History Monster / TableTopGames

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Fantasy Battle'': Before [[TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes Archaon destroyed everything]] and the ContinuityReboot of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', these monsters wreaked havoc:

** [[SorcerousOverlord Nicol Bolas]], one of the [[BigBad most predominant villains]], is an [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Elder Dragon]] Planeswalker over 25,000 years old who loses his near-limitless power when the nature of the Planeswalker Spark is changed, and dedicates himself to getting it back at any cost. A master of red, blue, and black magic, Bolas excels at [[MindRape breaking minds]] and [[TheChessmaster bending people into submission]]. In his pre-Mending time he was already a genocidal sadist who by his own admission created entire races only to exterminate them for his amusement, but his atrocity pile increased when he lost a substantial amount of his god-like power in The Mending. The aftermath prompted him into a path to regain his former "glory", combining a brand new set of worlds ruined by his actions with the antagonism of several Planeswalker protagonists, with the best outcome being near-death experiences and the most common being mental abuse into being his slaves. A ''bona fide'' mass-murderer and sociopath, he is a vile creature on a personal and cosmic scale.

Source: ''Codex: Chaos Space Marines'' (4th Edition)

** [[EvilutionaryBiologist Yawgmoth]], the first BigBad, [[WasOnceAMan was born a normal Thran]] in Dominaria during the reign of the technologically advanced Thran empire, about 5,000 years before the birth of the inventor Urza. He was banished for his unorthodox beliefs regarding diseases and healing, but returned to the capital city of Halcyon to treat Glacian, the renowned engineer and inventor, who was suffering from an unknown illness after being attacked by an exiled leper named Gix. Though Yawgmoth was by trade & profession a medic, his ways went towards an unnatural fascination with the mechanics of the body. This fascination led to [[MadScientist experiments with plagues and poisons]], several of which caused widespread death among the various races that he had visited. Yawgmoth was also slowly draining Glacian's soul to fuel his own power. Yawgmoth later learned about planes from the wizard Dyfed, until he subdued her and gave her to his followers for dissection. Ruing his own realm, Yawgmoth plotted further conquest, corrupting and killing other heroes and innocents. When he invaded Dominaria, he killed millions of innocents before he was destroyed.

** Even among the Traitor Legions of Chaos, Fabius [[NamesToRunAwayFrom Bile]], the self-styled "Primogenitor", is an unspeakably vile force [[TheDreaded feared and hated across the galaxy]] to those who know his name and actions. A MadScientist extraordinaire longing to exceed the scientific accomplishments of the Emperor, Bile refuses to pledge himself to any one Chaos God and instead sells his services to whomever can take him, stringing behind him a [[PlayingWithSyringes legacy of depraved experiments, genocides, and horrors]] with entire sectors of lives reduced longing for death from what Bile has brought upon them. Among Bile's many atrocities are forcing those he has [[FlayingAlive flayed]] to carry a [[GenuineHumanHide cloak made of the skin]] of dozens behind him, earning him the epitaph Manflayer; forcing the population of Dimmamar to [[SadisticChoice take in his own mutative serums or suffocate]] by changing the composition of the very air they breathed; squashing down over a million prisoners into [[HumanResources amplifying drugs]] for his followers, whom he also treats as test fodder; engaging in degenerate experiments with clones, earning him fear and respect from the world of Palamar V; and his proudest accomplishment, the "New Men", with the populations of entire worlds transformed into powerful but blindly murderous specimens of his own image. In the Chaos-ravaged world of Warhammer 40K, Fabius Bile, [[EvenEvilHasStandards reviled by even the Traitor Legions he is ostensibly a part of]], is a man who has dedicated his life to [[FameThroughInfamy immortality through infamy]] by means of the destruction and perversion of billions of lives in his never-ending quest to permanently etch the foul memory of his name on the universe.

* ''TabletopGame/BattleMachines'': Carman Skiric destroys communities on planets he wants to capture because, in his eyes, people exist only as a resource, somewhere below energy and metal. The only reason the Earth and Sol governments have him as the commander of their armies is that he is so utterly terrifying that many foes just give up, rather than have him come down and fight. He's also [[AxCrazy ax crazy]] and his personal mech wields four chainsaws, he uses them because, quote, "I like to see the expression of dawning realisation on their faces, right before I tear them apart".

* ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye'': [[{{Dracolich}} Rhazzazor]] was an ancient dragon who sold his soul to Thargunitoth, the Archdemoness of the Undead, and became a powerful [[EldritchAbomination undead monstrosity]]. He would eventually become the despotic ruler of a small nation, demanding monthly {{human sacrifice}}s to maintain his unholy existence. When [[TheGoodKing Emer]], the ruler of the Middle Realm, not only dared to challenge him but also managed to injure him, he condemned her to a FateWorseThanDeath by turning her into a [[AndIMustScream living seal]] for an EldritchAbomination, [[DrivenToMadness driving her almost insane]]. Eventually he planned to steal the life essences of thousands of people to give himself a new body, offering their souls to Thargunitoth in exchange for his own. When a group of heroes stopped the dark ritual that would’ve allowed Thargunitoth to claim these souls, Rhazzazor still continued with the plan, hoping that the sheer life essences of all those soul would give him enough strength to simply break the pact and reclaim his soul. Overall Rhazzazor was sadistic and cruel being, willing to condemn thousands of innocent souls to a FateWorseThanDeath so that he could continue his existence.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'': (Jasper) Stone, the Harrowed responsible for bringing Hell to Earth, was originally a [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Confederate officer]] with a reputation for cruelty and brutality. When he became the servant of the Reckoners, the Four HorsemenOfTheApocalypse, Stone ruthlessly killed any who could stand in their way, hunting down and [[HeroKiller murdering countless heroes]]. Stone does everything of his own free will for his [[BloodKnight hunger to take lives]] and to see Hell on Earth enacted, and is so bad that even the manitou animating his body [[HorrifyingTheHorror terrified]] of [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth his evil]].
* ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonstar}}'': The [[OurDragonsAreDifferent red wyrm]] [[BigBad Mezzenbone]] is the first chromatic [[TheEmperor emperor]] of the Dragon Empire after five millennia of good-aligned metallic rulers. Like most of his kind he's cruel and [[MasterRace regards non-dragons as cattle at best]], but even among his AlwaysChaoticEvil kin he stands out for his catastrophic plans for the galaxy. During the [[GreatOffscreenWar Dragon War]] between chromatic and metallic dragons that left many worlds devastated in its wake, he was first an important wyrm in the chromatic Asamet Kingdom and then its leader after its first king mysteriously died, and while most abhorred the tragedy of the War, Mezzenbone [[BloodKnight reveled in the slaughter]], planning to annihilate friend and foe alike and rule the remains of a lifeless universe as {{a god|Am I}}. He only changed his mind when he realized the War would claim his life too if it escalated further, and agreed to the truce that would form the Empire only because he knew he needed the 5,000 years until his guaranteed ascension to the throne in order to ensure his scheme would unfold flawlessly. In the present day of the setting, forty years after his coronation, he has introduced a number of controversial acts including forming a drow SecretPolice, supporting [[ReligionOfEvil worship of his patron deity]] [[GodOfEvil the Destroyer]], and brutally assimilating new worlds into the Empire. When he believes the time is right, Mezzenbone will unleash everything at his disposal, including systems-destroying superweapons and magical artifacts of untold power, and completely shatter all possible opposition to his scheduled {{omnicid|al Maniac}}e.

** Curtis Boatman, one-man reason that the Architects of the Flesh are unplayable, is the source of basically everything wrong with the 2056 juncture that isn't his ostensible boss's fault, from Abominations to the surveillance state. Unlike his boss, he is about as far from sympathetic as possible-he's described in-game as a bloated, corrupt, and utterly selfish jerk whose own motive is his own profit, and is personally responsible for several sadistic experiments. His laundry list of crimes included the [[TykeBomb Uber-kids]], tricking normal people into accepting TheCorruption of Arcanotech and then accelerating it deliberately so he can have perfectly loyal {{Super Soldier}}s, keeps an entire greenhousse complex of BlackMarketProduce for himself (even his boss, Bonengel, puts his money where his mouth is and buys real food honestly), plans to [[TheStarscream betray Bonengel]] because Boatman likes the CrapsackWorld with himself at the top of the pyramid as it is (and Bonengel had a HeelRealization a few years before and has become NecessarilyEvil), and despite the Buro wanting equality at all costs, he's a huge bigot responsible for the rampant homophobia in the 2056 juncture. Most damming of all is the FisherKingdom aspect of chi mastery over a juncture-2056 under Architect rulership is his ideal world. Look at the utterly dystopian future and [[FridgeHorror realize what that says about him]].
** Ming I, the worst of the Four Monarchs is a user of [[DarkIsEvil warped shadow magic]] who ''willingly'' replaced her arm with an ArtifactOfDoom to hurt people more, knowing full well she'd effective be urged to render people DeaderThanDead. In her native timeline, she ruled over the Aztecs and then took the HumanSacrifice thing to heights [[EvenEvilHasStandards even they found abhorrent]], learning how to [[OurVampiresAreDifferent use the blood of virgins to extend her youth]], only being allowed to remain because [[GodGuise she cowed them into believing she was a god who killed or enslaved all of theirs]]. What puts her in the rank of Boatman up above, however, is three little words: Industrialized MindRape.

