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The Minion Master
aka: Minion Master

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Whereas Beastmasters usually focus on quality of minions, often restricting themselves to one or two (or at least, one at a time), the Minion Master on the other hand focuses on sheer, undiluted numbers. This often makes for an unusual and difficult-to-balance character build — a character whose power comes from brutally outnumbering his opponents often leaves himself as the squishiest of Squishy Wizards, and enemies either succumb quickly to the Death of a Thousand Cuts or perform a minion version of a Total Party Wipe with area of effect attacks. They may also possess skills to control and buff their minions. The Minion Master tends to, of course, to be the keystone in his Keystone Army that is the prime target to finish first.

The key factor in determining if a particular character, class, unit or build is The Minion Master is this: Can the character outnumber a typical squad of Mooks on their own? If the answer is yes, then the character is The Minion Master.

Zerg Rush often describes the most common combat method of The Minion Master. Because of their tactics, they often fall under Anti-Hero and Dark Is Not Evil characterization. If the minions are copies of the master, it's a Doppleganger Attack. Will be exceptionally powerful if Ninjutsu isn't conserved, enabling each Mook to be a threat, let alone many Mooks.

A subtrope of The Beastmaster, and supertrope to Pest Controller and Marionette Master.

Compare Assist Character, an NPC in Fighting Games that can be briefly summoned to assist the Player Character; Drone Deployer, a character that carries their minions upon their person and "deploys" them when they're to be used; Enemy Summoner, a video-game enemy that summons other enemies while also directly fighting the player; Mook Commander, a mook with the ability to strengthen other mooks just by their presence; Mook Maker, where the producer of mooks may be an inanimate device rather than an actual character; Puppet Fighter, a character whose fighting style involves commanding one or few powerful allies simultaneously; and The Turret Master, who instead of minions uses technology.


Video Game Examples:

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    Action Adventure 
  • The Overlord from Overlord is one of these, even commanding a race known as Minions. While he relies primarily on his Minions (especially early on, where he can't take much damage), with the right upgrades he can become quite powerful in his own right as well as buff his army up with spells.
  • In Darksiders II, Death can summon up a pack of ghouls to attack enemies or act as a distraction.
  • Nobody Saves the World: Multiple forms allow Nobody to conjure up familiars to fight for them. Magician summons rabbits and tigers from thin air, Mechanic builds stationary turrets that attack at range, Necromancer summons demons from corpses, and Zombie infects enemies with The Virus, turning them into zombies when they die. The familiars themselves are quite fragile and constantly lose health, but they deal a fair amount of damage and can be enhanced via passive skills.

    Fighting Game 
  • Super Smash Bros.:
    • Captain Olimar is one of these, much like in his series.
      • In Brawl, he can pluck up to six Pikmin from the ground to follow him and attack. Without a single Pikmin, he only has two very weak ways of attacking. Even his recovery depends on Pikmin, with more Pikmin letting him recover greater distance.
      • Wii U/3DS reduces the ammount of Pikmin to three, but the core of the character remains the same, except for his recovery now being worse the more Pikmin he has. (In Brawl, his Pikmin formed a Chain of People; more Pikmin equaled a longer chain, which equaled a higher chance of recovery. In Wii U/3DS, Olimar summons flying Pikmin to carry him to safety; the more Pikmin he has with him, the slower and heavier he is, and the slower the flying Pikmin can fly, sometimes not even making it back to the stage easily.)
    • King Dedede summons an army of Waddle Dees, Waddle Doos, and Gordos to swarm the stage for his Final Smash.
    • Pit's Final Smash in Brawl summons centurions to attack everything.
  • Tron Bonne in the Capcom vs. games has a large group of Servbots ready to follow her orders. She usually keeps just one by her side, however—she saves the rest of them mostly for her Hyper Combos.
  • Jack-O in Guilty Gear Xrd has an unusual moveset where her core gameplay is placing "houses" that periodically summons minions that automatically attack the opponent. Initially both the houses and minions start of very weak and easy to destroy, but they level up over time. Her game plan revolves around protecting her houses and minions long enough for them to start spewing out minions to overwhelm the opponent. In -Strive-, her moveset was reworked; she no longer deploys "houses" and instead directly summons minions herself, which is limited by a gauge. She can toss or hit them to send them flying as a projectile or command them to use certain moves. She can use her Overdrive to give them super armor or greatly increase her minion gauge recovery rate.

