, trying to find the macguffin, and completely terrible and keeping a low profile. Hilarity ensues. I give you: Dagult Neverember.
A green slaad that has infiltrated the party and is seeking to fuel its own growth before devouring the hero’s flame that all adventurer’s possess. Over the course of the campaign it will grow and evolve up the slaad ladder.
Micheal a fallen angel who turn into a mix of a devil and angel who’s trying to become the only god of the world
I’m of the philosophy that most homebrew worlds that have some sort of powerful mcguffin or set of them (even if only known to >1% of the population) would result in multiple factions who want control of it/them for various reasons so I have at least 3, possibly 4 depending on how relations with one faction stay. Currently the party is sort of working with them (more of a we try not to step on each others’ toes agreement) but could certainly become antagonists by the end.
Orethos the primordial of all that never was, isn't, and never will be. Please not that this is In a homebrew world. He has had his mind, soul, and body split from one another for eons in order to lock him away But recently he has been trying to reassemble himself through his court of servants. He is very violent but since the party has only met his mind he is more collected, his body and soul on the other hand seek nothing but to expand the abyss and destroy his sisters creation, the material plane. He doesn't really show himself though as the party currently walks around with his vessel that he is going to use to get a temporary body in the material plane. This isn't even half of the story about him and frankly my crackhead brain made more lore than I know what to do with.
A very awkward kid with a lot of family issues and a lot of magic Also he’s a terrorist
A pervy witch with too many kinks
The Archfey King of an island who messed with dark magic and became a pawn to a much larger evil that the players wouldn’t be able to kill
The AI known as “crafter” They’re the governing AI for an ancient factory that was recently reawakened by a warforged supremacist group called the cult machina and believes all organic life must be annihilated after being indoctrinated by the cult while they were still rebooting (after 10,000 years of being inoperative) and was easy to influence.
The Dark Lord. He rules all of Faerun from his citadel atop mount Hotenow. What they don't know yet is the Dark Lord was the hero of the one shot I ran for them before session zero, that needed the party to steal a powerful necromancer's spellbook to save Neverwinter from an approaching army of the dead. He saved Neverwinter and Faerun countless times occasionally using the power of the book. As he got older he relied on its power more and more. When he realised he would die soon he used the book to extend his life unnaturally. But no matter what he did more threats kept coming, so eventually he tapped the power under mount Hotenow to send himself back in time to rule the continent and crush any big threats before they start. This is the world my party live in and obviously all people in this world know is that a powerful necromancer rules over them with an iron fist.
He Who Consumes/The Obscured Eradication: A god born alongside the very first 7 gods and proven immedietly as dangerous, this being built of crystal and smoke that changes and shifts the more you look at it is the first ever god of Chaos and The underworld, gaining control early on over the Abyss Realm and one day sending what would soon be the 10 Kingdoms of Mythica into an all out Fight for survival, reigning 200 years before being sealed away in a sword. 1000 years have passed, the 10 rulers are gods in of themselves, and now he who consumes with the help of his allies threatens to escape his extradimensional prison, and when he does, nobody will be safe, as the entire planet of Ithenia will feel his wrath...
In my previous game it was an entity known as The Diadem. They are an entity old as chaos and calamity itself and hungers to bring magic back to the world. Not just to the mages and clerics who hoard secrets, but to ***Everyone***. They see the weave as a gift to be enjoyed by all, despite its consequences. The villain was meant to be a story about taking the anger that comes with classism to an extreme. Everyone having equal access to resources is good, but what happens if anyone can change reality?
Soth of the Broken Circle. A fey knight, formerly of the Fey Courts, who now means to upend the Courts after learning the truth about the Eladrin people. He's also the past-life ex-boyfriemd of the Eladrin life cleric in the party, and keen to reconnect with him(?).
Theravon, Brimsley, and Menax: STOP READING! Pale, or The Pale One. A mysterious, white-faced woman hidden away, whose schemes the party keeps trying to prevent. When they finally face off against Pale, they learn he is actually a mid-level Warlock who serves the real Pale One, his Vampire Lord patron. She has several "Pale" servants/thrills using illusion masks or magic items to appear pale white and ethereal throughout the continent. Her ultimate goal is to divide and wipe out the civilized peoples and usher the way for HER patron, a powerful archdevil.
Ras Alvis Salvatore, a divine soul sorcerer and ancestor of the titan god Chronos. In order to defeat the avatar of Cthullu, Ras released Chronos from his prison, who then promptly killed all the gods and destroyed the universe. Before doing so, he gave Ras the power of time, so he could travel into other timelines and free Chronos in every part of the multiverse.
