Villain Critique Thread (Because Its About Damn Time!)

@692: I'm not really sure I see what the problem is. Mikhael's ugly. He's also a villain. That's not allowed anymore? I wanted him to look memorable so I came up with a design that I hoped would accomplish that. I have plenty of attractive characters who are monstrous and unattractive characters who are heroic. It may be a cliché to make him ugly and heartless, but at this point, aren't there just as many examples of gorgeous people who are heartless bastards?

I'll be glad to provide one myself.

RE: Theodore Wolcott: Wolcott sounds interesting, given when you cross 'It's All About Me' with an evil teacher...bad things tend to happen. It sounds like Theo goes from several different motivations until he settles on selfishness and thrills. Fair assertion?

RE: Vyrese: Vyrese sounds like a rather interesting and manipulative villain with an interesting perspective on things given her background. Does she have good intent, or is she just driven by ego and a Control-Freak tendency? It could prove interesting to see she clashes with Freesia as well.

RE: Zeus: Oh, good, Zeus as a bastard. Sounds like you took his asshole tendencies up to about a million here. Given his tendencies, has the rest of the Pantheon considered overthrowing him?

My next is a villain my story, and the father of my previous proposal, Malachor Archayus. I present Big Bad Zayel Archayus:

• Name: Zayel Archayus (Pronounced 'Zi-ell, Ark-Ai-us (Ai pronounced like "sky")

• Appearance: Like most demons, Zayel is beautiful by human standards. Tall, well muscled, with pale skin, long platinum blond hair and dark blue eyes. When he wishes to, he is able to manifest two batlike wings from his back and lengthen his nails into black talons.

• Backstory: Zayel was the firstborn son of the ancient House Archayus, one of the oldest and most noble demon houses. By the time of Zayel's birth, the house had fallen heavily, its glory all but a pale memory. Zayel was brought up to be the one to restore House Archayus to glory. Zayel loathed the thought of clinging to past glories and found joy in two things: his studies of forgotten and obscure lore of the demon races and the company of his beloved sister.

Zayel was captivated by the origin of demons, and for why the endless war between the angels had begun and who was responsible. Demon lore taught God had created both races, but the Demons had apparently been hated and abandoned. Obsessed with discovering the reasons to why, Zayel entered the war himself and became the closest thing a demon could be to a famed hero. However, Zayel began to study the corpses of angels to discern their power, eventually taking them alive to experiment upon them. Knowing their innate connection to heaven, Zayel began using them to create a 'link' so he could see past their limited knowledge and ask God himself the questions he hungered for. His sister was, at this point, betrothed to their childhood friend: a young lord of another House. Realizing his feelings for her were more than platonic, brotherly affection, Zayel seduced her before the partnership could take place.

Zayel's experiment succeeded, but instead of answers, Zayel found nothing. Just a black void where God should have been. At first horrified, Zayel fell into despair over not receiving his answers for his love for his sister and the destiny forced upon him...until he realized if God was gone...why not become him?

First, deciding to destroy the Archayus family in retribution, Zayel shaped his son with his sister into a living weapon as detailed in Malachor himself's old writeup. When the time came, Zayel slaughtered his entire family with his son's aid. Zayel had Malachor, now a twisted shell of himself, kill his own mother. Zayel's only reaction was to comment he had to see if there was any love left within him, but: "It seems I am free." While later betrayed by his son, Zayel survived and in the present, takes his role as the Big Bad of the story, planning to ascend the throne of creation and remake it in his own image.

• Personality: Zayel, in his youth, is charming, polite and friendly, with an exceptional charisma and a hunger for knowledge. When he grows, he steadily becomes colder and more arrogant and aloof from others. While capable of putting up a show of kindness, Zayel's true persona is a ruthless, cruel man who has forcibly purged all kindness and nobility from his heart. Malachor, as a child, first knows him as a kind teacher, but at one point discovers the man that lies behind the mask when Zayel grows impatient and orders his son to "keep those sweet eyes on me or I shall pluck them from your skull and make you eat them." Zayel enjoys the suffering of others to shocking extents as well.

• Abilities: A brilliant tactician and strategist, an incredibly talented fighter and sorcerer, even by demon standards. When he ascends the throne of Creation, he becomes nigh omnipotent.

• Goals: To become God. He more or less succeeds.

• Role: At first, a villain in Malachor's past, he later takes center stage as the true villain and Big Bad, until he ends part 1 by achieving his goal. Part 2 is spent trying to dethrone him.

Tropes that cover Zayel:

• A God Am I: By the time he declares it, he is. It should be noted the real God is a far, far more benevolent figure.
• Abusive Parents: they do not come more abusive than Zayel. Zayel makes Malachor into a twisted shell of himself who can only feel pain and anguish and relief in the suffering of others. Despite knowing Malachor's greatest wish is to die, when Malachor ends up assisting the heroes against Zayel, Zayel traps him as a rotting corpse, and informs his son his pain will persist forever. The quote that best sums up their relationship: "You are my pride. My son. My weapon...but never forget, Malachor. You are also my toy."
• The Ageless: Like most demons and angels, Zayel never ages past a certain point.
• Arch-Enemy: To his son, and most of the good guys by the end, but especially to the main hero who develops a mutual loathing with Zayel and is eventually the one to bring him down.
• The Bad Guy Wins: End of part 1, Zayel takes the throne of creation and becomes basically a god. It takes a long time for him to adjust to the power, hence why taking him down before that is even possible.
• Berserk Button: Has a few. Touch what 'belongs' to him, but especially cause him any fear. A God cannot fear, after all.
• Blond Guys Are Evil: Platinum blond, but still.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Zayel's only feelings were for his sister, which he later abandoned long before he orchestrated her death.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Zayel is a master of it in all levels.
• Complete Monster: Zayel is hands down the most heinous character in story, with zero redeeming qualities later on. He relishes torture of his enemies in all forms, butchers his own family, and has a body count in the billions.
• Despair Event Horizon: "Show me the answers I seek! You created us! You were our father as well, as much as the angels! We loved you but you hated us I would know why!" His failed experiment to contact God led to him crossing it. It does not lead to sympathy, nor did it drive him insane.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Zayel has difficulty comprehending non-selfish reasons for actions, particularly from those who are 'above' others When the story's hero takes him down with an attempted heroic sacrifice, it largely succeeds because Zayel cannot comprehend someone on the level they are now sacrificing their loves for those who matter "less than dust."
• Fallen Hero: Zayel had great potential to be a great leader and hero. He purged himself of all redeeming factors.
• It Amused Me: Really the only reason for some of his pettier actions. He admits Malachor has become entirely useless to his grander plans after he achieves his goal, but as Zayel says "I find such pleasure in the agony your mere existence brings you."
• It's All About Me: Zayel only cares for his ego, power and gratification. When he kills his family, he kills his sister's other lover as well, after gloating that he tricked Malachor into killing their daughter. Reason? "You touched what belonged to me!"
• Kneel Before Zod: "All that lives may prostrate itself before me, or scatter like ash in my path."
• Mad Scientist: Closest you get there as demon, with his experiments on angels.
• Manipulative Bastard: Extremely good at making people dance to his tune. He drops it a bit when he's powerful enough that he barely needs to bother.
• Offing the Offspring: He kinda does, but this would be a mercy next to what he does next.
• Omnicidal Maniac: By the time people are resisting him and not showing him his proper reverence, Zayel opts to exterminate every living thing in existence, angel, demon, human and any other races and start over to determine if what he is missing in his own soul is truly 'necessary.'

edited 12th Jun '15 8:51:58 AM by Lightysnake

Seems like a passable Force of Nature, as Extra Credits defines it; less of a character and more of a personification of a motive or abstract element of reality (he's more Greed with a face than anything relatable). I'd recommend him being written as more of a Foil to whoever your hero is than his own person, and draw attention to the fact that deciding to be God after discovering the actual guy is missing or never existed aren't rational inferences, especially after he gets divine power and starts acting even more petty and vicious than before (you've already pointed out this isn't supposed to make him sympathetic, so you're facing the right direction).

Basically, I'd go with advice in this for him; nail down exactly what he represents, and then base him around that concept-and since he's not meant to be a character at all, show absolutely no amount of self-doubt and self-awareness of his utterly inflexible goals (I also like the fact you raise the question of what happens a Force of Nature, more of a living set of priorities than a person, actually achieves what it is they were so obsessed with).

Will post more on Mr. Teesdale pretty soon.

What rises must fall, what falls may rise again.

