Can Paladins Work as D&D Villains?

Comments · 1.8K

• PO

  @pointyhatstudios · 2 years ago · pinned

  Please form an organized line here to swear your oath to cursed unlife :)

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• JO

  @johnathanmonsen6567 · 2 years ago

  I think the Holy Sisters could be a really good example of an ACTUALLY morally complex antagonist; not just &quot;morally indefensible but with a nametag that says HERO on it.&quot;<br><br>Have Sister Ursula be correct; something on the island is discretely causing the constant strife, that they haven&apos;t been able to find, possibly because of the mindset that led to their oath. But, if the party finds out, they find the Sisters surprisingly willing to lay down their Undeath if the threat passes--because they <i>genuinely</i> only keep it up out of obligation.<br><br>The Sisters mourn for every soul they take, have memorized the names of every sacrifice, and if they found a way to fulfil their oath without continuing to pay that price, they would gladly reach for it.

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• DR

  @DrPokemon2001 · 2 years ago

  When Undying Oath is taken literally.

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• PR

  @proxxyBean · 2 years ago

  I hope the end of &quot;Which Lich&quot; is a Kickstarter for a setting where all of the LIches are active.

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• EV

  @EvilDangSkeleton1 · 2 years ago

  A small group of (practically) immortal warriors protecting an island nation for hundreds of years? <br><b>Bionicle flashbacks</b><br>This is the best &quot;which lich?&quot; Episode yet.

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• KA

  @kami-writer · 2 years ago

  &quot;Even in death, I still serve&quot; sure feels like something an Undead Paladin would say

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• EL

  @elizabethgemmell7635 · 1 year ago

  The BBEG in my homebrew campaign is a Death Knight who, in life, was a Conquest Paladin who broke his oath by seeking Lichdom, and botched the ritual, turning himself into a death knight instead. &nbsp;Now, he has broken free from his prison(thanks to one of my players in session #3 of the campaign, btw) and is trying to undo his mistake and attain true lichdom so that he can dethrone his former god and take their place.

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• SC

  @Scream_Lord · 2 years ago

  Party: <b>Kills the Sisterhood</b> Yeah, take that evil Lich-Knight ladies!<br>The Sisters: &quot;You have made...a grave mistake. <b>dies</b><br>The Party: What, what?<br><b>Sudden Demonic invasion and for some reason Cthulhu is there</b>

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• SI

  @simply.skyler · 2 years ago (edited)

  Pointy Hat, are you aware your Human Familiar is eating dice? That can&apos;t be healthy for the little guy no matter how scrumptious dice are.

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• DE

  @derpherp1810 · 2 years ago

  I like the idea of the tragic twist being, The Forsworn themselves is what attracted the demons to the island. It makes sense, and its thematically relevant.

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• RO

  @rosemarythornalt · 2 years ago

  i’ve been running a campaign based on this series of videos called Song of Sorrows, where the party has to hunt down and kill 16 “liches” spread across the Southern Isles, an archipelago currently under a whole lot of curses that the stars themselves have abandoned. Each lich is based on a class, with some of them being based on these videos, and others being ones of my own design based on the “checklist”. For example, the artificer one, instead of requiring flesh, requires Individuality. The idea being that people have personality, have soul, have independence and such. And the Steel Song, the artificer lich, consumes that to fuel its massive hive mind, then turns the husks of the hollowed out “people” into golems, use them as sleeper agents controlled by the hive, or simply burn them as fuel. Sort of expansionist spooky stuff.<br><br>For the paladin, my version is the Martyr. It goes more in the direction of the Crusades, of zealotry and such. Essentially, if a paladin wishes to become one, they must gather a group of Crusaders, other paladins who believe in their cause, before ritually forcing an innocent in some way related to the group they’re trying to crusade against to Kill the paladin in question. Doing this makes them a Martyr, and the Crusaders (any paladins who witnessed the act, in this case 7) become the phylacteries. The martyr’s spirit can possess and control any of the crusaders via a piece of the original body, and the only way to truly end them is to kill all seven crusaders. the problem, however, is the fact that, if a crusader is dead, another one can simply kill an innocent soul in order to revive the lost member of their ranks. <br><br>The Martyr in this campaign was started to lead a crusade against a warring nation. however, while the martyr’s will is present, it is faint, and the crusaders have perverted it more and more into a genocide of the people of that country.<br><br>Since one of the other elements of the campaign is the temptation to replace the liches they kill, the party may even create their own martyr for the purpose of destroying the sorrows. But how can they accomplish that goal in earnest once they’ve become one?

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• MI

  @mitchellpatterson3044 · 2 years ago (edited)

  As someone who just ran a campaign with a villainous paladin who swore an oath to the god of fear and nightmares to become an immortal dream killer and torturer. YES they can be villains!<br><br>He became what i called: A Knightmare.<br><br>Name of the character was Punisher Grigorey. Who was executioner of a kingdom, until he was ousted for being too cruel and searched other methods to fufill his craving for others pain. Swearing that nobody would ever be safe from him. An oath of fear

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