    Hack And Slash 
  • Summon-focused Necromancers in Diablo II, nicknamed "Zoo-mancers", can end up with one golem, around twenty skeletons, and 20+ revived monsters (actual numbers depend on Skill-level and Equipment). Additionally, you can also hire a mercenary (and should, an act 2 nightmare merc can have Might and increase every minions damage.)
    • Note that, while pre 1.08 Necromancer had far more skeletons, they also became next to useless as the game progressed. Current Necromancers are accompanied by a smaller group of far more efficient undead minions.
  • The Witch Doctor in Diablo III is a similar concept but somewhat toned down, as he typically has a handful of zombie dogs and a gargantuan zombie at his heel, plus fights by summoning various animals or undead that attack enemies before disappearing quickly back into the ether. Specialized high-tier equipment can increase the size of the Witch Doctor's horde, from slightly increasing the number of zombie dogs to making the Fetish Army (a mass of knife-wielding, baby-sized skeletons) last forever instead of just a few seconds.
    • The set dungeon associated with this armor plays up the minion master role even more, requiring the Witch Doctor clear the instance without being hit by any melee attack. This requires hiding behind an army of minions and letting them clear the way.
    • Similarly, the right equipment can make the Demon Hunter, normally The Turret Master, into a veritable zookeeper by giving them up to ten animal companions of various species instead of just one.
  • Sacred featured the Vampiress, who could in vampire mode, turn creatures into undead. When she reverted, they died. However, with careful timing the running of the spell on the body could complete after she turned back to normal, which meant that the creature was not subject to destruction until the character changed forms again. What really made it fit the trope though was that the character following could turn enemies into the same state when killed, though not always. Thus a Vampiress could relatively quickly amass a huge army that, because of the way the change worked, potentially turn dragons into undead minions. Such a sight is naturally impressive.
  • Path of Exile allows for a variety of summoner builds, some of them resembling the "Zoomancer" build from the Diablo II example above. The selection of minions include Glass Cannon Skeletons, Mighty Glacier Zombies, raised Spectres of fallen enemies, powerful and short-lived Raging Spirits, elemental Golems, animated weapons, and many more. Passive skills and items can be used to raise the number, life, and damage output of the minions, as well as add other effects such as causing them to explode at low life, give your shield bonuses or flask effects to your minions. Other ways to enhance your minions include auras and Offering spells which consumes corpses to give your minions a powerful buff. The intelligence-based Witch class are the best choice for summoner builds, and their Necromancer Ascendancy class is specifically tailored for such builds. The Guardian Ascendancy class for Templars are also an effective minion class if they're not going for a Support Party Member build, with a more proactive playstyle where they fight alongside their minions.
  • In Dynasty Warriors, Chen Gong's moveset lets him summon projections of soldiers to attack his enemies.
  • A principle feature of game-play in Undead Knights is to zombify your enemies then send your hoard against more enemies.
  • Focusing on Charm skills in Torchlight can make your character into one of these. This is especially true of the Alchemist if you invest into the Lore skill tree.
  • The first expansion for Grim Dawn added the Necromancer class, which unsurprisingly behaves similarly to the class of the same name in Diablo 2.