I definitely don't intend for him to be relatable to an extent he's sympathetic, but I don't think I really agree he can be summed up as a force of nature type. While greed is a major part of his character, Zayel is, at his core a person more than an elemental force of nature. He's just a profoundly awful and irredeemable one.

Okay, what makes sense. In that case, I'd advise you to still make him come off as...off. He doesn't really have rational reasons for what he does, just selfishness, and that's probably what's going to unnerve readers.

Continuing with James Teesdale:

• Backstory: Truth is, the man isn't defined by his past, like a lot of my villains. He's been largely as he is since childhood, having grown up in a society where slavery was accepted and normal, and racism also. Unlike most slaveowners, however, his family was always involved in the occult world; he's a cousin of several Louisiana political figures, and politics in any world inspired partially by the World Of Darkness attracts the supernatural around it; he knows, for instance, that a lot of the Secret Service who are personal bodyguards of the President are a pack of werewolves and their human and Wolf-Blooded friends who have the Spirit of the Constitution as a totem (or rather, he knows that was the case before the Civil War, and knows that's likely still the case). Thus, he always knew what to look for when looking for more occult phenomenon and grew up never really fearing it (hence why he never fell for the Masquerade, he doesn't want or need the illusion of a sane world). And he looked for it; that same political link is why he's also aware of the Seers of the Throne, if only by reputation as mighty mages who saw nothing wrong with using magic for power and wealth.

And he wanted that power; to him, a gift for magic would prove that he was better than everyone else, and make his already easy life one of true, endless luxury without all that messy business of work. Emphasis on endless; he had no desire to ever grow old (dying too, but he's especially terrified of senility-you have to suffer with old age).

Fortune, it seemed, smiled upon him while giving everyone else the finger; when he inherited the family's plantation and got into slave trading later (he had actually been made aware he had too many unfortunates working the estate, and deciding to break into the dour business of peddling forced labor was as good a way to get rid of them as any), one of the many unfortunates he owned had a bizarre gift for healing other slaves and efficiency, too much efficiency for an old man like himself. After following the strange old man around for a while in the guise of a normal overseer, Teesdale discovered why; his ability to contact the Loa, being a skilled bokor. Needless to say, Teesdale was ecstatic; this was his chance!

Pretending to sympathy with the ma ("Sirrah, have you ever considered that I never liked bein' part of this awful business of ours?"), Teesdale manipulated him into teaching him to summon the Loa and make spirit talismans, as well as the mechanics of his strain of hoodoo; specifically, the Fae core of it, being based partially around Wyrd-enforced promises with bits of reality to obey mystical demands and requests. From white friends who had been to Haiti, though, Teesdale realized the existence of zombis, people whose souls a skilled bokor could remove and turn into mute, obedient servants. After gaining the basics of hoodoo and learning all he could without allowing his body to be possessed by Loa (he finds the idea of a "savage" god inhabiting his flesh to be repugnant and likely stupid given his personality), he turned his mentor into his first zombi, and began his quest to become a mighty wizard who wanted for nothing he could not conjure, and eternal youth.

The latter proved a lot harder than the first, if only because Teesdale never wanted big things, just power, money, and security (he ironically never thought about becoming a member of the Seers as a Sleepwalker auxiliary; he thought he was barred because he didn't have the inherent magic of Awakening, when in fact the Seers let anyone who no longer suffers from the Quiescence into the bottom levels of the Iron Pyramid). Of course, it turns out his luck didn't actually end with finding his mentor; when it became quite clear the country was on the verge of disintegrating, Teesdale fled far North with his wife (a second cousin of the notorious Northwest clan), kids, and most importantly those zombis he could pass off as being actually hired help, so he could continue his research in peace.

He happened to build his mansion over an ancient Native American shrine (in fact, he deliberately chose that piece of land to spite a superstitious warning to not build on the mounds) meant to ward away a vicious race of hobgoblins and servants of the Gentry from reaching Earth; the Teihiihan, the cannibal dwarves who hunted for both food and sport. When he found the shrine while exploring the natural caverns beneath his new home, he broke the seal out of curiosity and the desire to harness its obvious power, releasing the binding which kept the Teihiihan away-and they were grateful. Grateful enough to not kill him but ask him who he was and if he was willing to help them capture new slaves for the Gentry in return for greater mystical power...and immorality.

And so did James Teesdale broker a deal with the mysterious Adept of Bleak Omens, known to the Abenaki Indians as the Ask-wee-da-eed, the comet-born bringer of ill luck and death, and to modern occultists as the Flatwoods Monster. And with that deal, he had become a lich, living off the time the Adept paid him with, stolen from the slaves he sold his new business partner (all the potential years they could have lived as mortals on Earth without knowing him).

Eventually though, karma eventually came calling. While Teesdale's aging was not halted long enough for people to notice, and he was sure to restrict his "products" to people no authority would miss, the thing is the Gentry, including the Adept, aren't perfect when watching their slaves. More than a few weaseled out from under the Adept's thumb and returned as Changelings. And when they found out who had betrayed his own species for power, they were not happy. James Teesdale burned to death, trapped in his own out-of-mansion laboratory and personal altar, and no one mourned him. Even his own wife (the same emotional manipulation of his slave-mentor translated to everyone else in his domicile).

Unfortunately, by this point, the Teihiihan had grown to quite like the man, and his Oath to the Adept included provisions for resurrection. While the mechanic by which he would have come back to life was destroyed along with his lab, they could certainly put a substitute in place for when and if they managed to break through the rebuilt shrine's power again.

And a descendant of one of Teesdale's sons proved to be the key to that.

(Will be continued later).

edited 14th Jun '15 7:17:09 PM by Leliel

What rises must fall, what falls may rise again.

I've been waiting on feedback since post 683...

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

Oh, okay. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like your opinion on the backstory I've done (I can tell you that Teesdale's character development is over, anything else is just him being scooted into place in the play-besides the fact I don't, and don't want anyone to sympathize with him, on a thematic level he's all about the darkest aspects of the past trying to reassert themselves-him evolving as a person goes against my characterization in every possible way).

The Revenant Prince is a lovely Villain Protagonist. Besides being a nice twist on the Undead King (he is, but he came back to right a real wrong; a vengeful ghost writ large), the fact he has a fairly realistic conscience makes him both interesting and sympathetic - he's capable of fairly monstrous acts, but only because he distances himself from them emotionally. As soon as a friend calls him out, the illusion breaks and he can't avoid how horrible it is anymore.

I'd like to know more about his opposing force, though; the "apes" name makes me think they're Starfish Aliens or demons.

What rises must fall, what falls may rise again.

Teesdale sounds like someone who needs to die in a fire-twice. I know that's impossible (although with his muckin' aboot with the occult, it's probably his Ultimate Fate).

Promise you won't laugh? 'Cause I'm ashamed enough to be part of this fandom, let alone to have let a fanfic for it get my goat bad enough to make me start Writing for Catharsis and cook up a Villain Sue (I pulled fire and light out of my ass because the criteria put me on the spot); but the opposition is ponies. It's a recursive fic to Chains.

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

@dvorak: I'm really interested in the idea of an Evil Overlord as a Villain Protagonist, but unless you're aiming for an Alex Mercer-style escapist character, I think that you'll need to disclose a bit more about his story role to get a proper critique. What's his origin story? Where does he fit in the ponies' worldview? Why exactly is he a Villain Protagonist instead of a very, very dark shade of Anti-Hero?

That said, I think that you did a nice job on the character design, and the concept of an Evil Overlord acting as humanity's guardian figure is just deliciously suited to Dark Fantasy, I guess. I also agree with Leliel about his conscience - it should let the reader sympathise with his cause more and shift the focus to his internal conflict. Have you posted a write-up of your story elsewhere in the forum? I'm interested in providing a more complete critique.

