i was running a campaign were the "BBEG" was a demon that had been spared by a god of redemtion and had become a paladin. he was originaly meant to be a quest giver but the PCs decided that he was a threat and despite many warnings attacked him. they rallied a smal army, they killed his fellow paladins, his adopted daughter, and several refugees that were staying on the church ground. as they stood around him he began to cry "you've taken everything from me" he said "why?" the fighter then said "because you are a monster and an afront to the gods" the demon began to laugh "if you want a monster so badly, then i will give you one." he said as he stood up, pulling a sword from his chest as his own sword and armor began to glow pure white as his own god wished to see the party killed. the only reoson it wasnt a TPK is because after he one shot the bard the rouge ran away.
@@Iknowhowbadthisnameis8828 they assumed he was bullshiting and that the paladins, refugees, and his daughter were worshiping him, they had never encountered there order before, so they thought it was fake and the demon could cast illusions. in my homebrew worlds people can become gods if the other gods accept them after they die. the god of redemption was a player from previos campain that had been a servent of the bbeg but had come to their side.
*Ritual in process* -If you intend to seal a Monster, make sure something Worse never comes out. In shock from sudden Murder and declaration* -You wanted a Monster then you'll get one. I will devour you and your armies *Massacres everyone and frees the Monster to build a hidden Nation*
"I'll humor your defiance only because I'm ahead of schedule." After the fight, the party was spanked and the big bad says "3 minutes earlier than expected." Then left the room calmly.
The villain in my campaign never really seemed to care about the players, until they finally managed to interfere with one of the steps on his large, world-ending master plan. Which prompted him to confront them, angrily uttering the words "Congratulations! You're finally worth killing!"
Reminds me of TFS' version of Freeza's post mortem line after killing Krillin: "Of all the people I've blown up, he will always have a special place in my heart"
Villain: "You are the strongest heroes of your land!" (Kicks Barbarian off his blade a day struts up to cleric who is having a crisis of faith) "For shame."
ngl i kinda love the "you aint shit" kind of lines. what would be even better is slapping this sort of line on a suicidal villain whos been trying to find a way to get himself killed in a fight for a while...
@@crustybomb115 Even better, slap it on a suicidal villain with a few tricks up their sleeve, so they can give the heroes a heart attack before he bites the dust.
I was DMing Curse of Strahd for the first time (no spoilers in here) and I had my players enter barovia without using the suggested plot hooks. This was fine until I realized halfway through the second session that they have no idea why they are even in barovia or who this strange well dressed magic man was. That's when I came up with a great line for him that he said to them at the end of the third session. "I am so rarely granted the luxury of anonymity. I eagerly await the day you learn my name...and why you should fear it."
Had a moment where a character whiffed super bad on a grapple check and kinda just ended up hugging the BBEG. There were a couple seconds of awkward silence before he smiled and said, "Do you need a second to recover from that embarrassment?"
Not a villain but a dark moment for a character. We were being attacked by multiple undead and the party barbarian had his strength drained by shadows. When half the party made it to the church to stay safe, he tried to rush back out. The priest refused to let him leave saying he would die, he said he would not abandon his friends. The priest still refused and he uttered one final warning, “Do not make me kill you in the house of your god.”
A bbeg that was always was in control . Cold , calculating and distend. He even slayed a god that was called down to deal with him ( not dead but it lost alot of its divinity from that loss ) he was the big bad evil guy from a multiple year group over multiple campaign. He uttered only one thing, bearly a wisper, over the dead body of his wife with zears in his eyes( the tears alome freaked out my players): " she was the only thing holding me back"
Not actually a villain, but a player character - AFTER he got hit with Power Word: Kill. "You knew of me as Hurrun Sablemane, cleric of the Weeping Ruin. But thanks to your spell, I remember my true name. Orcus, Demon Lord of Undeath. You may beg now."
@@unknownslayer7363 Campaign is in a homebrew setting, and is heavily centered around curses. Each of us had a cursed item we began with. In Hurrun's case, it was a necklace he made to mourn his tribe, which had been wiped out by a plague. As a result of the curse, he had to make a Wisdom save every time combat broke out, or the angry spirits of his tribe would drive him into a barbarian-like rage, with the downside that they would also be constantly dealing him necrotic damage. However, as the campaign progressed, we started learning that all of the characters were linked to demon lords in some way. One of our fighters turned out to be the bastard daughter of Baphomet and a paladin, our other fighter and our rogue were both linked to the opposing heads of Demogorgon with jewelry that would cause them to take injuries when the other one was attacked, and our sorcerer - turned out to not technically be alive. Can't remember the name of his demon. Anyway, Hurrun figured out through dreams and prayers to his god, the primal god of destruction and regret, that he was somehow linked to Orcus. But he didn't know HOW linked, until we were dealing with an efreeti lord who had some cursed items we needed to recover. Hurrun had pissed him off by chucking a freezing stone at him, using his divine intervention to help land a heavy hit, and helping bust a bunch of enslaved demons out of his private gladiator stock. So, he hit Hurrun with a Power Word Kill. And then, we learned the truth. It WASN'T a plague that killed Hurrun's tribe. It was Orcus, who had somehow been bound to Hurrun's soul, and who killed and enslaved the spirits of the tribe while trying to escape his prison of flesh. And by using that spell, the efreet had let Orcus slip loose again. Thankfully for everyone, Orcus isn't as big of an asshole in this setting. In exchange for ensuring the freedom for the demons to return to the setting's equivalent of the Abyss, he agreed to spare the efreet - on the condition he abandon his fortress and all of his wealth.
Not from the villain and not actually that cool of a line, it just filled me and my team with dread DM: “the Dwarf King waits patiently on the moonlit terrain” Party:”ok then, what’s his army like?” DM:” oh no, there’s no army, it’s just the Dwarf King” Party: “so it’s a 5 v 1 and our enemy is just waiting for us?” DM: “yeah” In the end a big anime type fight happened and we just ended up digging a tunnel to flee
"Your deaths have been the same. Timeline after timeline. You fell before me more times than I can count." This was when he decided to challenge a very powerful cronomancer. He kept resetting time whenever he felt like it, and our party decided he should not have access to such power if he used it so willy nilly.
was DMing for a campaign where i never got to use this, but i had a villain who was supposed to be masterminding the whole campaign. Once he was revealed and the party inevitably acted defiant he was supposed to hit them with the line, “It’s true folly to stand before me. So you will learn to kneel.”
BBEG: "Have you ever thought how, at some point, someone says your names for the last time?" Durtor (one of my players): "What the Hell do you mean by that?!" BBEG: *sighs* "I mean that moment is now, Alexis, Arianna, Durtor, and Malikor" The fight starts. Critical hit on his first attack. Almost max damage. Nat 2 on the save. Instantly kills Arianna. BBEG: "That's one more name for the list. I have for a rule to never add more than two names in a single day unless I have to. I usually don't have to. I offer you take the body of your friend and do with it as you please. If you deny, well... One of you three will not see another day, and the other two will have to carry a corpse each." Needless to say they left with Ari's corpse. As a final mocking act, the BBEG said: "Let her replacement know I am looking forward to meeting them!" Can't wait for the party to meet him again.
@@baronkarza2939 Wouldn't say polite. More like... respectful. He doesn't want to take over the world or anything, and he doesn't enjoy killing. His true love was killed in a very unfair way, and he needs to collect souls and names in order to make a deal with the gods and bring her back. Anyways, he knows what it's like to lose someone, so he wanted them to have their friend's body to bury it or whatever they wanted to do. He might be the Bad Guy, but he's not evil at all.
@@LFMG-qu5fq ngl,Kinda interesting to see a Villain who has nothing to lose and its willing to do anything to bring someone back,a nice twist from the "I will take over the world just because"
@@xboxoneyes7734 Thanks, man! I always want the characters to be authentic, specially the Villain. I once had a BBEG who was the DM himself, and wanted to regain control of the world he had created. In another occasion, my BBEG was a demon who wanted to destroy a kingdom and transform it into a country for demons. The twist is that this kingdom was extremely racist against demons and had been discriminating the BBEG through his entire life. He just wanted to create a place where demons would be safe and could live a peaceful life.
I ran a campaign once where my players time traveled 500 years into the future across the sea and had no idea what had happened but one of them adopted a little girl who, when they skipped time, was left behind. She thought that her adoptive dad had abandoned her like all the rest and became a powerful warrior. Beyond simply wanting power, she desperately wanted to be loved. She was adopted by a new family during the 500 year skip, they were killed by vampires and she, having been tortured so much by having everything she loved ripped away from her three separate times, made a deal with a magical entity to have immaculate beauty and a naturally infinite life. The entity turned her into a Gorgon so as to grant her wish. Strikes down again, she slew the entire town where the vampires came from and rebuilt it with the ideals that her first adoptive father (the player) had. Flash forward to after the time skip and she's the BBEG but the players don't recognize her, as to them it's only been a couple months, not 500 years. They end up fighting and she shuts them down at every opportunity, never killing them because she remembers who they are (she's basically had eternity to commit them to memory) and when they do finally kill her, she calls her once father by a nickname only she had ever used and his heart broke. The sudden realization that you just killed your estranged daughter and she basically said "goodbye daddy" in the same voice and cadence as the 11 year old you knew centuries ago broke him, the whole table cried, and I thought that I'd finally made an internal story my players would never forget.
We all genuinely cried after the final reveal happened. Me because the master plan finally all came together and them because it was just about the most heartbreaking thing I could've done at the time.
Unless you have an in-universe reason why the desperate estranged daughter wouldn't try to communicate throughout the fight, or before it, then it's actually very poorly done and railroaded down the players throats. She cared enough to cry out in death, but not enough to say something sooner? The revelation that she was never initially abandoned did nothing for her character? So she's braindead?
@@youtubecensorship842 I’d assume it’s cause AS SAID she had been hurt in the same heart shattering way 3 times and even if somebody had learned the first hurt wasn’t intentional, she would be too far to just suddenly be like “Oh hiya bucko! Great to see you again! :)”
@@youtubecensorship842 its higly likely she regretted her deal with the entity turning her into a gorgon a literal monster, knowing that if she said something earlier they might not kill her, we dont know what the terms of the deal with the entity was either. youre making a lot of assumptions and are being pretty rude. if the players cried that means it was meaningful and didnt feel railroaded. stop seeking to pull other people down, it doesnt look good on anyone.
One of the enemies we were fighting, a shifter who revels in pain and violence (and was doing quite well against us), said "Stop" mid-battle and proceeded to give us healing potions. When the sadomasochist well on their way to executing a TPK demands a timeout and heals you, you've probably got bigger problems to worry about.
Wrote a villain for a campaign way back who used to be a hero in his lifetime. He had been surrounded by so much death, loss and bloodshed, that he eventually went mad and devoted himself to stopping death completely! He was a wizard at the time, but after he reached lvl 20 he devoted himself to becoming a lich and creating a spell that would make everyone immortal. When the party confronted and near defeated him, his last words were "I never realised the cold sweet kiss of death was so, comforting. Is this what they felt? Is this the lie we are faithed to end!? Was it wrong for a man who dedicated his life to saving innocence, to preserve that innocence? Well then....end me "heros", for I do not embrace death, I challenge it!"
