- Chejop Kejak, leader of the Sidereal Bronze Faction in Exalted. He masterminded the Usurpation, an event which wiped out the Solar Exalted and ended the Age of Dreams, because the alternative was to take a very risky path to redeem the Solars that would, in all probability, have led to the destruction of Creation. Unfortunately, the side effects of the destruction led to the creation of the Deathlords and the Great Contagion, and Creation only survived the backlash by sheer dumb luck and a foulup on a Deathlord's part; the fallout from that event and Kejak's emergency responses led to the creation of the modern Realm, a corrupt dynasty of Dragon-Blooded nobility far degraded from even the Shogunate. To make things worse, Kejak has developed into a Knight Templar, constitutionally incapable of re-evaluating his standing agenda in light of the current situation. To be fair, that's the effect that the Great Curse has on all Sidereals, IIRC: to be completely unable to see any flaws in their primary motivation, whatever that may be.
- As one friend put it, the greatest manifestation of the Great Curse was not any Solar jerkassitude (even Desus, he might just be evil, after all), but the life of Chejop Kejak.
- Also, Abyssals 2e reveals that the creation of the Deathlords is the fault of the Gold Faction, not the Bronze: if they hadn't gone into the underworld and stirred up the memories of powerful Solar ghosts while trying to dig up secret information on the Bronze faction, the Neverborn might never have scented opportunity. So Kejak's sole contribution to the creation of the Deathlords was to inspire the people who didn't like him to do something epically stupid in the process of trying to shank him.
- To rephrase Kejak's actions' motivation and their consequences, Kejak acted as he did in order to save the world. As a result of his actions, the world has died by inches, growing less glorious and closer to destruction with each cataclysm (until the present, when it's getting glorious again but seems more doomed than ever). And he can't see, much less admit, that he's wrong. Perhaps the inevitable result of playing it safe in a setting that runs on the Rule of Cool taken to Serial Escalation.
- In the Freedom in the Galaxy boardgame, Senator Redmond is that. Although fully aware of the Empire's corruption, he wants to eradicate it by legal means and considers therefore the Rebels as an obstacle — thus lending his considerable diplomatic abilities to the Imperial side.
- In Genius: The Transgression, some of the nicer Lemurians can be this. Quite a few Lemurians are decent people who just happen to be insane. However, they are insane, so they can turn from "nice, but deluded" to Ax-Crazy in a hurry. It doesn't help that they can make their crackpot theories actually work.
- This is acknowledged in the book, which admits that not all Lemurians are sadistic psychopaths, and quite a few of them are decent people. On the other hand, they are delusional, and believing absurdities leads to committing atrocities. It does not help that the Lemurian worldviews are profoundly anti-human, viewing mortals as resources, problems, or enemies, or that Lemuria as a whole is schizophrenic. One day, a Lemurian might sell you 20kg of plutonium, the next, his boss sends 6 men with spiders for hands to kill everyone you love.
- The Technocracy from Mage: The Ascension in the Old World of Darkness are treated as this in later editions of the game, having conquered the world and being hard-liners against too-free thought and "reality deviants" (mages) for the good of humanity. The thing is, the version of reality they've enforced on the world really IS safer, given that the prior 'Age of Myth' was a wonderful thing for mages, but a chaotic period of terror for the mundane. Now, the Sleepers do not have to (generally) worry about marauding monsters gobbling them up, but in return every aspect of their lives will be dictated by a group of people who strongly believe in A Million Is a Statistic. It's a very Grey-and-Grey Morality setting.
- Magic: The Gathering: Among the praetors of New Phyrexia, Urabrask the Hidden qualifies. His faction, the Quiet Furnace, is empowered by Red mana, the mana that embodies passion and emotion. As such he is not entirely bound by Phyrexia's will. Most significantly, Urabrask is capable of feeling compassion. When the Mirran refugees entered his territory, his orders stunned his followers and the refugees alike:Let them be.
- As of Streets of New Capenna, Urabrask seems to be making a Heel–Face Turn.
- Depending on who you ask, Radiant from the early days was either this or a Knight Templar.
- Deceiver Excrucians in Nobilis love the entire world...it's just that the thing they love is underneath layers of perceived "lies" such as up, down, fish, arms, legs, life and death. One of the metaphors given in their third edition sourcebook is that of a guy watching a friend hang with an abusive lover, except that that abusive boyfriend is the entirety of existence.
- Strahd von Zarovich, seminal villain of the Ravenloft Dungeons & Dragons setting, flirts with the Anti-Villain trope from time to time, particularly where his past history as a war-hero and his steadfast defense of Barovia from outsiders is concerned. The rest of his past history, together with the fact that he's a vampire defending his larder, keeps him from slipping into it entirely.
