The Big Villains Thread

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
#41

Villain of the Day:  January 25  (Haephestus)

Irving Healey isn't a bad guy.  Really.  

A technological savant, Irving whizzed through high school, college, and numerous advanced degrees all before he turned 25.  His quick mind, his near-photographic memory, and his ease in processing made design come as naturally to Irving as breathing.  If anything, he grew impatient with the prototyping process as, by the time one of his designs was finally created, he'd already designed a plethora of changes, redesigns, and implementations for that very design.

With degrees, designs, and months of field experience in hand, Irving found himself something of a hot commodity within the mechanical engineering community, particularly within the defense industry.  Blackstock-McCalley, in particular, managed to sway Irving's attention, offering a six-figure salary, a paid company penthouse, and near-unlimited resources with which to fulfill various government defense contracts.

However, if anything, Irving did his job too well.  One of his first projects for Blackstock-McCalley was a redesign of the US Military's infantry body-armor.  His design and alpha prototype became something out of a cybernetic fever dream:  a heads-up display feeding directly into the central nervous system, variable weapons systems interchangable simply by thinking, regenerative nano-armor capable of withstanding a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade....

...then, they saw the price tag.  Irving shrugged, "You wanted quality, right?"  Within three months, Irving found himself out of a job.

But, then...a funny thing happened.  Irving was approached by a series of angel investors, eager to see him continue his work in armaments, self-defense, and biological-cybernetic interfaces.  A new lab, all the assistants he could care to have, unlimited funding.  All he had to do was let his ideas take shape.

Designs and prototypes ran forth from Irving with an ease and a joy he hadn't felt since college.  This, truly, was his calling.  His new think-tank, Haephestus Labs as one of the investors, Mister Doe, coined it, churned out armor, weaponry, cybernetics and more, each one more innovative and devastating than the last.  Where they go?  Not important.  What's important to Irving is creation.  And he's well on his way to creating something earth-shattering.

#42

Villain of the Day:  January 26 (Levistus of Thule)

The man calling himself Levistus of Thule certainly knows how to make an entrance.  He literally teleported onto the stage in the middle of a Sentinels of Freedom press conference, proclaiming power and dominion over all he saw.  The press conference promptly descended into a fracas, with heroes torn between facing down the self-proclaimed conquerer and saving the members of the press.  Levistus was clad in a strange cross of battle armor and wizard robes, brandishing a ruby-tipped rod which projected powerful bursts of energy and other spell effects.  However, just as quickly as Levistus appeared, as soon an arcanely-powered hero appeared on scene--the blood mage known as Hemogoblin--Levistus disappeared, vanishing in a puff of foul-smelling smoke.

Levistus has made several appearances since his initial, explosive entrance, but each appearance has had a number of strange elements.  Firstly, Levistus claims to be from a kingdom known as Thule, the seat of sits on a floating island above what is modern Florida.  Naturally, this is not truly the case.  Further, continually claims to be the rightful ruler of the world, having to ascended to the throne after conquering the Empire of Atlantis.  Again, while the Ruins of Atlantis have been discovered, no evidence exists as to any empire.  Also, Levistus claims to be a master magus, one of the specifically-bred spellcasters born to the intellectual elite of Thule.  He claims to be a master of discordian magic, though any reference to Gloomweaver or other denizens of the Realm of Discord seems to perplex him beyond belief.  Finally, Levistus has been known to appear in places with a large preponderance of magical artifacts, often attempting to steal--or, barring theft, corrupt and destroy--said artifacts.  However, ' heroes have noted that Levistus seems confounded at times, as he will show up to steal an item...only for that item to have never been there in the first place.

Of particular note, though, whenever Levistus is confronted by any known magic-user, Levistus beats a hasty retreat.  Several heroes have theorized as to why Levistus flees at the appearance of any other mage, though little evidence has yet been gleaned.  Some believe that others' magic might have a tendency to drain or otherwise hamper that of Levistus, leaving him weaker or otherwise susceptible to harm.  A few others believe that Levistus is not, in fact, arcanely-talented in any sense; rather, he either utilizes arcane artifacts (such as his rod) to gain his powers, or that he has some other suite of powers.  