Context: This was an isekai campaign. All of the PCs were from our world. (You can probably tell where this plot twist is going.) BBEG is OP war criminal doctor (not TF2 Medic). Players managed to organize a summit between all the world leaders, major guilds and heroes to mount an offense on the BBEG. At the end of the meeting, one of the heroes pulls off a mask. It's the bbeg, who starts making a speech. Then she mutters something to herself that makes the players freeze. "Really, most of these guys are like Twitter, complaining about everything while doing nothing to actually help." Then she released an agnosia inducing gas bombs throughout the entire building they were in. If you don't know what agnosia is, it's a rare disorder that makes you unable to recognize or identify objects or people, meaning literally nobody recognized each other, and they panicked too much to think of a process of elimination, or listen to the few that kept their heads. Naturally, this leads to absolute chaos. After the gas wore off, half the room was dead, including all but a few world leaders, and the bbeg was nowhere to be found. Many countries collapsed, including the one the party was summoned to. tl;dr: Isekai Doctor talks about Twitter, then tricks room filled with very important people into killing each other, causes countries to collapse. Edit: Fixed the Great Wall of -China- Text. Edit 2: Updated definition of agnosia. Edit 3: Added the collapsing countries to tl;dr.
NGL, a country that outright collapses just because it loses one or two of its leader figures is probably a highly unstable shithole to begin with. That aside though, still a neat twist.
Imagine this coming from a sexy female vampire. Think Ada Wong meets Rayne. “You know what makes killing someone fun? Anticipation. I stayed in your tiny village for *months* just getting to know every single person there. The anticipation made the intimacy of killing each one so much more pleasurable! And you- the children- I didn’t let you go out of mercy. I let you go because I knew *THIS MOMENT* was going to come. And as you have wanted and waited it for so many years… so have I. This is going to be the best sensation ever. For one of us, anyway… shall we?”
I started a homebrew star wars campaign based on a "what if" scenario. Two of my players managed to craft their lightsabers aboard a 501st controlled ship, and one decided to test his by attacking Ahsoka, both looked up to see Rex with his blasters leveled at him ready to fire. And here's what Rex said after holstering "We may be free from the inhibitor chips and Palpatine's control, but we're still capable and willing to execute order 66 on you if you try playing that joke again...."
*Bad guy is trying to unleash a sealed Zombie army that will destroy everyone* *He has standard banter with the heroes* "So, I have one question. While we've all been having this conversation? Where have my minions been?" *Flash cut to minions unsealing the zombie army*
Great line. Also, I feel like it's kind of a counterpoint to the monologue thing. Sometimes the bad guys are getting stuff done while they are talking to you. In a campaign I was in we got called to group up at this square. When the first two guys get there it's mostly empty and the DM starts describing a weird feeling in the air. They immediately activated defensive abilities before the DM got to the part in the module where there is an explosion that you can't react to (A friendly NPC was meant to show up and heal them so they wouldn't die). Because they were so quick on the trigger the DM let them stay conscious using their defensive abilities. It's one of a lot of moments from that campaign we still talk about.
@@davidprince6877 Yup. What was great was one of my PCs IMMEDAITELY got it. The sign of a good GM is knowing how to make the module more...realistic. And feel like it's living and breathing.
During my Curse of Strahd campaign the party were invited to Castle Ravenloft for a dinner. During the course of the meal the cleric- a Tortle Grave Domain cleric- casually dunked on Ireena/Tatiana, and I finally got to use a line I’d had in my back pocket since the start of the campaign. Strahd looked him dead in the eyes and said (in a true “Dixie/southern aristocratic” accent- trust me, it fits Strahd to a T), “I am a most gracious host, and you are here under my protection. However, should you say one more cross word about my beloved Tatiana I will be forced to have you escorted from the premises. And if you then lay even a finger on a servant of mine in that process… I will hunt you down myself and turn you into a vampire spawn, I shall cut off your beard and jam it into a spike in my hearth, where you shall burn for eternity, unable to die, but unable to escape. Have I made myself clear?” _Dead silence_ for at least 2 seconds from the entire party. No one has spoken poorly of Ireena since then.
Overconfident party storms into the BBEG's fortress after facing a sheet-ton of constructs, shadows and traps. By this point they're wounded, drained and exhausted. Paladin: "We can't fail! The gods watch over us, and they give us strength!" BBEG: "Indeed, they do." BBEG replied right before all light is snuffed out and the room is filled with screams. And that's how the party found out he was the Goddess of Darkness's champion. Edit: Grammar.
A villain from roleplay well over ten years ago. He was an evil druid who could shapeshift into an orca, or a big Jaws-esque shark (ship-based game), and he would say, “People have an extreme aversion to being eaten.”
Back when I couldn’t improv for crap, I played with a forever paladin who always gave long a boring speeches before any enemy he could. One time we were about to fight a pirate captain in his cave he hid treasures in and once the paladin finished his speech the captain said it was very pretty and he was sad to not have one himself, but he did have this, que him standing up off what we thought was a rock but was actually a ballista covered with a cloak. And then knocking the paladin out of the cave with the first bolt.
Paladin: (Gives speech) Pirate Cap'n: "Cute. Wish I had one o' those. But I DO have this..." (stands up and reveals ballista) Paladin: What in the- Cap'n: Aw, SHADDUP! (Fires Ballista) *Cut to outside the cave. The Paladin comes flying out on the wrong end of a ballista bolt.* (Goofy Yell as Paladin hits the water.)
One of my villains was a suped up human, and he said this to one of the last remaining vampires. “You sit on your gilded throne drinking, feasting, laughing at the mortal lives as they die, helpless and suffering.” “But now, the tides have turned.” “Times change and the heroes of old fall from the unending torrent of age.” “Yet you think yourself immune to such things, but time grasps all, and much like the heroes of ages past, you will die with them.” “A nameless grave, among a dead forgotten field, filled with strange faces.”
Not a Villain, but my Pathfinder Kitsune Ninja Assassin’s first line was “Please allow me the honor of ending each of your lives.” The party was fighting these undead that she had a contract to kill and she was in her shadow form so they couldn’t see her. Scared the crap out of the party because they couldn’t see her and had no clue who she was talking to
Green dragon sees the barbarian-paladin in the party (easily the most powerful member of the group and the one everyone jumps to help) and says, "I think I'll keep her." Sent chills down everyone's backs. It was creepy, showed he didn't think anything of the party's power, and fit perfectly with the green dragons' tendency toward keeping people as treasure (usually as statues).
Running CoS and one of the lines I had Strahd say to the party when they were fighting a slew of wolves, bats, vampires, and zombies. He appeared when the party was at low health and one of them had failed their death saves (they were brought back to life because they made a deal with a Dark Power) and Strahd just walks into the middle of the fight, clapping his hands in amusement as he spoke, "I knew that it was the right call to bring you to my domaine. You bring me such enjoyment," as he then proceeds to kill all of his grunts. The same ones that the party was struggling to survive.
The party thought the villain wanted a town to enslave its people and occupy its homes. They evacuated the people from the town, and then burnt all of the buildings down before the villain's army could march in. The players confronted the villain's army, and showed that the town had already been razed to prevent him from using it. His response was polite: "Thank you for saving me some time. It was also courteous of you to remove any possible threat to my troops. Now, if you have more generosity within you, give us your stuff and sit in these cages." The players somehow thought that confronting a villain with no backup was a good idea. Spoiler alert: they were thrown into prison.
one that I stole from a comic was when my players were sent to capture the bad guy and one of them said "give up, you're surrounded". and I had the villain respond telepathically to the whole party "All I'm surrounded by, is fear and dead men"
Had this Setup for the party in a campaign that fell through. The King of a kingdom was sending the party out to stop the dark order from summoning an arch devil to gain their power and rule over the world. The king of course was paying the party, giving them special missions and even granting special magical weapons. The party was to enter the final chamber of the BBEG's lair only to have the king standing their with a glass of wine and the cult leader sharing a toast. "Ah, here they are now! My personal elite squad, they've done fantastic work taking out all our opposition. Come in, sit down! We are celebrating our victory in bringing forth the dark lord. Now that you're here with those blood stained weapons the ritual is complete!" With a snap of his fingers the weapons would bleed out onto the floor, rusting and crumbling away, before the dark lord is summoned. Every kill they got with the weapons would be a bonus to the dark lord.
@@DepressedCrow I was basically going to give them the choice. Serve as generals to the demon army and take over the world or face the dark lord without their magical weapons they've been using the whole time.
Pretty sure I read a similar green text dnd story where the party was helping this exiled noble regain his familial lands, and got conned into bring the dark lord into power. Although to be fair he was a very friendly dark lord and made some very convincing arguments.
This was from a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign, so we were all pretty villainous. There was an NPC ally who was supposed to drive us to a mission, but she got on our nerves, so we ditched her, stole her van, and drove ourselves. Later, my character told her, "Samira, I just want to let you know that it was wrong of me to steal your van and skip town. What I should have done was run you over with it."
I am particularly proud of this moment: In my game there's a Homebrewed race of what essentially boil down to dragon T-rex people the size of giants called "Mawstriders" They are fairly feral, often raid farms and their hide makes AMAZING armor. They are often slain as a right of passage for the local denizens of the nearby nation. So Imagine my players Surprise when they meet a Mawstrider Cleric and befriend him, as he follows the same god as our Cleric does. Previously they viewed Mawstriders as scary Borderline Feral Animals. Fast forward and said Befriended Mawstrider takes them to the newly founded City a tribe of Mawstriders built and to the chieftain, a magically enhanced Mawstrider that went by "The King of Jaws" The very first thing he said to them was as follows: "None of my people know how old we can actually grow to be, Our elders are in their thirties. My people think of me as a wise tactician and intellectual… I only have a basic education. Something as basic as Language is considered a rarity to all those who wander without a tribe. Or at least, it was. I represent the culmination of centuries of us being hunted, Murdered and put on display as a feat of strength. I am strength. I am fury. I am the unbridled and true Justice for the true children of this land and you will come to fear that"
when my character betrayed the party (this was planned from the start) I said, "better remembered as the villain than forgotten trying to be the hero." still my coldest line to date
RE: Interrupting monologues: That's why you should kit out your bad guys with spells and abilities specifically to counter such shenanigans (the more effortless, the better), at which point they could just pick up where they left off like nothing happened (after chastising the attacker for their rudeness, of course).
My best moment with a villan was one that said nothing Party was going through a dungeon to close a minor portal to the abyss. They went through the dungeon and decided to sneak into the room with the final encounter and ended up on a small cliff above the portal. They had previously spotted a tall and heavily armored figure near the beginning of the dungeon, but couldent get a good look at it. The one leading the sneaking looked down and saw alot of undead enemys and other creatures guarding the portal, but the large armored figure was missing. He turned to tell the party what he saw, only to see the tall figure, clad in black full plate and a dark hood over a face of a skull made of shadow, with a greatsword in hand dripping black icor, Standing over the crouched group, directly behind the life domain cleric who was about 2 feet shorter then it even if they stood to there full hight, staring at them all in defening silence Scared him so bad that they froze for a solid 12 seconds in game until the cleric got confused, turned around, and promptly screamed. Hardest fight so far too, with the cleric and paladin dying by its hands (the creature was a buffed dark wraith from the dark souls games) and the other 3 members just barely managing to bring it down and close the portal after killing its minons
All of my players had run into a boss fight they were totally unprepared for. Under-leveled, not enough supplies, the Casters were low on Spell Slots, the works. The boss turned to them, playfully saying, "OK, then. I'll play with you a little bit," before wiping the floor with them.
This isn’t a bad guy line, but it’s still pretty good in my opinion. An NPC is taking care of someone the party rescued, and he says this, “I can often tell how much hope one has by looking into their eyes. I looked into those eyes and I knew at once… the fire is gone.”
The BBEG was an ice witch that followed the commands of a demon, during an exchange with the paladin of the party she said this to him: "You kill if your god asks to do so. You burn and destroy as he sees fit. You follow its command without a second thought. So tell me: What's the difference between you and I?"
