Evil Queens- Need help with good antagonists in evil game 5E

[Pictogram]

Hey everyone.

I'll just jump right in. I'm DMing a 5e game right now that i'm calling Evil Queens. The game is in a setting of my own design, a continent known as Greater Vauxri, sometimes known as the snake weed nations. Greater Vauxri is a land that is in constant turmoil; multiple nefarious factions fight for control of it's borders, constantly destroying and betraying one another only to be replaced by a new up jumped warlord with conquest in their heart. A major war for Greater Vauxri occurred 50 years ago snuffing out major game players leaving Greater Vauxri with only 11 factions left in control. These factions came to an uneasy truce, all exhausted in resources, they struck a deal and divided up the land to control. The 11 now fight one another on a smaller and more subtle scale not daring to break the truce, but the hatred and machinations boil just under the surface.

An organization known as the Cabalith rose out of the ashes of the great war, determined to unite the nation so that they may accomplish more than their petty squabbling, take over the know world. The Cabalith believes that the key to uniting these opposed groups is by taking down the last shinning beacon of good in Greater Vauxri, the Primellia Valley. The Primellia Valley is a massive swath of land with varying geography, from it's frost bitten peaks, to its bogs and coast, and its lush bountiful hills and forest. It's protected not only by the gigantic daunting mountain pass known as the great expanse but powerful holy ley lines that line it's border. The ley lines keep any non good being from crossing into the valley, ultimately isolating them from the rest of the world for about 500 years.

Our villainous pcs are given mysterious pendants by the Cabalith that have chosen them, giving them the ability to cross the border, as well as show up as good whenever alignment is detected. They are tasked with corrupting the land and it's people, destroying the main 5 lords and ladies of Primellia, and finding a way to dispel the border ley lines.

Alright I know that was long but i wanted to set the scene. One of the things i need to more fully realize are the Primellians themselves. I'm somewhat modeling them after Scandinavians, but only vaguely. I want to make them superstitious, obsessive about harmony and virtue, xenophobic, monotheistic, and a myriad of cultural taboos and nuances. Something to make them good antagonist for our villains, who might not just be out right fighting them and trying to destroy them with subterfuge. Does anyone have any good ideas?

[DarthArminius]

Hey everyone.

I'll just jump right in. I'm DMing a 5e game right now that i'm calling Evil Queens. The game is in a setting of my own design, a continent known as Greater Vauxri, sometimes known as the snake weed nations. Greater Vauxri is a land that is in constant turmoil; multiple nefarious factions fight for control of it's borders, constantly destroying and betraying one another only to be replaced by a new up jumped warlord with conquest in their heart. A major war for Greater Vauxri occurred 50 years ago snuffing out major game players leaving Greater Vauxri with only 11 factions left in control. These factions came to an uneasy truce, all exhausted in resources, they struck a deal and divided up the land to control. The 11 now fight one another on a smaller and more subtle scale not daring to break the truce, but the hatred and machinations boil just under the surface.

An organization known as the Cabalith rose out of the ashes of the great war, determined to unite the nation so that they may accomplish more than their petty squabbling, take over the know world. The Cabalith believes that the key to uniting these opposed groups is by taking down the last shinning beacon of good in Greater Vauxri, the Primellia Valley. The Primellia Valley is a massive swath of land with varying geography, from it's frost bitten peaks, to its bogs and coast, and its lush bountiful hills and forest. It's protected not only by the gigantic daunting mountain pass known as the great expanse but powerful holy ley lines that line it's border. The ley lines keep any non good being from crossing into the valley, ultimately isolating them from the rest of the world for about 500 years.

Our villainous pcs are given mysterious pendants by the Cabalith that have chosen them, giving them the ability to cross the border, as well as show up as good whenever alignment is detected. They are tasked with corrupting the land and it's people, destroying the main 5 lords and ladies of Primellia, and finding a way to dispel the border ley lines.

Alright I know that was long but i wanted to set the scene. One of the things i need to more fully realize are the Primellians themselves. I'm somewhat modeling them after Scandinavians, but only vaguely. I want to make them superstitious, obsessive about harmony and virtue, xenophobic, monotheistic, and a myriad of cultural taboos and nuances. Something to make them good antagonist for our villains, who might not just be out right fighting them and trying to destroy them with subterfuge. Does anyone have any good ideas?