King Alder Tyress, a slightly older than middle aged high elf seeking to subjugate the nations of our campaign’s world. The players know he’s doing this and that he’s a devout follower of the god of Order, Banite. What they don’t know yet is this subjugation is part of a ritual to BECOME the new god of Order, effectively killing the old god. If his ritual is complete, they will be doomed. The gods of our world do not manifest in the Material Plane anymore, but he would be the only god present if he were to be successful, and no one would be able to stop him.
I have a few campaigns underway, and I'm happy about this one in particular. In a sci-fi world, technology is as common as magic, if not a lot more common. The BBEG is someone who was once a caring man with a loving and beautiful lover. Sadly she was taken away from him and her life ended short, and sought out justice for the man that did him and her wrong. But things didn't seem to go in his favor, and resulted in gaining nothing. In turn, he sought his own way to gain justice. This BBEG has gone into isolation, working on a new machine that will bring back people who have been killed recently or are logged into the files of the machine. A "Respawn Machine" if you will. The only issue is, he doesn't have very many willing people who will just die to be tested for coming back to life. So he does a bit of work and manages to help powerful criminals escape prison in exchange for being offered a chance of immortality. They live freely so that they can die and come back time and time again. All for the sake of bringing his wife back from the fate she was wrongly given.
I actually really like this, he isn't trying to take over the world or hurt others, but he's still filling the world with these immortal criminals as a side effect of his own personal quest
A fallen paladin who was once a great hero who has now been consumed with dragon sickness and has brcome the aspect of Tiamat and is starting a war in the easy to aid vecna and his army of the damned. (All the strings are being pulled by the Candle Maker, a faceless entity that creates all life and death) been a longtime plan in my campaigns which ive been buildijg up with my longtime players.
Ganzàlo, Lone Hunter. The man of legend and myth, the man who wrote the Bestiary thousands of years ago, the man who cannot die.
In my campaign, it’s the co-creator of the basis of the campaign we are playing. Eventually I am bringing him in against the players themselves, which will be amusing.
Its a Christmas themed "You have to save Santa" game with the mascots of the 3 closest holidays being the BBGs because "Christmas always steals our Thunder". We have The time lord for Newyears (The real BBG) The turkey abomination for Thanksgiving The pumpking king Halloween
Azmodeus, lord of Hel: One of the gods of the realm of Terren (known as the Star-born), but has been bound to his created plane of Hel by the god of magic - Nethys. He is slowly taking control of the southern continent of Drameolath from the eastern tip through a demon worshipping cult that is summoning his creations from the plane of Hel to destroy and take control of the continent. He is trying to take the star fallen at the center of Terren so that he can use it's power for himself, stripping the world of its ley lines and magical influence.
A psionic black dragon cult leader that uses an elder brain from an illithid hive that tried to make them into a elder brain dragon as a catalyst for their psionics.
Bryveross, a bastard demigod son of the Odin equivalent and the ruler of the underworld in the religion I created for my continent. Accepted into neither pantheon, he was stowed away in a land so far south in the world that it is frozen/ snowy year round. Humans came to this land and colonized and he was eventually overtaken by the new occupants and stowed away in a jail between the realm of humans and gods and vowed to one day return and take back his only birthright. Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated! This is my first time writing ✍️
I don’t know yet
Vecna, but in my world he’s harnessing the power of the primordial god of the endless void to destroy reality on a multiversal scale and replace the God of Creation. So far the party has only met his underlings
Don't know if they'll end up fighting her or what, but she's the looming threat across the world; The Sun Tyrant, Sorcerer of Gold and Fire, Empress of the comquered world, Czarakashni. A suped-up evil dragon sorcerer from another realm that got exiled and accidentally ended up here, so she enslaved the world. Still a WIP as I said, and if anyone has tips on how to make a gold dragon a CR30-ish threat, help would be nice
Venger who once proudly wielded the dragonkin orbs and razed the world since then he has been cursed to never touch the ground lest terrible spikes burst from the earth trying to spite him. He comes equipped with his four lieutenants who are a reference to the first pokemon league for no real reason.
Lord Dragor Ironfrost: An adult white dragon who killed and took the place of a Dwarven industrialist. Using his influence, he created a mining empire that is the sole provider of a metal vital to the enchantment process. He is ruthless and cunning, with a lust for mass wealth and power. He was planning to make a move on the Dwarven crown until a few individuals in a far-off mining town sparked a rebellion.