We have a villain in the campaign I'm in, a spirit called the Avatar of Greed. We defeated him as a Death Knight a few sessions ago and while exploring a cathedral filled with undead using one of an NPC's creations (basically a flying orb that transmits images to another orb we have like a drone) a random zombie grabs the orb and starts talking to the party. Basically he says to us, "Tell your masters that we're growing stronger every day and that soon we'll meet them with a new army (turns the orb to a huge mob of undead)." Then he talks to my character directly and says, "So, are how are you enjoying Avarice? Does it serve you well?" (Avarice being the enchanted sword I looted from his original body) I basically cussed him out and told him that next time we meet I'll gladly return his sword to him, right through the chest.
The barbarian basically said : "I've burned cities, slaugthered armies, and you think you can kill my friends and I ?!" My BBEW responded : "Oooooh darling, look how cute you are *teleports behind them a knife under the chin* killing at war it a thing sure, but ending it by killing a god is something else" And that's how my PCs learned that the legend they've been told when they were children, was hers, and that she in fact killed a god
"You don't understand, nor will you begin to comprehend, the weight of all this." The knight begins to rise, and as he draws his blade he looks at each of you, one by one. With a heavy sigh he points his blade towards you and says, "No matter the outcome of this pointless fight, in the end. I win." Note: This knight was a general to a city they'd come to call home- since the beginning of the campaign they had been accepting quests from this guy. In the end they found out what he's been doing in the background, that all the threats he'd been sending them to deal with, was his own doing in the first place. They found out a little too late
To me: "Oh, *you're* Siren." She then proceeds to stab my npc friend in the heart. The same friend we'd been trying to rescue since he'd sacrificed himself to let the rest of the part escape several months before.
Party (I was a ranger in this situation) somehow accidentally unleashes a godlike human-turned-demon without realizing. The context is we were supposed to find a “key to winning a war.” This entity was once a human, who was cursed with something beyond his comprehension. Supposedly, he killed the thing that cursed him, only for him to die. He was a warrior, father, and a husband… Poor bastard never stood a chance against the curse. It turned him into a beast (much like the demon, Dormin, from Shadow of the Colossus)… Somehow his legend was told through the ages, eventually becoming a sort of heroic tale, despite leaving out the bits about his curse. After we exchanged a few back and forth bits, bantering, and jokes with this being, as we trailed back to the capital, we tell him of the legends we heard, about his sacrifice for his family, and how much we respected his strength. He said nothing. In the quiet of the sunrise, we look back only to see him sort of whispering, muttering to himself. He finally looks all of us in the eyes… and speaks up, “What I told you is true. I killed that damn thing that cursed me. But in order for it to not be unleashed upon the world… I took it’s place… and now you’ve unleashed me from a prison that I wasn’t meant to get out of…” In two days time, he went mad while trying to fight the urge of chaos in his heart, and we had to evacuate the capital, whilst he lay it to ruin. We never stood a chance fighting, and died in battle to him. Pretty sad, but overall the journey was epic, scale and story, characters, combat, all perfectly mixed.
An idea i’ve had is letting the players know at the start of the campaign “i do not expect you to beat this, nor do i expect you to kill the bbeg, this will be an unfair an grueling experience” then design everything to be beatable but always hard. Once they finally arrive at the bbeg’s lair the fight commences, after a long fight they win and boast saying that theh beat the bbeg you were confident in, if any of them are astute they will notice it was a little too easy for a bbeg, all the other fights left them near death but, they have at least half rn, so what happening? That’s when they hear it, a maniacal sinister laugh. They look and see standing over the corpse of what they thought was the bbeg, a humanoid beast with a sinister grin and it immediately charges at them no words spoken. This encounter meant to kill and be absolved brutal. This is when you refer to what you said at the very beginning “i do not expect you to beat the bbeg”
Not really a line they said, but I remember running a one shot during my first few days as a DM. One of my players was an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer who was really keen on reading peoples minds. I remember they had found the boss in a dungeon, a Gibbering Mouther, and describing it in immense detail to the disgust of the party. When said player read the mind of the Mouther, I had described it as such “there is not really a single clear line of memory, there is only memories of other assimilated adventurers. All of their last memories were encountering this exact Mouther”. It was pretty cool honestly.
It is yet to happen, but I have a campaign that has been running for closing on a Decade now. I started off the players with not only a super-power of their choice, but meta knowledge from a universe from pop culture of their choice. My plan was to truely test the limits of the TTRPG system (Pathfinder 1e) as I had a theory that it could be balanced against almost anything. This has proven true to a disturbing degree, and I have a plan to have my BBEG deliver this line when the party finally faces him, thinking that all their powers will let them stomp him into the ground: "you believe yourselves Invincible. Unstoppable. Infallible. I was like you once, but not anymore. Allow me to show you the Folly of your ways."
the scariest thing I witness on a d&d table was when we the party were infiltrating a drow bastion the party screwed up a collective stealth roll and we were caught by a drow matriarch which proceeds to summon a spider and the dm straight up brings a glass dome and a real tarantula to the battlefield that was a funny jumpscare.
My monk was possessed by an evil spirit in a sword and unbeknownst to the party I was losing control to this spirit. The rogue was suspecting that I was not myself and attempted to knock me out in front of the party and failed to do so. My monk slowly consumed by the spirit looked at him and said, "why did you hurt us?"
Wizard: "You are the Goddess of Life aren't you?! Why did you let all of this war and carnage happen?!!" Goddess Avatar: "Birth and Death ARE part of LIFE. You kill, you eat, you got killed, you got eaten, those ARE part of LIFE. I am as beautiful and as dreadful as LIFE as I am the Goddess of LIFE. I am as benevolent and as malevolent as the nature as I am the Mother of NATURE."
Whenever badass badguy dialogue is brought up, I remember a bit of movie dialogue from Kung Fu Panda 2: "The only reason you are still alive is that I find your stupidity mildly amusing." ~Lord Shen
During a homebrew campaign that my best friend was running, our party met the bbeg in the first session just so we could know who the bbeg was, at the end of the encounter my character was the only one not injured in some way or another, the bbeg just stopped and said "You whelps aren't even worth my morning."
Party managed to get the "dungeon's" boss to surender, the boss wasn't a bad guy or anything, he was just a noble heir caught up in a dispute, the party were there as mercenaries. The moment he lowers his sword the swasbuckler stabbed him in the heart. I looked down to my chest, as if staring at a wound, looked at swashbuckler's player and said "typical" and then the noble fell down, dead. That was a pretty funny one.
One of my players is part of a secret order called “The Ravens”. He receives secret corespondents (text messages) via ravens to protect his secret from the other players. At the end of one session there was a raven knifed to a tree with two messages, one clutched in it’s talons the other tied to it’s foot. The message in it’s talons read “You are being followed. Be cautious.” The message tied to it foot read, “I will find you and I will KILL you.”
My BBEG was a corrupted druid who had an ability where if you touch him, you would roll all your death saves in that moment. My party found out about this ability, when a prince of that land that basically worshipped the guy finnaly got to meet him and went up and started talking about all the things he did for him and how amazing he was and the druid went up to him and touch his forehead and the prince instantly died. The Druid then said "annoying" and moved on.
Had a campaign where the BBEG was a Hero who failed in saving the world but had beaten the Demon. When they finally beat him he simply stood back up as if he had taken no beating whatsoever and said one of the most terrifying things I have ever heard. "Saving the world from certain doom should have been enough, but I didn't save it the way they wanted, and those ungrateful peons sent you to kill me? All they have sent me is a reason, a reason to show them they should have cherished what I had saved." The BBEG who we thought was a level 8 paladin who wasn't strong enough to finish the job turned out to be a level 18. We (a party who all rounded out to roughly level 10 who had struggled to beat this guy) collectively shat ourselves
My party had been split up once in Icewind dale, a demilich killed the rogue, the wizard was playing dead beside him, praying she wasn't killed too. Auril was coming towards me next. I was running as fast I could. She simply kept walking slowly, looking towards me, almost casually, and said in her awful, raspy voice: "You cannot run forever."
This happened rather recently, the BBEG of my 3-year running campaign finally revealed himself after being teased for over a year. The monk's village had been destroyed by this individual in her backstory and had been plagued with nightmares of that night for over a decade. All the group knew of the BBEG was the tie to the monk and that the secondary BBEG, who had been a constant thorn in their side since the start of the campaign, had the sole goal of destroying the main BBEG. So after a hard fight, the main BBEG appears, killing the boss they had been fighting, and his first words were "Apologies for my interruption. My name is Nycto, Champion of Darkness, and I have been watching you for some time now. I would like to express my sincere condolences to you Jasper (an NPC the group had been travelling with whose father had been assassinated that the players were helping avenge). I hope your father finds peace in the afterlife. His final act of service will not be forgotten. I would also offer my condolences to you Mistress Valra (the monk)." The monk player was shocked "Why is he being so nice?" It turns out that having this powerful being be cordial and respectful to them actually scared them.
I think the hardest hitting line my BBEG ever spoke was to the lover of our parties high level caster after he had disentigrated her. "You may keep your life on one condition... sweep that up."
Context, second in command of BBEG is an Orc who is practically immortal so long as they wear an enchanted metal mouthplate welded to their face who has been harassing the party for basically the entire journey at certain checkpoints, each "death" coming back stronger and having a hard counter to everything it died to or got abused by, this made him the ultimate skillcheck and creative thinker fight. Real "honour in combat" type. It's been made clear they are stronger than the BBEG the moment they watched the BBEG get knocked back after a power struggle even after using their own minions as power conduits (which killed the minions as a result), in disgust they bisected the BBEG in a single cleave of their serrated long-handled axe. They tore off the metal mouthplate reveaing their Joker-like tusked grin from freshly torn flesh and crushed their only form of protection in their palm. "Training is over," they grunted, tossing the crushed remains of their mouthplate to the floor at the party's feet, "NOW I FIGHT IN EARNEST!"
Context I was playing a 2ft 1 dwarf barbarian with a war hammer like 4 times her size and there was joke that I was the BBEG of our campaign the first time it came up I said "guys im a 2ft 1 dwarf that weighs 20 pounds soaking wet you could punt me to the moon if you wanted" now the halfling giant uses it as a attack and it works with my freakishly good dnd luck "how did I get defeated by a punted dwarf"
It's an idea I had, but the idea was the guy would trap people's souls in stones and basically add them to a collection where they would be forever locked in isolation unable to perceive or communicate in any way. He would say something to the effect of: "When i'm done with you you'll wish I had done something as simple as kill you, I will deny your masters and your gods your vary soul."
Recent bit from a Friday campaign where they are chasing a former Paladin-turned-Necromancer that has lost all desire to redeem himself and just wants to inflict pain upon the world. There's a whole backstory for him, but that'd take up too much time, so... If you wanna know, feel free to ask me and I'll put it in the comments. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Sire...!", said a Necromancer, her eyes focused on the Party defeating the last of the defenses. Lord Stormbreaker finished the gathering of power. "Hhh... I'm aware." He turned to face the group charging him. "...As obnoxious as losing all this is, I've more important things to deal with. But fret not..." A deadpan stare and perfectly level voice. "I will beat you all to death soon enough. Your bones and blood will serve as fuel to reignite this Leypool." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a line prepped for my fallen Aasimar cleric when she finally learns the truth of her backstory, how she as a second child failed to live up to her brothers standard and finally learns why. "You see, my child, you were never an accident. You were simply a bad second draft."