* ''TabletopGame/IronKingdoms'': Toruk is the MonsterProgenitor of the dragon race, although he considers his progeny the only thing that might pose a threat to him and desires to [[OffingTheOffspring destroy them all]]. To accomplish this he becomes an OmnicidalManiac against every other race. He turns a whole set of island nations into a mix of undead and mutants to serve as his army, all with the intent of slaughtering as many of the inhabitants of the mainland as possible to make a bigger army.
* ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'': Hantei XVI, known as Otomo Okucheo before his ascension and also known as the Steel Chrysanthemum , is the most violent and tyrannical Emperor that Rokugan ever had. He was [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] even as a [[EnfantTerrible young child]], when he [[CainAndAbel arranged for the murder of his brother]] to prevent him from being made Emperor. His atrocities ranged from the disastrously grand, such as creating a SecretPolice force to hunt down traitors and political dissidents; to the [[EvilIsPetty disturbingly petty]], such as torturing a woman to death for protesting his widespread use of torture, and then [[{{Jerkass}} naming her as a minor goddess of Torture]]. He ruined a political opponent's reputation and career, just so he could claim the man's daughter as a concubine. When that daughter refused to bear Hantei XVI a child, he had her imprisoned in her own room and [[BreedingSlave forced the matter]]. The final straw, however, was [[{{Matricide}} ordering the execution of his own mother]], because she dared to protest him killing all of his siblings so they couldn't contest his claim to the throne. This final act was enough to make his entire guard, horrified by what he had done, turn on him, assassinating him in spite of the fact that they would all need to commit seppuku afterwards. BackFromTheDead more than 500 years later, Hantei engineered the 12-year-long War of Spirits in order to try taking back the throne. After the War, as one of the conditions of the treaty, Hantei [[SadistTeacher tutors]] the son of an opponent. Planning to attack his student in order to cause the treaty to be broken and war to break out again, Hantei, while [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating this student]], is killed by his own fiancé, who has grown to care for this student.

* The ''TabletopGame/FreedomCity'' setting of ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'' is home to some fairly repellant villains, but none quite as bad as Wilhelm Kantor or Omega.
** Wilhelm Kantor, alias Overshadow, is a [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi]] warcriminal and EvilSorcerer turned [[WesternTerrorists international terrorist]]. As a member of the ''SS'' and the Thule Society, Kantor learned that he was the reincarnation of Tan-Aktor, a TreacherousAdvisor to the Egyptian Pharoah Heru-Ra. [[HumanSacrifice Sacrificing]] twelve of his men, Kantor regained his past memories and powers, then went onto become the true mastermind behind the Nazi ''[[SuperSoldier Ubersoldaten]]'' program. When ''Schwartzpanzer'' was crippled in combat, Kantor sacrificed him to increase the power of his own personal assassin, ''Nacht-Krieger''; when the war ended Kantor would use the ritual suicides of his ''SS'' and Thule Society colleagues to further empower himself and ''Nacht-Krieger''. Kantor went onto kill almost the entire roster of the Allies of Freedom, left ''Nacht-Krieger'' to take the fall, and set up the terrorist group SHADOW. He has since attacked world capitals with armies of clones, tried to get the USA and USSR to [[NukeEm nuke one another]], poisoned municipal water supplies, and attempted to use Omega's power to take control of space/time. In the meantime, he has kept himself alive, first by [[BodySurf bodyjacking]] clones of himself, and later trying to take over the body of his own son, Ragnarok. Evil on a grand scale and a [[EvilIsPetty petty one]] (once using a terrorist attack just to ruin an enemy's retirement party), and with a [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder bad habit]] of throwing his "friends" under the bus when it suits him, Kantor is [[ItsAllAboutMe out only for himself]], and is as bad as even a Nazi can get.
** Omega is the setting's resident OmnicidalManiac. Once the [[FallenHero heroic king]] of the first race of mortals, Omega realised that entropy was going to destroy the multiverse, and decided that he wanted to be on the winning side. Turning on [[{{God}} Unus The Creator]], Omega stole the Doom-Coil (the very device Unus had designed to fight against entropy) and reprogrammed it to spread entropy, feeding his own universe into it as fuel. In the process he defeated Unus, [[KillTheGod slew most of the other gods]], and completely surrendered to [[ThePowerOfHate his own hatred]]. Omega now travels universe to universe, [[TheCorrupter corrupting]] and recruiting the greatest heroes of each 'verse into his army, before annihilating their home dimensions. He transformed the greatest physician of one universe into the sadistic [[MadDoctor Physician Friendly]], promised to spare another hero's people only to turn them into mindless drones, and not only destroyed The Centurion's homeworld, but then tracked him to Earth-Prime, killing him and nearly wiping out Freedom City in the process. Concerned only with expanding his own dead realm (the so-called Terminus), Omega's goal in the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt extinction of all life across the multiverse]].