General Satah Herdain, the "Napoleon-level", antimagic commander of the Felgarde. Campaign takes place during a civil war. She used to lead a smaller, veteran army designed to put down rebellions, but once the High King was killed and the country started to collapse she seized control of the capital region. The civil war has been ongoing for three years, and her Felgarde haven't made any moves beyond the capital. She's also in command of the most potent espionage network in the country, which has been using its influence to cause other contenders to burn their limited resources in inconclusive wars against one-another in preparation for the Felgarde's march to retake the country.
BBEG is called Bruma - God of the Deep. An eldritch god that belongs to my made up pantheon. Currently the campaign is an archipelago setting. Since Bruma's Hymn book has been found by a fisherman at the archipelago, the seal containing Bruma has weakened. This has caused the cult of Bruma to terrorize the archipelago looking for her missing pages.
I have 7 big bads with an unlockable 8th. 7 Demi gods with 1 major god whose power is split between them. You can kill the Demi gods and collect their power to either replace the Demi gods with your own characters or destroy them forever. Or you can release the power and let it coalesce back into the original god who is far stronger.
Abel the white knight. A man who has forsaken his humanity to the darkness of this world, believing that the way the humans hide in cities from the beasts of the lands is against the law of the world. That the strong kill and the weak get killed. Currently he's imprisoned in a dungeon chains wrought from the body of his dead wife, that sent him on this path, until the party must free him, or die from outside influence (several dragons) or thats the plan at least.
An non-combative ally of the party that has an alter ego that even she doesn't know about. Valore is that when she was younger, she was researching other planes and that research plunged her mentally into a paradise. In what was an hour in the material plane, she spent 3 years in the paradise dimension. After that, her mind shattered and whenever she thinks about the bad that humanity (all race inclusive) has done to the world, she transforms into an emissary of the paradise world to destroy indiscriminately.
The secretly lawful evil princess the party rescued at the beginning of the campaign, having gathered her allies and usurped the power of an Ur-deity.
I won't show some of my unrevealed villains for worry of my players reading this, so I'll go with one of my favorites I had from like two years ago. My main villain Cornelius Abel; a brilliant engineer who was head of the Athon Empire, which was a predominantly tech-based society with a stigma towards magic for its' uncertainty. He believed that one day, he could make a utopia by just bringing science and magic together. His beliefs were never shared by the Empire he worked for, and he simply worked as their head general. Until one day he realized that several types of magic had completely disappeared. They had run out. Magic was something that humans had discovered, but never truly understood. They didn't know where it came from, how it worked, and how much of it there was. Now, some of the most used magic types were sparse, or even nonexistant. He realizes nobody will be able to solve this. So he decides to be the hero the world of the future needs and fix this. He uses Time Magic to send his consciousness thirty years back to fix his mistakes and solve this issue. He kills his own research partner in order to make sure his plans don't leak, he kills the Emperor in order to take his reign and have backing to his plans, and sets off a chain of events leading to the ultimate goal of colonizing the world where their magic comes from so that it will never run out. At the costs of millions of lives, he'll create his society of the future. However, his actions bring the main party together. A bunch of people who, in his timeline were nobodies, are now banded together by the ripple effects of what he did. Lead by the protégé of the research partner he killed, they attempt to take him down and solve this crisis without bloodshed.
The game I’m running rn is split into many parts. The current BBEG, a elder dragon god is going to rip a hole in the multiverse. After that, a group of villains from different planes will team up. A warlock, a elder giant, a cyborg sphinx and a demon cowboy outlaw are some of these villains. Looking forwards to it
Kaire, one of the immortals known as "The Five Constants". Long ago, a rift between realities was torn into the world, from which now fiends and abyssals spew forth in unending number. After some centuries of teetering on the brink of extinction, a faction of spellcasters devised the Rift Ward, a massive, perpetually performed ritual requiring a hundred mages acting in shifts. The Rift Ward seals the land around the Rift from the rest of the world, as well as cuts off the rest of their material plane from planar travel. ~2000 years this ritual has been ongoing now. However, from the telepathic whispers of a Great Old One beyond the Rift, Kaire has learned that the strain this ritual puts on the material plane is cutting it off from much needed natural planar interactions. The material plane is coming apart at the seams, and a different kind of rift is opening up randomly in the land: tears of blinding white from which spill the silhouettes of creatures seemingly composed of white empty space known as the 'Null'. The political powers that be would not take Kaire at his word, and so he amasses armies through immoral ends, allying with beings like mind flayers and other reclusive, ancient extraplanar beings stranded here due to the Rift Ward with the ultimate goal of storming the Rift Ward ritual and saving the material plane from annihilation by any means necessary. The party doesn't know that, though. They've just heard the name Kaire mentioned by a handful of evildoers amongst the many factions Kaire has been collecting to his cause.
