Page 185 - Eberron -Rising from the Last War_Neat

Organizations as Villains. Rather than use an individ­
ual as a recurring villain, you could think in terms of
the organization the villain belongs to or represents.
For example, low-level adventurers might fight low­
level agents of the Order of the Emerald Claw and
BACK F R O M grow to loathe the sight of their claw-shaped symbol
and green cloaks. As they attain higher levels, the
characters will face increasingly more powerful mem­
T H E D E A D ? bers of the order.

SHADES OF EVIL
Moral ambiguity is a feature of the noir genre that can
It was too good to be true. add richness and complexity to an Eberron adventure.
A year ago, the nefarious Alais ir'Rannan was pre­
sumed dead when she f e ll from an airship into the mid­ In a world where a red dragon isn't necessarily evil (and
dle of Lake Galifar. Her scheme to bring the towers of a bronze one isn't necessarily good), it's impossible
Arcanix to the ground likewise seemed ended. to know who you can trust, and even the actions of a
But yesterday, according to eyewitness reports, ir'Ran­ so-called villain might not fit neatly into clear-cut defini­
nan was seen in the common room of Passage's own tions of good and evil. Even adventure villains are more
King's Star Inn, talking with two other unsavory-looking often driven by human motives than by cosmic concepts
characters who could not be identified. of good and evil. People sometimes do evil things for
good reasons.
Exercise some caution when exploring these noir
Have an Escape Plan. Secret passages, spells of invis­ themes in the stories you develop. It can be fun for some
ibility or teleportation, flying mounts, and throngs of people to wrestle with moral quandaries in adventures,
minions can help a villain escape when a confronta­ but it doesn't work for all play groups. In particular, if
tion with the adventurers goes badly. Any villain likely there's no good solution to the quandary-if the charac­
has at least one fallback plan. ters have no choice but to follow a course of action they
Take Hostages. Most adventurers wouldn't be willing to abhor-some players might end up unhappy.
attack the villain if they fear that the villains' lackeys The Morally Ambiguous Villains table offers some
are about to slaughter innocent captives the moment twists you can add to the villains in this chapter, giv­
they draw their swords. ing them more or less good reasons to perform their
Returning from Death. Of course, death is not a final evil deeds.
fate for player characters, and it doesn't need to be for
villains either. After the adventurers kill their nemesis, M O R AL L Y M B I G U O U S VILLAI N S
A
they might next encounter the villain raised from the d4 Villain
dead or as an undead. It's conceivable that dying could
make a villain more powerful and more angry at the The villain is targeting people with aberrant dragon­
meddling adventurers. Alternatively, the characters marks in the desperate hope of preventing another
might assume a villain is dead-after falling over a wa­ War of the Mark.
terfall, being trapped in a burning building, or getting 2 The villain is suffering under a terrible curse, and their
swallowed by a purple worm-only to discover later increasingly serious crimes are an effort to fight off
that the villain survived and is hungry for revenge. the curse.
3 The villain is rising to power through entirely legal
IMPROVING VILLAINS
Adventurers get more powerful over time, so if a villain means, winning popular support (through generous
is going to remain a relevant threat, the villain needs to campaign promises) and working within the system.
get more powerful as well. There are three ways you can 4 The villain's schemes are directed at preventing the
approach this issue: release of a demonic overlord.
Mechanical Improvement. Use the guidelines in chap­
ter 9 of the Dungeon Master's Guide to add class levels THE VILLAIN You KNOW
or Hit Dice to the villain and improve its challenge rat­ Not every villain is a mastermind who schemes in the
ing to make it relevant to the higher-level characters. shadows or a world-destroying horror. Sometimes the
NPC Stat Blocks. Some of the stat blocks in the Mon­ most significant villain is someone the characters see
ster Manual can reflect the same character at different every day-someone who moves around society in plain
stages of advancement. For example, the adventurers sight but keeps their evil deeds well hidden. The law en­
might confront a villain who uses the stat block of a forcers and adventurers who are trying to bring the vil­
mage (9th-level wizard) and then returns later as an lain to justice are thwarted at every turn, unable to find
archmage (18th-level wizard). You could also use stat proof of the villain's crimes. If the players come to loathe
blocks in other sources to add to the sequence, so the the villain, everything is going according to plan.
characters could even meet this aspiring villain as an Use the Villain You Know table to add some depth
apprentice wizard and later as an evoker (both in V o ­ and detail to the actions and motivations of a villain who
/o's Guide to Monsters). plagues the characters on a regular basis.

C H APTER 4 I BUILDING EBERRON ADVENTURES