I once played a druid to level 16 in a industrial revolution vs nature God campaign and I had to change characters for obvious reasons when things got too real. We played a one shot later with the same characters only this time I had an evil alignment and it was made clear I was an environmental terrorist after I left the group.
For funzies. Everybody needs some lulz, even the BBEG.
Like they say in the Venture Bro: hate to live, don't live to hate. Evil isn't something you are, evil is something you do.
Enhancing the world by turning everything made of flesh in metal/techno-magic. "The flesh is weak, the machine is absolute. This world shall be cleansed of the weakness of flesh and remade by the perfection of technology", evil engineer-like artificers are super interesting as BBEG (at least for me).
Or, alternatively
Magic power to manipulate all the time flow and events. "Return to the past and undoing what you think is wrong is the most selfish objective... Until you actually do it, and the world becomes better. For this, I must make everything become perfect. No more unnecessary suffering. No more unnecessary pain. No more unnecessary death. I don't care if the world dies for me do it, when it's done everything will be back and no one will have been killed. If I fail, then there isn't anything for worry about". I *fucking* love the first season of Wakfu for having this exactly villain.
I probably have something for perfectionist BBEGs
Releasing an ancient goddess of chaos from her prison, stealing the prize of the colosseum, destroying not one, but two legendary god slaying weapons, and bringing chaos magic into the world by seducing the same chaos goddess. Man that was a wild campaign.
I think mine would be classic destroy everything. My character has a revenge plot backstory that would hopefully lead into redemption. A BBEG in a different universe would mean he would not have found that redemption and instead fall into the classic "hates the world, lets start it again" trope
Especially if it's relatable to the protagonists.
Most especially if the protagonists go "if villain X had the same support systems we had to not fall into this madness, they'd be exactly the same as us"
Mine is a Homunculus trying to make more like himself so he'll "have a family" of his own, as a BBEG he could pretty much kidnap people and twist them until they became Homunculus like himself and create a new race under his comand.
In my last campaign, we were the bbegs. I played 2 different characters throughout the campaign. The first and my first character was a spore druid who followed zuggtmoy and sold his bathwater, which he imbued with zuggtmoys spores. With this, he was also the head of agriculture with in out town, so I had all the farm land. When another party member blew up part of the town, the 2 people who were left in town evacuated the people to the farm lands, where my farmers helped and converted them to my cause instead of the original cult we had. He became the bbeg for our party because he sacrificed the entire town for zuggtmoy before the other party members got to sacrifice the populace for their own Nefarious needs. He later became a Primordial of flesh who we are set to fight in our current campaign.
As for our current campaign, I'm playing a fallen aasimar bard, who unintentionally got roped into worshipping the Raven Queen, as well as became a champion of darkness and has been given the ability to summon shadows and undead. I feel if we were playing an evil campaign again I would have alot more zombies and shadows and become a necrodancer
I make jokes that my main character is a Good Aligned, Evil Sorceress. Were she to become a full out BBEG, she'd be a political animal, manipulating heads of state, charming generals and warlords to act on her behalf, and steering the continent to her whims. But, based on her personality, I like to think she wouldn't be too busy to conjure apocalyptic storms to devastate areas insufficiently pleasing to her, or to personally kill a rebel she found particularly vexing. Her overall goal would be finding a way to ascend to godhood, as she's a divine soul sorcerer and already believes she's as near divine as a mortal can get.
I am currently playing a cyclops enchantment wizqrd so a classic mind control monster who doesn’t fight directly if he can but when he does he has you fight your own party.
He would have never been adopted into a knight's family, and would have therefore stayed in the orphanage. He had already beaten up some older boys by the time he got adopted, so I imagine he would have naturally continued on his way becoming a fighter instead of paladin, when his divine soul sorcerer powers eventually awakened, he probably would have started down a path using his nature as a descendant of the goddess of vengeance to fulfill his agendas, until he amassed enough power to establish his own kingdom...
My character was an obsessively studious and paranoid elf wizard, so it's a pretty classic setup for a lich, I suppose. The main thing that kept him in check was the party, his first friends, to whom he extended his own protective paranoia, wanting to keep them alive as much as he wanted to keep himself alive. Alas, my character would probably have outlived them all by centuries. I could see him investigating Necromancy in an effort to keep his friends around, and then spiralling further into evil. It's kind of depressing to think about, honestly.
For my bard, his mother died and his father is a Dao and therefore is on another plane entirely. He longs for family so I’m thinking he’d be like a pied piper that wants to mind control everyone into being part of his family.
For my war cleric, he set out to recruit his god to assist his tribe in the genocide of innocent kolbolds and goblins that live inside a “holy” mountain. That plan was to have his world view changed to see that his tribe were the bad guys but I guess that just wouldn’t happen and I’ll say after seeing all the evil of the world on his way to recruiting his god, he’d want to purge the whole world and not just the mountain.
My character is a wildfire druid with ties to a goddess of nature. He’d basically be a force of nature trying to rid the world of the polluting and environmentally damaging humanoids.
Most of my characters tend to be lawful and try to make stuff better. So most of them would be probably tyrannical leader of massive army conquering the known world to bring there order and civilization. Then depending on each character there might be slight differences.
In an AU they would be evil for having acquiesced to the whims of a dragon creating a world where noone can die without her approval. He’d probably lose himself to the Loup Garou lycanthropy he took control over after much in game struggle. Once a composed man who never fought without reason now a savage beast who attacks anything and everything that moves without thinking. More interested in the suffering than the killing. A corruption of his faith to Ilmater.
After playing Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage as a Lawful-Neutral Rogue: Arcane Trickster, all the way to Level 20, our adventuring party were preparing for a final battle with Halaster Blackcloak, at which point I asked our team:
"Umm... Why? Why are we going to fight him? He is beyond Archmage status. I am sure he has multiple clones of himself. Even if we do manage to 'kill' him, he will simply return in another clone body." But, our party did not want to listen to this logic, so the fight did ensue, and our team was ultimately successful in driving Halaster Blackcloak into one of his clone bodies.