@Leliel: Love the backstory. Even though Teesdale's background is dripping with irredeemable evil, I think that the Time Skip provides a lot of room for new and interesting Character Development. Either way, he seems like an immensely entertaining character with equal potential for horror and comedy.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

• 1) In life, the Prince chose death to enslavement. Upon Luna's return from the Moon, she was apalled at what her sister did, and did a little research into necromancy. She confiscated all the prince's belongings from the Museum they were on display at, and magicked him into a revenant shade.
• 2) They see him as a Humanoid Abomination. Anything with a hate so strong and pure it can No-Sell the Elements of Harmony must be, right?
• 3) I am unclear on much of the difference. An Anti-Hero has a noble goal, but goes around it in a brutal fashion. A Villain Protagonist does more or less the same thing, unless he's got the Card.
• 4) I have yet to sit down and write very much to the story, I'm afraid...

edited 17th Jun '15 11:44:43 PM by dvorak

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

This is erroneous. An Anti-Hero works toward heroic goals in less-than-heroic ways. A Villain Protagonist is a full-on Bad Guy, but the story is told from their point of view.

ok boomer

Ah. Okay. In that case; Bad Powers, Good People; The Dark Side Will Make You Forget. Hate is like holding onto a lump of frozen acid with Super Serum properties. It will destroy you unless you let it go, but it makes you powerful in the meantime. You can still think of him as The Punisher by way of the Witch-King of Angmar if you like it better that way.

edited 20th Jun '15 7:47:56 AM by dvorak

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

The format of these character bios needs to be revised. A character's motivations and goals ought to be the first thing listed (after their name, of course), as that is the single most important part of any character, moreso than their personality, their abilities, or even their strengths and weaknesses. All that other stuff just serves to complement a character's goals, by defining how they pursue them, and how they react to setbacks and failures.

A character's goals also put all the other elements of their profile in context. So what if a character is short-tempered and loves their family, or is thrifty and has lightning powers? Without understanding their goals, I have no idea what kind of situations that character is likely to get into, and thus, no idea of the relative importance of their character traits with regards to the story as a whole.

Goals also help highlight if a character is "overpowered" in story terms. If you give a character the goal "kill all life on Earth", and then give them the power to conjure antimatter at will, then it should be obvious that they could end the story in 5 minutes if they tried. It would also highlight when characters are acting out-of-character, since every scene where Mr. Kill Everything doesn't just annihilate the planet immediately would be a lot more obvious.

Seriously. Move the goals to the top. It will make a world of difference.

edited 20th Jun '15 4:15:36 AM by Tungsten74

This thread has ticked along just fine for many, many pages at this point using the current format. Not that there actually is any hard and fast rule about where to position things, mind you; so long as everything is clearly labeled, neither I nor anybody else much cares. If you want to put goals first in your post, go right ahead.

That said for you to essentially charge into a long-running thread and tell everybody they are doing it wrong and need to adjust because you say so...that's not great form.

The concept of The Punisher merging with the Witch-King of Angmar is kinda terrifying. So, his hard-on for revenge consumes him and turns him into a Villain Protagonist at best. I like that - it fits with the general idea that hatred is one hell of a drug.

---

• Name: Nasheu Thalcran (an Eclipse concept).
• Role: He is a Exarch, a warlord in charge of his own battalions of Reichyrs. He was the first of Scyrrhic's spawns to achieve both full sentience and a humanoid appearance, and he serves as The Champion to many within his command.
• Personality: As one of the first fully sentient spawns of his mistress Scyrrhic, Nasheu Thalcran possesses intelligence at such a high extent that he developed his own personality entirely separate from that of his progenitor. He remains somewhat animalistic, namely in his hunched posture and slumped shoulders, coupled with his low grunts and twitching tusks. Nonetheless, Thalcran garners fame from his moniker as The Champion, due to his adherence to honor, his penchant for glory and attention, his inspiring presence, and his general poise. He is methodical, deceptively analytical, and adept at fighting in any environment, while lacking any pain and remaining fiercely territorial as well as intolerant of anything he thinks is ungraceful. Thalcran is largely indifferent to other species and acts as a forceful mediator towards other leading members of his species.
• Appearance: Nasheu Thalcran is a tall bipedal creature with a skeletal set of armor upon his humanoid physique. He possesses bone-like protrusions that curve around his forearms, as well as enlarged ribs on his sides connecting the front and back ends of his metallic-skeletal chest plate. He has a Cool Helmet with four horns curved down, a pair of tusks on either side of his mouth, and a prong vertically placed between his slanted pupil-less eyes. This is the inspiration for his appearance◊.
• Backstory: Another spawn of Scyrrhic, Nasheu Thalcran was the first of her Thralls to evolve into a Reichyr, an armored humanoid warrior (albeit with a very skeletal appearance), rather than the more common "Savage"-class Monstrous Humanoid or Animalistic Abomination (who are called Pseudo-Reichyrs). Thalcran's combat prowess led to Scyrrhic designating him as her first Exarch, a combat master who rules over swarms of other Reichyrs at her behest. Exarch Thalcran took control of a region with his Reichyrs and pseudo-Reichyrs for the purpose to set up a base of operations for Scyrrhic's spawn.
• Motivation: Despite being a spawn of Scyrrhic, Nasheu Thalcran is mostly concerned with shepherding the less humanoid Reichyrs under his command. He cares little for following the commands of his mistress, he is more interested in advancing Reichyr civilization, and he is a senior-most mediator for the other Exarchs.
• Abilities: Thalcran can use his tusks to bite someone, even devour chunks of their flesh. His "forearm bayonets" are used for defense and offense, as they retract and contract forward and backward repeatedly; they can extend in a similar way as Gin Ichimaru's Shinso, with the ability to produce forests of bone spears from wherever and whatever he pierces. His bone armor is incredibly durable, allowing him to tank large amounts of damage without flinching. Even a single punch is enough to topple a building.

edited 25th Jun '15 9:30:05 AM by Serocco

In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.

Hum, it reminds me of Lurtz from The Fellowship of the Ring, but that's not surprising. That Shinso part must be his weakness if it gets stuck in some object it pierces. He seems like an standard Mook Lieutenant. Pretty good, pretty good.

Let me try this. The setting is The Multiverse, and it involves a Guardian of the Multiverse that is also a faustian demon that makes deals with heroes of bad futures to change their fates, and use them through their deals to fight a Multiversal Conqueror, as the demon is also The Watcher and can't interfere directly. He didn't begin as villain, so this sheet here is for the final part where he becomes the Big Bad after basically kidnapping one of the heroes for a purpose that wasn't in the contract.At all. The Powers That Be recruit a group of other Watchers to recruit people to fight him, including the heroes he abandoned.

• Name: Caim.
• Idade: Older Than the Universe thanks to interuniversal travel.
• Appearance: A humanoid hunchback stone monster, without visible head features outside of eyes, that are shining red stones. It wears an destroyed cape who he wraps around the neck. He uses a cane to walk, that is actually a sword transformed through magic.
• Role: Non-Action Big Bad by choice, but will fight if the heroes touch him. He wants to bring about the Apocalypse by giving birth to the child of two beings of pure heart that can serve as vessel to an Eldritch Abomination to use a special weapon to kill an avatar of a natural entity that keeps the division between realms stable. With the death of this avatar, his master will be free to unleash hell on Earth(s) and wage war on the gods. As he don't thinks he can hold back the heroes with his limited power, he uses his minions summoned from the dead instead to buy time. He have an special minion he call his "sister" and seems to be an Humanoid Abomination, that takes care of things he can't do as a stone monster to his small group, or tortures he can't execute on his "special victim".
• Personality: He really likes to upset people. He makes jokes that range from inoffensive to dark,very dark(something, something, intenstines and urine). He is kind of perverted towards girls in general. He is sadistic and likes to see both the suffering of the people he tortures and brainwash as of the people that care about them. Enforcing Fighting Your Friend(or your wife, or son, or daughter, or father) is like breathing to him. In his own room, however, he is different. Isolated from everyone, he draws and writes random things using a small pencil. When he tries to sleep, however, he suffers with a constant nightmare and wakes up angry, throws all objects around, and screams how Fate ruined his life. Then he begins to laugh like a mad individual and he says how soon everyone will suffer like him.
• Backstory: Was once a kind warrior that tried to obtain immortality and power to fight for the woman he loved. As it turned out, not only that wasn't enough as the oath he did to obtain his power made him turn into a horrible monster when she was killed, and he wandered without direction for the world until Satan himself offered him a contract of servitude in exchange of a possible cure.

He became a devil that makes deals through time and space and multiple universes, but the Gods sensed good on him, and asked him to use his Reality Warper powers to change the bad outcomes of the Multiverse and to fight interuniversal conquerors.He saw no problem in this and made deals with heroes on the verge of despair and/or defeat to obtain victory, without the common twists of fate involved a Dealwith The Devil, even promising a peaceful life after victory. In exchange of 100 years of servitude along with their souls. He put their consciouness in artificial, ageless, but mortal copies of their bodies and uses them to fight interuniversal conquerors. However, when making one more of his deals, he met an heroine that he thought to be of pure heart that he took interest in. He waited for the right moment to kidnap her and left the heroes that served him in the moment in a universe foreign to them, without any means to follow him immediately. He tortured her to the limit to make her sumbmit to his will. With the intent of making her the mother of the Vessel of Destruction, he used a mix of Rapeby Proxy using mind control on her and Rape by Fraud to make an hero from a certain universe that he thought to be of pure heart to have sex with her thinking she is his girlfriend. Knowing that the servants he abandoned will reach him before the kid is born using another servant of the Gods and try to make him pay for his betrayal, he summoned twelve warriors, six women and six men, and raised from the dead heroes of the same group that died in combat while in servitude that, thanks to a special clausule in the contract involving death in artificial bodies, will serve him as mindless drones, that he calls Einherjar.