** Szuriel, archdaemon and Horsewoman of War, is the worst of Pathfinder's evil deities. A former paladin, Szuriel became a conquering empress who had every member of her former faith crucified in revenge for her excommunication. Following her death, she became a daemon, and murdered her way to the top of Abaddon's hierarchy, eventually slaying the previous Horseman of War and taking his title. In her new rank, Szuriel represents war at its most terrible, celebrating societal breakdowns, scorched earth campaigns, and ethnic cleansing, and counting Insane Admirals, General Rippers, and Sociopathic Soldiers galore among her most devoted followers. Hiring out her daemons to those who pay the most, Szuriel inevitably turns on her employers, after forcing the campaign to degenerate to the point where mutual genocide is the only way it can end. Forging weapons in the heat of burning human souls, and revelling in violent excess, Szuriel demonstrates what happens when a PhysicalGod adopts the mentality of the most sadistic PsychoForHire.
** [[OurLichesAreDifferent Tar-Baphon]], known better by his moniker of [[RedBaron the Whispering Tyrant]], is one of the most dangerous villains to rise from Golarion. Even before becoming a lich, the man [[AmbitionIsEvil Tar-Baphon]] was a necromancer, [[DrivenByEnvy envious of the god Aroden]] and seeking to [[AGodAmI attain godhood himself]]. He has attempted to TakeOverTheWorld twice; his first attempt as a mortal man ended when Aroden slew him, but this was part of his plan all along. Thousands of years later, after he had been forgotten, the Whispering Tyrant rose as a lich, and began his conquest in earnest. He conscripted the orcs of Belkzen and subjugated Ustalav, raising the fallen on both sides as undead servants and expanding his power all across Avistan. The Whispering Tyrant reigned supreme for five hundred years, centuries filled with blood, unleashing servants like [[TheQuisling Socorro]] and engineering mass HumanSacrifice in his attempts at godhood. When the Shining Crusade, led by Aroden's herald Arazni, attempted to put a stop to him once and for all, the Tyrant went out of his way to capture, humiliate, and [[KillTheGod torture Arazni to death]], before [[KickTheDog throwing her mangled body to the crusaders]] to shatter their faith. Driven by his envy of Aroden, his ego, and his all-consuming desire to have the entire world under his boot, the Whispering Tyrant remains one of the [[TheDreaded most feared beings on Golarion]].
** ''Curse of the Crimson Throne'': [[DarkMessiah Kazavon]] was at one time TheChampion of Zon-Kuthon, God of {{Envy}}, [[TortureTechnician Pain]], [[CastingAShadow Darkness]], and [[DespairEventHorizon Loss]]. While all of Zon-Kuthon's followers tend to be a nasty bunch, with a penchant for torture and self-mutilation, none of them, including possibly Zon-Kuthon himself, has ever come close to the level of atrocity perpetrated by Kazavon. Essentially [[NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed Vlad the Impaler]] in the form of a sixty foot Blue Dragon, Kazavon disguised himself as a [[PsychoForHire human mercenary]] and offered to help the nation of Ustalav drive out the invading Orc hordes. Upon his victory, Kazavon set himself up as the dictator of the borderlands area, where he ruled with an iron fist, torturing to death all those who disagreed with him, including many of the soldiers who had served him faithfully up to that point. When his employer tried to rein him in, Kazavon flayed the man alive. He would go on to achieve truly special heights of depravity, holding torture parties, and orgies involving the undead, spreading his influence throughout the entire area, and having entire villages [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impaled for his entertainment]]. Kazavon was eventually killed by a party of heroes, but the madness didn't stop there. The pure evil of his soul contaminated his skeleton and threatened to resurrect him. The bones were crafted into seven [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts Of Doom]] and hidden throughout the country; contact with even one of them is enough to drive the wearer down a path of madness, murder, and ultimate self-destruction. When [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen Ileosa]], BigBad of the Adventure Path dons the crown, Kazavon gives her the power to murder her husband, turn Korvosa into a PoliceState, unleash a plague against the [[KillThePoor city's poorest citizens]], and drain the lives of thousands in an effort to [[ImmortalityImmorality gain eternal youth]].
** ''Second Darkness'': [[FallenHero Allevrah Azinrae]] was once an Elven cleric of Nethys, God of Magic, and a hero in the nation of Kyonin. That was before she, with the aid of the [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Demon Lord Abraxas]], conceived of a plan to [[FinalSolution exterminate the drow]]. When the fellow members of her GovernmentConspiracy refused to go through with the plot, Allevrah murdered her critics, [[KarmicTransformation let her rage transform her into a drow]], and fled to the drow capital of Zirnakayinn, where she murdered the matron of House Azinrae and took it over. Desiring {{revenge}} on Kyonin, Allevrah plans to [[ColonyDrop drop a meteor on the capital]]; if successful this plan will wipe out Kyonin and trigger an ice age that will kill most life on the planet. After a failed attempt at using the city of Riddleport as a test target, Allevrah retreats to the Land of Black Blood below Kyonin, where she prepares to summon her meteor. She also allows her lover (who is terrified of her) to perform hideous experiments that reduce the victims to masses of screaming black liquid, cuts deals with an aboleth {{mind rap|e}}ist and a [[EldritchAbomination neothelid]], feeds prisoners to ropers, and orders her [[LizardFolk troglodyte]] henchman, [[PsychoForHire Ornn]], to eat a [[FishPeople charda]] colony's [[WouldHurtAChild children]] if they do not cooperate with her. Driven solely by hate, Allevrah shows just how far even the best person can fall.

