Long-term Recurring Villains

[Hanbaoge]

Howdy all!

I'm sure this has been discussed before but I can't find the thread, and so apologies for the repeat - I was pretty active here around 15ish years ago (back when it first transferred over from Secrets of the Kargatane), and I come back to find about a million pages to wade through......if this has been discussed ad nauseum before, please point me in the right direction?

Then again, I notice that at least Joel and Jester are still around, so nice to know there's stability in the universe......

So I was digging through storage boxes recently, and found my old RPG stuff! Included therein were my notes from a Ravenloft campaign I did in the early 20-Noughts, the meta-plot combining Elsepeth and the Gentleman Caller, and made her Isolde's twin sister, with the final confrontation trapping Elsepeth the the Aggarath ruby - if anyone happens to be interested, I threw it all together into a word doc and I'm happy to share or give the overview here.

And thus my question: what are some other people's campaigns where you 1) had a long-term recurring villain, 2) who was the villain in question and 3) how did you change said villain for the story, if needed? I remember Stu Turner of the Karagatane had some notes on a campaign featuring his creation of the Patchwork Bride (Book of Souls netbook)......anyone else?

[KingCorn]

Elsepeth has always been kinda neglected in Ravenloft. The Gentlemen Caller was the metaplot of 3rd edition ravenloft, Inajara made several apperances and had stats, the whistleing fiend is still out there, and the FoS-plot tracked down the two demons from Darkon. But beyound a slight reference in the Carnival adventure, Elsepeth didn't get anything.

[Hanbaoge]

I agree, hence my use - that and I thought it was interesting......

And that's really what I'm wondering, aside from the BIG NAMES like the Gentleman Caller, Inajira, etc, has anyone taken one of the other "players" and made them the focus of a long-term campaign?

Jacki Montarri, The Living Brain, Toben, etc etc? I'm interested to see how the old school ideas have evolved over my time in torpor.......

[Alastor]

I haven't yet had any recurring villains (there was one villain that I intended to be recurring who the PCs managed to destroy in their first encounter), but would be interesting in seeing the notes on your campaign.

[Joël of the FoS]

Hello Wannabe

I haven't yet had any recurring villains (there was one villain that I intended to be recurring who the PCs managed to destroy in their first encounter)

Exactly why I didn't plan a campaign on this. You never know what the players will do to twart your plans!

I wanted a campaign that went free flow in many different directions, with common friends as the base of the links to the adventures.

But I know Ron did that somewhat in his campaign with a recuring villain, Vir Stannum.

Joël

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I once had a guy set up to be a recurring villain, but I vividly recalled some advice from the Ravenloft DMG. Basically, players don't want to hear the tragic backstory once the boss fight music is playing; especially some players.

So the first time they ran into the campaign's villain ... they actually hadn't. I borrowed a very nice trick from an Advanced Fighting Fantasy-campaign, and what the players actually ran into was a simulacrum.
My players still had a tough fight appropriate to their level, and my villain was in the wind, more of his backstory waiting to be explored.

[Alastor]

I once had a guy set up to be a recurring villain, but I vividly recalled some advice from the Ravenloft DMG. Basically, players don't want to hear the tragic backstory once the boss fight music is playing; especially some players.

So the first time they ran into the campaign's villain ... they actually hadn't. I borrowed a very nice trick from an Advanced Fighting Fantasy-campaign, and what the players actually ran into was a simulacrum.
My players still had a tough fight appropriate to their level, and my villain was in the wind, more of his backstory waiting to be explored.

An excellent idea - I might borrow that myself sometime.

If it isn't straying to far from the main topic, how do you find it best to reveal the tragic backstory?

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Years ago I had a made an adventure inspired by the movie Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), an American neo noir mystery-thriller with Faye Dunaway were she begins seeing, in first person through the eyes of a killer, real-time visions of the murders of her friends and colleagues. There is also another film of the same kind of plot Hideaway (1995) where the protagonist dies, only to be revived two hours later. After being revived, he experiences frightening visions. He begins to understand that he has become psychically connected to a serial killer, and that by cutting himself, he can actually induce the visions and see through the killer's eyes. However, the vision works both ways, and the killer can also see through his eyes.

