Post ideas for Villains. Not "misunderstood" or "actually right" villains, but capital "v" Villains, who the players will love to hate.
>>55324848
1. Corrupt noble. Wants money and power. Maybe not even noble but someone who got status by chance and/or money. Consider Petir the Little Finger except somehow worse.
2. A leader of religious fanatics. They're all Lawful Good except they're Lawful Insane, and he is the most so. Will kill anyone opposing their plans and consider it a service for humanity because "no good person will oppose them".
3. A necromancer who wants to take revenge on the local king, high priest, church, nobles, peasants, and guards - thik of the reason he wants to take revenge on each of these and his actual plans. Must be something loud, cruel and humiliating.
4. The ancient evil that's awaken and hungry.
5. A barbarian warlord who despises civilization and wants to ruin cities, take goods and slaves, kill, rape, repeat.
6. An insane wizard who kidnaps hobbos and turns them into mutants for research.
In preparation of spooky time I've made a demonic jack o lantern. A wizard was summoning a demon one dark night when the neighbor hood kids dared a drunkard to throw a pumpkin through a window for 10 gold coins (equivalent to 30 dollars roughly). Well the pumpkin landed right on the demon while he was making a deal with the wizard. Enraged and believing he was tricked by the wizard, the demon lashed out and struck with all his power against the summoning barrier. However when the pumpkin hit him on the head a few chunks got on the runes of the barrier and turned it from warding to fire wall. Needless to say the now angry and on fire demon with a pumpkin for a head enjoys ruling over his new town.
>>55324848
>Give the characters a task that will take a lot of time.
>Make a villain allied to the person/king who gave them the task.
>The villain will constantly do things to impede the players' progress, whether openly or discretely.
This can take the form of several things. He could send assassins after them. He could cause avalanches that block the best path and force them to go a harder route, but keep the blocked off route somehow passable, just with more effort. Best way to do this is on something that has to be retrieved or completed within a specific time frame.
Sprinkle around clues that the guy is fucking you up, and maybe evidence they can bring to the king.
Eventually this could culminate in him personally appearing to stop their progress in the final stretch, or you can plan to let the PCs call him out on it at the end of their long quest.
The best motivation for such a villain would be to also look for something that the players will be granted when they complete their task. Think Jafar, for example. Maybe the villain's possible promotion is instead given to the players? Maybe they're gonna rid him of a job?