    MMORPG 
  • The premise of Conqueror's Blade is that you are a medieval warlord who leads his troops in battle. This makes every player a Minion Master, since each player directly commands his NPC troops on the battlefield.
  • Guild Wars: Minion Master Necromancer character builds:
    • Currently they can only have a maximum of 10-12 minions at any given time, but they can be replenished very quickly (which is good, because they decay very quickly once they've been around a while). In the past however, there was no limit to how many minions a necromancer could summon and control, you could have massive hordes of 50+ minions if you and your teammates had enough AoE healing to keep that many alive.
    • Also there are the Ritualists, who summon largely stationary but long-ranged Spirits who have a wide range of effects: from dealing damage, to stealing health, to causing blindness, to healing, to taking damage to protect parties, to bringing party members back to life. Of special note is the Ritualist Primary Attribute: Spawning Power, which boosts the stats of created creatures and contains a number of skills that further augment them or benefits the Ritualist when they're summoned. Note that "Created creatures" includes the Necromancer's undead minions, so a Ritualist can dabble in that form of minion mastery too, with mixed results.
  • The 'Mastermind' class in City of Villains. An average Mastermind will end up with 6 minions to boss around, but certain builds can go higher.
    • Controllers initially were allowed to summon as many pets as they wanted to but they would die in about four minutes. With proper recharge and some luck, they could summon up to 20 pets at a time, letting them overwhelm everything. This was nerfed, of course. Now the pets are permanent but you can only summon one set at a time.
  • The Sadida class in the Wakfu MMO has this as their primary schtick. While they possess a wide variety of nature-based powers, their abilities are mediocre unless supplemented by the hordes of voodoo dolls they're capable of summoning. Almost every passive (and quite a few active) abilities the class has revolves around their dolls in some way, with even their bread-and-butter elemental spells having additional and occasionally esoteric effects when cast on one. In line with this trope, many other classes have at least one summon, but the Sadida is the only one that can have more than one out at once. It is entirely possible for a high level Sadida to outnumber the rest of the fight by themselves!
  • Predictably, the Summoner class from Dungeon Fighter Online. Any PC might have ways to summon help - there's rare equipment for that and an entire crafting discipline. A regular female mage may also have readied a single contracted summon, and technically briefly manifests elementals to cast many spells. A Witch makes long-term contracts with elemental familiars (in questlines absent from the game's current version) and thus might also have several present at once doing things. A Summoner makes numerous summoning contracts and takes quantity over quality with elementals to raise small armies. Clever use of Elemental Baggage can raise multiple minions from a single spell, and as unimpressive as basic minions are, a Summoner is constantly raising more and using their presence to call stronger species.

