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
From Drax:
I discussed the “Other Settings” thing with Lighty, I said “Is it true that they’re not settings for D&D?” and he just said “No, they’re DND”.
So, I researched and guessed that Tomb of Horrors could be used for any setting, although it’s supposedly set in Greyhawk. Bastion of Broken Souls and Apocalypse Stone are not tied to any particular setting and Elder Evils is sort of a supplement with no specific setting so I think these three could go to “Multiple Settings” as we did with the Sahaugin Baron.
We should take this to the thread or to Lighty for discussion and to resolve this but what I’m pointing out is they’re not actual campaign settings and thus should not be at the “Other Settings” section of the DND subpage.
So what say you all?
@ Falcon, Lit, thank you sir:
- The Mask: The Hunt for Green October: Axel is a Neo-Nazi gang leader who hunts for the Mask to have the world ruled by the "Master Race", slaughtering an Amazonian tribe in an attempt to retrieve it. Tipped off that the Mask is in America, Axel retrieves weapons from a dealer only to have the man brutally killed and later tortures a couple and threatens their 10-year-old daughter to force them to give him the Mask. When the daughter turns out to be the Mask holder, Axel has no compunction trying to kill her and when beaten, blows himself up to take everyone with him, including his own men.
- The Mask: Southern Discomfort: Former Haitian General and war criminal, Papa Croc and the Voodoo-practitioner hitman Ogoun are the joint rulers of a brutal criminal empire and use their magic to violently keep their underlings in check. Kidnapping young women to steal their souls with Voodoo, the duo use the women as slaves before having them killed off in snuff films to finance their operation and magically kill a detective hired to trail them painfully. When the woman's brother confronts them, Ogoun uses Voodoo to sadistically torture him with fatal injuries, enjoying it as the Mask keeps him alive through the torment.
One for today...
What's the work?
Five Ghosts is an on-hiatus/canceled comic that's a homage to old pulp stories. Fabian Grey was an adventurer/treasure hunter who found an artifact known as The Dreamstone. Possessed by five literary ghosts, The Wizard, The Archer, the Samurai, the Detective and the Vampire and granted access to their powers...his sister Sylvia, however, was pulling into the plane called The Dreaming and Fabian quests to save her...while pursued by a shadowy organization called The Cabal who seek it for their own purposes. Volume 1featuresan agent of the Cabal: The wicked Iago.
Who is Iago?
The former confidante of the Moor of Vencie, Iago is a dedicated servant of the Cabal out to recover the Dreamstone as Fabian tracks it to a mystical land with an ancient, forgotten city. Iago is always on his heels through V1, hounding the good guys and sending his men to murder others, while tracking down Fabian, along with Fabian's brother in law and best friend Sebastian.
Now, Fabian finds his way to the Forgotten City, when Iago arrives, along with his own pet eastern dragon...and then he blasts the city to announce himself, setting into flames and slaughtering the bystander before trying to take the Dreamstone from Fabian. Fabian is seemingly defeated, with a friend named Zhou, immortal in the city? Iago finds the gem that houses his lifespan and sadistically destroys it, aging Zhou to death quite painfully. Settingabout looking for his prize, Iago goes on a rampage, massacring every inhabitant of the city he finds, burning the monks alive while also baiting Fabian with an illusion of his sister.
Taking Sebastian hostage and using his pain and life against Fabian, Fabian is forced to tap into new powers of his own from his 'ghosts' and engages Iago who uses his powers to assume his own dragon form. The end result, however, is Fabian saving the city and destroying the source of Iago's life, who withers away painfully into dust and memory...and the Cabal deciding to up their game.
Heinousness and Mitigating Qualities?
Not much to say. Iago's the worst we see, granted the comic has been on hiatu for years, and one of the leaders is clearly HP Lovecraft himself. But no, Iago's attempted massacre of a city, huge bodycount and sadism set him over the pack, and he has no good qualities whatsoever.
Conclusion?
Easy yes
Yes to him.
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)And one more comic one for now to cut that list down...
What's the work?
Onyx is a 5 issue Sci-fi horror comic from IDW Publishing...Onyx is a warrior from the stars seeking a mysterious infection, flying from world to world, watching them die as she arrives. The quarry she seeks is on earth, where she arrives, hoping to save the world before it's too late...now, let's talk the spore itself:
Who is the Spore?
A malicious alien intelligence, the spore survives by going from world to world and infecting/absorbing life, leaving it to fester and die before it moves on. The end result is always the same: painful death and absorption for everything it encounters. Years ago, it came to a world for a race called the Pelmosians, a very advanced alien race. Onyx, with her husbands and her wife, were some of the first to discover it...her spouses did not survive. The Pelmosians were wiped out, only a few surviving. However, the Pelmosians also harnessed plasma in a way that provided incredible offensive technology, allowing the few remaining warriors, Onyx included, to fly out into space to hunt the spore down. A few found its, and died.
The series opens with Onyx finding a world already doomed, forced to Mercy Kill its inhabitants, one of many worlds that have been annihilated by the Spore....arriving on earth, it takes control of several bioweapons, bringing its infected minions with it. Incarnating in a human host, the spore reveals itself as very sentient and fully malicious, stating it's pleased that Onyx will have to watch yet another world die before her....using the human bioweapons and facing off with the human squads, the Spore kills many of them, plotting to subsume and wipe out earth, mocking Onyx that one of her mates, Kiell, found it before her...and died in the process, to Onyx's horror. Onyx is subdued where the Spore reveals it's a total sadist.
The human squad also consists of a woman named Abigail Loner, a psychci who manages to stave off the infection from the others. Wanting an end, the Spore orders its minions to kill the humans but leave Onyx so it can harvest her energy. Onyx and the others get free, wiping out the villains as the Spore begins assimilating everything close by. Onyx faces the Spore as it tries to subsume all life...Loner and Onyx get the better of it and Onyx deals a deathblow as Loner severs the mental connection it has to its hosts, killing it for good.
Heinousness?
Killed countless worlds and untold villains, painful assimilation, lots of attempted murder. Pass.
Mitigating Quality?
It's sentient and called out for being flat out sadistic. The Spore is openly aware of what its does and enjoys it, even drawing things out so Onyx is forced to watch many worlds die and likes forcing her to kill those she fails to save. It happily calls itself death incarnate and enjoys the death and destruction it brings with no indication of lacking agency.
Conclusion?
Keeper
Here's the vote tally for Rose, assuming we're counting the votes from both the old and new EPs:
(8): DemonDuckOfDoom
, falcontalons
, Bullman
, RobertTYL
, Lightysnake
, nwotyzal
, Beast
, G-Editor
Georgie posted a tally for Alpha here
.
Edited by falcontalons on May 7th 2020 at 10:47:48 AM

I know I'm Tempting Fate here, but we're under 10 so far this week I think.