Evil immortal villainy

[TriceratopsX]

IMMORTALITY!! (cue thunder) Loads of evil masterminds, chessmasters, ne'er-do-wells, bad guys, lackeys and lawyers seek it and will stop at nothing to obtain it. So what do you guys think of both having this as a villains goal? Or if they are already immortal, how would you guys have them beaten/killed? How would you have them GAIN immortality?

 

[PsychicToaster]

"With all things come consequence. Power, true power, is a burden that those who seek to command it must bear. It corrupts the mind, destroys the body. No one man can possess enough of it without crumbling under its weight. It becomes his passion, his mission, his breath, his obsession and his madness. All purpose ceases to exist in this journey. Nothing else matters, and nothing else can. In his effort to nourish the soul, he leaves his belly empty"


-Arcanist Jyxael


I think that this line from one of my NPCs encapsulates the madness of seeking out something as potent and undeniably evasive as immortality(well excessive power in general). It's a power many a man would hope to achieve, a few will come close to, and maybe one will achieve. But with it can and should come a cost.


I look to the liches of folklore and Dungeons and Dragons as an example. They are neigh immortal, for killing a lich requires the destruction of an artifact called a phylactery, in which his life essence is stored. So, not completely immortal, but unkillable if the object is not destroyed. Liches have embraced the curse of undeath in exchange for their power, however, and are little more than shells of their former selves. Lost completely in their mad pursuit of something nearly unattainable. I don't personally think immortal characters, outside of deities, can really exist in a game, and the idea of a villain trying to gain literal immortality is somewhat passe these days. 


I like the idea of near unkillable status, like the lich. Consider the following:

Spoiler

"A mage becomes a lich by means of necromancy, using a magical receptacle called a Phylactery to store the lich's soul. In some sources the method of becoming a lich is referred to as the Ritual of Becoming or Ceremony of Endless Night.[citation needed] The process is often described as requiring the creation and consumption of a deadly potion, the Elixir of Defilation, which is to be drunk on a full moon; although the exact details of the potion are described differently in various sources, the creation of the potion almost universally entails acts of utter evil, such as using as an ingredient the blood of an infant slain by the potential sorcerer's own hand, or other, similarly vile components. The potion invariably kills the drinker but if the process is successful it rises again some days later as a Lich. Occasionally, this metamorphosis occurs by accident as a result of life-prolonging magic.


Unlike most other forms of undead creatures, the Lich retains all of the memories, personality, and abilities that it possessed in life — but it has a virtual eternity to hone its skills and inevitably becomes very powerful. Like other powerful forms of undead (such as avampire or mummy), a Lich has unnatural powers owing to its state. For example, it can put mortals in a paralyzed state of hibernation with their minds, making them seem dead to others, and can, through its typically powerful magical spells, summon other lesser undead to protect it. A Lich's bones do not decay. The Lich is capable of sustaining tremendous physical damage, and is immune to disease, poison, fatigue and other effects that affect only the living. However, despite all its undead "gifts", a lich's most valuable resources are its vast intellect, its supreme mastery of sorcery and limitless time to research, plot and scheme.


Since a lich's soul is mystically tied to its phylactery, destroying its body will not kill it. Rather, its soul will return to the phylactery, and its body will be recreated by the power keeping it immortal. Thus the only way to permanently destroy a lich is to destroy the phylactery as well. Therefore, the lich will generally be extremely protective of the priceless item. The phylactery, which can be of virtually any form (the default form is a metal box filled with rune-covered papers, but it usually appears as a valuable amulet or gemstone), will often be hidden in a secret place and protected by powerful spells, charms, monsters and/or other servants; the phylactery itself is usually of magical nature, meaning its destruction will generally be no easier than obtaining it."

Wikipedia, Lich(Dungeons and Dragons) Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)

The acts of unspeakable evil to obtain this power alone are both difficult and abhorrent. A bad guy seeking to do something similar would create a very evil individual indeed, and I can see it driving the story further along as you try to stop it from happening. 