Similar to the Antipaladin story, I had one in a Pathfinder game that went something like this: BBEG of my Characters arc, an Antipaladin of Shax, who murdered the retired Paladin of Cayden Cailean that ran the orphanage that my character grew up in: "You have his fire, inherited his spark, a will that drives you to stand for the rabble of this world, unfortunately for you - he then removes his cloak, revealing a belt lined with holy symbols of various clerics and paladins that he's murdered, some even stained with blood - Men like you are nothing more than trinkets to me." He then proceeds to grab my character by the neck and lift him off the ground, one-handed, badass style, and then begin to strangle the life out of him. I kept failing checks to escape and probably would have died there if the (sometimes too lenient gm) then said: "A deep howl rings throughout the room as a large mastiff tackles the man, knocking you from his grasp." The BBEG then replied, turning away before vanishing from the room: "A pity, the gods only see fit to save their most worthless peons..."
The party was tipped off about the potential location of a mass serial killer. As they ventured through the forest and then one terrific perception check later, the party noticed a run down cabin. The cabin was completely wrecked on the inside but the party noticed a hatch leading to the basement. The party sneaks down quietly and takes in the scene, a rather large dimly lit room, blood stains all over the floor, throwing knifes stuck in the walls, and what appears to be an enormous tarp covering something, the party then sees movement in the shadows and then a figure appears. The figure is covered in black robes, a white mask and a belt full of knifes. One of the party members says that they will bring the person to justice and stop their reign of terror. The figure picks up a helmet off the floor, one of which the guards in the region wear, looks at it and then tosses it into a pile with some others “that’s what they all said”
I've only run one campaign but my favourite line has to be "Pray to whatever god you think might listen. But I'll let you in on a little secret...I won't be listening."
Player here. To make the long part of this short, we killed a God level Tiamat (pre Asmodeus B's you know?) And her god spark, basically her powers core, that was known by the party to take over the next person to take it and warp their views to be like Tiamat's (which is basically her way of becoming truly immortal) was sitting there after the fight. Beaten and battered, I figured I wasn't ready to just let the campaign end on that note. "You gods. Always looking for some way to cling to your power even when you lose it fair and square. Always making loopholes to keep it away from us mortals. . . But that only makes the rest of us hungrier!" As I reached out to grab the spark, closing my hand over it ". . . And I refuse to starve." A few saves later, I managed to prevent myself from crumbling to dust. A few failed saves later, Tiamat 3.0 but now they're a Human Echo Knight with a REALLY scary pair of custom magical gauntlets. Luckily my Arcane Archer was still with the party mostly unscathed so I still got to play for the true final fight as the DM took over my other character. Fun times. . . Fun times 3 days ago
I once had not a line that a villain said, but a moment that chilled the party to their core and is still remembered to this day. You need specific context because it was a main arch but I'll sprinkle enough in where it's relevant. They were dealing with the big evil cult group and clearing out one of the rooms of the facilities looking around for anything on the group that could help them find their other bases and put a stop to them. As they were going about their social encounter I informed them they heard a distant metallic thud. They had successfully done most so far stealthily and had cleared out the majority so shrugged it off not knowing what it could be, at first assuming it was the boss toying with them (this boss of this facility was known for playing with people for fun). Then shortly after they heard it a second time. They were more aware but still had other things they were more focused on... Until the third bang... That's when one of the party remembered something they'd read in one of the notes and asked me and the rest of the party, "wait... How many doors was the key behind" and it clicked... (the 7 keys were monstrous creatures these cultist were using to bring back an old god) there were 4 giant metal doors to hold back a beast of immeasurable ferocity and power... And three had been opened. The party scrambled to fortify their room to prepare for the upcoming fight as the final heavy metal clang occurs followed by pure silence for a few seconds... Then the rapid sound of slamming across the ground. This lead to one of the most intense encounters with one of the most powerful creatures in that campaign which lead to 3 players being removed from the combat (believe it was either 7 or 8 players at the time), most almost dying and the 3 that were removed being permenantly scarred due to the creatures nature (lost limbs ) which they had to fix in following mini-archs.
An Assassin was tracking down to kill the mother of one of the characters and, when the party got to her, she just dropped: "You all are only alive so far because I wasn't paid to kill you, but if you chase me, then things change.".
So, I ran a campaign awhile back where the final BBEG was basically a demigod trapped in a mask. Its plan was to escape from the realm (it had been stuck there for millennia) using a ritual powered by blood sacrifice on a national scale. It had very limited autonomy but had managed to Over centuries, sow the seeds of war which finally escalated into a brief but bloody conflict, just enough to fire off the ritual. When the players stormed in to interrupt it, it basically asked them to let it complete the ritual so they could be rid of it once and for all. At first the players refused, thinking that it had to be punished for all the lives it had ruined. Its response; "Do not concern yourselves with the thousands of lives I've taken to get here. Worry instead about the Millions more I will end if I am forced to remain here." In the end, they opted to let it finish the ritual.
One of the most terrifying moments for my Ranger, Cain, was when he was a guest at a dinner where he and one other party member showed up. The rest of the party was out helping some children who had been murder and now res escape the town. The Baron of the Town, a very evil and ruthless overlord knew and blindsided my character at dinner with the fact he knew. We had actually done a job for him and he invited us to dinner to discuss our reward. What followed was him saying to my character (which my dm said perfectly), “I think mercy is a fair reward for your group’s work?” My character had to try and keep a straight face, but was internally having paranoid breakdown. the Baron spent the rest of dinner intimidating, my Ranger in small ways. He knew a TON of things about our PCs and their associates. He would ask some small questions while we ate and just seem to subtlety threaten my character. my character’s greatest fear was none of the other stuff, but him finding out his only daughter and heir was my character’s secret romantic partner. My character spent the next in game day broken and mentally freaking out. Turns out he didn’t know, but my character became afraid of this man and usher the party the fuck out dodge after he gave us information to kill a cultist who the Baron also wanted dead
There was a bandit king ravaging cities, ransacking towns, etc. After a couple run-ins with the bandit group, the party found out that the leader was doing dirty work for a BBEG. After tracking the king down, the party spoke with the king and got a deal that the barbarian would duel him solo for the info. During the battle, the barbarian crit and cut his left eye. The bandit king said "Pound for pound, and an eye for an eye." And tore the barbarian's eye out in response.
My campaign had a team of "sub-BBEGs" comprised entirely of Psionic powerhouses. The first encountered was a shadowy ambusher who surrounded himself with black smoke to conceal his appearance and the area around him. The party Sorcerer casted Banishment and yelled, "Return to your own world, demon!" The Psion, being from a long-exiled Elven sect in the Feywild, blinked from existence, then back again. His home plane was, in fact, the same plane as the party. He stared with burning red eyes through a cloud of black smoke and hissed, "That is not my world anymore, and I will never return."
We'd traveled from Gondor to the far east of Rhun to confront a Lich which commanded an army of the undead... "You mortals have traveled so far to find your graves. If you had waited but a while, I would have brought them to you..."
I had one from when I was first-time DMing a Star Wars RPG for my siblings to get them into the game. They were basically captured by a group of mercenaries who wanted to use their force sensitivity to steal something. When one of the PCs outright refused the job, my merc had a gun pointed at her to intimidate the two. My sister (the other player who was a Twi'lek mechanic) tried to get him to back off by telling the merc he couldn't kill them because the group still needed them (the PCs) for the job. The merc only smiled. "I see two Jedi with me. And I only need one." My players' eyes widened at that, and it has stuck with me ever since. Never got to finish the campaign sadly, but that moment alone was perfect enough to have been worth it.
12:32 I’m a DM running a campaign for my friends, some even playing for the first time. My BBEG link (a tabaxi scholar named Jewl of the Mountain) within the first couple sessions managed to get the entire party (six people) to collectively love him as a character. I had not intended for this to happen but it works in my favor because the reveal will be so rewarding. I want to give him a badass dialogue before he hands over the information that the players have gathered over to a rouge fey faction (hellbent on destroying the planes of existence to make their own twisted one) to release the now undead tarrasque. It’ll be a fitting end to his story and a hell of a kick off to the final arc of the campaign. If I didn’t have the chance to essentially say “goodbye” to this character it’d honestly crush me but we have to get there first 😂 now I just gotta figure out what he should say
The party had a great sage summon an astral dreadnought to deal with the BBEG so they could focus on the portals being ripped open to the negative energy plane. The BBEG and the dreadnought fought in air. Halfway through the fight, the dreadnought collapsed as the BBEG walked out of it’s stomach saying “Astral dreadnoughts exist to kill one thing: hubris. The hubris of gods who think they can do as they please, and the hubris of mortals who think they can kill a god.”
An eldritch abomination rises from the ocean and turns to face the assembled naval might of 20 nations. "Your sacrifice of steel and flesh is accepted...."
Mine was a small boss called the Corrupted King, a dwarven king gone corrupt. He wasn't even the bbeg, he was the third boss we were fighting(and there was like 9 of us) we had over powered weapons, but he used a dork that canceled any damage above 10 being dealt to him and these words that he said still haunt me (btw our bbeg was Fekiiner, the combination of Lucifer and Michael the archangel). The Corrupt King said "You will suffer a wrath worse than what Fekiiner can even imagine"
My BBEG surrounded and sieged a peaceful town responsible for harboring people safely during the ongoing war. When one of the npcs calls her a monster she says, "A monster..? Yes, and you are my prey." Before gutting him. Hoping to give my players some goosebumps at least
i was running a campaign were the "BBEG" was a demon that had been spared by a god of redemtion and had become a paladin. he was originaly meant to be a quest giver but the PCs decided that he was a threat and despite many warnings attacked him. they rallied a smal army, they killed his fellow paladins, his adopted daughter, and several refugees that were staying on the church ground. as they stood around him he began to cry "you've taken everything from me" he said "why?" the fighter then said "because you are a monster and an afront to the gods" the demon began to laugh "if you want a monster so badly, then i will give you one." he said as he stood up, pulling a sword from his chest as his own sword and armor began to glow pure white as his own god wished to see the party killed. the only reoson it wasnt a TPK is because after he one shot the bard the rouge ran away.
This is a very rare moment where I actually cheer for the NPC over the PC's.
I honestly want to hear more of this campaign
Why the hell did they decide to do so? He was spared by a god how can he be an afront to the gods?
@@Iknowhowbadthisnameis8828 they assumed he was bullshiting and that the paladins, refugees, and his daughter were worshiping him, they had never encountered there order before, so they thought it was fake and the demon could cast illusions. in my homebrew worlds people can become gods if the other gods accept them after they die. the god of redemption was a player from previos campain that had been a servent of the bbeg but had come to their side.
@@loganpriest9803 huh. One question do they tend to murderhobo?
“Are you ready to die for a toll?”
“I got nothing better to do today” - the wittiest Ogre ever
What a Chad. So glad he survived
Funni shit!
*Ritual in process*
-If you intend to seal a Monster, make sure something Worse never comes out.
In shock from sudden Murder and declaration*
-You wanted a Monster then you'll get one. I will devour you and your armies
*Massacres everyone and frees the Monster to build a hidden Nation*
"I'll humor your defiance only because I'm ahead of schedule."
After the fight, the party was spanked and the big bad says "3 minutes earlier than expected." Then left the room calmly.
BBEG sounds like a pro-gamer. Gotta get that speed run!
"7 minutes.. 7 minutes is all I can spare to play with you"
Was you fighting albert wesker LOl
Boring as shit every villain does now. Like wesker did this like 8 times
If the Equalizer were evil
The villain in my campaign never really seemed to care about the players, until they finally managed to interfere with one of the steps on his large, world-ending master plan. Which prompted him to confront them, angrily uttering the words "Congratulations! You're finally worth killing!"
oh i love that
Handsome Jack Vibes
Mind Flayers in a nutshell.