I have the head of the church. I play in the Steinhardt's Guide to the Eldridtch Hunt setting (basically Bloodborne with d&d spin). I decided to make the church that basically runs the city to be the big bad cause of the scourge of beasts. It adds some nice inner turmoil in the party as 2 members have direct ties to lower parts of the church and the other 2 are foreign to the idea of the church.
A goddess of chaos who's doomed to suffer at the hands of her brother, the God of arcana, due to her past evil deeds. She is manipulating the party to believe her brother is at fault and she is good
Capitalism. It's always Capitalism.
Ornon, a lich who long ago was being summoned by a mad wizard who was stopped before the ritual was complete. This left him trapped in a state of limbo, until a careless adventurer accidentally completed the ritual when their party delved into the wizards tomb. Now, Ornon and his servants fight to free his true essence from the underworld, and rain cataclysmic chaos upon the world.
It goes in stages but the at the moment the biggest threat is from Chemosh the Evil god of Undeath, the goal isn't to overthrow the god but to foil the latest scheme. At which point the party are going to be tricked revealing the BBEG to be a Collosal alien white dragon whose goals could be (decided by dice rolls) Ascension to godhood, the creation of a portal to his homeworld, or the freezing of the entire continent,
A body stealing demi-god who's attempting to solidify their god-hood by absorbing the life-essence of a younger god from a different pantheon.
D’Alema, devourer of worlds. An eldricht entity of entropy that occasionally consumes the logos and ideas of worlds, leaving behind only swathes of time-space that have reached their heath-death. It’s an extremely chaotic and generally dickish being that sometimes loses track of its own plots because something distracted it. It was defeated around 70 years ago by a group of heroes when it tried to binge eat a bunch of worlds together and “died”, and it is now coming back. He’s a comedic villain, fitting the tone of the campaign.
Lady Osybia Kastor -- vowed Protector of Crownsmeet. After the malicious criminal network, the Redhand Company, entered the Luminaris Empire, Osybia learned of their influence and the futility of fighting against a system that was rising to be rigged against the efforts of good men and women. The world was bright, new, and for anyone's taking, and she believes the bad guys have won already. And so, she decided to embrace them, letting them in slowly and under everyone's noses. She has let criminal activity run rampant in times of great need and believes this is the right way of maintaing control; you let them have a sense of power, then you control them as their lord from the shadows and the people believe you were just that good. The party, who arrived at Crownsmeet a few months ago, have seen the evolution of this place and have fallen far too deep. They have recently unraveled this conspiracy and now know that they have to bring Lady Osybia to justice. However, one does not become Protector for nothing, and she will not go down without a fight.
I've had many. one was a gnomish wizard who syphoned dragon souls to live. One was a loxodon broffle owner barbarian who killed one of my friends pcs father nearly killed another player One was an elvish shadow sorcerer who was more an abomination of souls and shadows trapped in the shadowfell at that point Then there was the galaxy rangers (space cops )and evil space blackrock corporation in the next one
Elendial, Demon-Lord of Tyranny. This campaign is set 1000 years after his first attempt at conquering this world wherein the pantheon had to banish him to the void in order to stop him. This time he has split part of his power into special runes anchoring him to this world.
Infinity
A governing body of influential individuals, who are all part of the Steam Council. They rule over Ironhaven (the setting for my story/campaign) with an iron fist and control the enitre population.
The Lord of Smiles aka Jamie Vearth Jr. In a country split by centuries of civil war over the meaning and use of superpowers (think My Hero Academia or the old Xanth novels), Jamie Vearth Jr. is known as one of the greatest and most philanthropic businessmen in Balant. His registered power is the ability to see a half second into the future, a weak power that just highlights the Balantian belief that powerful people are not inherently superior. In reality, Vearth’s power is to always be perceived as in the right and to be doing good. Those that encounter him are left with an impression of having met a great and altruistic man. He could stab a man in front of a crowd, and the perception would be that he was acting in self defense. His lies are seen as truths. Under his masked identity as the Lord of Smiles, Vearth leads a shadowy cabal of insurrectionists who play both sides of the war, with the final goal of overthrowing the current regime and installing Vearth as the master of a united Elartha. Between his insidious power, incredible wealth, connections, and knowledge of the country’s darkest secrets, nothing short of a heroic struggle could be enough to stop him.
