So let's say you're a king...

[Bad Wolf]

Get a couple of brainwashed/evil celestials on your side.

Guy: Hey, that ruler has several celestials with him wherever he goes! Maybe we should think twice about overthrowing him.

[Honest Tiefling]

Have you met the missus? She's got a mean right hook and the divine mandate of the celestials. So how's your farm? Doing good?

[SiuiS]

Why is everyone defaulting to comedic video game evil, here? You're an evil despotic leader, don't make very one fear you. Make them love you! Have incredible superficial quality of life, good food and good luxuries and good recreation, but have some unhealthy social practices to keep them evil. Think mafiya; everyone inside is happy, content, rich, arrogant. And they defend it with blood and steel. They stay inside. They stay stuck, suckling at the money teat, and if you're te money teat you've got all the leverage you need.

You don't have peasants. Your peasants? They become farming entrepreneurs who benefit from free government funding while you deploy the bulk of your power to get them subsidized; summons and skeletons to do a lot of the work (foreign skeletons though, working off their sins and their debts). Prison time is rarely prison time; if you're killed and animated immediately, the time you spend as a skeleton or zombie doesn't count as time died, so it's only 5k to revive you once your sentence is up – basic undeath becomes prison labor to pay off your debt to society. But you'll always be allowed back out to enjoy the fruits of our glorious labors!

Then use psychology to turn the people against everyone else. Basic indoctrination for this, pretty easy. Build a society where people are proud to be patriotic, a religion where the rewards are immediate and worth the simple spiritual investments.

Make people love and adore your evil. Make them convert. Make it so if they go good they jones for what they lost.

[Flickerdart]

Fixed that for you, also Erinyes, get them, now "Celestia" is on your side

Magical beasts are harder to rear, train, and command than animals, and the boost from Fiendish isn't worth it.

[Honest Tiefling]

And if you die, so do their chances of immortality. They don't really need it, they just need to believe you can make them eternally young, beautiful and...Well, unalive, but you get the point.

[(Un)Inspired]

Why is everyone defaulting to comedic video game evil, here? You're an evil despotic leader, don't make very one fear you. Make them love you! Have incredible superficial quality of life, good food and good luxuries and good recreation, but have some unhealthy social practices to keep them evil. Think mafiya; everyone inside is happy, content, rich, arrogant. And they defend it with blood and steel. They stay inside. They stay stuck, suckling at the money teat, and if you're te money teat you've got all the leverage you need.

You don't have peasants. Your peasants? They become farming entrepreneurs who benefit from free government funding while you deploy the bulk of your power to get them subsidized; summons and skeletons to do a lot of the work (foreign skeletons though, working off their sins and their debts). Prison time is rarely prison time; if you're killed and animated immediately, the time you spend as a skeleton or zombie doesn't count as time died, so it's only 5k to revive you once your sentence is up – basic undeath becomes prison labor to pay off your debt to society. But you'll always be allowed back out to enjoy the fruits of our glorious labors!

Then use psychology to turn the people against everyone else. Basic indoctrination for this, pretty easy. Build a society where people are proud to be patriotic, a religion where the rewards are immediate and worth the simple spiritual investments.

Make people love and adore your evil. Make them convert. Make it so if they go good they jones for what they lost.

I think the situation is like trying to make a movie but having to meet the demands of your financial backers.

You may want to be a super sneaky evil emperor but you're being sponsored by an arch fiend and they want you to include a bunch of Mum-Ra/Cobra Commander over the top evil stuff

[Shining Wrath]

This problem has been solved a few times in the real world. The solution, in brief, is feudalism. Divide your kingdom into fiefs, turn each fief over to a minimally trustworthy minion, each one gets to keep their fief so long as
1) They send gold
2) They contribute troops, especially elite ones, which in this game would mean casters

Your own "fief" is much larger than that of any minion, plus you keep close tabs on each of your minions and move to destroy them if they begin plotting with the aid of other minions, who want a share of the spoils.

Then when you want to invade a neighbor, you levy additional taxes and troops from your minions. They go collect, each in their own way, and thus the blame for the suffering falls upon them more than it does on you.

With the aid of your massive army you crush and destroy one neighbor at a time.

[Kid Jake]

I think the situation is like trying to make a movie but having to meet the demands of your financial backers.

You may want to be a super sneaky evil emperor but you're being sponsored by an arch fiend and they want you to include a bunch of Mum-Ra/Cobra Commander over the top evil stuff

I think I'm pulling this on my Pathfinder group now.