But other ways exist. My main villain is immortal in a sense, in that he imprisoned his mind, body and soul in an object to escape death, too cowardly to accept his fate at the hands of whatever was going to kill him. But being unable to sleep, eat, see, or even communicate with the outside world for centuries drove him to utter madness. Eventually, the object is recovered by somebody. The man was a fairly powerful archmage, and his crazed thoughts radiate from the object, to whoever holds it. Generally, this results in the bearer's sanity deteriorating and committing terrible acts against mankind. The object has come into many a person's possession over the years, and eventually it made its way into the hands of a powerful cleric, who believes the spirit of the object is actually the imprisoned soul of his own god, at which point he goes to great lengths to release it, including...you guessed it, more crimes against humanity. It's a work in progress, a bit rough around the edges, but there you have it. 


I'm hoping this will invoke some measure of emotion in the player, a villain that you almost feel sorry for, despite what he's influenced others to do. It'll all come together in the narrative, and you'll have some choices to make at the end of the game as well. 

 

[AcetheSuperVillain]

There are more sinister ways to be immortal.  The game Legend of Dragoon has some interesting forms of immortality.  If you are playing LoD for the plot, you're playing for the wrong reasons, but they are technically spoilers, so:

Spoiler

First some set-up is helpful:

11,000 years ago, Rose and Zieg lead a team of Dragoons to free the humans from Wingly rule.  Zieg manages to slay the evil mastermind Melbu Frahma, but the boss turns Zieg to stone with his dying breath.  The dragoons also inadvertently or mistakenly destroyed the Crystal Sphere, which had contained the soul of the Virage Embryo, the God of Destruction, from which Melbu Frahma had been drawing power.  Now that its soul is released, the GoD possesses a human child every 108 years and tries to reclaim its true body.  Rose is the last dragoon left alive and is given immortality for the sake of destroying all the reincarnations of the GoD.  She considers this immortality a curse, but needs to complete this important mission.  


11,000 years later, Zieg's stone curse finally wears off and he wanders the new world assuming Rose died many millennia ago.  When his town is attacked by the Black Monster, Zieg uses his dragoon spirit to fight back, only to discover that Melbu Frahma hid his soul within it and manages to possess Zieg's body and goes on a quest to revive the GoD and use its powers again to conquer the world.  






In general, if you go with immortality, I always liked the idea of conditional immortality, i.e. you're immortal as long as you do ____.  Like drinking human blood on a regular basis, or sacrificing maidens, or possessing a new body, or visiting the holy fountain every 108 years, or crafting a new sorcery stone, or singing to a magical flower, etc.  As far as storytelling, these kinds of things inherently present conflict, a reason for the villain to take action, and a reason and way to stop the villain.  Otherwise, if the villain simply has immortality, it makes more sense for the villain to simply lay low and avoid conflict and preserve its life.  

 

[Hoppy]

Eternal youth can be considered conditional immortality in most cases.

 

[Lord Semaj]

How do you kill that which can eternally lie dormant?  If the enemy is completely immortal and all powerful, seal them away in another dimension.  Cthulhu won't be getting this planet.


But if the enemy is just immortal?  He can serve his life sentence in prison.  For as long as he may live.  Immortality isn't something to be feared especially if the years toll away at the mind and descend the individual into madness.  Omnipotence is the scary bit and if someone is scary beyond all reason then being immortal just compounds the problem.


Heck, immortal might also just mean they won't die of old age, diseases, natural ailments, etc.  Vampires and elves are immortal yet they die all the time.  Perhaps the villain requires a specific method like chopping off his head or staking him through the heart.


As for how to gain it... blood of vampire/goddess/fairy/dragon, ancient ritual that beseeches god for one wish requiring the five legendary stones of destiny, or just have them steal enough souls/magic to grant them eternity.  I think my preferred method would have the bad guy begin erasing entire villages of people culminating in the consumption of an entire major city because his spell requires a million sacrifices.

 

[Dr. Delibird]

The same way with Dragon Ball and Garlic Jr.

Apart from having a way for the play characters to remove or weaken the immortality (which defeats the purpose of using immortality for plot reasons imho), there is not a lot of ways the player characters are actually defeating the big baddy apart from some sort of entrapment.

Different dimensions, a device that renders the big baddy immobile, a magic seal. There are plenty of ways you can fit "X stops immortal baddy" without it being super cheap like "This Y-Ray removes the immortality from the Big Bad Baddy".


I am toying around with this idea myself in my head for a bit now but I am leaning towards the baddy with immortality not being the big boss so to speak. The character I am considering giving immortality is a weak, almost comic relief, baddy so the purpose of immortality is more to make sure I can show how weak this baddy really is (as in being killed over and over again at different points with absolute ease). 

