Even in the world of tabletop gaming, there still exists some completely despicable villains. Below are some of the worst and most atrocious bastards ever to roam the table top. Hope you roll well.
Examples
Warhammer 40000 is a dark and brutal place to live. No side is truly in the right, with most not even remotely in the "good" territory of the Well-Intentioned Extremist. As such, there are multitudes of monstrous men and women, but there are enough genuinely heroic people in the setting to not make this game a non-issue in terms of morality. And yet, in a sea of corruption and evil, there are mainly pawns and incompetent pencil pushers. The nadirs of morality stand out, even here.
To start with, we have the Chaos-empowered Fabius Bile, Evilutionary Biologist and Mad Scientist extraordinaire. His horrifying experiments with Warp science and genetics can and often will slaughter the populations of entire sub-sectors. Also, of course, he wears a lab coat made of human skin.
Abaddon the Despoiler, despite his reputation as General Failure, definitely qualifies for this trope. To him, the Black Crusades weren't failures because he got to do what he loves to do the most: kill the lapdogs of the False Emperor. Abaddon's purpose for being revolves around destroying and killing everything in the way of his ultimate goal — to unite humanity under the dark banner of Chaos — and with the powers of Chaos backing him up during a Black Crusade, that reach spans the entire galaxy. Now, if he wasn't always blocked at Cadia...
In Deadlands Jasper Stone is the Harrowed responsible for bringing Hell to earth. Originally a Confederate officer with a reputation for cruelty and brutality. When he became the servant of the Reckoners, the Four Horsemen of the Apocaypse, Stone ruthlessly killed any who could stand in their way, hunting down and murdering countless heroes. Stone does everything of his own free will for his hunger to take lives and to see hell on earth enacted
The Ebon Dragon]]. The Ebon Dragon is a Primordial, one of the in-game entities that created the game's setting. While other Primordials presumably introduced things like the concepts of Law, fruit, and gender into Creation, one of the Ebon Dragon's major contributions was the concept of treachery. Why? Because he's a dick. Given his cosmic significance, it's quite accurate to say instead that he is THE Dick, who will sell out anybody and everybody at any moment for personal gain (or sheer amusement). Among his lesser nasty accomplishments is the Phylactery Womb, which houses the Exaltation Shards of the Infernal Exalted when they're not inhabiting humans. The Phylactery Womb, by the way, is a young girl who has been repeatedly violated in every possible sense of the word; at this point she's a bloated demonic monstrosity with occasional flashes of lucidity. It's also said that even if his harebrained scheme to get the Yozis out of Malfeas by making Creation just as bad works, he'll jockey to be the first one out the door just so he can permanently seal it shut behind him, trapping his fellow twisted Primordials there solely for the lulz.
Just to clarify: The Primordials were largely described as being pretty nasty already, the Ebon Dragon just likes to go that extra mile.
To clarify even more: The Ebon Dragon is actually the literal embodiment of dickishness. According to his Excellencies, he is literally incapable of, for example, "Telling the truth, except to reveal a horrible revelation", or to take any action which will benefit others more then himself.
The Ebon Dragon HAS done two things that can probably considered for the best. In his original state, he was vastly powerful, but utterly unable to express that power. He created the Unconquered Sun (the most powerful non-primordial being who is the embodiment of perfection, virtue and, go figure, the sun) to contrast with himself, which gave him a sense of proper definition. Yes, he had to CREATE the most virtuous and good creature of the setting so he could enjoy exactly HOW MUCH of a dick he was. Of course, it was at this stage that he could actually go out and be a dick, so perhaps it wasn't so great. The other, more neutral contribution was the concept of color.
The Bodhisattva Anointed By Dark Water: much like the Lunars, he set up a nation (in the Skullstone Archipelago) that fitted with his goals. Then he predicted his own return and faked his own death, before spending 500 years corrupting the country so he would have something to reform when he returned as the Silver Prince. The problem here? One of the central tenets of his New Order is that everyone is given an accelerated path through reincarnation through their faith, except the few who remain as ghosts because they were still needed. What happens instead? They're dragged off to the fifth island of the archipelago, where they are forged into soulsteel and used to build ships. Even the currency is based on soulsteel.