** [[TheFightingNarcissist Sigvald the Magnificent]], Slaanesh's Geld-Prince, was cast out of his tribe at an early age for indulging in [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalism]]. [[{{Patricide}} Killing his father]] and selling his soul for power, he married two women, only to rip off their faces and replace them with doll porcelain once he grew bored of them. The third of his wives was kidnapped by another lord, and he abandoned her to die. He then took command of a Chaos army, going on a rampage butchering any whom he deemed not beautiful enough, leaving entire cities dead in his wake. Sigvald then went on a campaign against the High Elves, killing every single one he saw [[EvilIsPetty just because their hair was better than his]]. When the Shadow Warriors struck back, killing a number of his men, Sigvald refused to retreat due to a fear of his pride being wounded. Eventually, as more of his lieutenants rose against him, Sigvald [[BadBoss grew a body count of his own men]] as high as the Elves'. He eventually permitted his own army to perish behind him as a point of pride, refusing to stop a duel to the death.
** [[DarkActionGirl Valkia the Bloody]] is the champion of Khorne. A mortal warrior of the Schwarzvolf clan, Valkia [[{{Patricide}} murdered her father]] to take control, purged her tribe of the "weak", married the chieftain of the bloody Clans, raped him to produce her heirs and eventually killed him for his sexism. After her mortal death, Valkia was [[WingedHumanoid reborn]] as a Daemon of Khorne, leading a savage campaign to exterminate her old tribe, killing every man, woman and child while personally slaying her own daughter and brother without remorse. Since then, Valkia arrives to battlefields to promote horrific slaughters in Khorne's name, even teaching the Norscan clans the [[CruelAndUnusualDeath Blood Eagle]] and having it practiced on an entire citadel of dwarves. Valkia inspired a campaign that sought to wipe out all life in Nordland and, during the End Times, helps Chaos's forces to come and slaughter all in their path. [[BloodKnight Devoted to slaughter and bloodshed]], Valkia embodies the Khornate philosophy that "it matters not from where the blood flows. Only that it flows."

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Fantasy Battle'': Before [[TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes Archaon]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt destroyed everything]] and the ContinuityReboot of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', these monsters wreaked havoc:

* ''{{TabletopGame/Warhammer}} Fantasy Battle'': Before [[TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes Archaon]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt destroyed everything]] and the ContinuityReboot of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', this duo wreaked havoc:

** [[GeniusBruiser Gorthor the Beastlord]], the most infamous of all Beastman warlords, amassed a reputation that was dark even by the standards of his depraved, [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Chaos-tainted race]]. Murdering and [[FlayingAlive skinning]] the Bray-Shamans of every tribe that opposed him--an act [[EvenEvilHasStandards even other Beastmen would consider taboo]]--[[MagicKnight Gorthor]] [[GenuineHumanHide made their hides into a hypnotic cloak]] that enabled him to unite all the Beastmen of the Middle Mountains under his banner. Pouring into the Empire, Gorthor's horde [[RapePillageAndBurn devastated]] Ostland and Hochland, leaving millions dead and depopulating both provinces for decades to come. Finally halted at Hochland's capital, Gorthor razed most of the city, intent on [[LeaveNoSurvivors leaving no one alive]]. Having vowed to [[FinalSolution exterminate humanity]], Gorthor died in combat with the Count of Hochland, leaving behind a name that still [[TheDreaded evokes fear]] in man and Beastman alike.