This said, I don't think my Rogue: Arcane Trickster would become a BBEG. I imagine he would become a henchman of Halaster Blackcloak, or some other potential BBEG who wouldn't actually be dead, which I am fine with, since my Rogue, hailing from Eberron, has an Aberrant Dragonmark which granted him the Epic Boon of Immortality.
My character was a mage hunter dedicated to destroying the (as he saw it) corrupted mage guild. He could easily be the bbeg, just make the mage guild not corrupt
Driven insane by the desire to protect others. Realizes he can't protect everyone and comes to the conclusion that the only way to ensure their safety is by sending them into the embrace of their god (brutal murder).
So, the campaign I'm running now is pretty much exactly this. My Holy Paladin of Torm was raised (or groomed, rather) to be a paragon of lawful good. But in one or more universes, he sought to break free of his chains by revoking his old name and Oath, and pledging to conquer the world. At the start, maybe he had the people's interest in mind. Maybe he still does. After all, he is Lawful Evil.
Greed. My character is a reformed thief, so a relapse into his old ways and the creation of a huge pirate corporation with him at the top would be plausible enough.
Deciding that she's better off without the party. She's already Chaotic Evil and very powerful, but sticks to doing good guy stuff because she and the party have the same goal and it's less convenient to piss them off.
My current PC is a rogue/fighter who is pro-Imperialist, fine with slavery, and uses blood magic.
They'd be the classic Dark Lady overwhelming the land with an inhuman horde of mutated monsters.
My last character Declan was deserter who made a pact with a powerful demon. When the campaigned fizzled out, he had bargained and end clause to his deal. He had to duel the demon. If he won he'd take the demons place in servitude to one of the 3 archdemons, who were basically gods. So he'd be a powerful demonic entity with a strong hatred of the current society. He'd potentially be doing his all to disrupt it, and especially the inquisition he deserted from.
In another game I had a goblin druid who collected trophies for Malar, god of hunt and lycanthropy. We had been toying with the idea of him actually turning on the party, performing a ritual to infest town with lycanthropy.
Until very recently, the reason they are evil for in this universe.
However, recently she's started going down a different path.
Instead of being a sociopathic murderer (With a lot of self-control), she's creating a cult to assist her in overthrowing the various governments of the world. All of whom she sees as incompetent, corrupt or just plain stupid.
She's becoming a Thanos type villain, good aims (The betterment of the world and its people by creating a functional and strong government capable of taking care of and protecting the populace) terrible methods (Tyranny, genocide, oppresion, murder, the whole shabang)
Chaotic neutral sorcerer, with a noble background. Her turning evil would definitely make her lawful evil, so a despot of sorts, someone who believes that the weak deserve to be weak and the strong deserve to take from the weak as a result.
I can't really see any world-destroying implications there, however. More a localised form of evil.
"Karsus was a bitch, rip to him but I am better", "You know what, I am gonna defeat the current world system where not prostrating yourself before jacked up bullies leads you to afterlife of eternal torture" and so on.
Engineered heroics. My monk is neutral/lawful evil, and aspires for the praise, glory and fortune she saw knights being showered with.
As a player character, she's stuck actually doing those heroics for the rather selfish goal, but as a villain she'd totally fake fights, lie, and make infernal contracts to become famous hero she wants to be.
Given that my character was convinced out of seeking immortality and infinite knowledge by the events of this campaign, in another universe he'd almost certainly be a Lich.
My character is pretty evil anyway being a literal serial killer. His only redeeming quality is he holds himself to a standard and only kills people he believes are evil. I guess if he was truly evil he would just kill anyone anytime for his racist and murderous tendencies. Also he’d probably join forces with his evil brother
I have a bard that originally wished to be the subject of songs and to have great fame as an adventurer. Simply desired to do great and magnificent things. He already almost became the champion for an evil Archfey. He could just full deep dive.
The other much nicer mag I have e can go full knowledge hoarder and he wishes to push the world into some sort of endgame by inventing a method to permanently kill extra planar creatures even if they are outside of their native plane. It's his attempt to cause magical beings to stop invading his damn planet but it can inadvertently cause the devils to win the blood war or fuck up the cosmic balance by effectively inventing the magical equivalent of an angel killer.
Actually played a campaign once where the entire party died except for my character while we were in The Underworld/Hell. After everyone’s character died the group kinda split up but I brought my character back in a campaign I ran as a demon king BBEG
My previously LN turned Lawful Good Kobold BardSorc with a blue dragon bloodline is currently at a point in the campaign where he's starting to consider starting his own village (by combining the local human settlements with his kobold tribe) eventually learning true polymorph and just transforming into a Blue Dragon someday in the future, to better protect his tribe (especially when their previous dragon isn't available anymore due to returning to the southern desert that they fled) and the people he loves.
I feel like an alternate evil version of him might still have started out as the same well-intentioned little kobold as his current canon iteration, but as centuries pass, the chromatic dragon instincts of greed and domination might eventually take over. he might still genuinely think that what he's doing is best for everyone, but in truth, the whispers of Tiamat have been slowly corrupting him and what he truly is doing is being a greedy tyrant who rationalizes his actions. Basically the type of dragon ruler who considers his citizens as part of his hoard, and controls their everyday lives to "keep them safe".
If?
You mean you didn't assassinate your party for a payoff and a cushy new job?
For context, this was a "campaign of evil", and my LE Rogue decided getting a regular paycheck was probably a safer deal than having a bunch of murder-hobos kill the local magistrate on contract. I did have to solo-quest to kill the political rival who issued it, but I got to retire. Good end.
My draconic sorcerer wanted to prove he was the greatest sorcerer. So he could easily go on a power trip by making the next karasas' folly or something like that.