The Book of Vile Darkness gives us The Dread Emperor. An imposing, 2 meter tall man in golden armor, the Dread Emperor keeps children chained to his armor at all times with any damage done to the Emperor himself transferred to the children. The Emperor uses these children as a bait for any heroes foolish enough to take him on and will often destroy entire city blocks when he's a mind to. When a hero challenges him, the Dread Emperor feels no compunction slaying hundreds simply to kill a target or mentally enslaving any civilians nearby and using them to attack his opponent for him.
In the Mystara supplement:
Baron Ludwig von Hendriks, The Black Eagle, an insane aristocrat who rules the Barony of the Black Eagle. von Hendriks has raids conducted where innocent halflings are often taken and enslaved and is most infamous for the tortures he inflicts. In the Black Eagle Barony, being accused of a crime gets you before his court. The problem is von Hendriks only cares how loud you can scream and devises nasty tortures that he's used on countless innocents.
The Baron's former right hand man Bargle the Infamous is just as evil. As the Black Eagle Barony's number 2, Bargle enforced its brutal reign of terror, and deserted it when it fell. Bargle had used many innocents and captives in twisted experiments. he later participated in destroying the flying city of the gnomes and captured a well known cleric to father his child on her, after presenting her with the tortured corpse of her husband.
In the 3.0 adventure The Bastion Of Broken Souls, we have Ashardalon, an incredibly ancient, powerful and wicked red dragon. Already a cruel and rapacious creature in his own right, after having been mortally injured by a powerful druidess who didn't live long enough to celebrate the deed, he managed to sustain himself by substituting his own failing heart with a denizen of the Abyss - a Balor, no less! Of course, the demon was not enthusiastic about this, and Ashardalon had to search for another way to extend his lifespan... hitting the jackpot when he discovered an Eldritch Location deep inside the Plane of Positive Energy where the souls of every living creature are born and reside before getting a body. There, he settled down with a few of his servants and began devouring pre-incarnated souls in order to live forever. This act is causing countless being across the universe to be born without a soul, horribly alive and at the same utterly dead... but if the PCs call the dragon out on his crimes, his answer is that he doesn't care if he fucks up the multiverse, as long as he gets to enjoy eternity as the self-styled "ultimate predator".
Ashardalon remains just as big a prick in 4th edition, only the whole Font of Souls business is slightly greyer.
Greyhawk gives us the aptly named Iuz The Evil, the cambion child of the demon lord Graz'zt and the human witch Iggwilv. In his early career, Iuz rallied an army and launched a series of brutal campaigns that gave him the name 'Lord Of Pain' or the atrocities he committed on innocents. Eventually, Iuz gathered powerful sorcerers and drained them of life to add their powers to his in a path to godhood. Eventually becoming a demigod, Iuz ended up feared by all those who knew him, with no care towards either of his parents or any in his way. He eventually resorted to murdering his formerly loyal servants and replacing them with Fiends solely for convenience and power.
Myrkul, the old god of death before Kelemvor. Unlike Kelemvor, who has a firm set of morals and only tolerates the Wall of the Faithless because it's necessary for the continued existence of the other gods, Myrkul was an utter sadist who took gleeful joy in witnessing the agony and suffering the Wall caused. He is stated to have ruled his faith with an iron fist, purposefully leading his followers through sheer fear of his retribution, and executing anyone who defied him, be they man, woman or child, in sadistically brutal fashions, such as burning them alive in a giant furnace. His greatest atrocity, however, was what he did to one of his best priests, who had had enough of the injustice of the Wall and attempted to destroy it. Initially, he just left the priest to rot on the Wall, but just before the priest fully merged with the Wall and attained some measure of peace, Myrkul decides that he hasn't suffered enough, and transforms the priest into a mindless being of pure, unbridled hunger that feeds on souls, then sets it loose upon the world, knowing full well the chaos it will surely cause.
Cyric. In the aftermath of the Time of Troubles, when the three prime gods of evil died, Cyric was raised to godhood for his evil in order to replace them. Cyric proceeded to prove his cruelty by murdering and oppressing other gods, sending his servants to steal faithful worshipers from the afterlife to torture in his realm, instituting cruel punishments on the dead. Cyric invented new ways to drive beings made, even succumbing to them himself for a time. Even after regaining his sanity, Cyric gleefully murdered his enemy Mystra, the Goddess of Magic, inflicting the hideous Spellplague that scarred the face of Faerun forever and claimed many lives.