** [[TheDreaded Ezekyle Abaddon]], known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Despoiler]], is the heir of the [[FallenHero fallen Primarch Horus]]. Abaddon is consumed with hatred for all that lives, [[RageAgainstTheMentor even his former master]], and seeks nothing less than the extermination of all he can manage while uniting humanity under the dark banners of Chaos. As the only man with the support of all the Gods of Chaos, Abaddon has united the forces of Chaos under his banner no less than thirteen times in the Black Crusades. During these ventures, Abaddon storms the galaxy itself, burning and destroying all he can until the forces of the Imperium inevitably defeat him. Abaddon hardly minds as he is able to destroy and kill in great number, [[BloodKnight something he loves more than anything else]]. Willing to send countless numbers of his own to their doom and living only to destroy everything he can, Abaddon is the champion of Chaos and is one of the most evil and brutal beings in all of the dark world of ''Warhammer 40,000''.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' is a [[CrapsackWorld dark and brutal place to live]]. [[BlackAndGrayMorality No side is truly in the right]], with most not even remotely in the "good" territory of the WellIntentionedExtremist. That said, this duo manages to stand out:

* ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'': Hantei XVI, known as Otomo Okucheo before his ascension and also known as the Steel Chrysanthemum , is the most violent and tyrannical Emperor that Rokugan ever had. He was [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] even as a [[EnfantTerrible young child]], when he [[CainAndAble arranged for the murder of his brother]] to prevent him from being made Emperor. His atrocities ranged from the disastrously grand, such as creating a SecretPolice force to hunt down traitors and political dissidents; to the [[EvilIsPetty disturbingly petty]], such as torturing a woman to death for protesting his widespread use of torture, and then [[{{Jerkass}} naming her as a minor goddess of Torture]]. He ruined a political opponent's reputation and career, just so he could claim the man's daughter as a concubine. When that daughter refused to bear Hantei XVI a child, he had her imprisoned in her own room and [[BreedingSlave forced the matter]]. The final straw, however, was [[{{Matricide}} ordering the execution of his own mother]], because she dared to protest him killing all of his siblings so they couldn't contest his claim to the throne. This final act was enough to make his entire guard, horrified by what he had done, turn on him, assassinating him in spite of the fact that they would all need to commit seppuku afterwards. BackFromTheDead more than 500 years later, Hantei engineered the 12-year-long War of Spirits in order to try taking back the throne. After the War, as one of the conditions of the treaty, Hantei [[SadistTeacher tutors]] the son of an opponent. Planning to attack his student in order to cause the treaty to be broken and war to break out again, Hantei, while [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating this student]], is killed by his own fiancé, who has grown to care for this student.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': [[EldritchAbomination The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils]] is one of the thirteen Deathlords ghosts, and easily the most vile of the bunch. She hunts people as a hobby, but her real wickedness comes into play with her two pet projects. First is her OrphanageOfFear; she abducts the entire populace of a village, kills everyone over the age of nine, and raises the children in homes furnished with soulsteel made from the children's families. She also takes this opportunity to create the Shoat of the Mire, a psychologically-tortured little girl given the Black Exaltation of a [[PersonOfMassDestruction Dusk]]. But the Dowager's greatest work is the single most catastrophic event in Creation's history, [[PlagueMaster the Great Contagion]]. Having discovered this virus in the [[ArtifactOfDoom Well of Udr]], the Dowager unleashed it upon Creation, where it killed 90% of all living things. The Dowager is the cruelest and most vicious of the Deathlords; she would be Creation's most notorious murderer, if only her role in the Great Contagion were well-known in Creation. Her end goal is to find the opposite of Creation in the Well of Udr, and bring the two worlds together into a matter-antimatter cataclysm.

** [[EvilSorcerer Nicol Bolas]], one of the next {{Big Bad}}s, is an [[OurDragonsAreDifferent elder dragon]] Planeswalker over 25,000 years old who loses his near-limitless power when the nature of the Planeswalker Spark is changed, and dedicates himself to getting it back at any cost. A master of red, blue, and black magic, Bolas excels at [[MindRape breaking minds]] and [[TheChessmaster bending people into submission]]. He collides the five worlds of Alara into each other in an attempt to absorb the energy released. On Zendikar, he manipulates three Planeswalkers into setting free the [[EldritchAbomination Eldrazi Titans]]. As New Phyrexia grows on Mirrodin, he sends an envoy to reach out to the blossoming parasitic plane in the form of Tezzeret, a Planeswalker whose mind Bolas has broken and enslaved. He travels the Blind Eternities, endangering one world after another with each scheme in his quest to regain omnipotence.