Asmodeus appears in a puff of smoke wearing reading glasses and carrying a clipboard, "Kavos, don't get me wrong. You do good work...but you're really behind on your blood fountain and skull throne quotas. You're going to have to pick that up before your next review."

Kavos: "But...I thought things were going well."

Asmodeus: "Going 'well' doesn't put asses in the seats. You've gotta have panache to work in this town!"

[Jack_Simth]

But what happens if they have a REALLY good Rogue? As someone once said "a dagger to the back will really cramp your style" just a lot less if you have actually decent HP, thus why i recommended a Gish, also you could then fake being a full on outsider as you can actually hit things in combat, as outsiders have full BaB.

As far as I'm aware, it's from Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. Also, it's “No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” (although I keep mentally substituting "Sorcerer" for "Wizard" for some reason).

I'd be more inclined to go Thrallherd. Set your Thrall up as being the apparent boss, and simply stay in hiding continuously, using Psionic Scry & Fry remotely when needed. Oh yes, and always revive mama, have her pretend to be the power behind the throne when needed.

[Necroticplague]

As far as I'm aware, it's from Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. Also, it's “No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” (although I keep mentally substituting "Sorcerer" for "Wizard" for some reason).

Sadly, not horrifically true in Dnd, where magic can make you pretty immune to a knife between the shoulder blades.

On to the original topic: Controlled breeding and buffs. First off, introduce Troll-Blooded humans to the population, then let the genetics allowing for it to spread. Natural selection should cause the predominant portion of the society to be Troll-blooded after a little bit (due to Regeneration providing effective immunity to many ways to die). Then, start seeding the population again, this time with turing-complete zombies (zombies can only follow simple instructions, but there's nothing stopping you from using a whole lot of simple instructions in a manner similar to programming computers). This should place Ghedens within your population, where natural selection again propagates it (ghedens age at 1/4th normal speed, and provide the prereq for Troll-blooded, freeing up a feat slot).

At this point, your average citizen it now a unhealthy-looking monstrosity who can only damaged scratched by fire and acid (not including conditions like ability damage or negative levels). This should greatly assist in your efforts at defending against any outsiders, as your normal militiamen won't even be scratched by their weapons.

Now, the only problem is; how to deal with revolutionaries within your own kingdom? After all, if your citizenry is full of hard-to-kill people, what do you do?
Simple: Revoltionaries don't receive capital punishment. Instead, they are dealt with by specially trained/manipulated units. A form of SS, if you will, made of those raised to be wild (and thus, Feral), children of were-snakes (specifically, Sewerms advanced to large size), who then undergo Mineralization. The resultant psychotic shock troopers have two useful traits: they are very good at grappling (+20 racial, +4 size, +10-14 from STR), and they can burrow into the ground. Thus, revolutionaries are not killed, they are dragged underground, where they can simply fade away into unconsciousness. Of course, Mind control should be used on these elite shock troopers, to ensure that anyone else who tried to mind control them first has to beat you at a CHA check.

Meanwhile, try and see if you can't sponsor Artificers to make potions of acid and fire resistance relatively plentiful in supply, to allow for your military to cover one of its big weaknesses. That failing, summon a Djinn, and use a wish to create a magical trap of wish that can pump out the potions.

[Coidzor]

This doesn't really answer the question of fending off neighbouring kingdoms, though; you can scry to see an incoming army of good-aligned elves coming to liberate the kingdom, but there's not much you can do without a sizable army of your own to fight back.

At level 16, the only *real* threats would be the commanders, adventurers, and other hero units that can be brought to bear. Simply *having* an army of one's own should take care of mopping up.

Though with +5 LA, I suppose only having 11 levels is more on the lines where an army as a whole can actually be a challenge provided moderate caster support for it.

Some thoughts about actually being an unholy scion.

Probably grab a LE Death Master. Offensively they are powerful but defensively they are weak (making them easier to deal with than a wizard in case of betrayal) and IIRC they get scrying. A cleric of the Archdevil for divinations to locate rebel leaders as soon as they crop up would be nice (specifically someone who would view my success as the way to promotion, not my defeat).

My army would consist of mostly bone and corpse creatures. Stronger than your CR 1 warrior, never get tired. Characters with necromantic presence would lead up the units of undead (probably Death Masters/Clerics/Dread Necromancers since they all have rebuke undead).