Kinda scary not gonna lie lmao
Hisoka Vibes
The first one could've been colder:
"Do you remember everyone you love?"
"How about everyone you've killed?"
"Fret not, I will remember you dearly."
"Fret not, no one will remember you."
Because you love me or because you’ll kill me???
@@caidalee1994 Because he loved killing you
Reminds me of TFS' version of Freeza's post mortem line after killing Krillin: "Of all the people I've blown up, he will always have a special place in my heart"
@@tafua_a AND NOW, THE END IS NEAR, AND SO I FACE, THE FINAL CURTAIN-
Villain: "You are the strongest heroes of your land!" (Kicks Barbarian off his blade a day struts up to cleric who is having a crisis of faith) "For shame."
do you mind if i write this one down?
@@ShackleYT Be my guest!
ngl i kinda love the "you aint shit" kind of lines. what would be even better is slapping this sort of line on a suicidal villain whos been trying to find a way to get himself killed in a fight for a while...
@@crustybomb115 Even better, slap it on a suicidal villain with a few tricks up their sleeve, so they can give the heroes a heart attack before he bites the dust.
I was DMing Curse of Strahd for the first time (no spoilers in here) and I had my players enter barovia without using the suggested plot hooks. This was fine until I realized halfway through the second session that they have no idea why they are even in barovia or who this strange well dressed magic man was. That's when I came up with a great line for him that he said to them at the end of the third session. "I am so rarely granted the luxury of anonymity. I eagerly await the day you learn my name...and why you should fear it."
There's really not a lot of good/non-edgy ones around here but this one is good
Had a moment where a character whiffed super bad on a grapple check and kinda just ended up hugging the BBEG. There were a couple seconds of awkward silence before he smiled and said, "Do you need a second to recover from that embarrassment?"
OMFG THATS AMAZING
Literally went “damn bro that was sad, and I’m supposed to be the bad example here”
Not a villain but a dark moment for a character. We were being attacked by multiple undead and the party barbarian had his strength drained by shadows. When half the party made it to the church to stay safe, he tried to rush back out. The priest refused to let him leave saying he would die, he said he would not abandon his friends. The priest still refused and he uttered one final warning, “Do not make me kill you in the house of your god.”
A bbeg that was always was in control . Cold , calculating and distend. He even slayed a god that was called down to deal with him ( not dead but it lost alot of its divinity from that loss ) he was the big bad evil guy from a multiple year group over multiple campaign. He uttered only one thing, bearly a wisper, over the dead body of his wife with zears in his eyes( the tears alome freaked out my players): " she was the only thing holding me back"
*Oh.* *_Oh no._*
OH FUCK
I actually got shivers lol
The moment you turned the civilized villain into a walking nightmare. You done goofed.
That is indeed a fucky wucky of significant proportions
Not actually a villain, but a player character - AFTER he got hit with Power Word: Kill.
"You knew of me as Hurrun Sablemane, cleric of the Weeping Ruin. But thanks to your spell, I remember my true name. Orcus, Demon Lord of Undeath. You may beg now."
Context? Sounds dope?
@@unknownslayer7363 Campaign is in a homebrew setting, and is heavily centered around curses. Each of us had a cursed item we began with. In Hurrun's case, it was a necklace he made to mourn his tribe, which had been wiped out by a plague. As a result of the curse, he had to make a Wisdom save every time combat broke out, or the angry spirits of his tribe would drive him into a barbarian-like rage, with the downside that they would also be constantly dealing him necrotic damage. However, as the campaign progressed, we started learning that all of the characters were linked to demon lords in some way. One of our fighters turned out to be the bastard daughter of Baphomet and a paladin, our other fighter and our rogue were both linked to the opposing heads of Demogorgon with jewelry that would cause them to take injuries when the other one was attacked, and our sorcerer - turned out to not technically be alive. Can't remember the name of his demon. Anyway, Hurrun figured out through dreams and prayers to his god, the primal god of destruction and regret, that he was somehow linked to Orcus. But he didn't know HOW linked, until we were dealing with an efreeti lord who had some cursed items we needed to recover. Hurrun had pissed him off by chucking a freezing stone at him, using his divine intervention to help land a heavy hit, and helping bust a bunch of enslaved demons out of his private gladiator stock. So, he hit Hurrun with a Power Word Kill. And then, we learned the truth. It WASN'T a plague that killed Hurrun's tribe. It was Orcus, who had somehow been bound to Hurrun's soul, and who killed and enslaved the spirits of the tribe while trying to escape his prison of flesh. And by using that spell, the efreet had let Orcus slip loose again. Thankfully for everyone, Orcus isn't as big of an asshole in this setting. In exchange for ensuring the freedom for the demons to return to the setting's equivalent of the Abyss, he agreed to spare the efreet - on the condition he abandon his fortress and all of his wealth.
@@lexsamreeth8724 you already know he was feeling like a god when he said that with all that bru
I don’t even know the full story but that still made my jaw drop. That’s some Arkhan the Cruel shit right there.
Not from the villain and not actually that cool of a line, it just filled me and my team with dread
DM: “the Dwarf King waits patiently on the moonlit terrain”
Party:”ok then, what’s his army like?”
DM:” oh no, there’s no army, it’s just the Dwarf King”
Party: “so it’s a 5 v 1 and our enemy is just waiting for us?”
DM: “yeah”
In the end a big anime type fight happened and we just ended up digging a tunnel to flee
"Your deaths have been the same. Timeline after timeline. You fell before me more times than I can count."
This was when he decided to challenge a very powerful cronomancer. He kept resetting time whenever he felt like it, and our party decided he should not have access to such power if he used it so willy nilly.
was DMing for a campaign where i never got to use this, but i had a villain who was supposed to be masterminding the whole campaign. Once he was revealed and the party inevitably acted defiant he was supposed to hit them with the line, “It’s true folly to stand before me. So you will learn to kneel.”
“Supposed to” hints that they didn’t, what happened?
@@unknowndragon3736 campaign had to end/be placed on indefinite pause bc we all went off to college :)
Yeah that sucks sounded like it was a good campaign 😞
Holy shit thats brilliant
BBEG: "Have you ever thought how, at some point, someone says your names for the last time?"
Durtor (one of my players): "What the Hell do you mean by that?!"
BBEG: *sighs* "I mean that moment is now, Alexis, Arianna, Durtor, and Malikor"
The fight starts. Critical hit on his first attack. Almost max damage. Nat 2 on the save. Instantly kills Arianna.
BBEG: "That's one more name for the list. I have for a rule to never add more than two names in a single day unless I have to. I usually don't have to. I offer you take the body of your friend and do with it as you please. If you deny, well... One of you three will not see another day, and the other two will have to carry a corpse each."
Needless to say they left with Ari's corpse. As a final mocking act, the BBEG said: "Let her replacement know I am looking forward to meeting them!"
Can't wait for the party to meet him again.
such a polite villain
@@baronkarza2939 Wouldn't say polite. More like... respectful. He doesn't want to take over the world or anything, and he doesn't enjoy killing. His true love was killed in a very unfair way, and he needs to collect souls and names in order to make a deal with the gods and bring her back. Anyways, he knows what it's like to lose someone, so he wanted them to have their friend's body to bury it or whatever they wanted to do. He might be the Bad Guy, but he's not evil at all.
@@LFMG-qu5fq ngl,Kinda interesting to see a Villain who has nothing to lose and its willing to do anything to bring someone back,a nice twist from the "I will take over the world just because"
@@xboxoneyes7734 Thanks, man! I always want the characters to be authentic, specially the Villain. I once had a BBEG who was the DM himself, and wanted to regain control of the world he had created. In another occasion, my BBEG was a demon who wanted to destroy a kingdom and transform it into a country for demons. The twist is that this kingdom was extremely racist against demons and had been discriminating the BBEG through his entire life. He just wanted to create a place where demons would be safe and could live a peaceful life.
Cool bad guy
I ran a campaign once where my players time traveled 500 years into the future across the sea and had no idea what had happened but one of them adopted a little girl who, when they skipped time, was left behind. She thought that her adoptive dad had abandoned her like all the rest and became a powerful warrior. Beyond simply wanting power, she desperately wanted to be loved. She was adopted by a new family during the 500 year skip, they were killed by vampires and she, having been tortured so much by having everything she loved ripped away from her three separate times, made a deal with a magical entity to have immaculate beauty and a naturally infinite life. The entity turned her into a Gorgon so as to grant her wish. Strikes down again, she slew the entire town where the vampires came from and rebuilt it with the ideals that her first adoptive father (the player) had. Flash forward to after the time skip and she's the BBEG but the players don't recognize her, as to them it's only been a couple months, not 500 years. They end up fighting and she shuts them down at every opportunity, never killing them because she remembers who they are (she's basically had eternity to commit them to memory) and when they do finally kill her, she calls her once father by a nickname only she had ever used and his heart broke. The sudden realization that you just killed your estranged daughter and she basically said "goodbye daddy" in the same voice and cadence as the 11 year old you knew centuries ago broke him, the whole table cried, and I thought that I'd finally made an internal story my players would never forget.
Holy shit. Thats as evil and genius as it gets. You traumatised them for sure, I know I would have been completely broken after that xD
We all genuinely cried after the final reveal happened. Me because the master plan finally all came together and them because it was just about the most heartbreaking thing I could've done at the time.
Unless you have an in-universe reason why the desperate estranged daughter wouldn't try to communicate throughout the fight, or before it, then it's actually very poorly done and railroaded down the players throats.
She cared enough to cry out in death, but not enough to say something sooner? The revelation that she was never initially abandoned did nothing for her character?
So she's braindead?
@@youtubecensorship842 I’d assume it’s cause AS SAID she had been hurt in the same heart shattering way 3 times and even if somebody had learned the first hurt wasn’t intentional, she would be too far to just suddenly be like “Oh hiya bucko! Great to see you again! :)”
@@youtubecensorship842 its higly likely she regretted her deal with the entity turning her into a gorgon a literal monster, knowing that if she said something earlier they might not kill her, we dont know what the terms of the deal with the entity was either. youre making a lot of assumptions and are being pretty rude. if the players cried that means it was meaningful and didnt feel railroaded. stop seeking to pull other people down, it doesnt look good on anyone.
PC: "I have all the hopes and dreams of countless people pushing me forward. What do _you_ have?"
BBEG: "Enough to blast you all the way back."
Okay nos thats genius
One of the enemies we were fighting, a shifter who revels in pain and violence (and was doing quite well against us), said "Stop" mid-battle and proceeded to give us healing potions. When the sadomasochist well on their way to executing a TPK demands a timeout and heals you, you've probably got bigger problems to worry about.
Wrote a villain for a campaign way back who used to be a hero in his lifetime. He had been surrounded by so much death, loss and bloodshed, that he eventually went mad and devoted himself to stopping death completely! He was a wizard at the time, but after he reached lvl 20 he devoted himself to becoming a lich and creating a spell that would make everyone immortal. When the party confronted and near defeated him, his last words were "I never realised the cold sweet kiss of death was so, comforting. Is this what they felt? Is this the lie we are faithed to end!? Was it wrong for a man who dedicated his life to saving innocence, to preserve that innocence? Well then....end me "heros", for I do not embrace death, I challenge it!"
God that’s so cool
Context: This was an isekai campaign. All of the PCs were from our world. (You can probably tell where this plot twist is going.) BBEG is OP war criminal doctor (not TF2 Medic). Players managed to organize a summit between all the world leaders, major guilds and heroes to mount an offense on the BBEG.