 

[Blackyu]

I don't really deal with immortality. The problem with the concept has already been said before : When a villain gains access to immortality, there aren't many ways to stop him except for "some sort of entrapment" (Quote from Dr. Delibird). It removes a lot of freedom in writing, because you already know how it's gonna end : Heroes find something to stop Baddy, they use it, Baddy is still immortal but can not use it to make evil things, Baddy is defeated.


I mean, when you know how it's gonna end, there's no feeling of "oh no this guy can't die what am i gonna do", because eventually heroes always find a way to counter an absolute. There's ALWAYS a special rule that prevents the omnipotent from really being omnipotent, so is there for defeating an immortal, heroes win anyway.


Instead, I prefer using the Dragon Ball Z formula :

• Heroes find a new Bad Guy
  
• The Bad Guy is very strong. The Heroes can't/have trouble stand[ing] up to him.
  
• The Heroes train (mostly by gaining levels against monsters fought in a place from a conveniently written story branch).
  
• The Heroes are way stronger than before and ready to take down the Bad Guy.
  
• The Heroes meet the Bad Guy and eventually beat him.
  
• The Bad Guy is defeated.
  
• Go back to the beginning.
  

Kinda predictable, but there are a lot more ways to defeat the Bad Guy when there's no immortality involved.

 

[Lord Semaj]

One of the more interesting versions of immortality was a game where the boss had 100% resistance to all attacks.  But his powers waned with each attack, reducing resistance to that damage type by 1%.  So after a long battle of chipping away at resistances, he finally becomes killable because his power is being exhausted.

 

[AcetheSuperVillain]

It removes a lot of freedom in writing, because you already know how it's gonna end : Heroes find something to stop Baddy, they use it, Baddy is still immortal but can not use it to make evil things, Baddy is defeated.

That brings up an interesting point, though.  What if there is another way to deal with an immortal badguy?  Surely there are other ways.  


It might sound a little sissy, but one of my favorite fortune cookies said: "The surest way to deal with an enemy is to turn him into a friend".  What if the main characters did find some sort of common ground with the big bad and either find some sort of compromise or convince the big bad not to be so bad.  Or, maybe the good guys aren't so good and they find a way to blackmail the immortal into submission by threatening something that the immortal holds dear.  In ancient mythologies, there are accounts of immortal punishment too, like Prometheus who has his organs eaten by a vulture all the time and then grow back, or Loki who is tied up with his sons' entrails and a snake dripped acid on his face for all eternity.  Maybe the players could defeat the big bad by casting some sort of curse upon him that makes life not worth living.  Or in the same vein, maybe the players find some way to take away his powers other than immortality, like he's immortal, but he's just a random dude.  If you do not go for the notion that "immortality makes people evil" you could have the players win by finding a good immortal to combat the bad immortal.  

 

[Koder]

Immortality or quest for immortality can be a driving story element. It certainly is for a concept game I'm developing right now, but this if pretty well covered in stories so far. 



Take "Highlander" as an quasi-example. I could build whole game on idea that "there can be only one". Antihero on a quest to find all other immortals, slay them and absorb their power. Or a hero hunted by a villain with same agenda. Whole gameplay could be based on fact, that he is immortal, but not omnipotent. He cannot be killed, but can be defeated. Imprisoned to escape in act 2. Hm... i'm going to end this here, that gave me a ton of new ideas for my project

 

[YoraeRasante]

My game has someone's attempt at immortality as worldbuilding.


There was a man that held incredible magical powers. But his body was not strong enough to wield it, and it was killing him. So he created races in an attempt to "tune" them to magic power and transfer his soul through the stronger ones. He did not want to conquer. He just did not want to die.


He ended up becoming a spirit.


But his research was for naught, for the tuning that made the bodies resist the magic also made them resist possession.


He was stuck as a spirit, not able to get a new body. And he faded away. Not dying, but unable to interact with anything else.


Unfortunately, his research was appropriated by other with less neutral intentions. Appropiated... and improved. Soon, an army of spirits was created, spirits that did not fade. Spirits that could possess those they weakened enough. And, unfortunately only discovered too late, spirits that soon became nothing more than aggressive monsters due to their minds decaying.