Oh, yeah. Leadership is going to be a good start. Through a combination of standard bad guy bargaining with evil creatures for what they want and having a hierarchy of necromancers with mindslave'd undead minions with more minions mindslave'd to that minion with rebuking chains and the like(Brains in Jars for some extra rebuking chaining or even spawning undead with control over their spawn), you can get a fair sized and fairly tough necromantic army going.

And, as pointed out, if you have time, fiends, and anything with the ability to beat hydras into submission/tame them(hint, Bubs is really low level, so one should be able to find or make one). Or if you luck out and take over a kingdom that breeds Battletitans, even better, throw some fiends into that program and get some half-fiend or fiendish battletitans up in the mix along with your half-fiend hydras.

Perhaps a bit of kidnapping is in order. I mean, would a good aligned king really want to invade if you have their kids? I'd train the kids to do my bidding as Deathmasters, but that's just me and probably not practical. Amusing, but not efficient.

If only those fiends with their teleporting SLAs were able to transport babies and small children with them... Oh well, I guess they'll just have to go into the bag of holding first.

Imps (and Quasits) are great baby snatchers, IIRC.

Of course, you have to play off taking hostages the right way or they'll accept the fact that they'll have to sprog again or use some kind of accelerated growth technique to get a new heir and spares and go to war with you anyway.

16th level. No genesis or astral projection for you. Also if the rogue catches you flat footed he gets one free hit; that might be enough with some serious luck.

There is an arch-devil patron, so conceivably one or two 9th level scrolls might be on the table in exchange for some virgin sacrifices. Or non-virgin sacrifices.

Also, Nightmares. Both through one's fiendish patron and through planar binding fun times. Or being sufficiently evil and attracting one the old fashioned way. Or, heck, they've got Cohort LA.

As far as I'm aware, it's from Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. Also, it's “No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” (although I keep mentally substituting "Sorcerer" for "Wizard" for some reason).

I'd be more inclined to go Thrallherd. Set your Thrall up as being the apparent boss, and simply stay in hiding continuously, using Psionic Scry & Fry remotely when needed. Oh yes, and always revive mama, have her pretend to be the power behind the throne when needed.

Hmm, just what can you do with mama other than infect her with a buttload of lycanthropies(if allowed to stack) and using Psychic Reformation to get her to have the feats and skill point allocation one wants?


I think there might be some way to get an Emerald Legion style situation started, though I don't know if 11 levels is enough for an Unholy Scion to pull it off. 16 levels probably is, though, but would take some amount of time.

[Raven_Song]

My personal plan for being the BBEG is to be an Elan Spell to Power Erudite6/Thrallherd10 as a Scion of Tiamat
My first Thrall would be a Bard/Warchanter responsible for guarding the walls to my castle with his archery minions, benefiting from his ability to grant them his BAB to light up invading armies.
If this is 3.P, thrall number two would be the face of my kingdom as the Empress (I would have the title of Emperor as the man who she's chosen to marry, but SHE'S in charge) Dragonborn of Bahamut Tiamat Synthesist Summoner who's eidolon has takes the shape of a huge, five headed hydra as a symbol to my people that Tiamat is our protector, and her Avatar walks among us as our sister and savior
If the Pathfinder summoner is out, then a Paladin/Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker with Celestial Wings, Exalted Rage, and all the whirling frenzy-pouncing-leaping-power attacking trimmings to rule as a Warrior-Queen

I'd want to diversify my followers, but I'd want the core infantry of my army to consist primarily of Fighter/dragonfire adepts. Imagine enemy hoards descending on your army. Screaming, hollering usurpers to your throne. Before they can even bring their steel to clash against the sheilds of your phalanx... your commander cries out an order... and fire roars out from over and between their shields, burning through the most eager and bloodthirsty of the savages. Another order cries out and the back ranks fan out to flank the confused enemies, forming a conclave maw of death as spears lash out to chew through those too slow or too stupid to retreat.
I'd also have a healthy contingent of Summoners, Wizards, Clerics, and Bards to bolster the ranks with Warlock artillery.

