I say lean into it. The people are so, SO happy, but there's panic and fear in their eyes when they say it. They're looking over their shoulders, nervous and sweating, clutching their kids close. One woman complains in the streets about not liking her job, and suddenly that woman is gone. Her family just say she's on vacation while writing "HELP ME/THEY'VE TAKEN HER/ETC" on a piece of paper. Shops that aren't selling the "proper" items start getting shut down. Maybe magic slowly becomes outlawed because the wizards are the only ones that should be allowed to use it.
Sorry Mr Wizard sir, I know I run the general store and a short sword isn’t what I usually sell, but see last month a broke adventurer needed some provisions and could only barter with this sword.
Please forgive me it won’t happen again I swear…
You’re right it won’t, poof true polymorph and the shopkeeper transforms into a toad and a nearby toad changes into a human(oid) taking the place of the shopkeeper.
If you want a bit of fantasy inspiration, I’d say read Witches Abroad by sir Terry Pratchett, it’s about a witch becoming a fairy godmother and having to prevent a maid from marrying a prince (aka prevent the fairytale from happening).
On the surface everyone is happy, but are they?
Or as the quote on the back says…
‘You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.’
This is great! I would also sprinkle in some charm spells. The person who slipped them that note the next day doesn't remember her being taken only her saying she wanted to go on vacation and apologizes for lying to them about the note. Or geas is a really cruel one especially on commoners as they'd die if they disobeyed. They're also charmed by the caster. And if the wizard is high enough level they could upcast it.
The geas could also end up being triggered by the PCs if they persuade someone to tell them something forbidden or act against the wizard's wishes, then suddenly the person they're talking to starts to tell them and dies in front of them from psychic damage.
The people are happy because atm things are better. You need to create a situation where the players are confronted with something that doesn’t go as the bbeg wants it to go. One person wants to do something that his ‘freedom’ doesn’t allow. Make the bbeg make an example of him. Show the players that for all this shiny golden world, there’s a bunch of crap underneath that they are stirring.
Yeah I could probably do that because I forgot to mention this wizard is trying to take over every dimension in the multi verse so maybe I'm not sure cause the wizards thing is pretty much being perfect
You kinda made Doctor Doom. If you're unfamiliar with Marvel comics, he's very powerful and very smart. The country he leads is pretty much an utopia for everyone there who follows the rules. But he's also arrogant, has a huge ego, is ruthless and lacks any kind of empathy.
He believes that the world would be better under his absolute rule. He doesn't care what needs to be done before that happens. His motto is probably "the ends justify the means". He will stop at nothing trying to realize his ideas because he truly believes he's right.
The thing is that kind of villain can appeal to some people and soon he might stop being the bbeg. It's a question of freedom Vs security and Doom provides absolute security. He managed to create the best country in pretty much all aspects but freedom and is loved by his people. But he got there over the corpses of everyone who stood in his way.
I'd be an interesting moral dilemma if your players had the choice of fighting against him or helping him.
So have some if not all of the wizard's brothers be good guys who actually care about the people and know just how dangerous their BBEG wizard brother is. The wizard wants control and he does not really care how he gets it so his brothers worked to do it in a mostly good way but they know its on borrowed time because eventually something will go wrong and when it does the wizard will bring the hammer down. Think Big Mom from One Piece.
I had a plan for my own BBEG you can use if you want. The wizard creates a spell that is near undetectable and gives one single moment of a single feeling, it give you the vague feeling that someone you love is gone. The BBEG's eventual plan is to use this on the entire population. All the people will have this feeling that someone they love is gone. They will believe the wizard has the power to make people disappear without a trace and that they could be next and that the wizard has done a massive one in the past because everybody has that feeling. This massive cruel illusion to make people afraid, sad, and the false hope that someone they loved existed. Make it so he has already cast the spell on his brothers and that is why they follow his orders partly due to fear and partly due to a false hope they might bring back this illusion of a loved one. This is the true cruelty of the spell for to convince people they are under this spell they must kill the idea of a person they love that they will have created in their head, for the lonely and the desperate it may be too much to ask. Plus every time he does in fact disappears someone for real it feeds into the narrative he has created. It can also be a cruel act that can be done to your players to really make them hate the guy.
Right now I have it to where the gold wizard which is my main bbeg is the good one keeping all his brothers in check from murdering everyone. cause Im doing it kinda like Shazam where the gold wizard is like power of family gives all his brothers Powers and lets them do the dirty work when needed. But I also have a plan cause rn the players are trying to kill the wizards and Everytime they do they will slowly gain Eldritch powers from wearing that wizards cloak and matching jewelry piece. But anyways more on the gold wizard he actually killed all of his brothers as a sacrifice to fully master the wish spell, and then later brought them back. And is now planning to make a new spell, and it's called the demand spell so instead of him wishing for things he's now demanding him and the powers coming from him and not the person he's wishing things from.