• Motivation: He likes suffering and is fascinated by prophecies.A prophecy involving making a pure person suffer and another pure person "betray" her loved one, creating a new life in the way through suffering and trickery, is something he describes as "the ultimate form of climax". Freeing his boss of the prison through this Antichrist is only a bonus.
• Abilities:His magic depends of the alignment of his actions. If benevolent, his magic is near limitless thanks to the predominance of heroes's souls within him.If neutral, he have to take several minutes to prepare a incantment. If evil, he must either pray to evil gods and make complicated rituals or feed on a powerful power supply of neutral or evil nature to make it happen. Because of that, he prefers to use necromancy to summon powerful warriors to serve as his minions as strategy.His deals, however, are without limit, but people hold back themselves out of fear of unanticipated consequences.He can use his sword and make chains come out of his left hand, but that blocks his magic completely, since he uses his internal magic energy to move faster. He is a Lightning Bruiser in that mode. If he gets really serious, he will pull out a large sword out of his chest who he will use with his left hand, that will slowly absorb the soul of his opponent just by being at a certain distance of him, and even more of it if he touches him with it. His right side is weaker than the left, specially the neck and the eye, but it would take an heavy blow to open it anyway. He have a foresight sense of when he was still human, but he can't control it. If he is able to touch someone's head with his right hand, he can show them visions of his repeated nightmare. It's world that seems to colored in red with dogs feeding on corpses and ruined buildings, with him being pierced by swords from all sides and with someone on the distance being suspended on the air and strangled by metal wires.He also uses telepathy to talk. He also knows a lot about heroes and villains thanks to watching them or A Us versions of them by an extremely long period of time in his travels.

edited 27th Jun '15 3:50:31 PM by MeetTheNewBoss

You claim that God is opressing us, but I see you opressing others without needing a God.

The idea of a Multiverse Guardian being able to make devil deals is a pretty fascinating idea. I can easily see him either abusing the power or pulling Loophole Abuse after Loophole Abuse. The fact that he was once a man is intriguing too, because you don't often see humans turn into gods.

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• Name: Muhou Akoth (another Eclipse concept).
• Role: Known as the Skull Crusher, Akoth is a senior first-generation Reichyr tasked with "inspecting the unworthy" and "rewarding the earners." As the Skull Crusher, Akoth launches raids against fellow Reichyrs and their encampments, thereby vandalizing their property, ransacking their equipment, destroying their weapons, unleashing their caged beasts, and capturing Reichyrs after fights; for the purpose of demoralizing and exhausting his lessers as he searches for "the worthy." While on patrol, he inspects Reichyrs, and if he senses fear, he forces the Reichyr to face their fear. If successful, the Reichyr is upgraded, but if they fail, then they die or flee.
  • Akoth repeatedly captures Reichyrs if they resist his inspections, if he launches a raid against them, or if they fail his inspections. If a Reichyr retreats, they are evicted from the empire; they are now fugitives on the run at best, or prisoners of war at worst. If they surrender, they demoted and their perks are reduced, which lowers their power level, although they can regain their power level. If a Reichyr is captured, they lose their weapons and armor, and they are seen escorted by Akoth's warbands to a new location. Captured Reichyrs are alternatively incarcerated (if seen as too dangerous), exiled (stripped of their rank and sent to the wild), devoured (used as bait/meat for beasts), executed, or reforged (experimented upon so they become part of Akoth's Warband).
• Personality: A boorish and hulking thug, Akoth is an incorrigible warlord, unable to tolerate whoever or whatever doesn't fit his standards, and incapable of understanding that people are not fated to be where they started off. While articulate and analytical, Akoth is an uncompromising bully, with a strong sense of entitlement given that he was born with his power rather than forced to earn it. While never outright states, Akoth doesn't understand that people are not born powerful and can earn their power.
• Appearance: As a Reichyr, Akoth is a bipedal, humanoid, skeletal creature whose bones resemble armor. Akoth wears a horizontal, wide crested battle helm, with prongs protruding from the sides of the crest. The front of the helmet is largely blank, with two holes for eyes, and a Rage Helm for a mouth. This is the inspiration◊. His bone armor is jagged and serrated at the edges of his sternum or shoulders. His arms were the most noticeable feature - they were enlarged and rectangular shields, which he could use to stab the ground and push him through an area quicker.
• Backstory: Muhou Akoth was one of the first Reichyrs birthed from Scyrrhic, alongside Nasheu Thalcran. Akoth was notable in combining a (skeletal) humanoid appearance with the savagery of a beast (like the pseudo-Reichyrs ala Thrak), so Akoth was designated as the Skull Crusher; he is tasked with vetting Scyrrhic's spawn and culling those he finds to be unworthy. Those who wish to become Exarchs cannot do so unless they hold their own in an encounter with the Skull Crusher (and were thus promoted into Exarchs as a result).
• Abilities: Akoth uses his shield-arms to deflect attacks, bash his enemies, and produce walls that trap people inside mazes/jails.
• Motivation: Muhou Akoth is a perfectionist, believing that the greatest earn their keep, and those who do not earn their keep are unintelligent, primitive beasts who cannot evolve past that. As a result, Akoth holds Fantastic Racism towards pseudo-Reichyrs, let alone any other species that does not conform to his view of what constitutes as "earners."

edited 18th Jul '15 3:35:04 AM by Serocco

In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.

Is he the big bad? Or the Dragon? It sounds like he's going to help the reader feel some empathy for the low level goons, depending on just who the Reichyrs are.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

He's The Dragon to one of the Big Bad Ensemble. A Reichyr is a skeletal creature spawned from their progenitor, Scyrrhic, who is a Humanoid Abomination in addition to being The Virus.

edited 8th Jul '15 1:33:17 AM by Serocco

In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.

@Serocco: I like how Akoth's views regarding worthiness. I feel that, despite his thuggish side, it gives him a layer of complexity that explains why he acts the way he does.

It makes me wonder what would happen if he found a Reichyr who was better than him.

Edited: On second though, I think my villain needs more work. :P

edited 17th Jul '15 8:09:32 PM by Lorsty

• Name: Lyle Skelter

• Age: 24

• Personality: Lyle first appears to be a kindly doctor or a nice delivery-man from an online drug store. These are both his cover stories, when in reality, he is an extremely gleeful participant in illicit procedures and basically anything that can line his pockets...mostly because he really really needs the money for his own plans. He can easily be described as a User – someone who finds use in others, keeps them around as long as that use lasts, and then discards them. He seems to claim, however, that its not personal – as far as he is concerned, everyone has a use, himself included, and that when that use is expended, its natural and only right for that person to be discarded. To this end, he seems to have utterly no regard for his own life and security, making him one of the most dangerous of the Magic Using criminals. He maintains a strangely nice appearance even as he's doing his Mad Doctor thing, and indeed, his smiling appearance and doctoring occupation give him the title in the Underworld of “Dr. Death”. He seems to enjoy creating experimental situations and then immersing himself in them, even if these scenarios pose a threat to his person. For him, For Science! and For the Evulz are so closely locked together that they're almost indistinguishable. He seems to have an almost neurotic obsession with dissecting things and understanding how they work.

• Abilities: He is a “Magic Realm Doctor”, and uses his knowledge of how the human body functions to disrupt people's ability to fight with his collection of needles, which have similar effect to being hit by a Chi Blocker from the Avatar series. He also fights using a long single edged blade, and can use this together with his knowledge of the human body to cause his opponents bodies to act up during battle. He also shows himself to be capable in using Automatic Attack Runes, which function like Attack Drones. His Spell Core is called Operating Table, which allows him to use Mana to re-open old wounds, “heal” people – usually by causing their cells to multiply so much as to cause cancer – and otherwise cause icky alterations to the body.

• Weaknesses: Lyle has this thing – he absolutely cannot stand it if people attribute something he did to someone else. It can result in some messy mistakes. He also has a peculiar moral code that results in some utterly nonsensical stuff going on, enough to confuse even the man himself.