Lolth is the goddess of the Drow, as well as the goddess of spiders and chaos. Once a member of the Elven pantheon, the Seldarine, and named Araunshee, Lolth betrayed the Seldarine out of growing malice, discontent, and lust for power. She betrayed her husband, the chief elven God Corellon Larethian to his enemy, the Orc God Gruumsh and tried to help the destruction of the Seldarine. When she failed, Lolth fled to the Demonweb Pits and led her chosen race, the Drow, into the Underdark, becoming a twisted and cruel goddess. Lolth would soon trick her own grandson into absorbing the essence of a demon lord to corrupt him into serving Lolth as her champion forever. Lolth had the Drow establish a society absolutely built on sadism and backstabbing, solely for her own pleasure, with cruel edicts consisting of demands for the sacrifice of every newborn male child at birth and demands for her priestesses to carve out the hearts of males they grow too fond of. What sets Lolth apart from other evil Gods is that she cares nothing for her race or her worshipers, viewing them as merely tools for power. For her own amusement, she will capriciously withhold her favor from loyal Drow just for the pleasure of seeing them die. Lolth has nothing less than genocidal fury towards all surface elves and routinely directs her followers to murder them. After becoming more powerful, Lolth proceeded to purge the Drow pantheon of other deities, ending her victory by destroying her own daughter, Eilistraee with savage glee.
Dark Sun dishes Borys 'Butcher' of Ebe: a former member of the Champions of Rajaat, a cult of genocidal lunatics who attempted the complete extermination of all non-human sentient races (and SUCCEEDED with many of them) by using the environment-raping defiling magic and turning the world of Athas into a warped desert dying world... this before going Starscream on the Champions and their master, absorbing them (and killing an entire city in the process) and turning into a draconic Eldritch Abomination.
Takhisis, the head of the Pantheon of evil deities. Unlike her fellow evil gods who at least have some redeeming straight to balance them out (her husband, Sargonnas genuinely cares for his Minotaurs and her daughter Zeboim loves her son), Takhisis cares only for her lusts, greed and power. After mothering the second generation of Chromatic dragons, Takhisis brutally killed two of them solely to make a point to the others. Takhisis threatened the world multiple times, ending her armies out to commit a host of atrocities with her servants enslaving whole countries in living nightmares. Takhisis betrayed all her gods by stealing the world of Krynn at the conclusion of the Chaos Wars against Father Chaos after she abandoned her followers and forced every soul of those who died into an army of the dead.
Maladar the Faceless, the cruel emperor of Taladas. When the series begins, Maladar has been dead for centuries and is remembered in terrifying legends. Flashbacks reveal Malador was The Caligula of the old empire who conducted ethnic cleansing, invented torturous deaths for thousands (he was particularly fond of impalement) and kept a slave boy he molested until the boy managed to poison him. After death, Maladar's influence lived on, as his soul was trapped into a small statue of his likeness. After he's revived he spreads his influence to modern Taladas, inciting brutal wars to create enough bloodshed to prepare his resurrection. His initial choice of vessel is an innocent boy, but he simply bodyjacks the boy's father instead and enslaves goblin races to send them to their deaths as a cover for him to awaken his army and conquer Taladas anew.
Malystryx, one of the first and mightiest dragon overlords is a titanic and brutal monster who carved out territory by simply incinerating anything in her way. After settling in Krynn, Malystryx hunted down and murdered other dragons, taking their skulls and inciting a dragon purge . Using the skulls as a sinister totem, she mutated the land around her into a hellish wasteland and allied with barbarians and ogres to destroy and enslave any innocents left. Malystryx killed her own mate to complete her totem and proceeded with a genocide of the Plucky Comic Relief race, the kender, only prevented by the Heroic Sacrifice of the warrior Riverwind. Establishing herself as a brutal tyrant, Malys would occasionally attack random targets for her own amusement, delighting in the instinctive fear she spread. Without doubt, Malys was the most evil dragon ever to set foot in Krynn.
Chronologically speaking, first there's Stefan Amaris, the Usurper. He's the lovely bundle of joy who overthrew 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. Arguably a fine politician when first presented, 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 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. 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 he was never brought to justice and received some of the Star League's highest rewards for the victories he achieved.
Magic: The Gathering brings us Yawgmoth, who was born a normal Thran on the world of Dominaria during the reign of the technologically advanced Thran empire, about 5000 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 experiments with plagues and poisons, several of which caused widespread death among the various races that he had visited. Yawgmoth was also slowly drianing 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.