At the end of the meeting, one of the heroes pulls off a mask. It's the bbeg, who starts making a speech. Then she mutters something to herself that makes the players freeze. "Really, most of these guys are like Twitter, complaining about everything while doing nothing to actually help."
Then she released an agnosia inducing gas bombs throughout the entire building they were in. If you don't know what agnosia is, it's a rare disorder that makes you unable to recognize or identify objects or people, meaning literally nobody recognized each other, and they panicked too much to think of a process of elimination, or listen to the few that kept their heads.
Naturally, this leads to absolute chaos. After the gas wore off, half the room was dead, including all but a few world leaders, and the bbeg was nowhere to be found.
Many countries collapsed, including the one the party was summoned to.
tl;dr: Isekai Doctor talks about Twitter, then tricks room filled with very important people into killing each other, causes countries to collapse.
Edit: Fixed the Great Wall of -China- Text.
Edit 2: Updated definition of agnosia.
Edit 3: Added the collapsing countries to tl;dr.
Holy shit...
That BBEG giving some Bonesaw vibes
@@deathstreak1156 Yeah. I take a lot of "inspiration" from Worm.
i... might take this as inspiration for a potential massively evil villain. just sounds genius
NGL, a country that outright collapses just because it loses one or two of its leader figures is probably a highly unstable shithole to begin with. That aside though, still a neat twist.
Imagine this coming from a sexy female vampire. Think Ada Wong meets Rayne.
“You know what makes killing someone fun? Anticipation. I stayed in your tiny village for *months* just getting to know every single person there. The anticipation made the intimacy of killing each one so much more pleasurable! And you- the children- I didn’t let you go out of mercy. I let you go because I knew *THIS MOMENT* was going to come. And as you have wanted and waited it for so many years… so have I. This is going to be the best sensation ever. For one of us, anyway… shall we?”
I started a homebrew star wars campaign based on a "what if" scenario. Two of my players managed to craft their lightsabers aboard a 501st controlled ship, and one decided to test his by attacking Ahsoka, both looked up to see Rex with his blasters leveled at him ready to fire. And here's what Rex said after holstering "We may be free from the inhibitor chips and Palpatine's control, but we're still capable and willing to execute order 66 on you if you try playing that joke again...."
“Do I look like a god to you?”
“No”
“Then do not beg for mercy.”
*Bad guy is trying to unleash a sealed Zombie army that will destroy everyone*
*He has standard banter with the heroes*
"So, I have one question. While we've all been having this conversation? Where have my minions been?"
*Flash cut to minions unsealing the zombie army*
Great line. Also, I feel like it's kind of a counterpoint to the monologue thing. Sometimes the bad guys are getting stuff done while they are talking to you. In a campaign I was in we got called to group up at this square. When the first two guys get there it's mostly empty and the DM starts describing a weird feeling in the air. They immediately activated defensive abilities before the DM got to the part in the module where there is an explosion that you can't react to (A friendly NPC was meant to show up and heal them so they wouldn't die). Because they were so quick on the trigger the DM let them stay conscious using their defensive abilities. It's one of a lot of moments from that campaign we still talk about.
@@davidprince6877 Yup. What was great was one of my PCs IMMEDAITELY got it.
The sign of a good GM is knowing how to make the module more...realistic. And feel like it's living and breathing.
During my Curse of Strahd campaign the party were invited to Castle Ravenloft for a dinner.
During the course of the meal the cleric- a Tortle Grave Domain cleric- casually dunked on Ireena/Tatiana, and I finally got to use a line I’d had in my back pocket since the start of the campaign.
Strahd looked him dead in the eyes and said (in a true “Dixie/southern aristocratic” accent- trust me, it fits Strahd to a T), “I am a most gracious host, and you are here under my protection. However, should you say one more cross word about my beloved Tatiana I will be forced to have you escorted from the premises.
And if you then lay even a finger on a servant of mine in that process… I will hunt you down myself and turn you into a vampire spawn, I shall cut off your beard and jam it into a spike in my hearth, where you shall burn for eternity, unable to die, but unable to escape. Have I made myself clear?”
_Dead silence_ for at least 2 seconds from the entire party.
No one has spoken poorly of Ireena since then.
Overconfident party storms into the BBEG's fortress after facing a sheet-ton of constructs, shadows and traps. By this point they're wounded, drained and exhausted.
Paladin: "We can't fail! The gods watch over us, and they give us strength!"
BBEG: "Indeed, they do."
BBEG replied right before all light is snuffed out and the room is filled with screams. And that's how the party found out he was the Goddess of Darkness's champion.
Edit: Grammar.
A villain from roleplay well over ten years ago. He was an evil druid who could shapeshift into an orca, or a big Jaws-esque shark (ship-based game), and he would say, “People have an extreme aversion to being eaten.”
Back when I couldn’t improv for crap, I played with a forever paladin who always gave long a boring speeches before any enemy he could. One time we were about to fight a pirate captain in his cave he hid treasures in and once the paladin finished his speech the captain said it was very pretty and he was sad to not have one himself, but he did have this, que him standing up off what we thought was a rock but was actually a ballista covered with a cloak. And then knocking the paladin out of the cave with the first bolt.
That's hilarious! 😅😂
Paladin: (Gives speech)
Pirate Cap'n: "Cute. Wish I had one o' those. But I DO have this..." (stands up and reveals ballista)
Paladin: What in the-
Cap'n: Aw, SHADDUP! (Fires Ballista)
*Cut to outside the cave. The Paladin comes flying out on the wrong end of a ballista bolt.*
(Goofy Yell as Paladin hits the water.)
One of my villains was a suped up human, and he said this to one of the last remaining vampires. “You sit on your gilded throne drinking, feasting, laughing at the mortal lives as they die, helpless and suffering.” “But now, the tides have turned.” “Times change and the heroes of old fall from the unending torrent of age.” “Yet you think yourself immune to such things, but time grasps all, and much like the heroes of ages past, you will die with them.” “A nameless grave, among a dead forgotten field, filled with strange faces.”
Not a Villain, but my Pathfinder Kitsune Ninja Assassin’s first line was “Please allow me the honor of ending each of your lives.” The party was fighting these undead that she had a contract to kill and she was in her shadow form so they couldn’t see her. Scared the crap out of the party because they couldn’t see her and had no clue who she was talking to
Green dragon sees the barbarian-paladin in the party (easily the most powerful member of the group and the one everyone jumps to help) and says, "I think I'll keep her."
Sent chills down everyone's backs. It was creepy, showed he didn't think anything of the party's power, and fit perfectly with the green dragons' tendency toward keeping people as treasure (usually as statues).
Running CoS and one of the lines I had Strahd say to the party when they were fighting a slew of wolves, bats, vampires, and zombies. He appeared when the party was at low health and one of them had failed their death saves (they were brought back to life because they made a deal with a Dark Power) and Strahd just walks into the middle of the fight, clapping his hands in amusement as he spoke, "I knew that it was the right call to bring you to my domaine. You bring me such enjoyment," as he then proceeds to kill all of his grunts. The same ones that the party was struggling to survive.
The party thought the villain wanted a town to enslave its people and occupy its homes. They evacuated the people from the town, and then burnt all of the buildings down before the villain's army could march in. The players confronted the villain's army, and showed that the town had already been razed to prevent him from using it. His response was polite:
"Thank you for saving me some time. It was also courteous of you to remove any possible threat to my troops. Now, if you have more generosity within you, give us your stuff and sit in these cages."
The players somehow thought that confronting a villain with no backup was a good idea. Spoiler alert: they were thrown into prison.
one that I stole from a comic was when my players were sent to capture the bad guy and one of them said "give up, you're surrounded". and I had the villain respond telepathically to the whole party "All I'm surrounded by, is fear and dead men"
Good old darth Vader quote
Loved that Vader quote
Had this Setup for the party in a campaign that fell through. The King of a kingdom was sending the party out to stop the dark order from summoning an arch devil to gain their power and rule over the world. The king of course was paying the party, giving them special missions and even granting special magical weapons.
The party was to enter the final chamber of the BBEG's lair only to have the king standing their with a glass of wine and the cult leader sharing a toast. "Ah, here they are now! My personal elite squad, they've done fantastic work taking out all our opposition. Come in, sit down! We are celebrating our victory in bringing forth the dark lord. Now that you're here with those blood stained weapons the ritual is complete!" With a snap of his fingers the weapons would bleed out onto the floor, rusting and crumbling away, before the dark lord is summoned. Every kill they got with the weapons would be a bonus to the dark lord.
Oh that is EVIL and absolutely genius
@@DepressedCrow I was basically going to give them the choice. Serve as generals to the demon army and take over the world or face the dark lord without their magical weapons they've been using the whole time.
Pretty sure I read a similar green text dnd story where the party was helping this exiled noble regain his familial lands, and got conned into bring the dark lord into power. Although to be fair he was a very friendly dark lord and made some very convincing arguments.
This was from a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign, so we were all pretty villainous. There was an NPC ally who was supposed to drive us to a mission, but she got on our nerves, so we ditched her, stole her van, and drove ourselves. Later, my character told her, "Samira, I just want to let you know that it was wrong of me to steal your van and skip town. What I should have done was run you over with it."
I am particularly proud of this moment:
In my game there's a Homebrewed race of what essentially boil down to dragon T-rex people the size of giants called "Mawstriders"
They are fairly feral, often raid farms and their hide makes AMAZING armor. They are often slain as a right of passage for the local denizens of the nearby nation.
So Imagine my players Surprise when they meet a Mawstrider Cleric and befriend him, as he follows the same god as our Cleric does. Previously they viewed Mawstriders as scary Borderline Feral Animals.
Fast forward and said Befriended Mawstrider takes them to the newly founded City a tribe of Mawstriders built and to the chieftain, a magically enhanced Mawstrider that went by "The King of Jaws"
The very first thing he said to them was as follows:
"None of my people know how old we can actually grow to be, Our elders are in their thirties.
My people think of me as a wise tactician and intellectual… I only have a basic education.
Something as basic as Language is considered a rarity to all those who wander without a tribe. Or at least, it was.
I represent the culmination of centuries of us being hunted, Murdered and put on display as a feat of strength. I am strength. I am fury. I am the unbridled and true Justice for the true children of this land and you will come to fear that"
love it
when my character betrayed the party (this was planned from the start) I said, "better remembered as the villain than forgotten trying to be the hero."
still my coldest line to date
As a response, "Then we shall ensure you are forgotten"
RE: Interrupting monologues: That's why you should kit out your bad guys with spells and abilities specifically to counter such shenanigans (the more effortless, the better), at which point they could just pick up where they left off like nothing happened (after chastising the attacker for their rudeness, of course).
My best moment with a villan was one that said nothing
Party was going through a dungeon to close a minor portal to the abyss. They went through the dungeon and decided to sneak into the room with the final encounter and ended up on a small cliff above the portal. They had previously spotted a tall and heavily armored figure near the beginning of the dungeon, but couldent get a good look at it. The one leading the sneaking looked down and saw alot of undead enemys and other creatures guarding the portal, but the large armored figure was missing. He turned to tell the party what he saw, only to see the tall figure, clad in black full plate and a dark hood over a face of a skull made of shadow, with a greatsword in hand dripping black icor, Standing over the crouched group, directly behind the life domain cleric who was about 2 feet shorter then it even if they stood to there full hight, staring at them all in defening silence
Scared him so bad that they froze for a solid 12 seconds in game until the cleric got confused, turned around, and promptly screamed. Hardest fight so far too, with the cleric and paladin dying by its hands (the creature was a buffed dark wraith from the dark souls games) and the other 3 members just barely managing to bring it down and close the portal after killing its minons
All of my players had run into a boss fight they were totally unprepared for. Under-leveled, not enough supplies, the Casters were low on Spell Slots, the works.