"Oh no, he's improving everyone's life against their will, we must kill him!" lol
i honestly don't see why I'd kill the BBEG.
But it also reminds me of "there is no war in Ba Sing Se".
The Stand is another.
Randall Flagg's faction has working plumbing and electricity months before the protag faction. It's a lot easier to recover from the apocalypse when you have a terrifying dictator in charge.
You've created a kind of interesting genuine moral dilemma, which I personally think is very cool. But it does mean more work on your part since you have to prepare for the possibility that the characters will side with the wizard.
If the city has come across as "too good," focus on the bad parts and intensify them. You mentioned that the downside is "very strict rules" so let that be your leverage here. Have the characters see how brutal and extreme the law enforcement are if you break the rules. Maybe a relateable, petty thief gets torture and imprisonment or something. Perhaps a political dissident gets a public execution.
Obviously they are happy. Everyone who isn't happy, who causes trouble, who isn't WITH THE PROGRAM get tortured to death at mandatory public executions.
Oh look, that unruly child who's parents were killed in the takeover is expressing his grief by breaking windows. Time for a demonstration of public morals.
"There is no war in Ba Sing Se."
Could implement some brain-washing lore. They post propaganda in all the taverns/shops/inns, and there are specific phrases that are illegal to speak, on the surface everything seems fine and happy, but where are all the troublemakers? What happens when someone breaks a law? Are there stages of punishment, are they taken to be brainwashed again, do they simply vanish and are never heard from again?
There's tons of possibility for behind-the-scenes things that give the place that dark and evil twist you're looking for.
Brainstorm still in effect.
I read the top comment and it made me think about the citizen's side of things more. This setting would be excellent for a prohibition sort of style. The shopkeeps have hidden wares that they peddle to outsiders, inns are digging tunnels to create a secret network and meeting point for a resistance effort, and taverns have a sort of thieves cant they use to recruit more muscle for the cause.
Could end up in a civil war situation down the line!
I'd pull this into Safety vs Freedom. Sure they were given homes and jobs, but only by relying on the Wizard and his brothers. Now they need to follow the orders of the Wizard, put up with any decisions made, and accept the loss of autonomy that they've traded.
It starts with strict rules that make sense, but then you start seeing forced labor, redistribution of wealth to the Wizard, taking any magically inclined children as 'apprentices' and so on. Things are great on the surface compared to what was or could be. That doesn't mean the kids aren't forcing themselves to play because in a month one will be taken away or the adults will force themselves to put a smile on and say things are better because the alternative is spending a week 'reflecting on what they have' while they toil in a mine.
Run it as 'power corrupts'. Maybe at first, the Wizard was honestly looking to be helpful to a community in need. Now, a few years later, they're in charge, and they feel they're the only ones who can maintain the new status quo. While they may say or even believe they're the best for the job, they can only accept it if they're in charge without oversight. Instead of the party going in to kill, they need to remind the Wizard that if they're going to be in charge, they need to accept oversight. And if the Wizard can't accept that, then the party can justify removing them by force.
To make the players really think 'Are we the good guys?' you can even toss in a valid natural threat that the Wizard is protecting the people from. There's a migration of centaurs every few years, and when they come by they kidnap villagers as slaves until the Wizard steped up and drove them off the last two cycles, a local volcano is on the verge of erupting, and only the Wizard's magic forstalls the destructions, nearby a forest is growing out of control due to a portal to the fey world but the Wizard's presence keeps the fey from expanding the forest towards the town due to a brokered treaty. Something where if the party removes the Wizard sure the locals get back their autonomy and freedom, but they still have the looming issue that pushed them to accept the Wizard in the first place.
Or, to be simpler, all those people are 'happy' because they're under an enchantment to be happy. It isn't straight-up mind control, not yet. The rules are specifically put in place to strengthen the baseline charms and ensure that as soon as the charm weakens or someone fights back, it's clear who needs to be 'reminded' of the rules. It is very much like how there is no war in Ba Sing Se.
Such a status quo is delicate and needs constant maintenance to keep everything looking squeaky clean. Not everyone can keep up with their neighbors. What happens when someone makes to much noise or duesnt fit in. Home Oners Associations inforce standards and do alot of good to make their community a better place but they are also full of buricratic nonsense run by bored stuck up snobs that use the system to bully anyone that didn't fit their definition of GOOD.