• Role in the Story: He is one of the villains whose role usually amounts to Enigmatic Minion. Other times, he's out for some revenge, but mostly, he keeps to himself, and ends up being a Man Behind The Monsters.

• Motivation: At ten, he saw his mother being treated by a back-alley doctor, and used as an experiment for numerous types of medical treatments, which caused her tremendous pain. This requires some backstory – he had never had a very good relationship with his mother. At all. Ever. She considered him “The Darkness Upstairs”, and tried to minimalize his involvement in his younger siblings' lives.

• Goal: His goal is apparently to find a person he calls the “Living Paroxysm”, as well as looking to complete a mission assigned to him by some guy called Muru Rebivel. Otherwise, he seems oddly like a mercenary.

• Backstory: Lyle was an unwanted child, born of his mother's affair with a lawyer who was negotiating her divorce. He had always expressed an interest in how things work biologically, and the spark was fully lit when he witnessed his mother's brutal treatment by the local doctor. So he went on, deciding to become a doctor himself. From there, Lyle's history became one that has a lot of stories, and nobody's really clear on who in all he's worked for. Though I will make it clear he did some work in 2009 for North Korea. I won't say what.

• Tropes:

• Admiring the Abomination: When one of his experiments raged out of control, he looked upon the borderline Eldritch Abomination and said, “This is the most beautiful thing I have seen in my entire life.” Followed immediately by Paxrion grabbing the doctor and pulling him out of the way of a tentacle.
• Affably Evil: Never breaks his bed-side demeanor. Not even when he dosed his own mother with Anthrax and then cured her of the resulting effects right before it became “terminal”, saying he intends to do the same thing several times over until she develops resistance to Anthrax, and then move on to other toxins.
• Arson, Murder, and Admiration: Generally as a sign a character did something they really shouldn't be proud of doing. If Lyle voices approval, you know you done fucked up.
• Badass Longcoat: He keeps all kinds of syringes, pills and other implements which certainly have a poor record of improving anyone's health inside the coat, fastened on in such a way as to protect him and at the same time let him quietly take a few out to use on foes.
• Badass Normal: In a certain sense, once “magical” becomes the new normal. He's not different from any other magic user, he has a spell core, amplifies himself with Mana, and uses hidden weaponry. It is astonishing he regularly gives Matthew this much trouble.
• Boomerang Bigot: Is a magic user. Temporarily aligned with Sharon's New World Order, which had Magic User Control as one of its core tenets. This, however, did not last long – he asked the wrong questions, peaked into things, and to cement it, he used barbaric and dated treatments on young Donny Roman.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Marcus vividly remembers the horrible things Lyle did to him that turned him into a beastman, but Lyle doesn't remember any of it. He sees it as just one experiment he did that day, and he had no reason to remember Marcus especially.
• Chick Magnet: Crossed with Honey Pot – a lot of women and some men fall prey to Lyle's good looks, and miss the signs he's basically a Serial Killer. Often fatally.
• The Corrupter: He has a way with people. For example, he took a group of thirteen year olds on as his pupils five years ago, and by the present, they're an infamous group of serial killers who hunt in the woods, trapping and murdering women, and then giving the more valuable organs to Lyle.
• Creepy Awesome: Thoroughly terrifying, menacing and horrifying villain...but watching him go to work on Jakob Rosso and others make it clear he's no one to be trifled with. And the fact he's still around after numerous books and countless events makes it clear despite his mortality (with some small extensions), he's one of the most dangerous and badass fighters.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He gives one to a sniper he caught trying to kill Daniel during Book IV – he slashed the guy's stomach open, kicked him off the ledge he was posted on, and in such a way that he fell down and impaled himself, back first, on a statue's spear. Lyle then walks away, leaving Paxrion and Evanov to clean that mess up.
• Deadly Doctor: Uses his knowledge to kill people, torture them, just as much as he functions as most villain team ups' official doctor.
  • During Book IV, however, he functions as the 317th' doctor, and doesn't pull any of his shenanigans as per a deal Woe crafted with Matthew in exchange for springing them from the Depth Prison. Probably because self preservation was kicking in, and he realized Caine was not gonna give him what he wanted, and would ultimately screw him over if he went over to the Umbral Horde.
• Depraved Bisexual: And depraved may well just be putting it lightly. There is an implication he does some of it just to gross out his victims and make them uncomfortable in their own skin, inducing feelings of violation as a psychological tactic.
• Enemy Mine: With Matthew in Book IV. He even comments on the sheer oddity of this.
• Establishing Character Moment: Even when he was just a nameless “doctor”! He offered to do surgery on the Team Pet. When it was brought up that such surgeries are expensive, mostly due to anesthetics, he smiles, laughs, and says “I never operate with anesthetics!”
• Even Evil Has Standards: Warped, bizarre blue and orange standards, but Kyrio makes even Lyle squirm. Lyle keeps his victims in their mid to late teens and up out of “doctoral principle”. Kyrio “turned a ten year old boy into a monstrous assassin. Even I have more morals than that creature.”
• Evil vs. Evil: His story in Book III and Book IV can best be summed up as “Lyle goes up against even worse people, and gruesomely kills them.”
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch: The inevitable result. Was Lyle murdering Duncan Reed by tricking him into swallowing a lot of mercury gruesome and horrible? Yes. But Duncan oh so deserved that. “Do you know the effects of mercury, you disgusting cretin? Well, you should, considering you drank quite a lot of it. Think about that and the women you forced yourself on while you die.”
  • Jakob Rosso likewise – as Matthew's supervisor and superior in the Association, he was basically untouchable for three books, despite the fact he's a malignant, sociopathic bully who's first action was laughing at a picture of one of Nebiros' victims and saying it wouldn't have happened if he “wasn't born a Normie.” Lyle offs him by cutting his legs so that he falls down when he tries to jump, falling into the moving sections of Green Wall, pulping Jakob and causing such a stir in Green Wall's personnel that it stops the advance.
• Expy: Dr. Kazutaka Muraki inspired Lyle a fair bit. Replete with thoroughly undeserved “angel” descriptions.
• Eye Scream: Lyle knows how the body works...and he knows how to pull it apart. During a martial arts match, he infamously removed someone's eye with two fingers, the other three were broken at the time.
  • This seems to be one of his things – he blinds Shakudou during their fight in Book II, and gored Matthew's eye when he stepped in...though he was surprised when the injury started healing. Even more surprised when Matthew showed absolutely no reaction to his eye being ripped into. “I-Impossible, either his pain receptors are all fried...or he's absolutely insane.”
• Five Bad Band: Lyle's group, the “Brave Compatriots”.
  • Big Bad: Lyle himself, though Antoin Reyva has the leadership position sometimes.
  • The Dragon: Antoin Reyva: A rare human-Thaexterian hybrid. Usually cast as “Lyle's best friend”, and one is rarely seen without the other.
  • The Brute: Paxrion: Hyperactive, bloodthirsty and reacts to violence like a kid being given a new console. “Blood! Killing! Thank you thank you thank you! Ahahaha...so fun!”
  • Evil Genius: Lyle some of the time. Other times its Darksword 0.
  • The Dark Chick: Gwyneth, his on and off girlfriend, whose emotions are about as stable as Chlorine Trifluoride.
• For Science!: Though a hefty dose of sadism is added in.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Wears glasses prone to becoming shiny when he needs to become scary...and is a total sociopath.
• Ho Yay: Lyle and Paxrion are extremely, extremely suspect with one another, to the extent that Sorata looks away when they show up in Book IV. Antoin and Lyle have similar interactions, with Reyva being very touchey-feely.
  • He's also very improper with Matthew after his initial fight with him, including asking if he could feel Matthew's muscles to “test twitch rate.” Cut to Matthew backing up very slowly. He also veritably sexually harassed Matthew further into the fight.
• The Igor: His is named Evanov, a lobotomized minion who has a machine in his head. He helps Lyle with laboratory tasks and some aspects of field experimentation.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: He can cut the nerves beneath your skin without even giving any indication of a wound. He also shows the ability to shut off people's brains with a similar attack.
• Kubrick Stare: What his victims and patients see when looking right at him.
• Lack of Empathy: Lyle even says he thinks empathy is a weakness under most circumstances. He does seem confused about how Matthew seems to derive power from his care for others.
• La Résistance: Takes part in this during Tri-Age, together with Paxrion, Antoin and Gwyneth as the rest of the leadership, and amazing enough they come off very well. Lyle even lampshades the difference in his “role” when saving two 317th Scouts, “My, I'm being the hero. This day started out strange. I'm interested in seeing how much stranger it can go.”
• Mad Doctor: Not concerned with morals, and has an advanced doctorate in medical science.
• Manipulative Bastard: Very good at tugging heart strings and playing roles during his visits. He seems to mirror whoever he's talking to, at the very least. Particularly, his murder of Duncan Reed was entirely by convincing him that he was a friend, and playing to Duncan's desire for followers and a team that would do whatever he wanted.
  • He also plays on Matthew's need for allies during Book IV, allowing him and his allies to join the 317th as “the auxiliary forces”, thus getting them out of Elijah's ability to so easily capture.
• Meaningful Name: I named Lyle for the song that inspired Charles Manson – Helter Skelter. This indicates his amorality, and willingness to manipulate others into doing the slaughter for him, though he's none too afraid to do the job himself.
• Meatgrinder Surgery: He treats Donny Roman's injuries...in a decidedly interesting way. There's a reason he won't be invited to any further Order-Aligned “parties”.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Lyle is an unusual case – he's technically a medical doctor, but uses his skills in the human body to take people apart just as easily as he can put them back together. He dissembles and reassembles people for use as torture.
• Moral Sociopathy: He has his own code he goes by, and it seems to emphasize purpose and willpower, and the necessity of sacrifice and medical progress. He was very willing to stop one of his own monsters when it turned out that if it got out, it would result in Apocalypse Wow – it would drain human minds of inspiration. No more science. Lyle even curses himself for causing this.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Initially it looked like this was the case, with Lyle seemingly unknowingly helping Matthew get better from a Curb-Stomp Battle. It turned out to be Foreshadowing that he was gonna betray the Roman Family.
• Odd Friendship: With a number of other New Dawn villains who mostly appear in the Manuals, such as Paxrion, Antoin Reyva, Darksword 0, and others, including the Kade Family.
• Oh, Crap!: He has utterly no experience with Matthew at first, resulting in a number of moments, including when he tries to break Matthew's arm, but finds its too tough, and then when Matthew shifts fighting style mid-fight. When Matthew shrugs off a dose of Eye Scream, Lyle is visibly sweating and barely keeping it together.
  • Lyle also takes part in a Mass "Oh, Crap!" when Aaron Shayde brutally murdered Ferdinand Roman to show who the Big Bad really was. “...Paxrion, we're abandoning ship. Cmon boy, get yourself together, I am NOT letting you die here!”
• Paranoia Fuel: The fact Lyle was able to substitute in and operate on his mother long enough to get her with a deadly poison, while she was mostly unconscious and unable to see could make one wary of any time a doctor says you'll need to be put under for surgery.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: At first, when its mentioned he did work in a “De-Homosexualization Clinic”, most characters think Lyle is this. He's tough to pin down, actually. He did it more or less just to see if he can do it, not because he himself views homosexuality as wrong or sinful, unlike his employers. As Lyle himself puts it, “The fact is, I'm not the type that sees himself as able to say “this is wrong” or “that is a sin”. All I want is to prove I can rewrite people's preferences. Imagine how that would change the world.”
  • Made even odder by the fact he can be...improper...with young men.
• Sadist: Lyle doesn't even bother hiding it – he likes watching people squirm in pain. One character puts it this way, “Lyle, you're no doctor. You're a serial killer. You like watching people you operate on, otherwise, why'd you put up all those mirrors?” Skelter doesn't deny any of it.
• Serial Killer: Technically – he basically murders people by either using twisted science on them, using his talents with surgery to take people apart, or by Meatgrinder Surgery.
• Strapped To The Operating Table: Lyle even outright confirms he's going to cut up his panicking subject and states he intends to “succeed where Mengele failed” and this is just his introduction in one short story.
• Super-Speed: Lyle uses his Mana mostly to increase his speed.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers a stinging one to Jakob Rosso; ”Allow me to make this clear. You lost the minute I cut you on the legs. Everything else was leading up to this. You profess yourself to be an elite Esper, but in the heat of the field you betray the savage enjoyment you get out of ravaging helpless opponents. You are unable to handle foes able to fight back. Matthew is not your inferior. Nor was he ever. You claim to be perfect, your magical style unable to be beaten. Perfection is unable to be found – it is an approachable ideal, but it will never be sustained or attained, which you lost sight of. Enjoy your death.” He then stabs Rosso in the hand, leading him to fall into Green Wall's moving portions.
• Villain Team-Up: The longest was with The Black King, but even Lyle was grossed out at one point enough to manage an escape from Black King. From then on, Lyle worked exclusively for the likes of Odin, Serena, and Hector Gibbs.
  • Notably averted in the case of Elijah Gibbs – who Lyle considered boring and uninspired. Enough he joined with the 317th to take him down.