Why not give the Primellians genuinely good qualities? Sure, they are superstitions, and xenophobic, but if they're obsessive about harmony and virtue, why not have some of them really hit that point really hard, where they actually do have very good and well refined virtues? Hospitality is one, maybe have them believe in charity and mercy, giving the bad PCs every opportunity to turn good?

[White Blade]

Look at your PCs, write out their individual traits, and invert some of those traits for the five lords and ladies. If you have a seductress warlock, then make an ever-faithful widow(er) with clerical powers. If you have a raging barbarian, make a serene monk. A crafty rogue, a vigilant paladin. You get it. Villains should highlight or contrast a character's traits - Lex Luthor is vile and ruled by ambition because Superman is noble and humble, he fights Superman on a mental/political turf because he obviously can't beat Superman in a straight fight. If the players are seducing and corrupting, then you want the opponents to vastly outmatch them in other areas but to be vulnerable to those goals. You want them to have secrets and desires that make them vulnerable to subversion. The players are the villains in this sense, so you want them to be vastly overmatched in other arenas, so that they can't solve their problems through sheer force.

[Breccia]

If the valley has been shielded from evil so well, that native human(oid) PCs need special amulets to enter, well, the Primellians have probably gotten a little lax in their security. They're probably far more interested in keeping their lands a self-sufficient zone, by virtue of making sure everyone has a needed skill, a home, food and medicine, than chasing down orcs and demons because...there won't be any. To a certain extent, why train with the sword when there's nobody you'll need to stab with it? It's a lousy weapon for hunting, and it can't cut bread or spread butter.

With martial weapons and training less valuable, the Primellians' most likely defenders will probably be religious spellcasters. If you're trying to make them antagonistic, and by the way good luck with that it sounds hard, but if you are, maybe consider the religious angle. Possibly the strongest LG faiths could be painted as authoritative, and CG as inconsistent and biased sources of justice?

[Bohandas]

Alright I know that was long but i wanted to set the scene. One of the things i need to more fully realize are the Primellians themselves. I'm somewhat modeling them after Scandinavians, but only vaguely. I want to make them superstitious, obsessive about harmony and virtue, xenophobic, monotheistic, and a myriad of cultural taboos and nuances. Something to make them good antagonist for our villains, who might not just be out right fighting them and trying to destroy them with subterfuge. Does anyone have any good ideas? [/LEFT]

They might have become obsessed over the years with the idea that all sorts of behaviors might damage the ley lines. Looking for ways to damage the lines the characters will be bombarded with possibilities, the vast majority of them red herrings. This obsession could then be be harnessed to push the society first into lawful stupid and ultimately into lawful evil by encouraging stricter enforcememt amd dumber taboos.

[Max_Killjoy]

They might have become obsessed over the years with the idea that all sorts of behaviors might damage the ley lines. Looking for ways to damage the lines the characters will be bombarded with possibilities, the vast majority of them red herrings. This obsession could then be be harnessed to push the society first into lawful stupid and ultimately into lawful evil by encouraging stricter enforcememt amd dumber taboos.

Perhaps the people blame anything that goes wrong on damage to the ley lines, and of course the fact that things keep going wrong despite their rules means that they need to try harder and harder to protect the lines.

[brian 333]

Tarambine - Warden of the East

Eastwatch Tower dominates the eastern pass into the valley, and it is the home of the wizard Tarambine. From Eastwatch she comtrols a wide land with her own considerable power and with the might of an army of fighter/magic-users which patrols her realm and makes forrays into the benighted Easern lands.

Among her defenses is the Eastern Gate, a formiddable fortress at the entrance to the pass, and the Eastwatch Tower itself. The magnificently tall and slender tower is set on the highest ridge overlooking the pass, granting it views for dozens of miles in all directions. From its spire massive lightnings can be called which are capable of devastating whole armies. These lightening bolts can strike any position which can be seen from the tower.

Jarlund - The Questing Knight

The home of The Questing Knight was over run by the evil queen (insert name here) while the young page was being fostered by the great knight Wiellan. The squire was orphaned and left homeless a second time when Castle Fifwellyn ap Hoyl was over run and Wiellan was slain. As he lay dying of his wounds the great knight knighted Squire Jarlund who brought the survivors of ap Hoyl into the relative safety of the valley.

The paladin seeks rumors of monsters and other evil creatures in the valley and relentlessly hunts them down with the help of a company of adventurers. He has also been known to attack targets of opportunity outside the valley.