    Real Time Strategy 
  • The Necromancer unit from the Undead faction in Warcraft 3. A couple of these guys could summon hordes of skeletons using corpses (obtained from a graveyard, meat wagon, dead unit, or even a dead critter) and mana. The skeletons were individually weak and short-lived, but the explosive Zerg Rush of that the Necromancers could create, summoning 2 skellies every 8 seconds, could turn a straight battle between initially equal forces into a rout, or at least force the enemy to run away. Thankfully, as of Frozen Throne, mass dispelling abilities were available to all factions, so all it took to clear a skeleton horde was the correct unit (Priest/Wisp/Destroyer/Spirit Walker) and a bit of micro.
    • Some heroes could become The Minion Master using the correct abilities. Like the Death Knight, who could raise 6 short-lived but invincible minions using its ultimate ability, Animate Dead, or the Night Elf Warden, who could summon a minion master, the Avatar of Vengeance, who then spammed further, weaker summons called Spirits of Vengeance. And the Keeper of the Grove, whose Force of Nature ability summoned an extra Treant for every point invested in it after the first. Or the Firelord, whose Lava Spawns would multiply over time if not killed quickly. Or the Dark Ranger, who would turn any unit she killed into a buffed-up skeleton. Yeah, basically, Blizzard loves this trope.
  • Carrier cruisers and carrier capital ships from Sins of a Solar Empire acted as The Minion Master by fighting primarily through their strikecraft wings. They would produce, transport and, in case of capital ships, provide supporting abilities for their strikecraft and fleet in general. The cruiser carriers were, in fact, completely unarmed apart from their strikecraft wings, while capitals would also have some self-defense armament. All capital ships would gain squads as they leveled up, but carrier capitals would, obviously, always field the most squads.
  • Pikmin: You play as a Minion Master, controlling up to 100 of the Pikmin, who help carrying objects, opening paths, and mobbing enemies en masse. Your character on their own is virtually powerless, the Pikmin are necessary to do anything.
  • The Yuri faction in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge counts by proxy through Mind Control. The Yuri clone can control one enemy unit at a time, the Psychic Tower can control three, the Mastermind can control an infinite number of enemies (but takes damage after four), and both of its Superweapons are designed to take the enemy's units and add them to your own. They also get the Cloning Vats, doubling every trained infantry unit.
  • Carriers in Starcraft can send out up to eight tiny, lightning-quick Interceptor drones each to pepper any enemy that comes near.
  • Starcraft II:
    • The Brood Lord is an air-to-ground Zerg siege unit which attacks by launching little Broodlings to nibble at the enemy. It can have up to two Broodlings readied for the initial attack, and make another one to throw every 1.78 seconds. The short-lived Broodlings die 5.71 seconds after landing if they are not killed first, so at most a Brood Lord can have just over three Broodlings on the ground at a time. The Brood Lord is useful as a siege unit because of its long attack range, and if the enemy can’t hit the Brood Lord the Broodlings will just be infinitely replaced.
    • The Swarm Host, added in Heart of the Swarm, is a ground-to-ground Zerg siege unit which also has no attack of its own, and instead can produce two locusts from the eggs on its back every 43 seconds. The locusts have timed life of 18 seconds when spawned, and fly to their target before swooping down to the ground and attacking.
  • Sacrifice basically makes an RTS of Minion Masters fighting it out.
  • Similarly, Brütal Legend has you controlling commanders who summon their forces and can fight alongside their army, even having special Combination Attacks with each unit.
  • Minion Masters is a hybrid of RTS, MOBA, deckbuilder and tower defence. Unsurprisingly, it is all about this. Players construct a deck of minions (and a few spells as well as buildings) of varying costs ranging from a horde of tiny ratlike Scrats to a titanic, slow-moving Colossus and deploy them onto the battlefield to rush across and assault their opponent's tower. The minions die in droves, but they're an endlessly recycled resource, so hundreds can die in a single game.

    Roguelike 
  • The Necromeister in 100 Rogues can summon up to four skeletons and a Shade when the right skills are maxed out. Be warned: it's Cast from Hit Points.
  • Lilith in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is blindfolded, and so cannot fire tears in the normal way. However, she starts with three items that get around that: Incubus, a familiar that shoots tears for her, Box Of Friends, which creates one copy of each familiar she currently has, and Cambion Conception, which grants her another familiar if she is damaged enough times.
  • The Necromancer class in Loop Hero summons skeletons to handle offense. They attack autonomously and have their own health bar. The Necromancer's gear gives them higher skeleton levels, chance to summon stronger skeletons, and increased maximum number of skeletons, with zero self-damage boosters.
  • Rebel from Nuclear Throne creates allies from her blood. They die very quickly (but fire more bullets upon death), but their health can be increased by summoning more. Rebel's Throne Butt mutation upgrades her allies by giving them better guns that fire much faster.
  • Summoners in Tales of Maj'Eyal Kill an animal, and you can make a totem out of its corpse. Kill an ExplosiveBreeder, make a totem out of it, and the children of the summon are friendly towards you - and don't cost you. Filling entire levels with your pets is easy, but considered cheating.