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'':
** Chronologically speaking, first there's [[TheCaligula Stefan Amaris, the Usurper]]. He's the lovely bundle of joy who overthrew [[TheFederation the Star League]], executed everyone in the Star League Court, killed everyone in the Vatican before burning the place down, and a whole laundry list of deeds including genocide and sterilizing planets.
** Katherine Steiner-Davion was arguably a fine politician when first presented, but a combination of author fiat and other factors led up to the revelation that she'd hired an assassin to kill her own mother, her brother, her other brother's girlfriend, and her own boyfriend. All for political gain. After the rest of humanity started catching on to her game, she became the focal point of a civil war that wrecked both of the nations she ruled, sold out the nation she had the most loyalty with to the Clans (in an attempt to kill her brother and some mercenary outfits that weren't on her team) and finally - after being deposed - escaped with her Clan allies and created a [[BrotherSisterIncest test tube baby with her rival brother's DNA and her own]] who would hopefully go on to cause more havok in the Inner Sphere at a later date. Even her aforementioned son couldn't take it. [[spoiler: He ends up killing her after she advocates murdering an ally, to protect her own position. Especially since maintaining her position may get him and his Clan destroyed.]]
** An even earlier example is Star League General Amos Forlough, who helped conquer the Periphery during the Reunification War. While his actions against the Taurian Concordat, which included saturation level orbital bombardment and WMD deployment, may have been justified due to the fact that they were doing the same things; his actions on the Outworlds Alliance front went way too far. The Alliance barely had a regular military and so they used irregular militia to fight back with bombings and sniper attacks against his troops. He responded by killing 10% of the population of every planet that resisted (roughly 12 million people across the Outworlds), left many more without homes or shelter and sentenced his own subordinates to death and hard labor if they refused to carry out these atrocities. Little wonder why he is known as "The Butcher" and "The Baby Killer". The worst part is that [[KarmaHoudini he was never brought to justice]] and [[WrittenByTheVictors received some of the Star League's highest rewards for the victories he achieved.]]

** Even among the Traitor Legions of Chaos, Fabius [[NamesToRunAwayFrom Bile]], the self-styled "Primogenitor", is an unspeakably vile force [[TheDreaded feared and hated across the galaxy]] to those who know his name and actions. A MadScientist extraordinaire longing to exceed the scientific accomplishments of the Emperor, Bile refuses to pledge himself to any one Chaos God and instead sells his services to whomever can take him, stringing behind him a [[PlayingWithSyringes legacy of depraved experiments, genocides, and horrors]] with entire sectors of lives reduced longing for death from what Bile has brought upon them. Among Bile's many atrocities are forcing those he has [[FlayingAlive flayed]] to carry a [[GenuineHumanHide cloak made of the skin]] of dozens behind him, earning him the epitaph Manflayer; forcing the population of Dimmamar to [[SadisticChoice take in his own mutative serums or suffocate]] by changing the composition of the very air they breathed; squashing down over a million prisoners into [[HumanResources amplifying drugs]] for his followers, whom he also treats as test fodder; engaging in degenerate experiments with clones, earning him fear and respect from the world of Palamar V; and his proudest accomplishment, the "New Men", with the populations of entire worlds transformed into powerful but blindly murderous specimens of his own image. In the Chaos-ravaged world of Warhammer 40K, Fabius Bile, [[EvenEvilHasStandards reviled by even the Traitor Legions he is ostensibly a part of]], is a man who has dedicated his life to [[GlorySeeker immortality through infamy]] by means of the destruction and perversion of billions of lives in his never-ending quest to permanently etch the foul memory of his name on the universe.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' is a [[CrapsackWorld dark and brutal place to live]]. [[BlackAndGrayMorality No side is truly in the right]], with most not even remotely in the "good" territory of the WellIntentionedExtremist. That said, there are a few villains that stand out in terms of evil:
** Ezekyle Abaddon, known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Despoiler]], is the heir of the [[FallenHero fallen Primarch Horus]]. Abaddon is consumed with hatred for all that lives, even his former master, and seeks nothing less than [[OmnicidalManiac the extermination of all he can manage]] while uniting humanity under the dark banners of Chaos. As the only man with the support of all the Gods of Chaos, Abaddon has united the forces of Chaos under his banner no less than thirteen times in the Black Crusades. During these ventures, Abaddon storms the galaxy itself, burning and destroying all he can until the forces of the Imperium inevitably defeat him. Abaddon hardly minds as he is able to destroy and kill in great number, [[BloodKnight something he loves more than anything else]]. [[GeneralRipper Willing to send countless numbers of his own to their doom]] and living only to destroy everything he can, Abaddon is the champion of Chaos and is one of the most evil and brutal beings in all of the dark world of ''Warhammer 40,000''.
** Fabius [[NamesToRunAwayFrom Bile]] is what you have when you cross a MadScientist with the dark powers of Chaos. Bile traverses the Galaxy more than any other member of the Traitor Legions for the purpose of experimenting whenever and wherever he can. On the world of Dimmamar, Bile changed the atomic composition of the air until the population was forced to ingest his transformative serums or slowly suffocate. He earned the name "Manflayer" in the Bray system for [[FlayingAlive skinning those who opposed him]] to make a [[GenuineHumanHide cloak of human skin]], the survivors still alive to carry the garment behind him. Bile injects poisonous strands into every gene pool he can, with some experiments wiping out life in entire sectors. A {{sadist}} with [[AGodIAm a god complex]] and [[ForScience scientific curiosity]], Bile is [[TheDreaded feared and hated by all who know his name and actions]].