Sign on for this After The End Fantasy RP.

I've got to say that your villains are always well thought out and "Dr." Skelter is no exception. In some ways he reminds me of the Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood/Manga version of Zolf J Kimblee—weird and skewed morals yet a complete sociopath that has no problems with inflicting pain and suffering.

Skelter sounds like the kind of person who would heal your desperately sick child with magic if you paid him enough—he wouldn't like it, but the money would be good—but would also mutate your elderly parents into an inhuman monsters just for the heck of it. He's creepy and unsettling yet in a strange way I can't help but be interested in the way he has such lose morals and yet an extremely potent talent.

The thing with his mother is just...ugh. You implied she was at least slightly abusive, yet few deserve the treatment he gave her.

edited 21st Jul '15 8:23:20 PM by Swordofknowledge

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace

RE: Lyle Skelter

His power set is appropriate to his personality, and the personality itself has the potential to be interesting. I think Sword of Knowledge's Kimblee comparison is apt, and any villain who reminds me of Kimblee has to have something going for them.

RE: Akoth

Sounds like an entitled thug with a superiority complex, and a vaguely Randian outlook what with the whole "earners" thing. Just how many characters does Eclipse have going right now? I'm starting to become somewhat concerned by the size of your cast, and a few of the villains you've posted here could probably carry a story on their own.

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This character is from a story I'm working on right now, instead of just considering working on (a first for me in this thread). Setting is a fantasy world that got torn asunder when a sci-fi starship crashlanded, offloading robots, cyborgs, and other advanced technology into what had been a medieval society.

Name: Androgon the Twice-Damned

Age: Several millennia

Appearance: Androgon was a tall, strongly built man with a regal bearing, a dark, well-trimmed beard, and features that were handsome by the standards of his day. He wore bronze armour, and favoured a floor-length purple cape as ornamentation. When he's recently fed, he still looks like that man, or at least his fresh corpse. On a bad day, he's a rotting hulk in tarnished armour and a ragged, threadbare cape, his bones protruding through what flesh remains on his skeleton. As the story progresses, he gains a number of cybernetic augmentations and a suit of Powered Armour.

Personality: Androgon is imperious, sadistic, and extremely sure of himself. He's the most powerful mystic left in the Lost World, and he knows it, unashamedly throwing his weight around. He's also, however, cynical, world-weary, tired, and in a great deal of pain, and at times the facade of ultimate power crumbles and Androgon is revealed as the bitter, broken man that he is. For all his raw strength, Androgon isn't happy with how his life has turned out, and on some level, he desperately wants out.

Abilities: Androgon is a several thousand year old lich-king, and the strongest mystic remaining after the near end of the world a century ago. He can kill with a word, transform people into undead soldiers slaved to his will, and throw around enough magic to seriously reshape the landscape. He's got an undead dragon (later an undead cyborg dragon) bound to his service, and as the story progresses a number of cybernetically enhanced vampires and zombies, as well as his own mechanical additions. His alliance with 777 (more on that below) grants him access to the largest, and most capable army in the Glass Wastes, which combined with his own abilities, makes him one of the most dangerous warlords in the Lost World. He's also nigh-unkillable as only the total destruction of his body can prevent him from simply resurrecting again.

Weaknesses: Androgon has only just woken up and does not, for the most part, understand this new world he's found himself in. All the kingdoms and societies he knows have crumbled, and he has no clue of how to manipulate any of the starship technologies without assistance. Without 777's advice and counsel, Androgon would flounder, and he's only too aware of it. On the physical and mystical level, Androgon has to feed on life to prevent his body from crumbling to dust. The longer he goes without feeding, the weaker he becomes, and the more he rots away.

Goals: To achieve true immortality by unlocking the secrets of the starship and bending them to his will.