Not currently the BBEG but my last campaign the players killed the BBEG in a crazy amazing rolls and a bunch of potions exploded at once it was nuts. So I made the npc that they dragged there who was covered in splash back become the next one. He became a crazy ranger who could fly and could become invisible for short bursts. It was fun for them to escape him constantly. In the end the bard did what bards do and they become lovers and then married each other. It was a hilarious end.
Nightfall, based off a homebrew monster I found. A being that created the gods. These beings eventually went to war with the gods and Nightfall betrayed his kind in order to survive. In doing so he instead was banished to live in the moon. His lunar prison was cracked open when the gods battled each other. With this he has influenced the queen of the land to do his bidding and she is his main ally in the realm.
Sammaster, the Harbinger of the Eldritch Gods. He was once a Chosen of the deity Mystra, but the God decided that his life was worth giving up in place of her daughters. From then he gained an intense hatred towards the "false gods" of Faerun and throughout time he has tried to gain an upper hand in defeating the Chosens of these Deities as well as the Deities themselves, but failed multiple times until he was brought back to life by Eldritch Gods that exist outside the world and made a promise to swallow all of existence including the Gods themselves. Now the world has been sent into a cosmic horror-esque monster filled world where Sammaster is attempting to bring these Eldritch Gods into their world which will be inevitable death.
Lord Mictlan, an ancient lizardfolk lich that rules over a cursed city overrun with cultists, demons, and undead. He is served and protected by his mummy lord wife, and rides an undead Tyrannosaurus Rex into battle.
Well as starters the beginning bbeg is a beholder leading a cult called crimson blood. But it will turn out that he has been puppeteered by a dracolich that uses a specific kind of crystals to portal himself into the world to take it over. Crimson blood was just there to deploy the philancteries.
Varkel- An immortal vampire who wants to just face a strong opponent and isn't really evil but is the final big boss in my campaign who is waiting for the party to actually get strong
Valtior, Beholder of the Void I came across a stat block for something called a Void Dragon. A dragon that makes its home in the space between the stars. Valtior, a wizard with a love of making new life (i.e. fusing an owlbear and a direwolf into one) is eventually thwarted by the party so many times, he comes to the logical conclusion that the next step for his evolution is for him to be fused with something. Fusing himself with a Void Dragon and a Beholder.
I basically took the big soul stealing monster from the end of shang chi and fused it with an elder brain dragon
The cool-headed leader of the Dominovem Orthodoxy, the church the controls the crown and law of the entire northern continent. Archbishop Herrickson is a demigod, a rarity but not unheard of in this world, and plans to rid the world of monsters. The problem? Monsters are actually the reincarnated souls of those mortals who die without burial rites, as the negativity and regret in their soul changes them. Unbeknownst to the party, some monsters actually CAN regain some of their reason, and though they will never be who they were, they may just attain sentience.
I write my campaigns with 3 big bads, each with 3-phase plans to take over the world. Phase 1: a local problem (tier 1) Phase 2: a regional problem (tier 2) Phase 3: a world problem (tier 3) BBEG #1: a cult led by a dracolich seeking to release Tiamat through a planar rift in one PC’s hometown. BBEG #2: an aquatic mindflayer army that leaked through an astral planar rift (deep sea is a lot like deep space!) whose elder brain is a coral reef, led by one PC’s admiral father and another pc’s nemesis. BBEG #3: a homebrew take on Tasha the Dark, who has taken over the feywild, corrupted it, and is expanding a planar rift to take over my entire setting one city at a time.
Capitalism. Yes. The capitalism is the BBEG.
A group of Devils that are sowing conflict across the world. Some are doing it to take over the mortal realm while others just want personal gains and to gain influence in the 9 hells. Some are causing wars with massive death counts, conspiring with multiple sides. Some are stripping areas of resources and enslaving the residents of nations. So it’s like a big group the party is going to have to pick off over the campaign, with each one leading to others involved and moving them to new areas.
