Idea for Villain, Would Like Feedback

[Bob the somewhat almighty]

I am planning on starting a D&D 3.5 Eberron game with a group of my friends. I had the following idea for the villain (which for whatever reason I continue to spell as villian) and would enjoy feedback.

My villain is a young human wizard named Emila Florindan (approximately level 14 or such) who was born into a Karranthi noble family. At any early age when she showed incredible magical prowess, her father forcibly inducted her into a necromatic cult. She exposed the cult and later began adventuring with her oldest friend, an elf samurai who had worked for her father. Emila later took up a teaching position at Morgrave University teaching magical history, but was frequently asked by Karranth to come back and join their necromancers (as this would be during the Last War). Meanwhile, her samurai friend was killed and due to the site being infused with negative energy, was turned into a death knight. The two met up with each other, and Emila decided to create a kingdom for the undead, seeing how unjustly the bodies were treated. To said means she hires the players to find an artifact that would allow her to take over part of Khorvaire and teleport all undead to her, and giving them sentience. Though not evil, the nations of the world view her as such, and she is forced into a war with much of Khorvaire, putting her into conflict with the PCs.

I am planning on having her be an ally of the PCs for at least 6 sessions, and as such give them time to realize she is not an evil person, hence adding a moral dilemma to having to fight her.

[Navarre]

I'm not familiar with Eberron so forgive me if this is an ignorant question:

What was her family's motivation for inducting her into the necromantic cult? Are the Karranthi all necromancers or just her family or what?

Does the cult she was inducted into have any particular goals of their own? If so, how does her own goals sit with them?

I would suspect a cult of necromancers wouldn't like it if all the undead were removed from their vicinity and given sentience.

Does Emila plan on ruling these undead? If not, what happens to a large population of undead who can suddenly think for themselves?

Are they still inherently evil? The answer to that may determine how the party views Emila's plan.

[Cheesedemon88]

I know saying this may makes me sound like a better than thou asshat, but to me this sounds more like a character you want to play yourself than an NPC or villain. You pitch her as a miss understood and sympathetic character rather as a villain and you've obviously put a lot of care into her , witch can become a problem. By all means I'm all for presenting the players with moral dilemmas, but you have to be very careful as to not see this character as your own PC.

Also, this artifact you refer to, this seems to be quite a powerful thing for the characters to get their hands on, of course you know your players better than me, but in my experience players will always find a way to use such devices to their own gain and mess up your game

[Navarre]

I respectfully disagree. I think the villain needs to be every bit as well thought out as any other character. In fact, save for the NPCs themselves, they need the most development.

Heroes are made by the villains they face. If your villain is a one-dimensional bwu-ha-ha-ha "I'll rule the world!" villain then all the heroes have to do is make the right attack and the game is solved.

I don't think games should be solved or even won. The game world should feel like as realistic as possible, given the fantasy setting. And, in the real world, people do terrible things while justifying the righteousness of their actions.

My caution though would be to examine the possible directions the game may take based on the PCs' decisions. What if they stop Emila? What if they decide not to? What are the in-between possibilities?

You want to make sure that whichever way the PCs go there is going to be something for them to do that fits the personality of the PCs and is fun for the players.

[Gaumer]

I respectfully disagree. I think the villain needs to be every bit as well thought out as any other character. In fact, save for the NPCs themselves, they need the most development.

Heroes are made by the villains they face. If your villain is a one-dimensional bwu-ha-ha-ha "I'll rule the world!" villain then all the heroes have to do is make the right attack and the game is solved.

I don't think games should be solved or even won. The game world should feel like as realistic as possible, given the fantasy setting. And, in the real world, people do terrible things while justifying the righteousness of their actions.

My caution though would be to examine the possible directions the game may take based on the PCs' decisions. What if they stop Emila? What if they decide not to? What are the in-between possibilities?

You want to make sure that whichever way the PCs go there is going to be something for them to do that fits the personality of the PCs and is fun for the players.

Agreed. But wouldn't this depend on how chiseled the villain is? I mean, a one-dimensional villain can still do some damage and be a thorn in the side of characters. I think the uni-bomber would be a real-world example of a quality one-dimensional villain. Maybe not the most exciting to track down, but a villain with only one-dimension (for the most part) it remains. Timothy McVeigh could be another example.

While the allure of having a complicated, multifaceted and morally ambiguous villain is a compelling way to establish a scope for the PCs in any campaign, there is something to be said for the one-dimensional villain with tunnel vision.

I may be misunderstanding your thoughts, but DnD is such an open and fluid creative platform, that it inherently builds itself to afford either sort of villain. I think there's a place for both, depending on the type of tea desired at the individual tea party, with both adding their own flavor to the game.