Most concerning, however, is Levistus' last appearance.  During an exploratory mission to the Ruins of Atlantis, Levistus was sighted, sitting on the Atlantean throne with one hand grasped around the hilt of a broken Condemnation...

#43

Another one with a really cool story. :D I want to know what's up with this guy!

#44

Glad you like him! Lots of campaign seeds there to say the least…

#45

He seems like a very Thulish villain.  The King of the Thules, as it were?

#46

Villain of the Day:  January 27 (Treant)

Connor Morrison was once a lumberjack in British Columbia.  He always had a great appreciation for the outdoors and had a genuine love for forestry.  While some in his industry balked at reforestation efforts or environmental tourism, Connor embraced it enthusiastically, eager to share his love of nature with all those who were willing to listen.  

Connor's upbeat attitude only seemed to aggravate his coworkers, however.  Worst among these was a fellow lumberman, Greg MackIntosh.  Greg absolutely did not care for Connor's continual prattle, to the point where their manager had to put the pair on separate teams, ensuring never to schedule them such that they'd see each other.  

The dramatic climate shifts of the Deadline event, however, struck the forest that Connor's employer was responsible for quite harshly.  Fires raged across the pine forest, and Connor and his comrades quickly found themselves surrounded by the raging conflagration.  Among them, naturally, was Greg.  As the group made their way through the inferno, a flaming tree crashed to earth, pinning Connor to the ground.  He screamed for help, but the rising smoke turned his screams to little more than a hacking gasp.  He was sure, as the other lumberjacks fled for their lives, that Greg looked back...and left him to die.

Connor's body was consumed in flames that day; his funeral was that of a hero.  But something there, in the deep forests, had heard his cry for help.  Something along that vast ley-line that ran through the British Columbian forest...

Connor's psyche emerged in a new form:  that of a towering western hemlock tree which moved in the form of a man.  This form made him resisistant to most damage and granted him immense size and strength.  While early adversaries of Treant attempted to attack him with fire, the late hardwood of his exterior proved most resilient against most flame attacks that were not sustained conflagrations.  As time progresed, Connor found that he could shift between this form and a more human-sized one, which appeared as a normal human...if that human were carved from wood.  He no longer needs to eat or breathe, and he regrows his limbs with naught but water and sunlight.

Earliest sightings of this creature referred to it as the Tolkien-esque "Ent", though the first attack against the logging companies quickly revealed its true name:  Connor Morrison, the Treant.  He would have his revenge against those who left him to die and all those who would dare defile the forests...starting first with Greg MackIntosh, then onto that self-termed hero Lifeline.

#47

Connor Morrison was once a lumberjack in British Columbia.  He always had a great appreciation for the outdoors and had a genuine love for forestry.  While some in his industry balked at reforestation efforts or environmental tourism, Connor embraced it enthusiastically, eager to share his love of nature with all those who were willing to listen.  

Obligatory link to I bet you can guess what

#48

Villain of the Day:  January 28th  (The Tick-Tock Man)

You'll never see him coming.  

Eliza Eckland stood on South Side Monorail Platform, looking forward to a weekend brunch with friends at one of her favorite restaurants in Eastside Megalopolis.  She'd dressed for the occasion:  new sundress, new heels, her favorite clutch.  The sun shown down, her favorite band sang away in her earbuds.  Nothing could have possible gone wrong that day, until she stepped off onto the track.

The Megalopolis monorail moves at approximately 300 miles per hour.  The largest pieces of Eliza Eckland that were found were no bigger than her shattered cell phone, her earbuds still dangling from the phone port.

As both Megalopolis Police and the Federal Transportation Safety Administration tried to piece together what exactly happened to Eliza, they came across a most strange phenomenon.  Even on weekends, the Megalopolis Monorail is always bustling, with tons of people eager to travel across the city.  That day, only Eliza and one other stood on the platform.