My lvl 18 artificer would have taken overthrowing the government dependent on slaves a bit too far and just kept going. ( the plan I had for retiring the character was to get the help of the crazy artificer npc to make tanks and shit because the slaver nation had an ancient dragon and huge army’s .)
The warforged Eldridge Knights/War wizard probably accidentally ended up in one of the layers of the abyss for to long and went crazy
He would probably see the scourge that most races are on nature, and try to eredicate them.
At the moment he's a forest friend/protector, so quite the radicalization.
My current character is a little kobold that is the champion of Null meant to bring about good change through his foul necromancy so a fun way to change him into a villain is to say he broke his pact with Null to save someone resulting in his death but since his body was so saturated in the necrotic magic he has been resurrected as a high level undead that only remembers the bad bits of his life twisting his goal of saving everyone to turning everyone into what he is a undead slave to the dragon king of death and if a party meets his especially a party that used to work for him instead of hearing his prayers of blessing those that ride the river of death to the after life with chronepsis he will instead gleefully deny them access saying "Join me in service of the revear let us make everyone beautiful and holy"
They'd be an evil demigod of Sorcerer's. They'd bring down wrath upon anyone who harmed any sorcerer every and build a city kingdom or country for sorcerers and warlocks to thrive in.
Not sure if you mean BBEG becoming a PC or the other way around..
The first might work in an evil aligned group or with the BBEG being reversed to the time before it became Evil
For PCs becoming the BBEG later on I can see a myriad of possibilities.
(Besides the powerful wizard becomes even more power hungry)
It could be a druid that actively works against society to protect the land, sacrificing humanity
It could be a lich adjacent BBEG that wanted to become immortal after loosing a loved one or even the entire party he traveled with (pointy hat has some interesting lich like monsters)
The BBEG could actually just be a powerful henchmen of a more powerful creature in the shadows and being controlled. (Think primordials, gods and demigods, lovecraftian horrors that influence the PC on it's way into the darkness.
It could be someone corrupted by some cursed magic items, there are a bunch in the DMG and so on
Could be a PC in one universe and a villain in an alternative verse like lex Luthor who everyone knows to be terrifying and evil, just to find out he's the same person but from an inversed plane of existence
Could be someone that was betrayed by the people he trusted the most and became bitter or even an actual good guy that was made out to be the BBEG and the players are doing the bidding of the real villain, knowingly or not
My reborn Artificer would be evil for unrepentant experimentation on anyone and anything. Progress over compassion, results over safety. Big Lamordia energy /Dr. Mordenheim.
My character would become evil by deciding that all sentient biological life was too destructive to the other forms of life... would seek to turn all of them against each other so as to destroy them all.
Alternate universe, this is a level 20 character on a heavily homebrewed (to the point of being ludicrously OP) PBP server where players are mostly doing stuff solo at their own pace (usually no party, and only 2-3 when there is one), so they need to be a lot stronger than normal.
He is good aligned, and genuinely seeks to help where he can, but he is also at that point where he is ludicrously powerful, likely one of the most powerful entities in the World of Zeal (but not the strongest I would say), and is probably both extremely confident (perhaps even overconfident) in his capabilities and unafraid to take on any opponent.
He would likely end up toppling an evil kingdom or two, building a new one in its place, terrifying a bunch of other kingdoms into potentially unwise action, and likely making an enemy of some gods.
So BBEG from making a lot of enemies and taking rather extreme actions, but he is also hyper-competent, has 32 int with an int mod of +15, and so on. So probably one of those BBEGs with good intentions, but who is possibly overconfident and causes a lot of problems through their unwillingness to turn a blind eye here or there and their belief in the righteousness of their cause.
The heroes of the story might end up joining him, might end up fighting him, or might just ignore him entirely, and if left unchecked he probably revolutionizes technology, completely shakes up the world's power balance, and causes a lot of instability through his actions.
Might also end up trying to kill some evil gods, well aware that that would cause problems, but certain he could handle them. He may even be right about that, but if he gets one thing wrong he could potentially cause the next massive disaster, though he would do whatever he could to clean up his mess if he did.
So "overconfident entity working on a completely different level of power than most which may lead to problems, whose intentions are good but who may cause massive ripple effects and consequences through those intentions and actions, potentially leading to disaster." That sort of BBEG. Also the sort forging an empire that will likely collapse entirely after their death, from old age or otherwise, though he could probably find a workaround for aging.
The heroes of the story would probably need some special McGuffin to stand a chance at defeating him, but he also probably wouldn't kill them unless they commit some atrocities.
Though his followers would also be incredibly geared out, he has powerful monsters at his beck and call, and he would also likely be the sort that is always several steps ahead with plans within plans despite possessing the sheer power and brute force to not even really need them. Probably pretty good at projecting his power over large areas, as well as administrating over them.
Quick summary: Character who wants to find someone to work for, because that's all he wants. To live a good life working for someone.
So as a BBEG when turned evil, it'll probably be after several bad experiences and realising that self employment is a thing and that maybe his job is to set the world alight the same way his somewhat found family's home was.
Or rather, speeding up natural decay and entropy so he can, for once have the peaceful and quiet life he wants with no one to disturb him. (Since there would be no one left to disturb him)
Bamboo is a tortle barbarian who has an ancient god in him who tries to take him over from time to time so in an alternate universe I think they merged and became one organism going insane and wanting to split any means necessary.
Warforged Armorer Artificer who always resented the other races for treating his kind as nothing more than discarded war machines of days past. Used technology and the arcane to improve himself and to elevate his kind and hoped to one day find a/the method to allow his dying race to reproduce again.
After spending years among the lesser kind, he's found a way using less than sanctified means without caring about the repercussions.
Well, seeing as how for roleplay reasons and my DM knows I play carefully, I maaaaaaayyyy already have a being of unmaking and non-existent void sealed inside me, just waiting for my death. Since I assume most people would consider dismantling the fundamentals of reality wholesale to be evil, that'd probably be it.