[Navarre]

You can do either. But Bob has intentionally made a complex, somewhat morally ambiguous villain for this campaign. I was refuting the idea that such a villain is not appropriate for a game.

Cheesedemon is right that the villain should never be so loved by the DM that the PCs find themselves under discrimination. But otherwise, I think Emila is a perfectly fine villain. It is only the possibilities regarding her actions that needs explored.

He could even do both. Have Emila as the arch villain but give her minions who are far less complex and ambiguous. This will provide an even greater sense of her being "evil" and give the party plenty of good fights even before they have to make the hard choices about Emila herself.

[Bob the somewhat almighty]

For Navarre's original question, not all the Karrnathi are necromancers but most of their military is made up of the undead. Her family was one of the big creators of undead for the military, and they recruited her as she had extreme magical potential (as of when the campaign takes place, she is probably the most powerful wizard in the world). Her families cult was experimenting on corpses and living creatures to create a superior undead soldier, and was hoping to rise in the ranks of the Karrnath social structure. They then planned on having a coup and taking over the nation.
Both necromancers wouldn't like their undead being taken away, and the entire nation of Karrnath would get very mad. Emila doesn't plan on ruling the undead, but instead wants them to create their own nation for themselves (though seeing the actions she would have done they probably would give her a fairly sizeable position).

[Gaumer]

Ah, understood. Sorry.

Its going to take some effort to have this NPC villain kick it with the PCs for while and transition into being seen as villainous on any sort of timetable.

If you have it set that at level 6 the PCs are going to see her "true" self, you are weighing the morality of the individual players of the game against your own gauge of morality. I think it would be a fine line to push and pull the moral compass in such a way. Still doable, but tricky.

Does the moral implication come from the portion of land the villain wishes to take for her undead nation? Or some other deally?

[Navarre]

Yeah, if she is only "villainous" because she is a necromancer or dealing with undead but is trying to essentially free undead slaves and give them a home, there's little moral ambiguity in that. There needs to be a balancing force that makes the PCs go "Hmmm".

[Gaumer]

Yeah, if she is only "villainous" because she is a necromancer or dealing with undead but is trying to essentially free undead slaves and give them a home, there's little moral ambiguity in that. There needs to be a balancing force that makes the PCs go "Hmmm".

Yup, yup.

How about, the land she wants to take for her undead nation has a few settlements, maybe only "lesser" races, that, by her rationale, are better off dead and part of her new undead nation?

[Navarre]

Sounds good.

Also if I was, say, a lich and knew there was going to be an entire nation of undead being formed, I'd want to rule that for myself. So while there are those who would oppose her, there may be those who support her but for the wrong reasons. This doesn't have much to do with what the party thinks of her morals, just saying there could be various complications.

For that matter, if you throw any massive group of people together and proclaim "You're free!" it will undoubtedly turn into a giant fucking mess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States 

[Cheesedemon88]

I never said that your villains need to be or should ever be completely one dimensional, but there should be a certain limit to how much detail you put into any NPC. I have seen many a DM fall into the trap of forcing their beloved NPC, be it villain or ally, into the story whether the characters wants to interact with him/her or not and then being totally broken up over it when the NPC gets killed too fast. I just felt that your villain was a bit too sympathetic.

I think both Gaumer and Navarre has some good ideas as to making the choices a bit more ambiguous, as a villain she should at least not be afraid to get her hands dirty and in that regard I really like Gaumer's' take on it.

but as I said, don't fall in love with your NPC and be prepared for the characters doing their best to cut her head off the instance they find out what she's up to.

[Navarre]

Agreed there.

I have an NPC arch-villain who is my most beloved NPC. I've used her for decades with great fun.

But I was always ready for whatever happened to her and didn't play favorites. One of my players recently killed her in my play-by-post Shadow War campaign running here on the forum.

I was sad to see her go but that's life. Hopefully any good DM would be equally fair to PCs and NPCs alike.

[Bob the somewhat almighty]

     First off, thank you everyone for your ideas. Thank you Cheesedemon, that is an excellent point and one that I have had to focus on. For ideas to make her more ambiguous as far as morals, what about if I made her willing to go to extremes to achieve her goals. I have already decided that she is most likely either Chaotic or True Neutral, which wouldn't leave her too many inhibitions about achieving her goals.
     As for the PCs getting involved with her (we have already run a few trial sessions), I have decided Emila would convert the Mournland into her empire. The trial sessions were set during the Day of Mourning, and the PCs were all horrified at what happened. As such I am planning on having her tell them her plan to bring the Mournland back to being as it was.
     Also for making the players forced to fight against her, I was thinking that the surrounding nations would be horrified of her power and would begin to plan to attack her. She would then respond with a preemptive strike. And for the making undead sentient part, I am now considering her slowly bringing the undead to sentience as to not disturb the nation she is creating (one at a time sort of deal).