- This story
◊ about a Dungeons & Dragons player in a solo campaign who was a heroic necromancer in a war-torn land where the people were miserable and downtrodden. The Necromancer wandered the world, teaching the people necromancy and helping them overthrow the tyrants and petty kings who were the source of their woes, leaving behind stable and magically-advanced democracies where the living people lived the life of Riley while their undead thralls worked the fields and catered to their every need. In time, the Necromancer grew old and began to die, so he used a scrying scroll to survey the land one last time... and found to his horror that a band of "heroes" had been moving behind him, "freeing" the people from the reign of the so-called "Arch-Lich" (a point that offended the old man because he was still alive and had no intention of becoming a lich), destroying the Necromancer's teachings and killing his proteges, reinstating the so-called "good kings" and oppressive feudal systems, and cremating their undead and scattering the ashes so no necromancer could ever use the bodies again. When these "heroes" penetrated the Arch-Lich's lair expecting a fight with a cackling Evil Overlord, they instead found a heartbroken elder on his deathbed who tearfully explained that everything he did was for the good of the people and now the heroes had ruined his life's work and cast the land back into the hands of evil men based on nothing but their ignorant assumption that all necromancers are bad. All this time, the DM had been using the Necromancer as a Big Bad in another campaign without either party's knowledge; he says the Necromancer played his part beautifully. - Sentinels of the Multiverse: Infinitor is Captain Cosmic's brother, who gained powers at the same time as his sibling. Unfortunately, where Captain Cosmic gained benign powers, Infinitor got his from an OblivAeon shard, driving him utterly mad. He has no control over the Hard Light constructs he produces, which are manifestations of his shared-induced insanity. If enough of them are in play, Infinitor flips and starts destroying his own constructs, representing him gaining enough control to start Fighting from the Inside. A game against him is less a fight and more of a therapy session. Captain Cosmic eventually gets through to him, leading to the Heroic Infinitor promo. Infinitor ultimately makes a Heroic Sacrifice, Taking the Bullet for his brother in the fight against OblivAeon.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- Magnus the Red has been portrayed this way after a novel showed his Start of Darkness. He tried to warn the Emperor of Horus' betrayal, he sent the Space Wolves to punish them as sorcerersnote , they decided that if they were seen as evil sorcerers, they'd BE evil sorcerers! note
- Ahriman, one of the Thousand Sons under Magnus very much also qualifies, both in the creation of the Rubric which he intended to use to save his brothers, and his quest for the Black Library which he intends to use to attain godhood so he can free his legion from Tzeentch's control.
- Alpharius could also be this. He had a secret meeting with the Cabal, who told him that the only way to destroy chaos permanently was to make sure that Horus would win.
- When it comes to Warhammer 40,000, Cypher is the absolute personification of this trope. His goal is possibly the most noble and true goal imaginable: to reforge the sword he stole from the Dark Angels in his youth, and present it to the Emperor to atone for his considerable sins, which he knows will likely lead to his death. But because of the things he's done, it's impossible for him to go about it in any way resembling "good". Everyone in the galaxy sees him as a villain, he's infamous. But he's desperately trying not to be.
- Nearly all Ogryns believe that all of their orders come from the Emperor Himself, being worked down through the chain of command. The forces of Chaos tragically exploited their child-like naivete during the Horus Heresy, with Ogryn handlers turning to Chaos and then misleading their Ogryns. Thus, many Ogryns waged war against Loyalist forces believing that they were still fighting for the Emperor and the Imperium.
- The Eldar are usually this when presented as antagonists. They want to save the lives of their people. It's just that they don't care how many of your people's lives they have to sacrifice to do it.
- Likewise, the Orks do not actively destroy worlds and wage war on all the other races for malice. They are ancient alien Super Soldiers whose creators all died in a big war millions of years ago and never installed an off-switch before they went. Orks genuinely believe war is just a bloody gud larf, and cannot understand why the other races do not see things the same way (and conversely other races do not appreciate this nuance as the Orks are tearing them limb from limb while laughing and howling like beasts). To an Ork's mind, why would you go through the trouble of building a gigantic killy fortified citadel or big stompy death machine if you didn't them to come fight it?
- Magnus the Red has been portrayed this way after a novel showed his Start of Darkness. He tried to warn the Emperor of Horus' betrayal, he sent the Space Wolves to punish them as sorcerersnote , they decided that if they were seen as evil sorcerers, they'd BE evil sorcerers! note
- Warhammer: Shocking, yes, but underneath the ruthlessness, ambition and general evilness that being a vampire entails, Vlad von Carstein is actually kind of a decent guy. His past desire to conquer the Empire was rooted in a sincere concern that it was too weak and divided to stand up to Chaos and he would have done a better job of running it, and there's evidence he's right: it is noted in lore that Vlad is quite competent as a leader and administrator and he even understands that loyal human servants who will willingly associate with the undead are priceless, so humans under his rule can live quite prosperously. There's also his humanising and clearly genuine love for his wife Isabella; under most versions of the rules, if both are on the table and one dies, the other spouse flies into a nightmarish rage at the enemy army.
- One of the adventures for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Lure of the Lich Lord has an undead Big Bad accompanied with a sidebar that points out the "Evil vs. Undead" difference. Karitamen the Death Scarab is a complex character with motivations and virtues as well as vices that he would possess even if he wasn't a millennia-old Tomb King. The final encounter between Karitamen and the heroes can be resolved in many different ways, even peacefully, as long as the heroes have not taken certain actions (like defiling his tomb or killing his best friend) that would reasonably make him lash out at them.
- Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: The Flesh-eater Courts are the degenerate, cannibalistic remnants of nations that fell into ruin during the Age of Chaos. They still believe that they are noble knights and soldiers defending their glorious kingdoms from invaders and beasts - they have no idea that they are the monsters killing and devouring people. They're not evil, just insane and deluded. But that's not all, the illusion breaks and... well, the mordants were deeply insane before, and the revelation tends to completely shatter them.
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