All but the stronger ones, the ones that last longer.


But they are still there, technically immortal spirits to destroy. And they can become stronger by controling or consuming weaker ones, or possessing unatuned beings or, even, some objects.


Fortunately, the stronger and most numerous of the atuned races are also the best at fighting and controlling spirits. They may be unkillable, since they are technically dead, but they can be weakened until they fade like the original one did.


So most of the enemies - but not all - are actually either being possessed or empowered by immortal spirits.

 

[Basileus]

I find that immortality can be an awesome driving force in stories. Since immortality isn't exactly "natural" it really opens up what kind of villains/antagonists you can use. Are your intrepid heroes up against an undying force of nature? Or an unspeakable horror from an abyss beyond time? Or a monster as old as human civilization? Maybe even the physical embodiment of a concept that can never die as long as that concept exists? But the best, in my own opinion, is the ordinary human.


Ask yourself the following questions about said immortality seeker:

• For what purpose does he want immortality? Does he just fear death or is there something he has to do and one lifetime isn't enough?
  
• Who is he willing to hurt to achieve it? What kinds of sacrifices can he make and what depraved acts will he inflict on others for his goal?
  
• What method does he believe will make him immortal? He may be obsessed with one aspect of immortality without considering the others.
  
• What kind of immortality is it?
  
  Never aging but able to die by unnatural means (like combat); this antagonist will be able to be defeated in battle but can be centuries old with ancient magics and immense experience making him a challenging opponent.
  
• Extremely fast healing; this antagonist will be essentially immortal in the sense that any injuries are healed too fast to permanently kill him and may require some MacGuffin that can stop/slow his healing.
  
• Inability to take damage; this antagonist just plain cannot be hurt and may also require a MacGuffin to properly fight him, or could just end up sealed away, but a clever weakness could be that he ages normally and will still live a limited lifespan (only immortal in combat essentially).
  
• Reincarnation; this antagonist can die like normal but is able to reincarnate into a new body upon their defeat and can be a persistent threat over a long period of time in a franchise.
  
• Resurrection; this antagonist can simply come back from the dead whenever they are killed - they may be "undead" or "zombified" in some way or they could just be perfectly normal, with methods of defeat depending on the cause of these resurrections.
  
• Body Swapping; this antagonist only cares about his "soul" surviving and can occupy a vessel like an object or person to preserve himself, but may need to conduct rituals to prepare a new vessel or risk dying normally.
  
• Complete Immortality; this antagonist is the real deal, there are no tricks and no strings attached - they are immune to the ravages of time and disease and cannot be permanently harmed by any means, whether the damage heals instantly no matter how severe or just never goes through at all.
  

It can be a lot of fun to have your main antagonist searching for immortality throughout your story. If they are frequently seen and interacted with, and if you have them do despicable things to sympathetic NPCs, then the player can easily come to hate them as much as your characters. Sometimes letting them succeed in their search can be a big, memorable moment. Just think of the tension you can create when suddenly your joke villain that the player defeated 3 times already becomes a boss that just won't die. You've set the expectation that this character is weak, but now they just soak the player's damage like a sponge - the player has no idea if this is a fight he is meant to lose or one that he has to win to progress and frantically tries to keep his party going because he is afraid to stop trying and lose. Throwing the player a curve ball like that can have a huge impact and just tear down the feeling that the player characters are all-powerful after defeating every boss getting to that point. Just make sure the fight is actually difficult - not in the "one-shot the party" sense, but in the "fight gets more and more desperate as HP and MP are being depleted and the boss is still taunting us every other turn" sense.


I've seen a few series so Immortal Antagonists well:


Castlevania: Obviously. Dracula is defeated every game, but he always returns as long as there is darkness in the hearts of men. It's what keeps the franchise going and allows for some interesting consistencies throughout the games.


Dragonball Z: DBZ has actually introduced 4 (technically 5) kinds of Immortal Antagonists so far. Garlic Jr. was a filler movie villain but obtained immortality from the Dragon Balls that prevented the heroes from being able to kill him - his defeat came about only because he wanted to throw Goku into the Dead Zone as ironic revenge and he ended up trapped in it instead. Cell became iconic as the "comes back from anything" villain and had to be obliterated down to the last cell to truly die. Majin Buu was an immortal demon that could not die from anything until he transformed into other, non-immortal forms. New villain Zamasu is a God but as part of the celestial bureaucracy even Gods are born and die eventually, so he wished for true immortality and while he could be injured he could not actually be killed...and was pretty pissed that this didn't stop Goku and Vegeta from punching him through buildings anyway, and he was terrified by the return of the Evil Containment Wave from Dragonball which could seal him away.


JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The first main antagonist in this series was an ordinary, but ruthlessly ambitious, human named Dio Brando. While he initially overwhelmed our hero Jonathan Joestar he lost his threat as JoJo became stronger than him. But when all his plans crumbled Dio sacrificed his very humanity to become an immortal vampire and became a terrifying, unstoppable threat - even the method Jonathan learned to kill vampires seemed ineffective due to Dio's clever use of his new powers making him seemingly unbeatable. In the end, he actually killed Jonathan and didn't die. Part II introduced the "Pillar Men" who were an ancient races of beings which were even more powerful than vampires but still would die from sunlight and the technique used to kill vampires. The main goal of the new antagonist Kars was to find the catalyst that he needed to achieve perfect immortality and conquer his weakness to the sun...seemingly for no other reason than him wanting to go out during the day. But his obsession was so strong that he killed nearly his entire species to make it happen. He actually did get his wish and was completely unbeatable...he literally had to be thrown into space since the heroes couldn't actually stop him otherwise. Part III saw Dio's return and a new power called "Stands" which were sort of like guardian spirits with special powers but since normal people can't see them it looks like psychic powers. All of Dio's minions were Stand-users and the way to defeat the Stand was to get to the Stand-user since they were just ordinary humans. But Dio himself was an exception - since he was an immortal vampire and was even more dangerous than most Stands up close. In addition to just getting to Dio in the first place, the heroes also needed to find the secret of his Stand just to find a weakness they could beat him with...and when they did fin out his power they found he basically didn't have one. The only way to beat him was to exploit one of the normal rules in reverse - killing a Stand-user kills the Stand, but hurting someone's Stand with your own also transfers damage to them, while this normally means the user is a Stand's weakness but in Dio's case the Stand was his weakness since killing the Stand could kill him.

 

[Lord Semaj]

The recent Doctor Strange movie also depicts how one might defeat a nigh-omnipotent immortal.

 

[Diretooth]

The game, 'Lost Odyssey' has immortals as a primary plot point. You control four immortals, and five mortals, who are trying to stop one immortal who is evil from ruling the world. As a part of gameplay and story integration, when an immortal falls in battle, after a few turns they rise up again.

 

[Quill Quickcard]

Forms of immortality include:


Agelessness: A person is forever locked into their current age. They no longer age, but can be killed by wounds. Whatever their physical abilities were at the time of gaining this trait remain so, with little room for change.


Eternal Youth: A person is forever locked into an age of youth, usually somewhere from 10 to 30. They no longer age, but can be killed by wounds. Their physical limitations are limited only by the body they have, so they can achieve and maintain a peak physical performance.


Invulnerability: A person cannot be harmed, hurt, or killed. Their physical body, and possibly mind as well, are immune to any form of attack.


Rapid Regeneration: A person can be harmed or hurt, but their body rapidly regenerates the damage, keeping them perpetually healthy except during intense combat.


Formlessness: A person gives up a physical body entirely, existing as energy. Lacking a physical form, they are no immune to any form of physical damage.


Non-Local Consciousness: A person gives up their original physical body, but they inhabit other forms. They require a physical form to act, but it doesn't have to be their own.


Reincarnation: A person can die, or maybe even age normally, but their soul is reborn upon their death, either in a newborn, or simply into another grown body.


Rebirth: A person can die, or maybe even age normally, but each time they die, they are conceived and born once more, retaining their memories of previous life.


Retcon: A person can be killed, but doing so triggers a system by which the past is rewritten so death is avoided.


Depending on the type of immortality you want to use, there are a myriad of ways that the immortal could be dealt with, and a myriad of ways it could be achieved or maintained. It really depends on the setting you are using.

 

[Crabs]

There's a kind of immortal character that is commonly used on plots involving the evil itself.


In this case, the immortal character can't be beaten by regular methods because it's not a living being, but an idea. So the method of elimination is to weaken it by removing the "idea" from a population until it disappears.