These two movies were used to create a plot in an adventure where a PC who was a self-exiled priest of Zhakata the Provider in Nova Vaasa was seeing through Malken's eyes during his murders. Slowly during the campaign he would manage to see more of the murders and Malken learn of the PC's ability through his alter ego and tried to murder him. After many confrontations they both fell from the Blacktower Heights into Volgis river (in a Sherlock Holmes kind of way), the priest survived and traveled west with the rest of the party to Barovia thus the psychic link was cut off and assumed that Malken had died on the fall. Malken off-course survived and started sending assassins after them, having no visions of him they could not suspect him until the time they would return to Nova Vaasa, but we never finishe the campaign.

And then there was this alternative way of playing a recurring evil character...

The character's name was Nopraptor and was a ghast Player Character deranged by death. In life (and in the begining of the campaign) he was arcanist who used to go by the name of Kabal. Kabal asked a party of adventurers (other PC's) to help him dispose of some lashweed which had overcome his masters keep, who used to be an evil necromancer. The party helped him destroy the plants and take back the castle but after finding some books of the black arts in the keep they started burning them, Kabal protested and tried to stop them by falling on the burning books. The party being superstitious about magic mocked Kabal and after making him watch them burn the books they killed him (then we stopped playing all together for various reasons and continued only with the player whose character had died). Kabal's will to live was powerful and he rose up as a ghast after some days. Vengeance was on his mind but not just that he wanted more, he wanted to live again. With his magical powers he was able to mask his evil odor of death and with the human flesh of his victims used as spell components he was able to hide his undead flesh. His knowledge of the arcane led him to a chronomancer in the woods of Tepest, with his help he was able to travel back in time before his own death and transformation looking for his killers before they met him to destroy them. He searched and befriended everyone responsible for his death disguised as Nopraptor (who as I said was the PC) and planned to kill them before they kill him in his masters keep. Something which could create a chronical paradox and was advised not to do by the Chronomancer. Maybe this willingness to play all or nothing could have earned him his own deranged Domain but we stopped playing before that point.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

But I know Ron did that somewhat in his campaign with a recuring villain, Vir Stannum.

Yep, I have a few in my campaign, but he was the big one. Well, him and Cynthia De Greives. Hopefully the old-timers will forgive me plugging my campaign journal site yet again, but the new folks may not have seen themistway.com before. There's a lot to read there, but if you just want to see Vir and Cynthia, I wrote them up for Quoth the Raven 21 and 20, respectively. Neither were from the canon books, though Cynthia was related to a few canon characters. The canon one I used (sort of) was Elena Faith-hold, although she only appeared directly once, references to her were sprinkled throughout the campaign, and she is sure to come back eventually.

To make a long (really long) story short:
I chose/created a nemesis for each of my 3 original players after seeing the character concepts they came up with...
- For the mechanical tinkerer/gunsmith, I made Vir, a clockwork man looking for a soul, created by the PC's mentor
- For the half-vistani spiritualist, whose mother was killed channeling a ghost, I chose to make that ghost the Crimson Death of Baron Metus, the first vampire killed by Dr. Van Richten. And to give him a connection to the living world that could go where a Crimson Death couldn't, I created Cynthia, a vorlog accidentally created when Metus was slain by Van Richten.
- For the would-be Knight of the Shadows with a mysterious dead mother, I chose Elena Faith-hold, and made his mother a dissident priestess of Belenus on the run.

When I added a 4th player, a bard, I felt she deserved a nemesis too, so I eventually introduced Andres Duvall as her father. (changed quite a bit from the canon version)

The thing I'm most proud of in the campaign is how I managed to intertwine the villains, and also how I got the PCs to have personal beefs with each others' nemeses, so it went from "my bad guy and your bad guy" to "our bad guys". (For example, Cynthia joined the gang that tried to exploit the bard character on her first adventure, and also later married the father of the Knight of the Shadows character.)