    Role Playing Game 
  • The player in Fable II can be one as well with the Raise Dead spell. At higher levels you can summon six ghosts that are pretty weak but if you've killed a couple of people already these ghosts get stronger.
  • The Summoner class from Hellgate: London is this trope. They can maintain one Demon "pet" and any number of elementals which come in 5 flavors as long as they have enough mana for them all.
    • Similarly an Engineer could specialize in one drone, then fill the air with swarms of tiny bots with various abilities.
  • The first Baldur's Gate game didn't have a limit on the number of summoned monsters you could control, so if you happened to get your hands on a Wand of Summon Monster or three, you could overwhelm pretty much anything the game would throw at you. The sequel limited you to five monsters at once.
  • While all three player classes in Geneforge can create minions, the Shaper class is best suited for this.
  • The Pokémon Wishiwashi is arguably this when its Ability, Schooling, takes effect, in which a large group of nearby Wishiwashi swim on over and form a school shaped like a submarine. Whatever attacks the head Wishiwashi does, all of the others will coordinate to create a more powerful version of that attack. The downside is that individuals will scatter each time they're attacked, and once the school has taken enough damage, the other Wishiwashi will flee, leaving just the original one remaining.
  • Enemy summoners in Shin Megami Tensei I often throw hordes of demons at the hero. The hero himself averts this; he can summon three or four demons at once, and can't have two of the same demon at once.

    Shoot Em Up 
  • The BFT Carrier from Bubble Tanks 2 can summon 6 attack drones that shoot its unlucky victims and burst them in a matter of seconds. It's also rather large and slow.

    Turn Based Strategy 
  • Marona from Phantom Brave and Zetta from Makai Kingdom are this. Their main role in story and gameplay is creating Player Mooks and summoning them onto the field. Zetta can't even move without a minion to carry him.

Non-video game examples:

    Anime & Manga 
  • Gecko Moria of One Piece fame has hordes upon hordes of zombies running around on his gigantic island/ship Thriller Bark thanks to the Devil Fruit he ate.
    • Also from One Piece is Capone "Gang" Bege, a mob boss who carries his entire syndicate within his body: He ate the Castle-Castle Fruit, which allows him to shrink objects and people and store them inside of himself, with his body's interiors resembling that of a castle. He engages in absolutely no fighting of his own—rather, he deploys out whatever men he has that's best suited for the situation and overwhelms enemies through sheer numbers and firepower. One effect his nature as a Minion Master has is that he cannot be ambushed, as there is always at least one lookout covering every direction. Another effect is that he (or his mobsters, at least) can attack from any combination of directions simultaneously.
    • In addition, any pirate captain with a very large crew has varying shades of this trope. The ones who fit this best are Foxy the Silver Fox and Orlumbus, both of whom have gained infamy and renown more for their large crews than the achievements of themselves or any individual crew members, and both of whom prefer sheer overwhelming strength in numbers when fighting other groups. Neither of the captains are pushovers when on their own though.
  • Shino Aburame from Naruto is this, letting the bugs that live within his body do most of the work for him.
  • Gotenks from Dragon Ball is famous for being able to create an army of ghosts that explode with whoever they come in contact with.
  • Some of the characters in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure have Stands designed in this way:
    • Keicho, older brother of deuteragonist Okuyasu, uses the Stand called Bad Company, which takes the form of a lot of animate toy soldiers armed with weaponry that pack force out of proportion with their size. Keicho treats them like a military force too, coordinating them in formations and using their small size to let the soldiers sneak around unnoticed. The soldiers also have miniature tanks and helicopters for extra oomph. The downside to this Stand, however, is that soldiers lost appear to be gone for good, so Keicho could run out if the battle takes too long.
    • Shigechi is a kid the heroes meet up who has Harvest, a Stand comprised of a swarm of bug-like creatures. Shigechi prefers to use their vast numbers to monitor the entire town of Morioh and to pick up small change people drop on the floor, which they bring back to Shigechi. The result is Shigechi being a lot wealthier and better informed than he looks. Despite him using Harvest for nonviolent means, Shigechi proves to be very dangerous if angered or cornered, as Harvest is capable of very little damage, but very precise damage, such as slashing the carotid artery.
  • In Hunter × Hunter, some characters have the power to manifest things. Some choose to have whole groups of entities:
    • Shachmono Tocino can summon the Eleven Black Children, eleven ninja-like figures that can each move independently of each other. Though they're fast, armed with weapons, and can be re-summoned good as new when destroyed and thus serve as shields, they aren't very strong or intelligent, and Tocino can only accomplish things with them via total coordination and by surprise.
    • Similarly, Razor's ability is 14 Devils, which comprise of a group of humanoids—though in spite of their name, there are only 8 of them. Unlike Tocino, the aura reserves Razor has is immense, and each of them are strong and smart enough to take on even experienced fighters. It's a good thing for the rest of the world, then, that by the present day in the series, Razor uses this ability just to create his own team to play dodgeball with, albeit dodgeball with an aura-infused ball that can shred a normal human being to mush upon contact.