His sword is a bastard sword which he named Witchbane. Forged for him by the redfugee smith Mazahd Ka'Tharzahk of the now enslaved dwarves of the Burad Mountains, it is said to have been enchanted with curses specific to (insert queen's name here), and prophecies fortell of its eventual success in slaying her.

Father Layart - Guardian of the Temple of the Lights

In the center of the valley is a temple carved into a natural formation of rose-quartz embedded in granite. The temple can harbor up to a thousand in an emergency, but usually has fewer than one hundred on staff. Refugees often reside here until better work and quarters can be found.

The Temple Of Lights got its name for its nightime appearance as internal illumination causes it to glow.

Father Layart has been training a generation of warriors to defend the valley, and many adventurers are his students.

[Dargaron]

Question about the setting device: if the Cabal-Stone want to (re)unite the fractious kingdoms of Greater Vauxri, why did they decide to start with the people who, from the sound of things, are Xenophobic Isolationists? Do the Primellians primarily (zing!) stay within the safety of their borders? If so, why not start by subverting one or more of the outlying realms, and only take on Primellia once the Caballith have a hefty majority of the other kingdoms already backing them?

Looking at your description of the Primellians, you want them superstitious, xenophobic and obsessed with harmony: what if the Primellians were the primary enforcers of the old accord that prevented all-out war between the remaining 11 factions, because the Primellians have a strong cultural tendency to assign anything (people, nations, institutions) into a "proper" place, with strict boundaries and controlled points-of-contact between different groups//people/institutions? So whenever one of the other factions gets too "uppity," the Primellians are the ones who emerge from their homeland and make sure the offender gets pushed back to their own little box.

For example: think about how in large sections of Medieval Europe and the Near/Middle East, men and women (of high rank) would often have very different living spaces, carefully delineated so that there was no unexpected contact between the two outside of very specific circumstances. Now apply that to guilds, kingdoms, etc: maybe all Glassworking is done in secret, behind closed doors, so that only "official" glassblowers are allowed to know the secrets. Or make callbacks to the Hunger Games: people from the different Districts, as a rule, do not come into contact with one another. Maybe Primellians are given (relatively) free range within their own hometown, but traveling between towns/districts/duchies is severely penalized without authorization from some higher power. This would be the PCs' "in": as outsiders, they are able to cross these boundaries without incurring the same kind of social stigma that a "native" would for transgressing in such a way.

Extending this mentality to the internal workings of the Primellians, maybe the five Lords and Ladies all have discrete "portfolios" that they wield absolute authority over, but are forbidden to interfere in one anothers' affairs. That gives the PCs an "in" with one or more of the Lords and Ladies: Lord X and Lord Y are feuding over some issue related to the good of Primellia as a whole, and both see their "solution" to whatever problem as the best thing for the kingdom in general. Then the PCs can offer a real temptation to whichever Lord they think is more malleable: e.g. "We'll do your dirty work for you, you'll strengthen the kingdom, and all you'll have to do is silence your conscience while we do our business. Oh, and you'll owe us a harmless favor." Of course, you can also have the PCs start with someone lower in the chain than a Lord/Lady him/herself: maybe they can run into an out-of-favor functionary of one of the Lords who is desperate to get back in their good graces, and so might be willing to hire the PCs as "consultants" willing to break the rules in order to win his/her superior's favor.

Basically, if the goal of the PCs is to corrupt someone, the best way to do so is to find someone who, for some reason or another, deeply wants something that he/she can't have. Maybe it's a romantic interest who is only interested in a person who has/has done *something,* maybe it's some token of prestige that was taken away *lawfully,* but the individual in question thinks it was taken unfairly. Whatever it is, have the "wanter's" hands tied by some kind of custom/prohibition that forbids him/her specifically from acquiring what he/she wants.

[brian 333]

General Lysom - The Heavy Hand

Lysom began his career as a gladiator slave whose success brought him fame. Queen [insert name here] transferred him to her army where in ten years he rose to command. His personnel record shows he was 28 years old at the time.

Within a year's time he, along with the army he lead, defected. They successfully fended off two attempts to recapture them, and arrived in the valley with ten thousand trained warriors and two defeated armies in their wake.

General Lysom gained his appellation when in the arena he struck with his hammer so hard the man was practically decapitated and his brain splattered the occupants of The Queen's Box. Later that would be retold as the man's brain or even his entire head landed in The Queen's lap.

[Spore]

Does anyone have any good ideas?

So they're the main power in the setting, and they're good. What do winning good guys do? They spare the villain. They give them a last chance of redemption. Maybe they even coax them with items and support to exit the spiral of violence.