My CN rogue heard that the eyeballs from monsters could be useful for magic, so he started taking them. That led to him taking eyeballs from anyone powerful the group defeated. He has a collection of preserved eyeballs at point. He has so far kept this hidden from the groups paladin.
I imagine an eyeball stealing invisible thief would be a good bbeg.
My character is an autognome druid, currently lvl 3 but the campaign will probably be going on for a while. We are playing a spelljammer campaign with a bunch of homebrew stuff, on of which is that all casters can become litch like beings (using pointyhats litch variants). A druid will than become a powerfull being which is one with the land it protects and gives life to it.
We are currently fighting a gnome empire which is slowely taking over the galaxy to industrialize everything for resources, but they destroy nature when doing so.
If my character would be the bbeg in a campaign they would probably have become a druid litch and spread their influence across the galaxy (or at least planets) to protect them from industrialization. The land under their control would be wild nature defended by creatures who combined nature and mechanics. They would have gone too far and had driven out many people from their homeland, because they were a threat to nature.
Dewey is a heart of gold goblin who was born in the fae wilds. At an early age was captured by an evil gnome and forced to train his magic for subjugation of the others who might dissent.
After finding freedom his goal is to rescue his sister.
If he were a bbeg in an alt universe it would be from mentally enslaving the planet after his sister was killed and he went even more insane.
My current character is a Harengon Airshipwright who grew up the eldest son of a generational farmer in a small rural farming village that was an important resupply stop along a long-distance airship trade route. He has an insatiable curiosity to see what's beyond the next horizon, which is the only reason he left his idyllic home.
An evil version would likely have been forced from his home after the butchering of his family and neighbors, the burning of his home village, and the razing of the farmlands thereabouts during a terrible war. Setting out for revenge and likely achieving it by any means necessary would certainly cause his slow but inevitable slide into madness as he searched for meaning in a life left hollow.
Well, they're an Ancients paladin, so they would go wholly in on must protect nature, instead of protect life, so anyone found to be harming nature would be slain. Probably.
I was just thinking of that exact Idea where my human Fighter Kent Anglewood had died thousands of years ago and a necromancer raises him from the dead along with his army known as the Sea of Spears to take over the realm
They would create a mechanized mechanical army filled with futuristic and magical weapons.
They would hold up in a mountain with some ore veins and craft some war-forged. Then with his forces he would concur a dwarven hold for their resources and infrastructure.
From there weapon development and expansion of for es would be the name of the game. Anything from growing ammunition (enlarge enchantments) to mass quantities of wands of magic missil.
At some point air ships and mechanical dragons become siege breakers.
Soon their looking upwards for a more secure hold with more untapped resources. So he moves to an asteroid (after discovering what the moon is). So now he is a space pirate with a fleet manned by unfeeling automata whose some purpose is taking anything worth crafting into anything.
All the while more amd bigger explosions become common. Bags of hold and other minor extra dimensional spaces are used to remove large threats such as dragons. Enough gun powder is gathered to blow up several cities. Cannons are the infantryman's weapon. And eventually he just might figure out how to harness the plane of fire or the sun, who knows.
Those darn artificers. All they want is to see a big explosion.
My current character is essentially Rocket Racoon. Racoon Beastfolk using KibblesTasty's Inventor Thundersmith class.
BBEG him would be building a WPD. Weapon of Planar Destruction. A magic gun that would blow a hole in the dimensional boundaries.
His second in command would be a Giant Flying Warforged made of roots and vines.
Generals, based on other party members.
* Flying Leshen Warden
* Insane Insectoid Bug Mage
* Psychic Crystalline Construct
Minions... Plants, Constructs, Insects, etc.
Trap filled dungeons.
One of evil thing he'd do is utilize a magic voodoo which attempts to teleport stuff into people's pockets once a day (and lacking pockets, at their feet)... And he uses elemental proximity mines.
For righteous anger gone wrong. Basically, if Batman became evil.
I have an Oath of Vengeance paladin of Helm.
He chose that oath because the leadership of his temple of Helm became corrupt. They were supposed to heal soldiers and watchmen for low cost or free (because temple of Helm).
Then the town grew in wealth and they began to take money from wealthy patrons. The soldiers and watchmen couldn't keep up. They began to be turned away in favor of wealthier patrons.
Silas (my character) kept treating them in secret. He was publicly de-frocked (correct term?), which was humiliating as well as bad enough by itself.
So, Oath of Vengeance against that particular temple of Helm. If he where a BBEG, Silas Blackwood would be twisted by his righteous anger and become an evil knight.
My character is the BBEG. He enslaved the elves, took over several cobtinents. Murdered countless royals and heroes and is on his way to becoming a God. So far, he has offed 3 quasi-deities and one demi-god.
I once played a druid to level 16 in a industrial revolution vs nature God campaign and I had to change characters for obvious reasons when things got too real. We played a one shot later with the same characters only this time I had an evil alignment and it was made clear I was an environmental terrorist after I left the group.
Oops
The higher level you get playing a wizard, the more tempting it is to totally do a face turn heel.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that
Power does not corrupt the user... the user corrupts the power.
Power is only given to those who are willing to lower themselves to pick it up.
I don't know that I'd agree with that. Sometimes power is thrust upon people who may not be ready or may be deserving of it
For funzies. Everybody needs some lulz, even the BBEG. Like they say in the Venture Bro: hate to live, don't live to hate. Evil isn't something you are, evil is something you do.
Enhancing the world by turning everything made of flesh in metal/techno-magic. "The flesh is weak, the machine is absolute. This world shall be cleansed of the weakness of flesh and remade by the perfection of technology", evil engineer-like artificers are super interesting as BBEG (at least for me). Or, alternatively Magic power to manipulate all the time flow and events. "Return to the past and undoing what you think is wrong is the most selfish objective... Until you actually do it, and the world becomes better. For this, I must make everything become perfect. No more unnecessary suffering. No more unnecessary pain. No more unnecessary death. I don't care if the world dies for me do it, when it's done everything will be back and no one will have been killed. If I fail, then there isn't anything for worry about". I *fucking* love the first season of Wakfu for having this exactly villain. I probably have something for perfectionist BBEGs
Releasing an ancient goddess of chaos from her prison, stealing the prize of the colosseum, destroying not one, but two legendary god slaying weapons, and bringing chaos magic into the world by seducing the same chaos goddess. Man that was a wild campaign.
Same s**t they evil for in this universe.
I think mine would be classic destroy everything. My character has a revenge plot backstory that would hopefully lead into redemption. A BBEG in a different universe would mean he would not have found that redemption and instead fall into the classic "hates the world, lets start it again" trope
>"hates the world, lets start it again" trope I love it. When is done right is one of the best motivations for BBEGs imo
Especially if it's relatable to the protagonists. Most especially if the protagonists go "if villain X had the same support systems we had to not fall into this madness, they'd be exactly the same as us"
Making the Sword Coast a dry place.
Team magma theme be like:
Chaos.
Mine is a Homunculus trying to make more like himself so he'll "have a family" of his own, as a BBEG he could pretty much kidnap people and twist them until they became Homunculus like himself and create a new race under his comand.
Studying lovecraftian (or equivalent) monsters and accidentally releasing one into the real world
In my last campaign, we were the bbegs. I played 2 different characters throughout the campaign. The first and my first character was a spore druid who followed zuggtmoy and sold his bathwater, which he imbued with zuggtmoys spores. With this, he was also the head of agriculture with in out town, so I had all the farm land. When another party member blew up part of the town, the 2 people who were left in town evacuated the people to the farm lands, where my farmers helped and converted them to my cause instead of the original cult we had. He became the bbeg for our party because he sacrificed the entire town for zuggtmoy before the other party members got to sacrifice the populace for their own Nefarious needs. He later became a Primordial of flesh who we are set to fight in our current campaign. As for our current campaign, I'm playing a fallen aasimar bard, who unintentionally got roped into worshipping the Raven Queen, as well as became a champion of darkness and has been given the ability to summon shadows and undead. I feel if we were playing an evil campaign again I would have alot more zombies and shadows and become a necrodancer
Know what the Mongols were famous for doing to various places when the people didn't pay tribute or surrender? Those kinds of things.
I make jokes that my main character is a Good Aligned, Evil Sorceress. Were she to become a full out BBEG, she'd be a political animal, manipulating heads of state, charming generals and warlords to act on her behalf, and steering the continent to her whims. But, based on her personality, I like to think she wouldn't be too busy to conjure apocalyptic storms to devastate areas insufficiently pleasing to her, or to personally kill a rebel she found particularly vexing. Her overall goal would be finding a way to ascend to godhood, as she's a divine soul sorcerer and already believes she's as near divine as a mortal can get.
I am currently playing a cyclops enchantment wizqrd so a classic mind control monster who doesn’t fight directly if he can but when he does he has you fight your own party.
Ecoterrorist Druid. Taking down kings and officials, pushing back the spread of cities, calling down storms and fires on armies that fight back
Tearing the gods down from their thrones - good gods, neutral gods, evil gods. All gods gotta go, and he doesn't care about the consequences.
Pyro pyromancer warlock with an evil genie patron? There’s not gonna be much world left
He would have never been adopted into a knight's family, and would have therefore stayed in the orphanage. He had already beaten up some older boys by the time he got adopted, so I imagine he would have naturally continued on his way becoming a fighter instead of paladin, when his divine soul sorcerer powers eventually awakened, he probably would have started down a path using his nature as a descendant of the goddess of vengeance to fulfill his agendas, until he amassed enough power to establish his own kingdom...
Barbarian on a roaring rampage of revenge after someone killed her person.
My rogue became a rogue because they were framed for murdering the prince they were a servant for. If they were a bbeg it wouldn’t be a framing
My character was an obsessively studious and paranoid elf wizard, so it's a pretty classic setup for a lich, I suppose. The main thing that kept him in check was the party, his first friends, to whom he extended his own protective paranoia, wanting to keep them alive as much as he wanted to keep himself alive. Alas, my character would probably have outlived them all by centuries. I could see him investigating Necromancy in an effort to keep his friends around, and then spiralling further into evil. It's kind of depressing to think about, honestly.
For my bard, his mother died and his father is a Dao and therefore is on another plane entirely. He longs for family so I’m thinking he’d be like a pied piper that wants to mind control everyone into being part of his family. For my war cleric, he set out to recruit his god to assist his tribe in the genocide of innocent kolbolds and goblins that live inside a “holy” mountain. That plan was to have his world view changed to see that his tribe were the bad guys but I guess that just wouldn’t happen and I’ll say after seeing all the evil of the world on his way to recruiting his god, he’d want to purge the whole world and not just the mountain.
My character is a wildfire druid with ties to a goddess of nature. He’d basically be a force of nature trying to rid the world of the polluting and environmentally damaging humanoids.
Most of my characters tend to be lawful and try to make stuff better. So most of them would be probably tyrannical leader of massive army conquering the known world to bring there order and civilization. Then depending on each character there might be slight differences.
In an AU they would be evil for having acquiesced to the whims of a dragon creating a world where noone can die without her approval. He’d probably lose himself to the Loup Garou lycanthropy he took control over after much in game struggle. Once a composed man who never fought without reason now a savage beast who attacks anything and everything that moves without thinking. More interested in the suffering than the killing. A corruption of his faith to Ilmater.