The video feed never did catch his entire face, but his grin was a wide one, wider that it should have been.  He was dressed in the impeccable blue of an old-timey train conductor, down to the white gloves and brimmed cap.  As he stood across the platform from Eliza, he pulled forth a silver pocketwatch, looked at it, and spoke a few words.  Within a moment, Eliza stepped off the platform and onto the track; scant seconds later, the express train made impact.  The stranger in the conductors' uniform--called The Tick-Tock Man by some police investigator with a dash of gallows humor--was nowhere to be seen.

The Wraith offered to step in on the investigation and, while the Metropolis PD was reluctant, Detective Marissa Parker funneled Maia the footage from Eliza's death.  Maia managed to isolate the audio track from the recording; only a few words were even spoken, "Eliza.  It's time."

Since that day, 16 separate individuals have died under almost identical circumstances.  In all cases, footage of the mysterious Tick-Tock man exists, but never enough to get a clear facial recognition in any known criminal database.  He never takes any sort of aggressive action and always disappears as the individuals breathe their last.  In all cases, he only speaks three words:  "Victim.  It's time."

They never saw him coming.  Neither will you.

#49

Repent, Harlequin! :D Now that's creepy.

#50

Villain of the Day:  January 29 (Aphelian and Apogee)

Sometimes, the safest place to be is the middle of nowhere.  As the OblivAeon event raged on Earth, Sergeant Robert D. Prater and Colonel Marlena E. Dwyer watched helplessly from the Einstein-VI space station.  The only two humans aboard, they could see the phenomenal devastation from their vantage as their station hung above North America.  Cities burned, bolts of energy blasted into the nothingness of space, and the slow realization of the pair's predicament slowly sunk in:  would there be an Earth to go back to?

As Dwyer signed and turned from the porthole, alarm klaxons blared and warning lights blinked into being.  Prater barely made it to one of the piloting seats before a stray blast of cosmic energy slammed into Einstein-VI, shredding the station like so much waste paper.

Prater and Dwyer floated, unconscious, through the void of space...but did not die.  Rather, Dwyer awoke, frantic and confused, but alive!  Her body bombarded by cosmic energy, she found she no longer needed to breathe and was immune to the extremities of space.  Further, she began to fly through the blackness, faster and faster, streaking past planets, stars, and whole systems at a speed incalculable.

Within moments, Dwyer found herself far across the galaxy, finally pulling herself to a stop.  However, the phenomenal energy and momentum she gained during this travel flew beyond her, bombarding a star system with all her accumulated cosmic energy.  The system was reduced to so much rubble in but an instant--4 billion lives extinguished in a single accident.  Tears streamed down Dwyer's face, freezing to her skin as she hung in space.  She wailed aloud, looking around for any help...only to see Prater, now barely conscious, dragged behind in her cosmic wake, absorbing energy even as she traveled.

The pair currently wander the cosmos, desperate to return to Earth, but trailing destruction and devastation in their wake.  Without some way to inhibit their phenomenal speed and their ability to absorb and redirect radiation, each stop the pair make results in the destruction of whole planets and systems.  They are currently wanted by a number of interstellar forces, turning their unfortunate exile into a manhunt.  Together, Apogee and Aphalian, Prater and Dwyer, race across the cosmos...aching only to be home.

#51

Villain of the Day:  January 30 (TALOS)

With the dissolution of FILTER following the OblivAeon event, a great deal of the mercenary, surveillance, and low-level metahuman community was left in the wind.  While the heroes and villains of Earth marshalled their forces against the world-ending threat of OblivAeon and its Scions, something dire began assembling in the shadows.  

At first, most of the missing material and individuals were attributed to the outright destruction.  The Wagner Mars Base was devastated, Fort Adamant was shredded, and military bases across the world were blasted--it wasn't a far stretch to count those losses among the bodies.   As the body counts were tallied, as individuals went from "missing in action" to "believed killed in action", several notable individuals went missing.  Geneticists, supply chain analysts, satellite intelligence experts, rocketry and munitions engineers tallied among the dead, their bodies never recovered.

Likely because they hadn't died.  They were recruited.