    Comic Books 
  • Wonder Woman Vol 1: Queen Atomia sits back on her throne and orders her many Proton and Netron slave mooks to deal with her foes, fetch her food and even carry her about. Once she's deprived of them she proves to be an unexpectedly competent fighter with super strength on her own.

    Card Games 
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • Weenie decks turn you into one of these. A Fragile Speedster in deck form, they typically focus around getting as many low mana cost creatures into play as fast as you can in order to Zerg Rush your opponent. Particularly effective against "Control" decks, as their reliance on blocking and removal spells can't keep up with the sheer amount of creatures you're throwing at them. Weak against Aggro decks, however, as their fewer-but-stronger creatures will annihilate your weenies (or trample over them) with ease.
    • Token decks are another form of this. Tokens are creatures not represented by an actual card in your deck, but are generated by numerous cards (including other creatures). There are also numerous spells and creature abilities which further strengthen tokens as well. The various Black-White Token decks are some of the most famous.

    Literature 
  • The Banned and the Banished adds a touch of Body Horror to this. The first corrupted spellcaster in the series has man-eating spiders living in her womb and gives birth to them when she needs someone dead. Later varieties include a former healer who has leeches living on his flesh, a pair of albino twins who grow pustules that explode into rats, and one villain who's connected to ravens in an unexplained but presumably unpleasant way.
  • Many practitioners in Pact take the step of binding various supernatural creatures to their service. Rose Thorburn is an especially potent example, with her minions including Bloody Mary, revenants, and bogeymen.
  • In Worm, the protagonist, Skitter, takes the large-number-low-individual-power aspect of this trope to an extreme: she controls any or all insects, worms, spiders, or the like within her range.
    • She's also incredibly creative in her use of them, forming swarm clones, making spider silk thread traps, concealing her movements, using them to track enemy movements, threatening suffocation or allergic reaction, making her costume and assisting with filing and her morning routine.
    • When she gets her shard jailbroken to become Khepri she trades in her range, sanity, ability to communicate and even comprehend language for the ability to control people as well. This lets her fight a strong AI and the source of all powers on roughly even terms.
    • A large part of what makes her so deadly is that her power also explicitly expands her mind to allow her to individually keep track of and control every single bug under her power. Natural bug swarms are mostly panicky and uncoordinated, the individuals lashing out by instinct, with no higher thought process guiding the whole. Now imagine a swarm operating in perfect harmony and unison, moving tactically...
  • In Warbreaker, Awakeners are gradually demonstrated to be a variation on the theme. Any material that is not stone, metal, or alive can be animated to follow a simple command upon contact (if the Awakener in question has enough Breath to expend in the activation). This can range from commanding a piece of rope to "Hold when thrown" (To tie up an enemy), to a cloak commanded to "protect me" (allowing it to perform an Arrow Catch), to a cadre of voodoo dolls commanded to "Find Something", to a fallen opponent's cloth armor commanded to "Fight for me."