** ''Curse of the Crimson Throne'': The followers of Zon-Kuthon, God of {{Envy}}, [[TortureTechnician Pain]], [[CastingAShadow Darkness]], and [[DespairEventHorizon Loss]] tend to be a nasty bunch, with a penchant for torture and self-mutilation. Yet not a one of them—including quite possibly Zon-Kuthon himself—has ever come close to the level of atrocity perpetrated by [[DarkMessiah Kazavon]], Zon-Kuthon's one-time [[TheChampion Champion]]. Essentially [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Vlad the Impaler]] in the form of a sixty foot Blue Dragon, Kazavon disguised himself as a [[PsychoForHire human mercenary]] and offered to help the nation of Ustalav drive out the invading Orc hordes. Upon his victory, Kazavon set himself up as the dictator of the borderlands area, where he ruled with an iron fist, torturing to death all those who disagreed with him, including many of the soldiers who had served him faithfully up to that point. When his employer tried to rein him in, Kazavon flayed the man alive. He would go on to achieve truly special heights of depravity, holding torture parties, and orgies involving the undead, spreading his influence throughout the entire area, and having entire villages [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impaled for his entertainment]]. Kazavon was eventually killed by a party of heroes, but the madness didn't stop there. The pure evil of his soul contaminated his skeleton and threatened to resurrect him. The bones were crafted into seven [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts Of Doom]] and hidden throughout the country; contact with even one of them is enough to drive the wearer down a path of madness, murder, and ultimate self-destruction. When [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen Ileosa]], BigBad of the Adventure Path dons the crown, Kazavon influences her to murder her husband, turn Korvosa into a PoliceState, unleash a plague against the [[KillThePoor city's poorest citizens]], and drain the lives of thousands in an effort to [[ImmortalityImmorality gain eternal youth]] (in reality, the spell will just [[BackFromTheDead resurrect Kazavon]]).

** ''Pathfinder'''s evil deities can be a bad lot, but none are quite as horrible as [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils archdaemon]] and [[WarGod Horsewoman of War]] [[FallenAngel Szuriel]]. A [[FallenHero former paladin]], Szuriel became a [[WorldDomination conquering]] [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen empress]] who had every member of her former faith crucified in revenge for her excommunication. Following her death, she became a [[NeutralEvil daemon]], and murdered her way to the top of Abaddon's hierarchy, eventually slaying the previous Horseman of War and [[KlingonPromotion taking his title]]. In her new rank, Szuriel represents [[WarIsHell war at its most terrible]], celebrating societal breakdowns, [[RapePillageAndBurn scorched earth campaigns]], and [[FinalSolution ethnic cleansing]], and counting {{Insane Admiral}}s, {{General Ripper}}s, and {{Sociopathic Soldier}}s galore among her most devoted followers. Hiring out her daemons to those who pay the most, Szuriel [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder inevitably turns on her employers]], after forcing the campaign to degenerate to the point where [[MutualKill mutual genocide]] is the only way it can end. Forging weapons in the heat of burning human souls, and revelling in violent excess, Szuriel demonstrates what happens when a PhysicalGod adopts the mentality of the most {{sadist}}ic PsychoForHire.