The public presence of Legacy and other superheroes has always invited backlash.  However, the mustache-twirling lunacy of Baron Blade and the metahuman-supremacist philosophies of Citizen Dawn had provably, visibly failed.  Rather, if the worlds' elite--both human and metahuman--were to survive in this brave new world of the super-men, they must play smarter.  They must organize.

For the past 50 years, TALOS (the TActical Logistics, Opposition and Subversion initiative) has operated in the shadows, gathering information, resources, and manpower to subtly maneuver against the Freedom Five, Dark Watch, and any other vigilante group.  And now, with the rise of the Sentinels of Freedom, the Daedelus Council--the nine heads of TALOS' various divisions--has chosen this time to strike.

TALOS itself operates in the shadows, thought its influence is felt at every level:  political, economic, scientific, military, and beyond.  Numerous legislators (and at least two Supreme Court justices) are affiliated with TALOS, as well as six 2+ star generals and several dozen Fortune 500 executives.  However, TALOS typically operates on an individual or small-cell basis, utilizing the most cutting edge intelligence techniques and encryption, with few permanent safe-houses and even fewer permanent bases.  Even the most in-depth laboratories affiliated with TALOS are built with portability in mind--a TALOS base can be packed, scrubbed and gone within a 2 hour time span. 

The two locations that TALOS maintains on a permanent basis are as remote as humanly possible:  one lab literally built into the side of a mountain in the Canadian Rockies, with the other in the midst of the Mojave Desert.  There, they train the greatest known force in military and intelligence countermeasures ever assembled.  Individual soldiers are supplied with power-replicating techonologies, battlesuits, genetic augmentations, and the finest in cybernetic prostheses.  Their weaponry is state of the art, featuring ion and gauss projectile weaponry not currently available to any other standing military force.  TALOS is incredibly well-funded and supplied, with their net worth currently in excess of the GDP of a solid third of the world's nations.  Were they to emerge in force, TALOS stands a very good chance of a military, economic, and intelligence-based overthrow of the United States government. But, force brings retribution; the Daedelus Council would much rather see the world's power handed to them with ease, rather than wrested from an inevitable rebellion.

Within the view of the heroes, TALOS is a rumor, nothing more.  Not even the original Freedom Five are certain of its existence, though Tyler Vance's testimony before Congress following the Termi-Nation event, started raising questions as to the veracity of various congressional members, particularly their relation to a former military subcontractor with Blackstock-McCalley named Vincent Caraballo.  Caraballo's whereabouts are unknown, though he has been sighted in both Rook City and Megalopolis at various times throughout the past few months, meeting with a certain black-clad individual, often over a Dad's Burger.  Over a burger and fries, a new world order arises...

#52

I get the feeling the mysterious John Doe is part of TALOS...

#53

Mister Doe?  Who knows for sure...?

Even if he is (and I'm not saying he is), he wouldn't be the only TALOS affiliated villain on this list...

#54

Villain of the Day:  January 31 (Adrian Moriarty Dover, aka The Second Moriarty)

It is April 18th, in the Year of Our Lord 1204.  Constantinople burns.

The misguided Crusaders from France and Italy have been excommunicated for the second time by Pope Innocent III.  Ancient relics of art, literature, and history are destroyed.  Treasures are looted.  The great bronze horses of the Hippodrome are torn from their moorings, set to be sent to Rome.  Adrianus Akropolites watches from afar; a pack-horse loaded with treasures awaits him, grazing at a tree nearby.  An opened lock, a misdirected guard patrol, and the Crusading army takes the best-fortified city in the western world. 

Within the city walls, the invading army revels; a French prostitute dances upon the throne of the Byzantine Empire.  But well before the music ends, Adrianus Akropolites has vanished.

It is late February, in the Year of Our Lord 1778.  Philadelphia freezes.

Garrison Commander Arnold has been relieved of his field duties, taking the winter to heal his wounded leg.  The revolution has weighed heavy on his mind for months--so much carnage, so many lives lost, and for what?  His doctor peels back the bandages and replaces the split.  "If only," the doctor says, "this war could come to a swift end.  We could save so many and get back to normality.  Commander, you will be in a unique position upon your return to the Continental Army..."  Arnold contemplates this as Doctor Adrian re-wraps his leg; perhaps he could make a difference.