The boss turned to them, playfully saying, "OK, then. I'll play with you a little bit," before wiping the floor with them.
Villain 01: "they shall end where they began, my blade will see too that."
Villain 02: "that may be so, but who said you will be wielding it?"
This isn’t a bad guy line, but it’s still pretty good in my opinion. An NPC is taking care of someone the party rescued, and he says this, “I can often tell how much hope one has by looking into their eyes. I looked into those eyes and I knew at once… the fire is gone.”
The BBEG was an ice witch that followed the commands of a demon, during an exchange with the paladin of the party she said this to him:
"You kill if your god asks to do so. You burn and destroy as he sees fit. You follow its command without a second thought. So tell me: What's the difference between you and I?"
“you freeze shit. we burn shit. there’s quite a difference.”
We have a villain in the campaign I'm in, a spirit called the Avatar of Greed. We defeated him as a Death Knight a few sessions ago and while exploring a cathedral filled with undead using one of an NPC's creations (basically a flying orb that transmits images to another orb we have like a drone) a random zombie grabs the orb and starts talking to the party. Basically he says to us, "Tell your masters that we're growing stronger every day and that soon we'll meet them with a new army (turns the orb to a huge mob of undead)." Then he talks to my character directly and says, "So, are how are you enjoying Avarice? Does it serve you well?" (Avarice being the enchanted sword I looted from his original body) I basically cussed him out and told him that next time we meet I'll gladly return his sword to him, right through the chest.
The barbarian basically said :
"I've burned cities, slaugthered armies, and you think you can kill my friends and I ?!"
My BBEW responded :
"Oooooh darling, look how cute you are *teleports behind them a knife under the chin* killing at war it a thing sure, but ending it by killing a god is something else"
And that's how my PCs learned that the legend they've been told when they were children, was hers, and that she in fact killed a god
"You don't understand, nor will you begin to comprehend, the weight of all this." The knight begins to rise, and as he draws his blade he looks at each of you, one by one. With a heavy sigh he points his blade towards you and says, "No matter the outcome of this pointless fight, in the end. I win."
Note: This knight was a general to a city they'd come to call home- since the beginning of the campaign they had been accepting quests from this guy. In the end they found out what he's been doing in the background, that all the threats he'd been sending them to deal with, was his own doing in the first place. They found out a little too late
To me: "Oh, *you're* Siren." She then proceeds to stab my npc friend in the heart. The same friend we'd been trying to rescue since he'd sacrificed himself to let the rest of the part escape several months before.
Party (I was a ranger in this situation) somehow accidentally unleashes a godlike human-turned-demon without realizing. The context is we were supposed to find a “key to winning a war.”
This entity was once a human, who was cursed with something beyond his comprehension. Supposedly, he killed the thing that cursed him, only for him to die. He was a warrior, father, and a husband… Poor bastard never stood a chance against the curse. It turned him into a beast (much like the demon, Dormin, from Shadow of the Colossus)…
Somehow his legend was told through the ages, eventually becoming a sort of heroic tale, despite leaving out the bits about his curse.
After we exchanged a few back and forth bits, bantering, and jokes with this being, as we trailed back to the capital, we tell him of the legends we heard, about his sacrifice for his family, and how much we respected his strength. He said nothing. In the quiet of the sunrise, we look back only to see him sort of whispering, muttering to himself.
He finally looks all of us in the eyes… and speaks up, “What I told you is true. I killed that damn thing that cursed me. But in order for it to not be unleashed upon the world… I took it’s place… and now you’ve unleashed me from a prison that I wasn’t meant to get out of…”
In two days time, he went mad while trying to fight the urge of chaos in his heart, and we had to evacuate the capital, whilst he lay it to ruin. We never stood a chance fighting, and died in battle to him.
Pretty sad, but overall the journey was epic, scale and story, characters, combat, all perfectly mixed.
An idea i’ve had is letting the players know at the start of the campaign “i do not expect you to beat this, nor do i expect you to kill the bbeg, this will be an unfair an grueling experience” then design everything to be beatable but always hard. Once they finally arrive at the bbeg’s lair the fight commences, after a long fight they win and boast saying that theh beat the bbeg you were confident in, if any of them are astute they will notice it was a little too easy for a bbeg, all the other fights left them near death but, they have at least half rn, so what happening? That’s when they hear it, a maniacal sinister laugh. They look and see standing over the corpse of what they thought was the bbeg, a humanoid beast with a sinister grin and it immediately charges at them no words spoken. This encounter meant to kill and be absolved brutal. This is when you refer to what you said at the very beginning “i do not expect you to beat the bbeg”
Not really a line they said, but I remember running a one shot during my first few days as a DM. One of my players was an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer who was really keen on reading peoples minds. I remember they had found the boss in a dungeon, a Gibbering Mouther, and describing it in immense detail to the disgust of the party. When said player read the mind of the Mouther, I had described it as such “there is not really a single clear line of memory, there is only memories of other assimilated adventurers. All of their last memories were encountering this exact Mouther”. It was pretty cool honestly.
It is yet to happen, but I have a campaign that has been running for closing on a Decade now. I started off the players with not only a super-power of their choice, but meta knowledge from a universe from pop culture of their choice. My plan was to truely test the limits of the TTRPG system (Pathfinder 1e) as I had a theory that it could be balanced against almost anything. This has proven true to a disturbing degree, and I have a plan to have my BBEG deliver this line when the party finally faces him, thinking that all their powers will let them stomp him into the ground: "you believe yourselves Invincible. Unstoppable. Infallible. I was like you once, but not anymore. Allow me to show you the Folly of your ways."
the scariest thing I witness on a d&d table was when we the party were infiltrating a drow bastion the party screwed up a collective stealth roll and we were caught by a drow matriarch which proceeds to summon a spider and the dm straight up brings a glass dome and a real tarantula to the battlefield that was a funny jumpscare.
My monk was possessed by an evil spirit in a sword and unbeknownst to the party I was losing control to this spirit. The rogue was suspecting that I was not myself and attempted to knock me out in front of the party and failed to do so. My monk slowly consumed by the spirit looked at him and said, "why did you hurt us?"
“Your striving was insignificant…let your death be the same”
-Darth vitiate
Wizard: "You are the Goddess of Life aren't you?! Why did you let all of this war and carnage happen?!!"
Goddess Avatar: "Birth and Death ARE part of LIFE. You kill, you eat, you got killed, you got eaten, those ARE part of LIFE. I am as beautiful and as dreadful as LIFE as I am the Goddess of LIFE. I am as benevolent and as malevolent as the nature as I am the Mother of NATURE."
Whenever badass badguy dialogue is brought up, I remember a bit of movie dialogue from Kung Fu Panda 2:
"The only reason you are still alive is that I find your stupidity mildly amusing."
~Lord Shen
Kinda wanna use that lol.
During a homebrew campaign that my best friend was running, our party met the bbeg in the first session just so we could know who the bbeg was, at the end of the encounter my character was the only one not injured in some way or another, the bbeg just stopped and said "You whelps aren't even worth my morning."
“You’re not going to shoot a puppy are you Jack?”
“Yeah in the face, why?”
Party managed to get the "dungeon's" boss to surender, the boss wasn't a bad guy or anything, he was just a noble heir caught up in a dispute, the party were there as mercenaries.
The moment he lowers his sword the swasbuckler stabbed him in the heart.
I looked down to my chest, as if staring at a wound, looked at swashbuckler's player and said "typical" and then the noble fell down, dead.
That was a pretty funny one.
One of my players is part of a secret order called “The Ravens”. He receives secret corespondents (text messages) via ravens to protect his secret from the other players. At the end of one session there was a raven knifed to a tree with two messages, one clutched in it’s talons the other tied to it’s foot. The message in it’s talons read “You are being followed. Be cautious.” The message tied to it foot read, “I will find you and I will KILL you.”
My BBEG was a corrupted druid who had an ability where if you touch him, you would roll all your death saves in that moment. My party found out about this ability, when a prince of that land that basically worshipped the guy finnaly got to meet him and went up and started talking about all the things he did for him and how amazing he was and the druid went up to him and touch his forehead and the prince instantly died. The Druid then said "annoying" and moved on.
Main Villain after failing to recruit the heroes . "If you will not serve me , then you will be served to me !"
Had a campaign where the BBEG was a Hero who failed in saving the world but had beaten the Demon. When they finally beat him he simply stood back up as if he had taken no beating whatsoever and said one of the most terrifying things I have ever heard. "Saving the world from certain doom should have been enough, but I didn't save it the way they wanted, and those ungrateful peons sent you to kill me? All they have sent me is a reason, a reason to show them they should have cherished what I had saved." The BBEG who we thought was a level 8 paladin who wasn't strong enough to finish the job turned out to be a level 18. We (a party who all rounded out to roughly level 10 who had struggled to beat this guy) collectively shat ourselves
The clockwork queen/witch idea was amazing!
"You can sooner make an ant divert a river than to deny my innate nature for suffering"
"Anger is the sign of someone losing control. Congratulations.
You're the first bunch to make me lose all control."
My party had been split up once in Icewind dale, a demilich killed the rogue, the wizard was playing dead beside him, praying she wasn't killed too. Auril was coming towards me next. I was running as fast I could. She simply kept walking slowly, looking towards me, almost casually, and said in her awful, raspy voice: "You cannot run forever."
“We have both killed, we have both stolen, caused untold suffering. We are the same, except I shall be the one to leave here alive”
This happened rather recently, the BBEG of my 3-year running campaign finally revealed himself after being teased for over a year. The monk's village had been destroyed by this individual in her backstory and had been plagued with nightmares of that night for over a decade. All the group knew of the BBEG was the tie to the monk and that the secondary BBEG, who had been a constant thorn in their side since the start of the campaign, had the sole goal of destroying the main BBEG.
So after a hard fight, the main BBEG appears, killing the boss they had been fighting, and his first words were "Apologies for my interruption. My name is Nycto, Champion of Darkness, and I have been watching you for some time now. I would like to express my sincere condolences to you Jasper (an NPC the group had been travelling with whose father had been assassinated that the players were helping avenge). I hope your father finds peace in the afterlife. His final act of service will not be forgotten. I would also offer my condolences to you Mistress Valra (the monk)."
The monk player was shocked "Why is he being so nice?"
It turns out that having this powerful being be cordial and respectful to them actually scared them.
I think the hardest hitting line my BBEG ever spoke was to the lover of our parties high level caster after he had disentigrated her.
"You may keep your life on one condition... sweep that up."
Context, second in command of BBEG is an Orc who is practically immortal so long as they wear an enchanted metal mouthplate welded to their face who has been harassing the party for basically the entire journey at certain checkpoints, each "death" coming back stronger and having a hard counter to everything it died to or got abused by, this made him the ultimate skillcheck and creative thinker fight. Real "honour in combat" type. It's been made clear they are stronger than the BBEG the moment they watched the BBEG get knocked back after a power struggle even after using their own minions as power conduits (which killed the minions as a result), in disgust they bisected the BBEG in a single cleave of their serrated long-handled axe.
They tore off the metal mouthplate reveaing their Joker-like tusked grin from freshly torn flesh and crushed their only form of protection in their palm.
"Training is over," they grunted, tossing the crushed remains of their mouthplate to the floor at the party's feet, "NOW I FIGHT IN EARNEST!"
