During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
Please do an effortpost (like this
; though it doesn't need to be QUITE as long
).
Alright, here goes...
Who is it?
The first major enemy of Spires of Xin-Shalast (the final chapter of Rise of the Runelords) is an unnamed wendigo: an evil spirit of cannibalism that drives travelers to madness.
What does it do?
A caravan of dwarven miners had the singular ill fortune to find themselves stranded in the wendigo's territory, having lost both their supplies and their way home to an avalanche (which might have been caused by the wendigo itself). It drove them to madness by haunting their dreams, and the dwarves cannibalized each other. When the last survivor, Karivek Vekker, found himself starving again, the wendigo revealed itself, and Karivek realized just what this thing had made him do. When he tried to kill himself by jumping off a cliff, the wendigo caught him and tortured him by dragging him across the sky, before finally giving him the mercy of death... by dropping him from high enough to give Karivek a full minute to despair and regret.
When the PCs arrive, it actively tries to prevent them from laying the ghosts and haunts to rest; it's too proud of its tortured masterpiece to let anyone interfere.
Redeeming qualities?
There's only the possibility that, given the nature of wendigo on Golarion, the wendigo Was Once a Man who was driven to cannibalistic insanity by another wendigo.
Freudian Excuse or other mitigating factors?
Aside from the aforementioned Was Once a Man possibility, the wendigo doesn't give us any reason to sympathize with it.
Verdict
Well... I'm only one man, but the wendigo seems monstrous enough to me.
How does that look for an effort-post?
While it doesn't achieve the sheer scale of their threats (Allevrah wants to usher in the apocalypse, Kazavon is a powerful warlord, Szuriel is both), the wendigo seems to be evil on a more personal level. The other three are bad because of their disregard for the lives of thousands; the wendigo goes out of its way to torment those unlucky enough to enter its territory.
Incidentally, Tabletop Games may need a bit of work. Mezzenvbone is lengthy, but even worse, the Battle Tech tree is rather nattery and badly written. And I found these on YMMV:
- The next entry is The Master, AKA "The Real Thomas Marik". His atrocities make Amaris look like a petty playground bully, having achieved more devastation than Amaris could have hoped for in instigating the Jihad. He's been stated by his doppleganger seated on his throne (who turned on him because of his malignance) that he "would make Myndo Waterley look like a bleeding heart in comparison". Myndo, in turn, was averted from going on this list because she was assassinated before she really had a chance to do some lasting harm. However, The Master's faction, the Word of Blake, is a consequence of that act...
- In the recent sourcebook detailing the First Succession War, a bit of in-universe history (a piece purporting to have been written centuries after the fact) stops just short of calling Jerome Blake, the founder of ComStar this for essentially abandoning a large number of marginal colonies on the Periphery to die through prematurely declaring them abandoned, dead, worlds and putting out markers attesting to the fact. The hypothesized rationale for this was that he blamed the Periphery for the fall of the Star League because Amaris came from there.
edited 7th Jun '16 11:49:38 AM by ACW
Unsure on the wendigo. It sounds heinous enough, but if its evil nature is the result of something beyond its control, then it's a no.
@ACW Hardy har har. Seriously, though, I'm flattered that you thought something I wrote up was a good example of an effort-post.
Current tally on Zoom is 19 - 2 (I never count my own vote in these). Honestly, I thought he'd be a lot more divisive and that his Freudian Excuse would be the biggest issue, but more focus seems to be on his infatuation with Caitlin. I had more of a mixed response when I proposed Comstock. That said, my proposals are usually easy keeps.
That Kilgrave's being brought up in comparison to Zoom is pretty interesting, too. They're more alike than I first thought, but it's interesting that Kilgrave is where people's minds go on traits like this. Guy really made an impact.
edited 7th Jun '16 12:02:42 PM by DeCarta
Attaching the "Pre-AXIS" tag to Creed sounds like a good idea.
@Ravok, give Caitlin a break; she's a scientist (not an Action Girl) who was held prisoner by a clearly unbalanced, homicidal maniac who could and does kill people in the time it takes someone to blink and was claiming to be in love with her. Traumatised is a pretty reasonable reaction. I'm not saying being victimised by Kilgrave wouldn't have been worse, but someone doesn't have to be physically harmed to suffer trauma.
@ DeCarta
I think there is no harm in couting your own vote in, it's not like you are on a election or something, you are just providing a write-up for another persons creation
Golarion is the planet Pathfinder takes place on.
About the wendigo: It goes beyond the norm of what its kind does to people. It's a sadist that delights in the suffering of the dwarves' spirits, compared to other wendigos who just see people as food rather than playthings.
Also: although wendigos are Chaotic Evil outsiders, they don't have the evil subtype. They're not Made of Evil the way, for instance, demons and devils are.
edited 7th Jun '16 12:19:25 PM by Voyd211
Zoom.
Also, I'm wondering if Super Robot Wars should be kept. It only has four entries, and almost seems to be taking up space.
Why so serious?
Yeah, there's also The Dresden Files; there's not been a new book for 2+ years. Honestly, I'd be fine with merging both with VG and Lit, respectively.
Also, Ravok, don't wanna rush you, but weren't you gonna do something with Monster Quotes Redo?
edited 7th Jun '16 12:31:24 PM by ACW

I've got a suggestion for Pathfinder: The wendigo, from Spires of Xin-Shalast. The thing drove a whole caravan of dwarves into cannibalistic madness, and when the last survivor started starving, it revealed itself to him and made him realize exactly what he’d done. When he tried to kill himself, the wendigo snatched him out of the air and tortured him with its Wind Walk ability, and dropped him from enough of a height to give him a minute to think over everything that had happened before he hit the ground. When the PCs arrive, it tries to murder them because it's too proud of its tortured masterpiece to let them lay the ghosts and haunts to rest.
edited 7th Jun '16 10:49:10 AM by Voyd211