It is October, in the Year of Our Lord 1958.  London shivers.

Felix Stone contemplates his new office, in Britain's Attache for Foreign Affairs.  Never one for much decoration, most of what covered his deck were paper clips, staplers, and other office supplies.  A cup of black pens sat at the ready, within easy reach of his dayplanner.  A head popped into his doorway, "Mister Stone, I presume?"  Felix nods.  "My name is Adrian Dover.  It appears we'll be working in tandem for the foreseeable future...shall we pop out for a drink?"

 

The man known as Adrian Dover would never catch your attention on the street.  A head of dark hair, high cheekbones, and a dark suit allow him to blend into a crowd with ease.  And, over the centuries, he has done just that.  Over and over, Adrian has placed himself in positions to give history a 'nudge', pushing it in a direction that spirals it towards chaos and annihilation.  Each time, he emerges all the stronger, gaining wealth, influence, and material power, even as the world rends itself in twain.  In this end, he has come to view himself as something of a nefarious mastermind, sitting at the center of a vast web of interconnections, deceit, and conspiracy.  Jokingly, he has more than once referred to himself as The Second Moriarty, after the classic mastermind of literature.

It is unknown as to whether Adrian Dover has any powers beyond his incredibly long life span.  He does not age, nor does he ever seem to suffer any physical ailment.  His uncanny influence over notable individuals might suggest some degree of mental manipulation, though he exhibits no other psychic powers, such as telepathy or telekinesis.  It may well be that century upon century of education, diplomacy, and machinations have simply crafted him into a master manipulator.  In any case, tracking Dover's subtle influence might only be in the hands of the most diligent investigators, leading to major figures the world around.  And should someone step too close to this secret?  Such a brash individual might find the world itself allied against them, as The Second Moriarty stacks the deck of fate.

#55

Hah, well. :D You did say things were pointing to a mastermind!

#56

So, Adrian Dover rounds out my last villain for January.

Can I ask the general consensus of what they thought of this? Is this useful? Entertaining? Too cliche?

Big question, I guess, is do you want to see more?

I’m kind of on the fence right now – I like writing these, but I’ve got a ton of other stuff to write, both personally and professionally, so if there’s not an audience, I’ll move apace. If there’s desire for more though, I’ll gladly keep going.

My thoughts for the coming months would likely be themed: a month of street level villains, another of occult/arcane threats, another of alien/cosmic threats, another of teams/organizations, etc. Is this an interesting direction for people?

#57

Although Rook City avoided the calamity seen in other worlds, it still did not fair well. Signs of the carnage that OblivAeon and his minions caused can be found on every street of the city.  Except for Peaks Way, a small suburban neighborhood hidden away inside an industrial park.  On Peaks Way flowers bloom, birds chirp, and there are no signs of the wreckage and rubble that can be found everywhere else in the city.  Visitors to the street are greeted by smiling residents, who inform them that yes, the neighborhood is doing perfectly fine.  Disaster? We didn't notice a disaster over here.  Our neighboorhood has always been perfectly safe.  It's been very lovely to meet you, but the children are napping right now, and it wouldn't do to wake them up early.  Things are always less pleasent when the children aren't well rested.  Problems? No, we don't have any problems here.  Don't worry about us, today is a good day.

#58

I have enjoyed reading your daily villain PlatinumWarlock. They will undoubtedly be pulled apart and reassembled by my brain at some point and I will go AH I have found the perfect foil in an RPG campaign thinking I am so novel and fresh and then realize I just stole one of yours. 

 

One day I may even try and add to this list but my brain still keeps cycling back to the silly hero name of     Element of Justice 

#59

It was all good stuff, Warlock. :D You've earned yourself a break, though. Come back and give us more when you feel the need to and have the time!

#60

Yeah, these have been awesome and I would definitely love to see more, but I don't think anyone would blame you if you can't keep up the pace of one per day.  It would probably take me a week to come up with one of these and it still wouldn't be as good.