Context I was playing a 2ft 1 dwarf barbarian with a war hammer like 4 times her size and there was joke that I was the BBEG of our campaign the first time it came up I said "guys im a 2ft 1 dwarf that weighs 20 pounds soaking wet you could punt me to the moon if you wanted" now the halfling giant uses it as a attack and it works with my freakishly good dnd luck "how did I get defeated by a punted dwarf"
"Gonna make Sherman's march to the seal look like a game of fcking Candy Land."
It's an idea I had, but the idea was the guy would trap people's souls in stones and basically add them to a collection where they would be forever locked in isolation unable to perceive or communicate in any way.
He would say something to the effect of: "When i'm done with you you'll wish I had done something as simple as kill you, I will deny your masters and your gods your vary soul."
Recent bit from a Friday campaign where they are chasing a former Paladin-turned-Necromancer that has lost all desire to redeem himself and just wants to inflict pain upon the world. There's a whole backstory for him, but that'd take up too much time, so... If you wanna know, feel free to ask me and I'll put it in the comments.
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"Sire...!", said a Necromancer, her eyes focused on the Party defeating the last of the defenses.
Lord Stormbreaker finished the gathering of power. "Hhh... I'm aware." He turned to face the group charging him. "...As obnoxious as losing all this is, I've more important things to deal with. But fret not..." A deadpan stare and perfectly level voice. "I will beat you all to death soon enough. Your bones and blood will serve as fuel to reignite this Leypool."
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Damm that druid trying to befriend the giant frogs.
I have a line prepped for my fallen Aasimar cleric when she finally learns the truth of her backstory, how she as a second child failed to live up to her brothers standard and finally learns why. "You see, my child, you were never an accident. You were simply a bad second draft."
Similar to the Antipaladin story, I had one in a Pathfinder game that went something like this:
BBEG of my Characters arc, an Antipaladin of Shax, who murdered the retired Paladin of Cayden Cailean that ran the orphanage that my character grew up in: "You have his fire, inherited his spark, a will that drives you to stand for the rabble of this world, unfortunately for you - he then removes his cloak, revealing a belt lined with holy symbols of various clerics and paladins that he's murdered, some even stained with blood - Men like you are nothing more than trinkets to me."
He then proceeds to grab my character by the neck and lift him off the ground, one-handed, badass style, and then begin to strangle the life out of him.
I kept failing checks to escape and probably would have died there if the (sometimes too lenient gm) then said: "A deep howl rings throughout the room as a large mastiff tackles the man, knocking you from his grasp."
The BBEG then replied, turning away before vanishing from the room: "A pity, the gods only see fit to save their most worthless peons..."
"What's the difference between a dead body and a hero?"
"What?"
"That's the correct answer"
Wish I could use this
The party was tipped off about the potential location of a mass serial killer. As they ventured through the forest and then one terrific perception check later, the party noticed a run down cabin. The cabin was completely wrecked on the inside but the party noticed a hatch leading to the basement. The party sneaks down quietly and takes in the scene, a rather large dimly lit room, blood stains all over the floor, throwing knifes stuck in the walls, and what appears to be an enormous tarp covering something, the party then sees movement in the shadows and then a figure appears. The figure is covered in black robes, a white mask and a belt full of knifes. One of the party members says that they will bring the person to justice and stop their reign of terror. The figure picks up a helmet off the floor, one of which the guards in the region wear, looks at it and then tosses it into a pile with some others “that’s what they all said”
I've only run one campaign but my favourite line has to be "Pray to whatever god you think might listen. But I'll let you in on a little secret...I won't be listening."
Player here. To make the long part of this short, we killed a God level Tiamat (pre Asmodeus B's you know?) And her god spark, basically her powers core, that was known by the party to take over the next person to take it and warp their views to be like Tiamat's (which is basically her way of becoming truly immortal) was sitting there after the fight. Beaten and battered, I figured I wasn't ready to just let the campaign end on that note. "You gods. Always looking for some way to cling to your power even when you lose it fair and square. Always making loopholes to keep it away from us mortals. . . But that only makes the rest of us hungrier!" As I reached out to grab the spark, closing my hand over it ". . . And I refuse to starve."
A few saves later, I managed to prevent myself from crumbling to dust. A few failed saves later, Tiamat 3.0 but now they're a Human Echo Knight with a REALLY scary pair of custom magical gauntlets. Luckily my Arcane Archer was still with the party mostly unscathed so I still got to play for the true final fight as the DM took over my other character. Fun times. . . Fun times 3 days ago
Cinder
I once had not a line that a villain said, but a moment that chilled the party to their core and is still remembered to this day. You need specific context because it was a main arch but I'll sprinkle enough in where it's relevant.
They were dealing with the big evil cult group and clearing out one of the rooms of the facilities looking around for anything on the group that could help them find their other bases and put a stop to them. As they were going about their social encounter I informed them they heard a distant metallic thud. They had successfully done most so far stealthily and had cleared out the majority so shrugged it off not knowing what it could be, at first assuming it was the boss toying with them (this boss of this facility was known for playing with people for fun). Then shortly after they heard it a second time. They were more aware but still had other things they were more focused on... Until the third bang... That's when one of the party remembered something they'd read in one of the notes and asked me and the rest of the party, "wait... How many doors was the key behind" and it clicked... (the 7 keys were monstrous creatures these cultist were using to bring back an old god) there were 4 giant metal doors to hold back a beast of immeasurable ferocity and power... And three had been opened. The party scrambled to fortify their room to prepare for the upcoming fight as the final heavy metal clang occurs followed by pure silence for a few seconds... Then the rapid sound of slamming across the ground.
This lead to one of the most intense encounters with one of the most powerful creatures in that campaign which lead to 3 players being removed from the combat (believe it was either 7 or 8 players at the time), most almost dying and the 3 that were removed being permenantly scarred due to the creatures nature (lost limbs ) which they had to fix in following mini-archs.
“You’re trying to atone me… and I didn’t do anything *wrong*.”
Brennan Lee Mulligan’s Asmodeus is the only yet best interpretation I’ve heard so far.
"I'm so sorry you have to experience this, if you survive, you will be far worse than I."
An Assassin was tracking down to kill the mother of one of the characters and, when the party got to her, she just dropped: "You all are only alive so far because I wasn't paid to kill you, but if you chase me, then things change.".
So, I ran a campaign awhile back where the final BBEG was basically a demigod trapped in a mask. Its plan was to escape from the realm (it had been stuck there for millennia) using a ritual powered by blood sacrifice on a national scale. It had very limited autonomy but had managed to Over centuries, sow the seeds of war which finally escalated into a brief but bloody conflict, just enough to fire off the ritual.
When the players stormed in to interrupt it, it basically asked them to let it complete the ritual so they could be rid of it once and for all. At first the players refused, thinking that it had to be punished for all the lives it had ruined. Its response;
"Do not concern yourselves with the thousands of lives I've taken to get here. Worry instead about the Millions more I will end if I am forced to remain here."
In the end, they opted to let it finish the ritual.
One of the most terrifying moments for my Ranger, Cain, was when he was a guest at a dinner where he and one other party member showed up. The rest of the party was out helping some children who had been murder and now res escape the town. The Baron of the Town, a very evil and ruthless overlord knew and blindsided my character at dinner with the fact he knew. We had actually done a job for him and he invited us to dinner to discuss our reward. What followed was him saying to my character (which my dm said perfectly), “I think mercy is a fair reward for your group’s work?”
My character had to try and keep a straight face, but was internally having paranoid breakdown. the Baron spent the rest of dinner intimidating, my Ranger in small ways. He knew a TON of things about our PCs and their associates. He would ask some small questions while we ate and just seem to subtlety threaten my character. my character’s greatest fear was none of the other stuff, but him finding out his only daughter and heir was my character’s secret romantic partner.
My character spent the next in game day broken and mentally freaking out. Turns out he didn’t know, but my character became afraid of this man and usher the party the fuck out dodge after he gave us information to kill a cultist who the Baron also wanted dead
There was a bandit king ravaging cities, ransacking towns, etc. After a couple run-ins with the bandit group, the party found out that the leader was doing dirty work for a BBEG. After tracking the king down, the party spoke with the king and got a deal that the barbarian would duel him solo for the info. During the battle, the barbarian crit and cut his left eye. The bandit king said "Pound for pound, and an eye for an eye." And tore the barbarian's eye out in response.
I never knew how much i needed a Deviljho Pepe the Frog in my life until today. Loved that thumbna
"There's one difference between us: your best is my worst."
My campaign had a team of "sub-BBEGs" comprised entirely of Psionic powerhouses. The first encountered was a shadowy ambusher who surrounded himself with black smoke to conceal his appearance and the area around him. The party Sorcerer casted Banishment and yelled, "Return to your own world, demon!"
The Psion, being from a long-exiled Elven sect in the Feywild, blinked from existence, then back again. His home plane was, in fact, the same plane as the party. He stared with burning red eyes through a cloud of black smoke and hissed, "That is not my world anymore, and I will never return."
"All things come to an end; that is the entropy of the Universe. It appears your lives shall end early...not by my hands, but by your own bravado."
We'd traveled from Gondor to the far east of Rhun to confront a Lich which commanded an army of the undead...
"You mortals have traveled so far to find your graves. If you had waited but a while, I would have brought them to you..."
I had one from when I was first-time DMing a Star Wars RPG for my siblings to get them into the game. They were basically captured by a group of mercenaries who wanted to use their force sensitivity to steal something. When one of the PCs outright refused the job, my merc had a gun pointed at her to intimidate the two. My sister (the other player who was a Twi'lek mechanic) tried to get him to back off by telling the merc he couldn't kill them because the group still needed them (the PCs) for the job. The merc only smiled.
"I see two Jedi with me. And I only need one."
My players' eyes widened at that, and it has stuck with me ever since. Never got to finish the campaign sadly, but that moment alone was perfect enough to have been worth it.
12:32 I’m a DM running a campaign for my friends, some even playing for the first time. My BBEG link (a tabaxi scholar named Jewl of the Mountain) within the first couple sessions managed to get the entire party (six people) to collectively love him as a character. I had not intended for this to happen but it works in my favor because the reveal will be so rewarding. I want to give him a badass dialogue before he hands over the information that the players have gathered over to a rouge fey faction (hellbent on destroying the planes of existence to make their own twisted one) to release the now undead tarrasque. It’ll be a fitting end to his story and a hell of a kick off to the final arc of the campaign. If I didn’t have the chance to essentially say “goodbye” to this character it’d honestly crush me but we have to get there first 😂 now I just gotta figure out what he should say
The party had a great sage summon an astral dreadnought to deal with the BBEG so they could focus on the portals being ripped open to the negative energy plane. The BBEG and the dreadnought fought in air. Halfway through the fight, the dreadnought collapsed as the BBEG walked out of it’s stomach saying “Astral dreadnoughts exist to kill one thing: hubris. The hubris of gods who think they can do as they please, and the hubris of mortals who think they can kill a god.”
An eldritch abomination rises from the ocean and turns to face the assembled naval might of 20 nations.
"Your sacrifice of steel and flesh is accepted...."
Mine was a small boss called the Corrupted King, a dwarven king gone corrupt. He wasn't even the bbeg, he was the third boss we were fighting(and there was like 9 of us) we had over powered weapons, but he used a dork that canceled any damage above 10 being dealt to him and these words that he said still haunt me (btw our bbeg was Fekiiner, the combination of Lucifer and Michael the archangel). The Corrupt King said "You will suffer a wrath worse than what Fekiiner can even imagine"
My BBEG surrounded and sieged a peaceful town responsible for harboring people safely during the ongoing war. When one of the npcs calls her a monster she says, "A monster..? Yes, and you are my prey." Before gutting him. Hoping to give my players some goosebumps at least