    Live-Action TV 
  • Diend in Kamen Rider Decade, whose Kamen Ride cards can summon Riders to do his bidding. Decade's Complete Form is more literal, creating copies of the nine main Riders in their own Super Mode's which copy his movements exactly.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Most summon spells can be used to summon a swarm of lower-level creatures instead of one high-level creature.
    • The hordeificer artificer build uses the large number of constructs.
    • The Leadership feat causes a group of people to gather around you and mostly do your bidding. It is infamous for being one of the most overpowed abilities in the game. (The horde of low-level minions isn't the game-breaking part, though— they're too low-level to be useful in combat, and you take penalties for getting them killed. The big benefit is the "cohort," a single follower who is only two levels below the character with Leadership, making them capable of contributing significantly to combat.
    • The Expanded Psionics Handbook gives us the Thrallherd prestige class which can easily grant you hundreds of willing minions. Disposable, too, as they'll be replaced if you were to lose any, say, throwing them at a dragon or something. Unlike the Leadership feat, this doesn't cause your remaining minions to have any second thoughts, since they're all psychically manipulated anyway. And the class isn't limited to evil alignments!
    • This has been done away with in 4th ed; while you can conceivably clutter up the room with a zillion summoned monsters, you can only control one of them at a time. Gone are the days of commanding legions of undead, squadrons of angels, and hordes of demons.
  • In Nomine Satanis / Magna Veritas allows you to choose lots of human troops that serve and obey you, if you're an angel. The demons get, instead, a lesser demon or some undead troops.
  • Rifts: The Shifter class is a magic user that focuses on dimensional teleportation and Summon Magic. They can contact and attempt to control supernatural beings via a battle of wills (and if this fails, they can attempt to overpower the creature by more conventional means). Unlike D&D summon spells, there is no time limit, though the book suggests forming short term contracts, as forcing a demonic being to remain under a Puny Earthling's control for an extended period is likely to hazardous to said mortal's health.
  • Pathfinder: All summoners are capable of this to a certain extent, but Master Summoners are the most oriented towards flooding the battlefield with minions rather than relying on a single powerful creature.
  • Spirit of the Century has both minion rules and the "Minions" Leadership stunt that can turn a character into exactly this. A character with the Minions stunt can choose to simply start a scene with 3-12 minions (depending on quality) already "on hand", and the stunt can be taken multiple times for even more — or better — minion-y fun. Of course, this is explicitly primarily intended as a trick for villains or at least NPCs; player characters are expected to rely more on themselves with perhaps the odd higher-quality NPC "companion" along for help.
  • d20 Modern, with the proper mix of books, could allow a hero (or villain) to come to the field with dozens of followers. Cut content from the Urban Arcana book (released as a free web enhancement) included the Mastermind Prestige Class, which gained a handful of weaker but still useful followers. Add in the Minions and Sidekick feats from d20 Past and a particularly charismatic and (in)famous character could develop a small regiment of generic Mook followers managed by a handful of lieutenants of ascending power.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • In early editions, some units could use robots, with the amount increasing with the unit's affinity for machinery. Said robots were extremely stupid and could only follow limited instructions.
    • Some Ork units behave like this, such as swarms of snotlings being herded by a single Ork. Gretchin are useable as independent units, but can be given bonuses by having someone to herd them as well. This has varied depending on the edition.
    • All Tyranids are technically minions of the hive mind, although in practice it's the few synapse creatures who behave as minion masters during gameplay.
  • Warhammer Fantasy:
    • Orcs can add herds of squigs to units, which need a minion master to direct them. Some other factions have similar swarms being directed by larger units.
    • Undead armies, in particular the Vampire Counts, function this way as a whole. If the commanding vampire or necromancer is killed, the entire army will disintegrate.
  • Exalted: Sorcerers can do this with Demons and Elementals. The game has a sidebar that notes, since a dedicated Sorcerer could quickly amass a huge number of these demons it is better to treat them as a single large group of enemies under the games "battlegroup" rules. It should be noted that, even by Exalted Standards, a single blood ape minion is terrifyingly powerful.

    Webcomics 
  • A character literally named "Minion Master" appears in Sluggy Freelance. When introduced his only minions are Torg and crew (about four people), who are using him as a cover to fight Hereti-Corp. Later Torg recruits him a bunch of Digbots, pleasing Minion Master to no end.

    Western Animation 
  • The Owl House: At its most basic level, witches in the Abomination Coven specialize in the creation of semi-sentient Muck Monsters that are capable of following simple instructions (they can also directly manipulate the goo as a Morph Weapon, but that takes a greater level of skill).


 
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