Motivations: Escaping internal damnation will motivate you like nothing else. Androgon believes that if he dies he is headed straight for Hell, and he's determined to avoid that fate by any means necessary.

Role in story: Androgon is the Big Bad of Book 1, and the first character to truly upset the miserable status quo of the badlands where the story takes place. Awakening after several hundred years in stasis, Androgon forms an alliance with former Hunter-Killer Unit 777 aka the Robot-Emperor to eliminate the other warlords, and take control of the badlands and the Glass Wastes. Becoming obsessed with the starship, Androgon believes that this otherworldly presence may well hold the key to his reaching immortality, and he and 777 begin a hunt for King Rajan, who is supposed to have the key for the ship on his person. Defeated at the end of Book 1, Androgon's actions have lasting repercussions. Its from him that 777 picks up the idea of fusing magic and technology (leading him into another alliance with technopath Zara), while the failed attempt to take control of the starship awakens its occupant, alien criminal Saloth who serves as Big Bad of Book 2.

Backstory: Androgon was the priest-king of a Stone Age city that worshipped the Goddess of Love and Life. When he began burning heretics at the stake (among other things), the Goddess damned him to never enter paradise. Terrified of going to the Ninety Hells, Androgon became a lich to evade this fate, and in doing so, earned the Goddess' ire again. She damned him to rot forever so long as he remained alive, leaving him in a permanent state of agony and with one foot perpetually in the grave. Since then he's been trying to find a way to become truly immortal. He's made several bids for temporal power over the centuries, and has been sealed in stasis in each of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Steel Age (medieval era), by several different groups of heroes. He's also got a long history of alliances with other undead in the so-called Grim Cabal, which sees a revival of sorts when he and 777 ally.

Relevant tropes: The Archmage (with anyone who could match him dead he's this by default), Big Bad (of Book 1), Catchphrase (part of his damnation forces him to introduce himself with "I am Androgon the Twice-Damned. The Goddess of Love and Life cursed me twice."), Cyborg (after losing some parts in the present day), Death Seeker (on some level, Androgon would like to die, but only so long as he goes to Paradise and not one of the hells), Dragon Rider, Eviler than Thou (his and 777's campaign against the other warlords), Keystone Army (none of his dead can survive without him), Our Liches Are Different, Vampiric Draining (how he feeds), Villain Team-Up (with the Grim Cabal in the backstory, and 777 in the present day).

@ Ambar Son Of Deshar: Before I give critique for your guy, I just have to say that your world is a very interesting take on a common theme I have of melding magic and technology/fantasy and science fiction. What I find intriuging is that you've kept the "fantasy" part of the equation relatively medival rather than merely integrate it into a modern world. The characters that have come from this so far are unique and Androgan the Twice-Damned is no exception.

In many ways Androgan reminds me of a combination of Lord Soth of Dragonlance infamy and Corypheus of Dragon Age. I can't help but feel slightly sorry for him, since I'm imagining that he didn't exactly burn people alive for the heck of it; he thought he was doing his religion a favor. The fact that his goddess cursed him again for trying to subvert her punishment makes her seem rather unloving, now that I think about it. He's obviously had a string of bad luck over the years, seeing as he's been sealed away again and again by various heroes, so it just seems like this poor guy can't catch a break.

Sympathetic as he is, Androgan is still a fearsome villain for the setting. The idea of a cyborg Lich seems kind of funny but the way you describe him is sobering. With his fearsome magical powers and army of machine-based abominations, along with his alliances, he seems all set to be a terrifying Big Bad. Though I can't help but wonder if reinforcing his minions—not to mention himself—with machines will be back to bite him in the ass later. Wouldn't that make him vulnerable to the Techbanes?

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace

• Name: Grant Erdhart

• Age: 26

• Appearance: Grant at first resembles a normal human with a buzzcut, grey eyes, and a muscular build. He looks basically like a hoodie-clad thug. Its only when the battle begins that his real appearance becomes visible – under the hoodie, he's mostly machine. He is occasionally shown with light wing like designs on his back, and his legs include Mana Boosters that let him fly. His right arm has a stinger blade that slides out of his arm. Like Cyber-Matthew, he's capable of creating weapons via nanites and any mechanical pieces laying around.

• Personality: Grant is Cyber-Matthew's foremost lieutenant, and someone who apparently not only agrees with and assents to the Cyborg's nihilism, but actively wants to help him die. Apparently the two of them have a sort of Villainous Friendship going on of the most fucked up kind imaginable – Grant killed both of Justin's parents, and ever since then the two of them have been borderline inseparable. Grant buys into the Eat the Rich philosophy, though its left ambiguous if he really does or if he's saying so to follow Cyber-Matthew further along. There are elements of a dependent relationship between the two – Justin relies on Grant to do “management” of his terrorist activities, while Grant depends on Justin for a direction. Grant seems utterly nonchalant most of the time, but displays vicious amounts of hatred during fights, preferring weapons that let him visibly express this. The cause for this hatred is his Freudian Excuse, expanded upon under Motivation. In his perspective, humans have shown themselves repeatedly to be utterly undeserving of any amount of trust, and will betray and hurt one another for the sake of it. Hence he takes on an Ultron-lite perspective, that only metallic and cybernetic beings deserve trust and allegiance. He makes a few exceptions, but by and large he is a misanthrope. He seems to reserve a special hatred for humans who are naturally regarded well, and tries to kill these purely based on this. Grant also seems to be basically a bomb throwing anarchist type, viewing states and their “solutions” as corrupted, and without merit. As machines operate on logic, he thinks that “for pure-flesh humans, the only real solution is to make them subservient to machines”.

• Abilities: Ironically considering the above sentence, Grant is almost as good a technopath as Justin Henderson. He is perhaps the Boss version of the Eradicator, considering the weapons he makes, and the weapons the Eradicators make, are very similar looking. His personal spell core, Loyce's Arrow, lets him quickly and easily transmit and copy very very small things. And considering his nanomachines, that is a very deadly power to have...

• Weaknesses: Unlike Justin, Grant has no adaptive ability – meaning he is far less tough, and is capable of being beaten using tactics that keep his technological bent in mind.

• Role in the Story: Justin Henderson's Dragon

• Goals: Grant wants to help his friend Justin die. Along the way, he wants to see the Earth reshaped to certain perameters.

• Motivation: Grant's Freudian Excuse is that when he was a boy, he watched his father be beaten half to death by police, and then dragged physically to the police station. His father died in agony six days later. All this because Grant's father defended his son against the richest man in town's son and broke the little monster's nose.

• Backstory: Grant grew up in the Southwestern United States, and lived in squalor. His father went broke due to a gambling dependency, and they had to move into a small glorified shack. Despite this, Grant was never quite at home with this, and kept fighting to try to get through this. He never took anyone's language lying down, which got him in trouble with Norman Anderson Jr., the son of the richest man in town. When his father intervened in a fight between the two, this resulted in everything going horribly wrong. Grant ended up joining a Russian Mob Group, and tried to do crime to support his mother's ailing health. Except he was then sold out and left for police, mistreated and thrown down, shot and left to bandage his own wounds. It was then he met Justin Henderson and decided to show everyone just how violent he can be.

• Tropes:

• An Axe To Grind: His favorite weapon aside from his cybernetic weapons is a huge Mana-Blade Pole-Axe.
• Arm Cannon: Also fond of adding large cannons to his arms, or making new arms and putting cannons on those.
• Ax-Crazy: Much like Justin, though not to the same mentally disturbed levels.
• Beware the Superman: Grant plays on these fears in regards to a Back from the Dead Aaron Shayde, regarding him like The Plutonian and speaking of him in terms that aren't exactly false, but which omit certain facts.
• Blood Knight: “Fighting through all that was absolutely worth it. They were the opening meal, and you...killing you is going to be the main course.”
• Body Horror: He is involved in a lot of really gruesome chemical weapons, and this aside from the fact his arms fold in half and distort to make weapons, and at one point his head exploded and he calmly talks while it reconstitutes itself.
  • Special mention to a scene where he coldly and clinically describes what the Sarin Gas he's gonna use on two minor characters is going to do. “Either you'll vomit, shit, cry and urinate uncontrollably or your lungs will hyper-contract, and you'll die wanting to scream, but being so very unable. This will all happen in one to ten minutes.”
  • Grant himself – without his sweater on, its made very clear he looks absolutely inhuman from the neck down.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Grant falls into this quite heavily. Extra points for his unit in Ephas being called the Demolition Unit.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Grant looks at first like a heavy clothes wearing mook carrying out Justin's orders. Its only after the fighting begins that he starts with the...interesting alterations to his physical form.
• Break Them by Talking: Uses his talk with the Association to deliver a biting implicit breaking speech to Matthew by covertly insinuating that he's responsible for what's going on via his choices during the war with the New Order.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: He seems to be totally clinical about it, taking very little joy in such a horrible activity, when similar villains would enjoy themselves.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Like Justin Henderson, they don't. His soul is in fine condition, and its made very clear his evil is separate from his cybernetics.
• Deadly Gas: He seems to like chemical weapons of a gaseous nature. In one way we have deadly Sarin Gas as covered under Body Horror, and he's just as happy to set you ablaze with Chlorine Trifluoride.
  • In general he seems a fan of killing people with various deadly gases.
• Dead Person Impersonation: He impersonates Shouji Muzoku during Book II, as part of his introduction. Then Shouji comes back from the dead and he cuts the act.
• Eat the Rich: Grant takes it to heart, and it seems he really enjoyed his time with the Ephas Abjuration. He despises people who he thinks “live a normal life on top of people who cannot survive comfortably”, and takes it upon himself to ruin the lives of such people purely for revenge.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: The Iron Hunters, a group Grant leads in the field, literally eat the rich, dissolving bodies into an easily slurped up red and white liquid.
• Establishing Character Moment: Torture-murdering a police officer, and then glaring at him in the eyes and whispering; “You deserve every second of this. Do not ever forget that. Go to death knowing that. Go to death knowing you deserve pain. You deserve humiliation. You deserve all that and more, and I only regret I cannot bring you back and do this all again.” He then gets up and warmly welcomes Justin Henderson, as if nothing even happened.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Combined somewhat with Evil Is A Big Happy Family; whenever someone dies in his group or even in a team up among fellow antagonists, Grant doesn't take it well.
  • He acts protective of the younger villains; when Darksword I gets killed, Grant goes absolutely apeshit and Avenges the Villain spectacularly.
• Evil Genius: Justin is intelligent, but far too deranged some of the time to really get the groundwork and other such things together. Grant on the other hand is a vicious Genius Bruiser who forms the plans, gets things together, organizes hits and terrorist attacks, and turned the Cyborg's loose organization into a large terrorist network that'd make even ISIS look little league.
  • Given the Cyborg's existing Evil Genius traits when he's not frothing mad, its clear there's some Genre Savvy at work, having a back up planner.
• Eviler than Thou: Kenon Jagger realizes early on in III that this isn't the Grant he's used to, but hesitates in acting...resulting in getting mowed down by a huge pipe bomb.
  • “I wonder how Kenon's corpse looks now. Probably burnt.”
• Family-Unfriendly Death: He dishes out some horrific deaths when he and his group attack an affluent NYC neighborhood. Including skewering someone to a building and then blasting off the top half of their body as they scream until they die, another person gets her hair and scalp ripped off and then apparently disemboweled by a huge bladed claw. Grant spared no expense in making sure Ephas Abjuration didn't spare anyone of what he felt was “deserved”.
• Feel No Pain: Grant frequently disables his pain receptors, though he usually has something ready to inform him if he's getting close to “breaking”.
• For the Evulz: some of his crimes don't even fit into his terrorist profile. Most of these are done purely in order to hurt someone – during the time he was Franklin Rosso's archenemy, he tried to kill Franklin's whole family, and later set up a sniper to shoot his daughter in the head when she was heading to the police academy.
• Freudian Excuse: Dad had a gambling problem, and as a result young Grant moved into a shack. He was bullied by the son of the richest man in town, and got in trouble frequently for attacking him.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Started out as a petty street gang member in the Russian Mob. Eventually became far, far more.
• Giant Mook: What he started life as. He's almost six foot seven, meaning he's really damn tall.
• Healing Factor: “Self Repair Systems Active.”
• Hoist Hero over Head: When Sorano tries to interrupt his fight with Matthew, he nonchalantly hoists him up, Knightfalls him, and chucks him aside.
• Humongous Mecha: His form called Ulterior Walker Mk III, a huge humanoid torso with tank treads for legs, and a large number of weapons, including a large number of missiles, cannons, and the deadly Mana Accelerator Cannon mounted on the right arm.
• In the Back: He makes his introduction in III by rescuing a few of his soldiers by cutting through their captors from behind, barely introducing himself.
• Knight Templar: Grant is thoroughly convinced he's in the right, if not because of a moralistic tendency or anything, but because he thinks everything he has done is necessary. That, and doing it to make Justin Henderson happy, with a particularly warped take on the Power of Friendship.
• Large and in Charge: Makes even some of his mechanized minions look small, and is most definitely in charge of field operations. Though perhaps a Dragon version when Henderson's out and about.
• Man of Kryptonite: Incorporated the Anti-Magical Faction's Tech into his body as part of a level in badass he was taking, upgrading his usual cyborg act.
• No-Sell: He utterly no sells an attack that should've caused him to have a heart attack, which...lends itself to the interpretation he doesn't even have a physical heart any more.
• Nuke 'em: Like Justin, has a trigger happy finger on a big red button.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Following Justin along as always. Though some times he goes through with localized versions; one story had him on his lonesome trying to detonate a bomb that would sink New York City into the earth.
• One-Winged Angel: Some of his amplifications to himself invoke Humongous Mecha or Meta Mecha, making him look barely human any more, with only his head showing inside the chassis of a huge mechanical “walker”.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Or in a more lethal sense, Grant believes only he, the closest friend Justin has, is acceptable in terms of killing Justin. Its one of the more twisted parts of their friendship – it is based on eventual murder.
• Power of Friendship: A warped take – he will do anything and everything Justin wants him to, and will do everything in his power to make sure Justin gets what he wants.
• Powered Armor: Sometimes combined with Meta Mecha – Grant has a cybernetic suit he wears over his regular cybernetic body, and then adds on a Humongous Mecha like the aforementioned Ulterior Walker.
• The Resenter: Grant completely resents and hates people who are naturally happy with what they have, viewing them as living on a platform made of lies.
• Revenge: He finally gets his revenge on Norman over the course of a story centering on Grant. Culminating in this exchange;
  • Norman: G-Grant? No, you're dead. I saw it...
  • Grant: Oh but yes, it is me. I'm alive and in the flesh. Well...somewhat. I am more machine than flesh now.
• Sadist: “I won't lie – I love making you pieces of shit squirm. Its part of what makes my new cybernetic lease on life...enjoyable.”
• Shapeshifter: With the Nanites and Meta-Stasis running through him, he can affect this by producing a layer of Latex Perfection over his skin in a rather unsavory way.
  • Shape Shifter Weapon: Very fond of creating numerous deadly weapons out of his cybernetic parts, making use of the self-duplicating abilities of his nanomachines.
• Single-Target Sexuality: possibly, he has so much Ho Yay with Justin that its thoroughly possible he's attracted to Henderson. That he expresses this by dreamily thinking of giving Justin what he wants – death – is unsettling to say the least.
• Sociopathic Soldier: A command version, but a definite example; he sees utterly no value in the lives of anyone he's told to kill, and blatantly enjoys his job.
• Swiss-Army Appendage: Grant is capable of this with his technopathy, modifying his arms to suit his needs. He's shown making a blow torch at one point, and at another cutting through greenery with an arm mounted machete.
• Technopath: Grant has a similar ability to Justin due to sharing the same nanomachines. This, together with his self repair program, and later flesh generation ability makes him extremely hard to permanently put down, being he is, himself, made of a lot of technology.
• Terrorists Without a Cause: Many of Grant's attacks didn't really seem to have a reason, folding into the Ephas Abjuration's general “aim” - disorganizing society through many, many attacks difficult to pin together as the work of one group.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Treated like disposable, worthless waste product in a send up of how police treat suspects in crime tv shows...told unendingly he's nothing but a degenerate thug, when he had joined the life to support his mother. Then he gets sold out by everyone, and when he reacts violently, the condemnation he receives makes him decide to go ahead with Justin and show them all just how malicious he can be when he consciously chooses such.
• Villainous Friendship: He and Justin seem to have this going on. Other times, however, Grant seems to have some unresolved feelings for his friend of an oddly romantic sort.
• Villain Team-Up: Whenever Justin aims for a team up, Grant follows along. Though he has formed his own little groups, including that time he and some Highmasters teamed up to try to nuke San Francisco.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness / You Have Failed Me: Averted, as far as Grant believes, you can always get an upgrade to become more useful.

edited 23rd Jul '15 1:19:28 PM by NickTheSwing

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