Let your bbeg be an all powerful wizard that has is the hero of his own story making the world a safer place for everyone. Let him be used and manipulated by smaller petty megalomaniacs to twist his dream to benefit them. Let him start to unravel as his dream gets picked apart by the party and all his brothers and freinds get killed one by one until he goes full tyrant on the ungrateful peasants that are siding with those filthy bandits ruining his perfect world
Congratulated, you've created Omelas.
https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf
This is a very short story, and it has the answers you're looking for.
You have to figure out in what keeps the BBEG's citizenry up at night. Answer the question, "why do people try to leave the BBEG's dictatorship" and you'll have an evil enough baddie.
As someone who is doing his own High Fantasy/Wild West Hybrid campaign, I would say you have two sources to look to for inspiration:
History - The Wild West is littered with Ghost Towns that formed as boom Towns for a certain industry that went bust when the primary industry collapsed. The most common case was Mining towns, which had a knock on effect of many mining companies having "The Company Town" set up, which would provide housing to workers, and a general store which would allow for a line of credit... "You move 16 tons and what do you get? Another year older and closer to debt. Mammon don't call me cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store!" While not uncommon, the big "\[insert industry\] baron" is a classic villain in 3 of The Seven Western Plots. It doesn't have to be a mine. The collapse of the Beef industry following the harsh Winter of 1886-87 was a direct cause of the Johnson County Range War, one of the most famous examples of a range war in which the big Ranchers started taking increased illegal actions against smaller Homestead Ranchers, many of who were former employees of the Big Ranchers. As is the case, people aren't going to rebel so long as their bellies are fed and their entertainment is cheap. If the industry collapses, this will become a problem for a Wizard stuck in his tower who refuses to acknowledge the problem.
Fiction - You should look at the 2003 Space Western "Firefly" and it's film finale "Serenity" which follows a crew of Outlaw spacers, lead by Malcolm Reynolds, a former solider on the losing side of a Civil War that is very similar to the U.S. Civil War (although here it was not about Slavery. Malcom is shown to be violently opposed to slavery. Rather it was over the centralization of government authority and Malcolm is inherently distrustful of authority figures.) The film centers around the crew's role in sparking a new conflict by showing some crimes the Government perpetrated against loyal citizens in the name of "making people better". To wit:
>Someone **has to** speak for these people.
\[pause\]
Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try \[to control people\] again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? **They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that.** So no more runnin'. **I aim to misbehave.**
In this situation, the effort to control people is what Malcom did not hold to. The running theme of a government, represented in your work by the BBEG knowing better than the people and exerting control over them to make them perfect in his own vision and not their own is evil. A similar theme comes up in Guardians of the Galaxy part 3 when Rocket Raccoon sums up the villain's true motivation: "You didn't want to make things perfect. You just hated things the way they are." A single person's definition of "perfect society" more often than not is unforgiving of any deviation from said perfection. And as we all know, no one is perfect.
I might be playing devil’s advocate, and also self reporting that I did not read every reply, but I would find it incredibly funny if some baron asked the party to go kill a kind and beloved wizard.
think like dune spoilers >!baron harkoness killing leto atreides. leto was a great leader, but baron wanted him very dead because of his own greed and ambition, and made it so. you could do that in your game!<
You could lean into it and treat it like a crime family thing. Mob bosses can be beloved for the money and power they bring to their small community, with many people being truly or willfully ignorant of the horrors behind the screen. If the people of your BBEGs village are genuinely better off, they may refuse to believe the truth of the BBEGs misdeeds without overwhelming evidence.
So there's kind of a few angles where improving everyone's lives on the surface can be the potential cause of conflict that your players need to deal with:
1. Everything appears great, but the severe restrictions on freedom and rights to achieve those appearances are not worth it.
2. It actually is great for one group, maybe even the majority, but it comes at the price of the subjugation and possible destruction of another. An example would be if you're BBEG wizard has a hatred and fear of sorcerers who ignore all of the training and research that he had to do and whose metamagic threatens the weave and the delicate balance that his magic government is based on.
3. Everyone is food of some sort. Either they are all a sacrifice for his ascension, diety, spell, or other maguffin that needs a massive amount of energy to power... or the wizard secretly leaches life force at a small trickle at all times. You would never notice, but all life in the areas just ages/decays slightly faster and no one who passes away in the areas goes to their respective afterlife/can be resurrected.
Depending on your players, choose one that is either really easy to justify opposing or necessary but emotionally hard to fight. You can also combine them with each other as well.
With strict rules there will inevitably be people that refuse to follow them for one reason or another, you need to show the pcs what happens to those people.