The Exemplars of Evil book gives some guidelines for making BBEG, and beyond the minions granted to me by my PRC, I'd want to take advantage of 5 additional henchmen each leading their own groups of lackeys
Henchmen #1 SilverWhitebrow Human Cleric5/Winterhaunt9
This Cleric will represent Tiamat's White head, She'll take the Divine Magician ACF to grab Kelgore's gravemist, and stack up feats like Fell Weaken, Fell Drain, Black Lore of Moil, Divine Metamagic, and Widen Spell to stack some serious No-Save penalties on enemies and spend any remaining feats on the corpsecrafter line to animate skeletal hydras for extra tiamat-fluff and crunch. Her lackeys will consist primarily of other clerics to provide Spiritual support for the community and extra firepower in the form of Kelgore's Gravemist and Conjure Ice Beast on incoming troops
#2 will be a Wizard3/MasterSpecialist6/InitiateOfTheSevenfoldVeil5 to represent Tiamat's Blue head, and She will serve as the headmaster of my nation's Arcane University, where my citizens with the correct aptitudes will be enrolled for incentivized secondary schooling (my nation will have mandatory primary schooling from age 5-15, where they'll learn basic math, history, sciences, etc. After which they are free to pursue further education or other endeavors) The school will maintain a library of arcane and divine spells, alchemy recipes, psionic powers, etc... the lower levels of which are all available to students enrolled in the academy for free, and free access to higher level spells to those graduates whom afterwords enlist in government/military positions. Her lackeys will represent the professors, faculty, and graduates enlisted in government defense programs.
#3 will be a Shadowcaster10/TeflammarShadowlord4 (for Flicker/Shadowpounce abuse) to represent Tiamat's Black head as well as lead my espionage department and police force. Citizens of my nation will be given fair, thorough, trials with punishments with clear set precedents. Her lackeys will represent the police force as well as any spies
#4 will be Warlock11/Hellfire Adept3 to represent the Red head and she will head up the magical element of the military force... primarily artillery. Her lackeys will also all be warlocks, all focused on raining death down on the enemies of the state.
#5 will be a Dragonborn of Tiamat Summoner and will represent the Green head focused on the mundane elements of my military force. Her Eidolon will take the shape of a Huge Green dragon that she rides into combat alongside her lackey's (whom ride large sized dragon Eidolons of various colors) whom all provide calvalry and shocktroop force when needed and fly over the battlefield giving orders to infantry. The lower level summoners who cannot take the Large evolution will be granted Saddles of Expansion, which make their medium eidolons large enough to serve as a mount

The Nation itself will be ruled by my Thrall-Empress and her laws will treat Citizens fairly and justly. They may fear me and revolt may be unlikely, but I'd rather rule with a firm, fair hand that also garners their respect and loyalty. The national religion will focus on Tiamat being the savior of our nation during a crisis in which other gods had forsaken us. Worship (or at least reverence) of Tiamat will be culturally commonplace while worship of other deities will be considered bizarre and foreign. Taxes on the people go primarily into programs that directly help the people by funding the military, paving roads, educating children, healthcare, etc. While not required, military service is incentivized and veterans are well respected among the community.
Evil in the nation will take the form primarily of pride and greed. On a personal level, everyone is expected to pursue their passions without restraint as long as they don't bring harm to others. On a national level, the citizens simply expect the empire to continue to expand because they all have the blood of dragons running through their veins. They're better than the lesser races and they view non-dragonblooded races as beneath them, oftentimes simply as obstacles between them and new land and resources.
They aren't a particularly vicious people, and don't consider themselves as evil. They don't take joy in the suffering of others, but they lack of empathy for the plight of others when that suffering was the result of standing against their empire. It's simply a fact that those descended from dragons are meant to rule the world... and with their Empress having manifested as the Queen of Dragons, they have a difficult time understanding why the rest of the world would bother standing between her and her birthright, especially when the Empire follows all the ancient laws of conquest.
They always announce their claim on a nearby kingdom with enough warning to allow them to organize a resistance (should they choose). Provide the defending army with a plain view of their forces and offer them the chance to lay down their arms and peacefully integrate into the empire (it would be shameful to slaughter the potential citizens of a new territory into believing it has a chance to win by hiding part of our forces). Future citizens are provided with the list of the penalties carried by pre-emptive treason (confiscation of financial goods and death) as well as informed of the rights and responsibilities of probationary citizens. Children, the elderly, and other non-combatants are left unmolested during the act of conquest (when it can be avoided, of course). And all probationary citizens are able to obtain full citizenship rights through marriage to a true citizen (those of the dragonblood) and all children born of that union are considered full citizens from birth. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

[WeaselGuy]

Obligatory link...

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord