[Raven Bloodmoon]

Wow, that sounds pretty cool. So just what led to the magocracy in the first place? Why did the churches around the world allow them to errode their own influence. After all, religion is one heck of a powerful tool if you know how to use it. And using it pretty much just involves manipulating the population to hate that which threatens you. Also, where are the celestials? Are they just standing around staring each other? All of the dragons actaully backing this tyrranical slaughter? Even the Metalics? Are there natural enemies of the dragons that the churches can ally with? Just some questions to help ya flesh things out a bit.

[super sorcerer]

My favorite villains are creatures with character levels. My top favorite is a bone naga sorcerer/archmage.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

I think the villain I most enjoyed running was a girl with no real abilities or anything. Actaully, she was 8 years old. And she resulted in the suicide of a party member. It was really sort of weird because of her background and the circumstances of meating, as I will explain below.

The party had just traveled a few weeks out into the middle of a really big and really nasty desert looking for an ancient temple that supposedly held a scroll a druid had hired them to retrieve. Upon reaching the temple, the found that it had long since been abandoned, yet nothing had eroded with winds and time. A dark magic was about the place and a lingering sense of dread descended upon them as they enetered. As I said, it was completely abandoned, with the exception of one inhabitent who we will get to in a little bit.

As the party explored the temple, they kept finding large statues of balors flanking a cloaked and hooded figure. Etchings and reliefs depicted this figure commanding vast legions of darkness in battle. While they did not know to what god this temple was edicated, they knew the deity was not one to be trifled with, and after some time, they discovered that the place was still trapped. They all ended up in a couple of pits, and while down there, a disembodied voice of a little girl started talking to them.

Now they did not realize at the time that there was literally a girl at the top of the pit otu of view chatting away in a really guarded and fickle manner. It would seem that while the place had been abandoned for centuries, this girl grew up here without ever seeing the sun or knowing what time is. She just never learned the concepts. She also really did not want to talk about her past at all. She was just so happy to finally have friends, so she would never be alone again.

Well, the party eventually got out of the pit and they all had a weird little chat in which teh girl revealed that she was the cloaked figure between the balors and claimed to be "night." She kept acting much like a little girl and would get extremely defensive if anyone yelled at her or asked about her past or the past of the temple. It just seemed that something really bad happened and that was it. After a few hours of exploring the place, one of the PCs was so put off and creeped out abotu this mysterious girl that he jumped into an excruciatingly deep pit to get away from her.

The truth behind the girl:

Her name was Mara and while not technically "Night" she is the reincarnation of the ancient goddess of night. She has not realized any of her powers except her ability to use Dark Speach that she learned from various ceremonies that the priests use to perform. The priests that were raising her taught her that she was the goddess of night and told her about her powers, bu tthey were very strict and abusive. In the end, during one of their punishments, she lashed out and accidentally manifested a fraction of her true power. No one survived. So for centuries she wandered the temple alone until the party came looking for that scroll. During their time with her, she used the Dark Speach once to deactivate a trap for them. She was fun. Maybe I should resurrect her for something else. Might be enjoyable to try again.

[darn6766]

I use villains in most of my adventures. My favorates are the regular villain type.

Ive used

Benen CR 20 Warlock 10/ Acolyte of the skin 10
CE Medium outsider
Init +1; Senses Darkvison 120ft
Aura Overwhelming Evil
Languages Abyssal, Draconic; Common

AC17, touch 16, flat-footed 17
hp 172 ; DR 10/ good, 2/ Cold iron
Immune electricity, fire, poison
Resist, cold 15 SR 28
Fort +13, Ref +9, Will +14

Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee +5 light mace +21/16/11 (1d6+7)
Eldritch 7d6
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5ft
Base Atk +14/2; Grp
Atk Options Feindish glare, Glare of the pit
Special Actions summon fiend
.
Abilities Str 13, Dex 17, Con 17, Int 16, Wis 15, Cha 28
SQ
Feats Leadership, Maximize Spell-Like Ability, Battle Caster, Combat Casting, Weapon Specializa
Skills Bluff +31, Concentration +33, Diplomacy +35, Hide +26, Intimidate +33, Knowledge (any two) +30, Listen +38, Move Silently +30, Search +30, Sense Motive +30, Spellcraft +30, Spot +38, Use Magic Device +31

for my EL 20 party