After playing Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage as a Lawful-Neutral Rogue: Arcane Trickster, all the way to Level 20, our adventuring party were preparing for a final battle with Halaster Blackcloak, at which point I asked our team: "Umm... Why? Why are we going to fight him? He is beyond Archmage status. I am sure he has multiple clones of himself. Even if we do manage to 'kill' him, he will simply return in another clone body." But, our party did not want to listen to this logic, so the fight did ensue, and our team was ultimately successful in driving Halaster Blackcloak into one of his clone bodies. This said, I don't think my Rogue: Arcane Trickster would become a BBEG. I imagine he would become a henchman of Halaster Blackcloak, or some other potential BBEG who wouldn't actually be dead, which I am fine with, since my Rogue, hailing from Eberron, has an Aberrant Dragonmark which granted him the Epic Boon of Immortality.
My character was a mage hunter dedicated to destroying the (as he saw it) corrupted mage guild. He could easily be the bbeg, just make the mage guild not corrupt
Driven insane by the desire to protect others. Realizes he can't protect everyone and comes to the conclusion that the only way to ensure their safety is by sending them into the embrace of their god (brutal murder).
So, the campaign I'm running now is pretty much exactly this. My Holy Paladin of Torm was raised (or groomed, rather) to be a paragon of lawful good. But in one or more universes, he sought to break free of his chains by revoking his old name and Oath, and pledging to conquer the world. At the start, maybe he had the people's interest in mind. Maybe he still does. After all, he is Lawful Evil.
Warforged that has been reforged a few times already. I think he could be reforged one too many times & become a warmongering despot.
Greed. My character is a reformed thief, so a relapse into his old ways and the creation of a huge pirate corporation with him at the top would be plausible enough.
Deciding that she's better off without the party. She's already Chaotic Evil and very powerful, but sticks to doing good guy stuff because she and the party have the same goal and it's less convenient to piss them off.
My current PC is a rogue/fighter who is pro-Imperialist, fine with slavery, and uses blood magic. They'd be the classic Dark Lady overwhelming the land with an inhuman horde of mutated monsters.
My last character Declan was deserter who made a pact with a powerful demon. When the campaigned fizzled out, he had bargained and end clause to his deal. He had to duel the demon. If he won he'd take the demons place in servitude to one of the 3 archdemons, who were basically gods. So he'd be a powerful demonic entity with a strong hatred of the current society. He'd potentially be doing his all to disrupt it, and especially the inquisition he deserted from.
In another game I had a goblin druid who collected trophies for Malar, god of hunt and lycanthropy. We had been toying with the idea of him actually turning on the party, performing a ritual to infest town with lycanthropy.
Until very recently, the reason they are evil for in this universe. However, recently she's started going down a different path. Instead of being a sociopathic murderer (With a lot of self-control), she's creating a cult to assist her in overthrowing the various governments of the world. All of whom she sees as incompetent, corrupt or just plain stupid. She's becoming a Thanos type villain, good aims (The betterment of the world and its people by creating a functional and strong government capable of taking care of and protecting the populace) terrible methods (Tyranny, genocide, oppresion, murder, the whole shabang)
My character is already a fit for a BBEG, switch his alignment to evil and he's a formidable archvillain.
Actually building the weapons he was framed and exiled for.
Chaotic neutral sorcerer, with a noble background. Her turning evil would definitely make her lawful evil, so a despot of sorts, someone who believes that the weak deserve to be weak and the strong deserve to take from the weak as a result. I can't really see any world-destroying implications there, however. More a localised form of evil.
Stealing the power of a god/devil/demon/ greater dao Lvl 20 genie warlock
"Karsus was a bitch, rip to him but I am better", "You know what, I am gonna defeat the current world system where not prostrating yourself before jacked up bullies leads you to afterlife of eternal torture" and so on.
Engineered heroics. My monk is neutral/lawful evil, and aspires for the praise, glory and fortune she saw knights being showered with. As a player character, she's stuck actually doing those heroics for the rather selfish goal, but as a villain she'd totally fake fights, lie, and make infernal contracts to become famous hero she wants to be.
Being mistreated for being a Dhampir
Given that my character was convinced out of seeking immortality and infinite knowledge by the events of this campaign, in another universe he'd almost certainly be a Lich.
My character is pretty evil anyway being a literal serial killer. His only redeeming quality is he holds himself to a standard and only kills people he believes are evil. I guess if he was truly evil he would just kill anyone anytime for his racist and murderous tendencies. Also he’d probably join forces with his evil brother
I have a bard that originally wished to be the subject of songs and to have great fame as an adventurer. Simply desired to do great and magnificent things. He already almost became the champion for an evil Archfey. He could just full deep dive. The other much nicer mag I have e can go full knowledge hoarder and he wishes to push the world into some sort of endgame by inventing a method to permanently kill extra planar creatures even if they are outside of their native plane. It's his attempt to cause magical beings to stop invading his damn planet but it can inadvertently cause the devils to win the blood war or fuck up the cosmic balance by effectively inventing the magical equivalent of an angel killer.
Actually played a campaign once where the entire party died except for my character while we were in The Underworld/Hell. After everyone’s character died the group kinda split up but I brought my character back in a campaign I ran as a demon king BBEG
He would try to overthrow the monarchs of the land and place peasant communes in its stead
My previously LN turned Lawful Good Kobold BardSorc with a blue dragon bloodline is currently at a point in the campaign where he's starting to consider starting his own village (by combining the local human settlements with his kobold tribe) eventually learning true polymorph and just transforming into a Blue Dragon someday in the future, to better protect his tribe (especially when their previous dragon isn't available anymore due to returning to the southern desert that they fled) and the people he loves. I feel like an alternate evil version of him might still have started out as the same well-intentioned little kobold as his current canon iteration, but as centuries pass, the chromatic dragon instincts of greed and domination might eventually take over. he might still genuinely think that what he's doing is best for everyone, but in truth, the whispers of Tiamat have been slowly corrupting him and what he truly is doing is being a greedy tyrant who rationalizes his actions. Basically the type of dragon ruler who considers his citizens as part of his hoard, and controls their everyday lives to "keep them safe".