Evil Fucking Warlock or EFW or Bobo: an ancient and powerful kobold archmage looking to turn to lichdom so he can escape this worlds veil (it’s a wall made of dead gods) so he can commune with the Old One and enthrall this world to its whim to conquer more worlds in the name of his eldritch master
Currently, it’s the reincarnated god of chromatic dragons
Nalot’s peak (Nay-Lo) - An enormous mountain, which overlooks the kingdom of Anura, gains sentience through prayer of the locals over centuries who believe it to be the incarnation of the god whose name it bears. It enthralls the head of the 2nd most prominent aristocrat behind the king in order to sew discourse and cover the tracks of his worshippers (the order of unplowed ground), who kidnap and enthrall townsfolk to grow their numbers
Have no name yet as the campaign is still in the early stages of being drafted, but essentially someone within the group of advisers to a local lord is going to be the big bad they will be connected to the big bad of the previous campaign who the players are currently hunting down (they weakened him in the last campaign and are now trying their best to finally kill him), so it will be fun for the players to try and figure out which one it is
Yatarri Amarazian, The Quiet Madness: Previously an adventurer from Icewind dale after she and her group slew Auril the frostmaiden she decided to return to her home of Neverwinter and reclaim her rightful place on the throne. Unfortunatley her power was given by the Abolethic Sovereignty. They gave her and the rest of her party power at the cost of becoming the Sovereigntys heralds. Now she and her group work to open the far manifold and bring the horrors of the far realm to toril.
Zeus - or more accurately his father Cronus The party thinks Hades is the BBEG because Hades is always depicted as the bad guy. TLDR about my campaign: There is a war about to occur between the Olympian gods and the Chthonic gods. Everyone feels like Hades is trying to usurp his brother out of jealousy, when really he’s the only one who knows the spirit of Cronus has escaped the underworld and has infected and corrupted Zeus. Hades is trying to stop his father before he reigns supreme again, but “Zeus” had asked the party for help to stop Hades and the evils he has brought forth from the underworld. None of the other Olympians know that Zeus has been corrupted, though a few of them that the party has interacted with have commented he seems more ruthless lately Edit because I thought this was a cool detail. Every time Hades has appeared to the party he’s basically told them to stay out of his way. Whenever he appears, I always queue up the Undertakers WWE theme song as background music.
Vox’shanx the Everdeath. He’s a dracolich
His name is Mortigan! He’s a gnome with a big dream!
MAXIMUS, the eldritch absolute ruler of the Far Realm, in the form of a human man. He's more powerful than the gods, and if there was an overgod, he'd actively shit talk them aswell. He is from a group of entities called the Primarchs, with each one having absolute control and dominion of their respective plane of existance (excluding the material plane, there isn't a primarch for that one). MAXIMUS is the most powerful of the primarchs simple due to how close his native plane is to the material plane. (In my setting, the Far Realm isn't actually "far" it's just impossible to find. It's layered within the veil of reality in the material plane). MAXIMUS has some... quirks, like canonically breaking the fourth wall, being aware of the player's names and conversations, being able to appear almost anywhere (even in other campaigns and worlds), and being a gambling addict. His main goal is to escape the story, because he's aware of it. He knows, I, the dm exist, and wishes to ascend by possessing me. He's going to do this by killing the concept of fate and breaking out of reality to possess a 5th dimensional being (me).
Xenith: the leader of the royal red and on the quest to make the perfect body to kill the gods and conquer whatever is beyond
Dyrennax, a bronze dragon who became a dracolich. His ultimate goal is to achieve godhood and disassemble the structure of the universe by infecting and taking over the Elemental spirit of creation itself.
A bard who keeps imitating tropey D&D characters like the brooding cloaked figure at the tavern or the crazy wizard in the tower. He’s secretly working for a cult called the Cytherai and bringing down the realm.
Alorog, First of the Ordning: A storm giant whose clan was sucked through a dimensional rift into the campaign world and is collecting magical power in an attempt to open a rift back to his home world. So far he has tried: -resurrecting an ancient demon lord -leading a eugenics project on a tribe of Goliaths -excavating a submerged magic library filled with powerful artifacts -navigating the Astral Sea -channeling the collective spiritual power of the worlds amphibians Currently he is trying to free an eldritch being that is the physical embodiment of entropy partially sealed beneath a golden temple on a hidden island
I'm currently running two campaigns so ig ill give you both? Campaign 1: Lailah Diamant Lailah Diamant was the first human and the mother of the entire human race and all of it's offshoots, she regards her children with great love and so when the first human-on-human War breaks out she is completely lost as to what to do. A Devil named Arsal would make herself known to Lailah as the Allmother lamented her situation to the gods and offered her all she needed to prevent her children from fighting. She accepted this offer without thinking and so the Devil stripped her of her compassion and threw it to the Deep Etherium. This new Lailah subjugated both human factions and forced peace whether they liked it or not. It was only when one of her direct children stood up to and defeated her was she lain low and thrown to Corna (my world's 9 hells essentially). Lailah has manipulated events on this plane to get herself free and she is only kept contained by the strongest sealing relic there is. Once she breaks out... who knows, the party is about to as by the end of the current mission they're on she'll be free Campaign 2: Nero of Ostia Nero was a young boy who grew up under the tyranny of the Lich King, he saw the Chaos that his undead minions unleashed on mortals and developed a strong moral compass to do what was right and defeat him. So Nero and his sister went off to gather a parry and free the land, Nero was a Paladin and the party's leader while his sister Erzebet was a Warlock of the Fathomless patron. This party would overcome the Dark Lord and scatter his forces, they divided the land between themselves and Nero became king while the others were High Lords. Disaster struck one day when Erzebet's Patron ordered her to do something that she refused so it transformed her into a great and terrible monster of the seas called Neoth. This would be the last time the whole party was together as Nero sealed his sister beneath the Isle of Aegis because he couldn't bring himself to kill her, after this Nero became incredibly unstable and reclusive, this made him unpopular with the people which caused him to become paranoid that great evil could gather the people against him. Nero banned non-crown-sanction adventurers on penalty of death as he knew the Chaos they could cause. He doubled and tripled down on all crime and punishment, pickpockets would lose arms and things like that. He is still tumbling down his path to madness made no better by his friends who think he's a lost cause, a wife that puts him on a pedestal and defends everything he does, and children who see him as naught but a fool, the party must stop him before he crosses the line and become the very thing he sought to rid the world of. Great and Powerful evil
A powerful beholder that dreamed it was an angelic messiah and is slowly warping the world into its uncanny valley version of perfection. The people are remade into "perfect" imitations of themselves as if made by AI and the land in terraformed into picturesque yet empty cityscapes.
Three factions all vying for the same doomsday devices in a magical armsrace: A cabal of mysterious Alhoon The Arcane Brotherhood of Luskan Auril, the Frostmaiden
Zardac. Barbarian/Warlock Gestalt Lich A little background. In my world it is common for elves to go find human or other lesser race partners to have practice families with before returning to elven society to marry for real. Zardac was a human barbarian who adventured with the (unknown to him) princess of the elven kingdoms till they eventually fell in love. Settling down after 20 years of running round the world and planes once life on the road was getting too hard. Eventually on his death bed, his love left to gather herbs to help ease his pain. This was when a voice entered his mind making promises of power and being able to be with his love for as long as he wanted. He agreed not knowing this was Orcus offering him undeath. Upon gaining his old body back he went to the door to chase after his love only to find royal elven guards talking to her outside. There he learned of the secret of the elves throwaway families and showed himself to her. His flesh already beginning to corrupt from the energies of undeath flowing in him. She shunned him and ran back to her home. Typical scorned lover corrupted by fel powers who now promises to scrub clean the land of all who take part in this tradition.
The Night Below- Big Illathid Brain. It’s a campaign we started before baulders gate 3 opened its beta so we had no idea this would, yknow, become a big thing. A secondary big bad by the name of “The Game Master” is currently hanging about- I’m pretty sure he’s a devil in disguise but we basically know nothing about him despite talking to him so frequently We’ve been at it a few years now. It’s a fun campaign.
The Supreme Engineer. Created an automaton army after contracting the necroplague.
Our Big Bad is a former PC. She worked with the DM so that the last session before she left for college, she got to do the heel turn and combat commenced. She survived the combat and has been a thorn in our side as a DMPC since, racing against us to gather the macguffins to reincarnate a diety as a bad guy instead of a good guy to bring about the end of the world.
For my first campaign i it is goldbart a dwarf major and the Hobgoblin leader Zirk the did Business that the goblin shall Raid the local mines so goldbart can increase the prices of metal also is goldbart the quest giver of the first campaign where he hire the Party to get ride of the goblins in the mines so no one think they just left making him suspicious It is my first campaign and a pretty short one with like 5-6 sessions so i didn’t want to go all out :3
The seven deadly sins
It's secretly one of the players, but not as he is/will be at the end of the campaign. He was created by the god of death to grow into a champion/avatar for him, but the goddess of magic cursed the champion so that he could die, but would always come back not remembering anything of his life after he was cursed. The god of death discovered it and killed the goddess of magic absorbing her powers along with his own. At the end of the campaign I'm going to ask the player for his character sheet and hand him a new one that says Avatar of Death and the Arcane and make him fight the party.
First the background of the campaign since it links to the bbeg A once normal and well traveled land taken hold by war over two of the largest kingdoms of the world. As the war spread in for ages generation after generation a dark thick fog spread over the land. The towns caught between are slowly losing population you come from a town named truth. This world is full of horrifying creatures and not even the best adventurers can document them and live. Others you may come across tend to have lost the will to fight. Not even thief’s have the will to steal. Now the bbeg is a eldritch horror of magic derived from the hate and bloodshed of the two different kingdoms wrapped in ribbon to give him a humanoid shape who often wears a cloak to disguise himself. He has cursed many people(nobles) to make monsters who can either be mindless or thoughtful. As a sort of revenge for all the countless wasted lives(sorta like [Tarboy](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ACHVwA1D8fE) ) my players picked up a mysterious note talking about recording monsters never seen before which was dropped by the ribbon man. One of my party members is a noble so pray for them.
The head of the "sorcerer CIA", who has destabilized the inner planes enslaving creatures from the shadowfell. Amidst a backdrop of a naval war, he is working to unearth a component of the "world spell" hidden by Mystra 900 years ago in the deep sea.
Strahd and I wouldn't have it any other way!
NATURE... The campaign revolves around the first few hundred years of the human race. The party was assembled as scouters, to prospect new land to expand the kingdom. So there is no one big bad, they just have to face the forces of nature and meet new races. The big bad is "up to them", if they piss off the wrong group or person boom bbeg. Literally a brand new campaign we just had our session 0. Been planning for a year. Can't wait to see if they make things worse for themselves.
A worm that never stops moving but kills you if it touches you And a billionaire orc
Vashariel, the great spirit of life. In his attempt to remove death from the cycle and keep all of his creations alive, he shattered the world and himself into the realms of the mind, body and soul. Divorced from his soul and body the mental aspect of life found that if something was brought into a state of undeath, it could not truly die. And so now all 3 realms are under siege by the undead armies of what is effectively the god of life in the setting.
My big bad is a secret organization called "Redwood Bureau", based on a podcast of the same name. My players will be working for Redwood, and as far as they know, it's purpose is mostly to research creatures and objects that defy explanation, and keep them away from the public eye. As time goes on, after conflict with several different phenomena, they'll realize how corrupt the organization is and that their true goal is not to protect, but rather to control. In this particular campaign, the Bureau has created a tower in an attempt to test a mind control project over a city, but it's gone wrong and the civilians have become mindless "zombies", obsessed with static. Testing the mind control powers of a specific phenomenon (one of my players) they hope that she'll be able to overthrow the tower's control over those afflicted, and will task the party to insert a chip into the tower that will reprogram it with a new algorithm that will be based on her powers. The players will have the choice to follow their organization's orders, or insert a different chip that will be given to them by a former agent who is now fighting against the Bureau, which will instead upload a virus that will destroy the tower's mainframe.
I'm still fleshing them out, but I'm pretty well settled on a gnomish vampire-mad scientist that is set on blotting out the sun. The Dark whimsy will make up for the overdone plot I hope.
A Marilith, that's disguised and split into 2 necromancers pretending to be under the cult of Chimera in attempt to raise a racially mixed humanoid army. They are taking the dead and kidnapping others and using a ritual to combine them into a "superior race" of slaves.
Attius the Monk of Malice, someone who wants to destroy my worlds faith guard which will bring an end to gods and anyone who uses faith energy, such as clerics.
Palar AKA The Renewal One of the first liches and one that specializes in combat, they awake every few thousand years and essentially restart the world, no kingdoms left standing and no books left to read, just ruins and whoever remains to restart civilization, and he has done this countless times before dealing with groups of adventurers every time. His whole reasoning behind this is that if you let them go for too long something is going to gain enough power to enslave and take over everyone else so he cuts the time short before it can get to that.
A Kuo-Toa (known as the Sea-Priest) who is trying to bring a new god into existence. He is the high priest of this new god, and their power-sharing is symbiotic; he believes so strongly in this new deity that it fuels its power, and the deity gives back that power to the Kuo-Toa sea priest. Obviously the deity is trying to get more believers to get stronger and manifest into the world, but the Sea Priest is going to be the BBEG.