And ulitimately, after 10 years of playing, I got to stage the moment I'd been hoping for from the start: The soul without a body (Metus) possessed the body without a soul (Vir). It didn't last long, due to meddling PCs, but we got there.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I once had a guy set up to be a recurring villain, but I vividly recalled some advice from the Ravenloft DMG. Basically, players don't want to hear the tragic backstory once the boss fight music is playing; especially some players.

So the first time they ran into the campaign's villain ... they actually hadn't. I borrowed a very nice trick from an Advanced Fighting Fantasy-campaign, and what the players actually ran into was a simulacrum.
My players still had a tough fight appropriate to their level, and my villain was in the wind, more of his backstory waiting to be explored.

An excellent idea - I might borrow that myself sometime.

If it isn't straying to far from the main topic, how do you find it best to reveal the tragic backstory?

Old journals discarded in anger or abandoned as the villain feels he or she is about to transcend their old limits and pain work nicely. So does meeting old friends and/or relatives of the villain who knew them before all the evil.
It's extra tragic if they refuse to believe their loved one is just GONE and ask the heroes to save him or her and bring them home.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

If it isn't straying to far from the main topic, how do you find it best to reveal the tragic backstory?

Flashback visions are always nice, particularly if you have a psychic/medium/ghost-touched-style character. As is the old standby, the fortune reading.

My favorite is to engineer scenarios that require talking directly with the villain in a place where violence is impossible/inadvisable. (the old "holy ground" shtick.)

[Mephisto of the FoS]

My favorite is to engineer scenarios that require talking directly with the villain in a place where violence is impossible/inadvisable. (the old "holy ground" shtick.)

or the James Bond type of villain who tells his backstory as he tortures the players... heh

[Hanbaoge]

Hello Wannabe

Hello, sir! Long time, hope all is well in your end.

Mother of Strahd, alhoon's still around too? It's like a school reunion mixed with a scene from VtM.

And look at that! My adventure is still available on your netbooks page, now I feel all special and junk.....hang on.....

THIS FILE HAS BEEN DOWNLOADED TWO TIMES - BOTH BY YOU

oh.........

I haven't yet had any recurring villains (there was one villain that I intended to be recurring who the PCs managed to destroy in their first encounter), but would be interesting in seeing the notes on your campaign.

More than happy to oblige - what would be the best way to share? I've compiled the basic idea and some notes into a word doc, can that be attached here? Sent as a message? Submitted for the website? Advice from the mods, or anyone else?

Still working on the actual journals, one because I never really kept decent notes during play (other than what was needed), and two thanks to water damage. I feel like I'm pulling a Miskatonic, what with carefully preserving yellowed, damaged papers and trying to decipher my scrawl from decades ago.

[Hanbaoge]

If it isn't straying to far from the main topic, how do you find it best to reveal the tragic backstory?

Flashback visions are always nice, particularly if you have a psychic/medium/ghost-touched-style character. As is the old standby, the fortune reading.

My favorite is to engineer scenarios that require talking directly with the villain in a place where violence is impossible/inadvisable. (the old "holy ground" shtick.)

In the campaign under discussion, I used a combination of Professor Pacali and VRG:F for "real-life" reveals in order to gently push the PCs towards the idea that Isolde and Elsepeth were the same person, and used the Tome of Terror for more specific clues.

I introduced it early in the campaign, but once they'd realized the overall meta-plot (and that the two women were different but connected), they learned very quickly that every time they entered the tome, they'd learn something new about Elsepeth, Isolde or both. On the other hand, they also learned that using the Tome was beaucoup risky, so they weren't able to just jump in, get the whole story early, and jump out.

I find using the ToT to be very useful for giving clues to a campaign, and it almost always shows up at least once anytime I DM Ravenloft. One or two characters die in the process of doing it this way, but that's a risk *I* am willing to take......

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Oh, I forgot cut scenes. A bit brute force, but a useful tool when used sparingly.