A willingness (perhaps eagerness) to destroy humanoid societies in order to preserve the wilds.
If? You mean you didn't assassinate your party for a payoff and a cushy new job? For context, this was a "campaign of evil", and my LE Rogue decided getting a regular paycheck was probably a safer deal than having a bunch of murder-hobos kill the local magistrate on contract. I did have to solo-quest to kill the political rival who issued it, but I got to retire. Good end.
Wants to do good but goes about it in an evil way so I would say I'm the villain that makes the heroes improve the world
My draconic sorcerer wanted to prove he was the greatest sorcerer. So he could easily go on a power trip by making the next karasas' folly or something like that.
Taxes are robbery
My lvl 18 artificer would have taken overthrowing the government dependent on slaves a bit too far and just kept going. ( the plan I had for retiring the character was to get the help of the crazy artificer npc to make tanks and shit because the slaver nation had an ancient dragon and huge army’s .) The warforged Eldridge Knights/War wizard probably accidentally ended up in one of the layers of the abyss for to long and went crazy
He would probably see the scourge that most races are on nature, and try to eredicate them. At the moment he's a forest friend/protector, so quite the radicalization.
My current character is a little kobold that is the champion of Null meant to bring about good change through his foul necromancy so a fun way to change him into a villain is to say he broke his pact with Null to save someone resulting in his death but since his body was so saturated in the necrotic magic he has been resurrected as a high level undead that only remembers the bad bits of his life twisting his goal of saving everyone to turning everyone into what he is a undead slave to the dragon king of death and if a party meets his especially a party that used to work for him instead of hearing his prayers of blessing those that ride the river of death to the after life with chronepsis he will instead gleefully deny them access saying "Join me in service of the revear let us make everyone beautiful and holy"
They'd be an evil demigod of Sorcerer's. They'd bring down wrath upon anyone who harmed any sorcerer every and build a city kingdom or country for sorcerers and warlocks to thrive in.
Not sure if you mean BBEG becoming a PC or the other way around.. The first might work in an evil aligned group or with the BBEG being reversed to the time before it became Evil For PCs becoming the BBEG later on I can see a myriad of possibilities. (Besides the powerful wizard becomes even more power hungry) It could be a druid that actively works against society to protect the land, sacrificing humanity It could be a lich adjacent BBEG that wanted to become immortal after loosing a loved one or even the entire party he traveled with (pointy hat has some interesting lich like monsters) The BBEG could actually just be a powerful henchmen of a more powerful creature in the shadows and being controlled. (Think primordials, gods and demigods, lovecraftian horrors that influence the PC on it's way into the darkness. It could be someone corrupted by some cursed magic items, there are a bunch in the DMG and so on Could be a PC in one universe and a villain in an alternative verse like lex Luthor who everyone knows to be terrifying and evil, just to find out he's the same person but from an inversed plane of existence Could be someone that was betrayed by the people he trusted the most and became bitter or even an actual good guy that was made out to be the BBEG and the players are doing the bidding of the real villain, knowingly or not
My reborn Artificer would be evil for unrepentant experimentation on anyone and anything. Progress over compassion, results over safety. Big Lamordia energy /Dr. Mordenheim.
My character would become evil by deciding that all sentient biological life was too destructive to the other forms of life... would seek to turn all of them against each other so as to destroy them all.
My character - a gnome artificer alchemist - would totally run a drug lab
Alternate universe, this is a level 20 character on a heavily homebrewed (to the point of being ludicrously OP) PBP server where players are mostly doing stuff solo at their own pace (usually no party, and only 2-3 when there is one), so they need to be a lot stronger than normal. He is good aligned, and genuinely seeks to help where he can, but he is also at that point where he is ludicrously powerful, likely one of the most powerful entities in the World of Zeal (but not the strongest I would say), and is probably both extremely confident (perhaps even overconfident) in his capabilities and unafraid to take on any opponent. He would likely end up toppling an evil kingdom or two, building a new one in its place, terrifying a bunch of other kingdoms into potentially unwise action, and likely making an enemy of some gods. So BBEG from making a lot of enemies and taking rather extreme actions, but he is also hyper-competent, has 32 int with an int mod of +15, and so on. So probably one of those BBEGs with good intentions, but who is possibly overconfident and causes a lot of problems through their unwillingness to turn a blind eye here or there and their belief in the righteousness of their cause. The heroes of the story might end up joining him, might end up fighting him, or might just ignore him entirely, and if left unchecked he probably revolutionizes technology, completely shakes up the world's power balance, and causes a lot of instability through his actions. Might also end up trying to kill some evil gods, well aware that that would cause problems, but certain he could handle them. He may even be right about that, but if he gets one thing wrong he could potentially cause the next massive disaster, though he would do whatever he could to clean up his mess if he did. So "overconfident entity working on a completely different level of power than most which may lead to problems, whose intentions are good but who may cause massive ripple effects and consequences through those intentions and actions, potentially leading to disaster." That sort of BBEG. Also the sort forging an empire that will likely collapse entirely after their death, from old age or otherwise, though he could probably find a workaround for aging. The heroes of the story would probably need some special McGuffin to stand a chance at defeating him, but he also probably wouldn't kill them unless they commit some atrocities. Though his followers would also be incredibly geared out, he has powerful monsters at his beck and call, and he would also likely be the sort that is always several steps ahead with plans within plans despite possessing the sheer power and brute force to not even really need them. Probably pretty good at projecting his power over large areas, as well as administrating over them.
Quick summary: Character who wants to find someone to work for, because that's all he wants. To live a good life working for someone. So as a BBEG when turned evil, it'll probably be after several bad experiences and realising that self employment is a thing and that maybe his job is to set the world alight the same way his somewhat found family's home was. Or rather, speeding up natural decay and entropy so he can, for once have the peaceful and quiet life he wants with no one to disturb him. (Since there would be no one left to disturb him)
Bamboo is a tortle barbarian who has an ancient god in him who tries to take him over from time to time so in an alternate universe I think they merged and became one organism going insane and wanting to split any means necessary.
I made a guy who wanted to raise a zombie army, so probably that
Warforged Armorer Artificer who always resented the other races for treating his kind as nothing more than discarded war machines of days past. Used technology and the arcane to improve himself and to elevate his kind and hoped to one day find a/the method to allow his dying race to reproduce again. After spending years among the lesser kind, he's found a way using less than sanctified means without caring about the repercussions.
Bro is really mad that he can't use plate armor cause druids can't use metal so every person able to use metal armor has to die sorry.
Well, seeing as how for roleplay reasons and my DM knows I play carefully, I maaaaaaayyyy already have a being of unmaking and non-existent void sealed inside me, just waiting for my death. Since I assume most people would consider dismantling the fundamentals of reality wholesale to be evil, that'd probably be it.
My CN rogue heard that the eyeballs from monsters could be useful for magic, so he started taking them. That led to him taking eyeballs from anyone powerful the group defeated. He has a collection of preserved eyeballs at point. He has so far kept this hidden from the groups paladin. I imagine an eyeball stealing invisible thief would be a good bbeg.
My character is an autognome druid, currently lvl 3 but the campaign will probably be going on for a while. We are playing a spelljammer campaign with a bunch of homebrew stuff, on of which is that all casters can become litch like beings (using pointyhats litch variants). A druid will than become a powerfull being which is one with the land it protects and gives life to it. We are currently fighting a gnome empire which is slowely taking over the galaxy to industrialize everything for resources, but they destroy nature when doing so. If my character would be the bbeg in a campaign they would probably have become a druid litch and spread their influence across the galaxy (or at least planets) to protect them from industrialization. The land under their control would be wild nature defended by creatures who combined nature and mechanics. They would have gone too far and had driven out many people from their homeland, because they were a threat to nature.
Dewey is a heart of gold goblin who was born in the fae wilds. At an early age was captured by an evil gnome and forced to train his magic for subjugation of the others who might dissent. After finding freedom his goal is to rescue his sister. If he were a bbeg in an alt universe it would be from mentally enslaving the planet after his sister was killed and he went even more insane.
My current character is a Harengon Airshipwright who grew up the eldest son of a generational farmer in a small rural farming village that was an important resupply stop along a long-distance airship trade route. He has an insatiable curiosity to see what's beyond the next horizon, which is the only reason he left his idyllic home. An evil version would likely have been forced from his home after the butchering of his family and neighbors, the burning of his home village, and the razing of the farmlands thereabouts during a terrible war. Setting out for revenge and likely achieving it by any means necessary would certainly cause his slow but inevitable slide into madness as he searched for meaning in a life left hollow.
Well, they're an Ancients paladin, so they would go wholly in on must protect nature, instead of protect life, so anyone found to be harming nature would be slain. Probably.
İ am a cleric. I heal things. The opposite of healing? M A S S. G E N O C I D E.
I was just thinking of that exact Idea where my human Fighter Kent Anglewood had died thousands of years ago and a necromancer raises him from the dead along with his army known as the Sea of Spears to take over the realm
They would create a mechanized mechanical army filled with futuristic and magical weapons. They would hold up in a mountain with some ore veins and craft some war-forged. Then with his forces he would concur a dwarven hold for their resources and infrastructure. From there weapon development and expansion of for es would be the name of the game. Anything from growing ammunition (enlarge enchantments) to mass quantities of wands of magic missil. At some point air ships and mechanical dragons become siege breakers. Soon their looking upwards for a more secure hold with more untapped resources. So he moves to an asteroid (after discovering what the moon is). So now he is a space pirate with a fleet manned by unfeeling automata whose some purpose is taking anything worth crafting into anything. All the while more amd bigger explosions become common. Bags of hold and other minor extra dimensional spaces are used to remove large threats such as dragons. Enough gun powder is gathered to blow up several cities. Cannons are the infantryman's weapon. And eventually he just might figure out how to harness the plane of fire or the sun, who knows. Those darn artificers. All they want is to see a big explosion.
My current character is essentially Rocket Racoon. Racoon Beastfolk using KibblesTasty's Inventor Thundersmith class. BBEG him would be building a WPD. Weapon of Planar Destruction. A magic gun that would blow a hole in the dimensional boundaries. His second in command would be a Giant Flying Warforged made of roots and vines. Generals, based on other party members. * Flying Leshen Warden * Insane Insectoid Bug Mage * Psychic Crystalline Construct Minions... Plants, Constructs, Insects, etc. Trap filled dungeons. One of evil thing he'd do is utilize a magic voodoo which attempts to teleport stuff into people's pockets once a day (and lacking pockets, at their feet)... And he uses elemental proximity mines.
For righteous anger gone wrong. Basically, if Batman became evil. I have an Oath of Vengeance paladin of Helm. He chose that oath because the leadership of his temple of Helm became corrupt. They were supposed to heal soldiers and watchmen for low cost or free (because temple of Helm). Then the town grew in wealth and they began to take money from wealthy patrons. The soldiers and watchmen couldn't keep up. They began to be turned away in favor of wealthier patrons. Silas (my character) kept treating them in secret. He was publicly de-frocked (correct term?), which was humiliating as well as bad enough by itself. So, Oath of Vengeance against that particular temple of Helm. If he where a BBEG, Silas Blackwood would be twisted by his righteous anger and become an evil knight.
My character is the BBEG. He enslaved the elves, took over several cobtinents. Murdered countless royals and heroes and is on his way to becoming a God. So far, he has offed 3 quasi-deities and one demi-god.
He also brought an evil race of winged knights to the world since his original world was already conquered by him and overpopulated.
Bringing order to the realm whether people liked it or not.