Tempting protagonists with evil is done to death. Tempting them to do is not done as often, because usually the audience is to identify themselves with the good guys, not the evil ones. Of course this could lead to infighting in the group or even to align themselves with the good guys (only to backstab them later if they embraced the evil game).

But you should at least give them a chance to side with the antagonistic good empire.

i'm calling [it] Evil Queens

If your good empire doesn't have a woman disguising herself as king, what are you even doing? I love gendering alignments like that for major players yet the good king and the evil queen/witch has been done to death, too. Bonus points for her being a warlock bound to a demon that pushes her towards war because he needs souls to fuel his vile machinations.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Hey everyone.

I'll just jump right in. I'm DMing a 5e game right now that i'm calling Evil Queens. The game is in a setting of my own design, a continent known as Greater Vauxri, sometimes known as the snake weed nations. Greater Vauxri is a land that is in constant turmoil; multiple nefarious factions fight for control of it's borders, constantly destroying and betraying one another only to be replaced by a new up jumped warlord with conquest in their heart. A major war for Greater Vauxri occurred 50 years ago snuffing out major game players leaving Greater Vauxri with only 11 factions left in control. These factions came to an uneasy truce, all exhausted in resources, they struck a deal and divided up the land to control. The 11 now fight one another on a smaller and more subtle scale not daring to break the truce, but the hatred and machinations boil just under the surface.

An organization known as the Cabalith rose out of the ashes of the great war, determined to unite the nation so that they may accomplish more than their petty squabbling, take over the know world. The Cabalith believes that the key to uniting these opposed groups is by taking down the last shinning beacon of good in Greater Vauxri, the Primellia Valley. The Primellia Valley is a massive swath of land with varying geography, from it's frost bitten peaks, to its bogs and coast, and its lush bountiful hills and forest. It's protected not only by the gigantic daunting mountain pass known as the great expanse but powerful holy ley lines that line it's border. The ley lines keep any non good being from crossing into the valley, ultimately isolating them from the rest of the world for about 500 years.

Our villainous pcs are given mysterious pendants by the Cabalith that have chosen them, giving them the ability to cross the border, as well as show up as good whenever alignment is detected. They are tasked with corrupting the land and it's people, destroying the main 5 lords and ladies of Primellia, and finding a way to dispel the border ley lines.

Alright I know that was long but i wanted to set the scene. One of the things i need to more fully realize are the Primellians themselves. I'm somewhat modeling them after Scandinavians, but only vaguely. I want to make them superstitious, obsessive about harmony and virtue, xenophobic, monotheistic, and a myriad of cultural taboos and nuances. Something to make them good antagonist for our villains, who might not just be out right fighting them and trying to destroy them with subterfuge. Does anyone have any good ideas?

Most villains do not see themselves as villains, they see themselves as the heroes of their own story and whoever is trying to stop them they see as the villains. Villains are usually filled with justifications and rationalizations to justify the evil they do which they feel is necessary. realistic villains don't do something for "evil's sake," What they are doing they will call "Good" and if anyone tries to argue with them or convince them otherwise they will have that person killed.

[brian 333]

The Rakmock - An Orcish Rebellion

Rakmock is usually translated from Orcish as 'Freedom'. It is not the individual, personal freedom humans and elves prefer, nor even the dwarvish concept of living in an insular society without external rule.

Rakmock might be better described as, 'Freedom to rule as one's strength and cunning permits.' In this concept is embedded the right to take what you want if you are strong enough, and to do with it as you like so long as you can prevent others taking it from you.

The Queens have stifled this freedom by interfering in the orcish leadership, imposing rulers and laws on the tribes, and designating where the orcs may live and where they must fight.

In reaction to this there has grown an orcish resistance movement which is unorganized and fragmented, and which is rooted out and suppressed when discovered.

The worst of these directly challenge a queen, and are ruthlessly put down. This usually creates sympathy and an occasional convert to the cause.

Among the best of these is General Caudug, who has developed a secret means of getting strategic information to the valley, and who has connected a fragment of the many tiny resistance groups to help them learn more effective means of fighting back.

He maintains an image as the most fanatically loyal of the generals, and the average person would never imagine 'Bloody Caudug' as one of the most effective members of The Rakmock. Few realize his bloodiest battles are designed to kill off the officers and orcs most fanatically loyal to the queen and to allow the women and children of the enemy to escape.