Vampire The Masquerade: Sascha Vykos probably deserves a special mention here. A centuries old, genderless Tzimisce with a weird kind of god complex, he is described as making all the furniture in his mansion out of LIVING PEOPLE who are being kept alive through the power of Vicissitude, torture-raping people for shits and giggles and throwing them out when they go mad from too many disfigurements and generally being a massive dick (despite not having one). It's telling when most write-ups for his character quite frankly list his demeanor flat out as 'monster'. It's also no surprise that the rest of the Sabbat look to this nutter as a role-model.
In Hunter The Vigil you can expect to deal with the very worst that the supernatural world can throw at you. Yet as the following slashers and cultists establish, sometimes you don't need to be a vampire or a werewolf to be truly heinous:
Larry Meeks, alias Captain Hook. A small, pudgy, uninspiring man, Larry runs a bait shop, dresses like he's going on a fishing expedition and has a fanatical hatred of anybody he thinks is better looking, more successful, or stronger then he is. A murderer since the age of fifteen, when he first determined to "prove himself", Larry baits in his victims with kindness, playing the role of the favourite neighbour or kindly uncle. Once he's won their confidence, he then subdues them with a gaffhook, and hangs them up in his fishing shack with thousands of tiny fish hooks embedded in their skin. Slowly draining his victims of blood over the course of several days, Larry then guts and cleans them "just like a pretty trout." Active for years, a recent invitation from the Subtle Collectors' Association (a cabal of like-minded killers) has convinced Larry that it is time to up his game, and he plans to move onto still bigger and better targets in the hopes of impressing upon his compatriots the is the best. Totally consumed by his need to hurt people, Larry spends most of his off time talking to his customers about his murders, using fishing metaphors to obscure what he's really going on about.
Harvey Ecks, known variously as The Rest Stop Killer, The Torso Maker, and (his preferred sobriquet) The Driver, had a dream when he was still in the womb. In it, he learned that by understanding the Dream Pattern, he would be able to gain total control over all reality. In his quest to achieve this goal, Harvey discovered that by forcing people to watch their limbs being amputated, he could make them reveal pieces of the Pattern. Once a roving killer who left headless torsos at rest stops, Harvey decided that this was too inefficent. Staking out a patch of the interstate highway, Harvey brainwashed diner waitresses, gas station attendents, and state troopers into blindly serving him, then installed video surveillance cameras on billboards. When he sights a likely victim, he forces his servants (who know him only as The Driver) to help him capture that person, whom he then tortures to death in the hopes that they will reveal more of the Pattern.
Thomas Salvatore, the head chef and owner of the Epicurean Club, and leader of the Pate de Fois Gras cult. A would-be chef, and gourmand, Salvatore was never able to get his restaurants to work. At least not until he'd visited Papua New Guinea and gained a taste for "long pig". Returning home, Salvatore recruited a gang of equally amoral chefs, purchased Briarwood Farms, and used it to raise his food of choice—human children. Keeping the kids locked in filthy cages, Salvatore and his compatriots force the children to bulk up on food and stimulants, before cutting out their livers and serving them to their patrons, none of whom have a clue what they are eating. Determined that he will be known as one of the world's greatest chefs, Salvatore plans to ride his new-found success all the way to the top—no matter how many children he has to butcher in the process.
Carman Skiric in Battle Machines. He 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 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".
The Pathfinder Adventure Paths have brought us two charming individuals.
Curse of the Crimson Throne: The followers of Zon-Kuthon, God of Envy, Pain, Darkness, and 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 Kazavon, Zon-Kuthon's one-time Champion. Essentially Vlad the Impaler in the form of a sixty foot Blue Dragon, Kazavon disguised himself as a 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 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 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 Queen Ileosa, Big Bad of the Adventure Path dons the crown, Kazavon influences her to murder her husband, turn Korvosa into a Police State, unleash a plague against the city's poorest citizens, and drain the lives of thousands in an effort to gain eternal youth (in reality, the spell will just resurrect Kazavon).
Second Darkness: 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 Demon Lord Abraxas, conceived of a plan to exterminate the drow. When the fellow members of her Government Conspiracy refused to go through with the plot, Allevrah murdered her critics, 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 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 rapist and a neothelid, feeds prisoners to ropers, and orders her troglodyte henchman, Ornn, to eat a charda colony's children if they do not cooperate with her. Driven solely by hate, Allevrah shows just how far even the best person can fall.
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