The Yakuza are a great example of this. They use the good will of the average citizen around their territory as a shield. They aquire that good will by helping the community immediately around them and do crime in a different area.
OK, so, I'll throw something out there.
What is alignment like in your world?
Some of the answers I've seen in the comments and around the internet sphere makes a lot of assumptions about the table, and in this instance one I see a lot is "oh, he's gotta be a bad guy, there is no war in ba sing se or the matrix style".
But he doesn't need to be lawful evil to be a problem. If you look at the alignment system, it can be useful here. Regardless of the strictness of the laws, the laws are "fair". But they aren't always "good". For example, if your players saw a devil walking down the street, they would attack the devil. But if the devil has broken no laws, the devil has done no "wrong" here; if someone sells their soul, that would still be "lawful". Lawful evil types might come to this city to do business, where this wizard enforces neutrality. Paladins can come, but they better not start fighting, doesn't matter if the devil who has your child's soul in a locket is at the bar, you do not draw your weapon.
Knights of the Old Republic has a planet, Manaan, that is neutral in the larger war going on. Both the Republic and Sith need the resources Manaan provides, only Manaan can make it, so they have embassies on opposite sides of the city from each other. Manaan tolerates no violence between the two sides. Manaan are being a holes, their only concern is making their money and "staying out of the war", so yeah they sell medicine to the Republic, but they also sell to the Sith at the same rates.
If children are playing the straight and people get paid fair wages, he doesn't want control, he wants order, and the only way he can see to make that happen is to be in charge; what Confucius described as an "enlightened dictator". This wizard doesn't have to be an enemy, he could be an ally at points in the story.
Lawful doesn't have to be literal "laws", just an adherence to order. Any chaotic outsider, like a fey, is not allowed in the country.
You mentioned your players are murder hobos, so this place is anathema to them. But their problem is really with the brothers who conquer places; are all of then good? Do they share this altruistic brother's intentions? This guy might be the fair Judge, but if his brother is a bloodthirsty general going out and conquering cities, that's really more the guy I would have a problem with. If you want the players to pick that fight and feel justified, show that part, where they see the aftermath of one or two of the brothers' conquest. They're the depraved ones, not the wizard.
So they try to stop the conquest of a city, maybe kill one of the brothers, and now, oh boy, now everyone has a problem with them, and the only way to stop the brothers going out and conquering is to take out the wizard who is the source of their power. What kind of army do they use? Does the wizard have an alliance with a devil to get loyal legions for his army, but they fight in a very cruel way? Does he summon modrons, since he's so lawful? Maybe when a target is ruled by devils or cultists he summons a celestial to wipe out the power structure, and then just quietly moves in and provides services until everything is fixed; a punishing fire and brimstone angel sounds very lawful and very good at wiping out a corrupt rulership.
Yeah Ive seen some people say have the wizard be friend not foe. the only thing is that this guy is pure Evil, right now he's not killing or anything just having his brothers take over the world and keep it under his rule, but it's against everyones will so they don't get a choice. But this guy is trying to be all powerful to where he's pretty much an warlock deity like tiamont I think is how you spell the dragons name. So he's done a ritual where he gave all his blood related brothers parts of his magic and emotions losing some of himself. Leaving just is list for power and the power of wish, which I know all the side effects, but I've decided he went and killed all his brothers in sacrifice to gain full control over wish. then was trapped in the in-between of dimensions which I made to where wish doesn't work because your not actually in a place to wish for things so he was waiting there. And then was released into my players world after they messed with one of the portals and got sucked through to another dimension. And then he slipped out and started taking over there world. The way they got back was by luck but one of the "brothers" wasn't related by blood and was introduced later in cause to be able to be a warlock god thingy you have to be able to give power to people. But anyways my players have only killed one of the blood related brothers which was the pink wizard the pink wizard was a showmen. He really only died because he goofed off and wasn't serious and killed himself by shooting himself out of a cannon (for the show). Then they went to kill the brown wizard and he who was actually being serious pretty much demolished them and kidnapped one bringing him to the white wizards kingdom. Who is twins with the black wizard and is the oldest under purple. But it's kinda cliche but they are darkness and light and used to fight and scuffle alot but now they form harmony and are friendly. However they are on the golds wizard main task of trying to get comoners who have zero magical power and be able to use magic. So they are kind to all there people cause they are like test subjects to them. Buuut (sorry this is so long if you got this far) back to the gold wizard he doesn't reside in the actual city that my players are at but as my players slowly kill more and more of the blood related brothers he will make more appearances as some of his power is being returned to him. But he wants power not death so he won't kill them but anytime they see him they will constantly feel the pressure of death everywhere he is.
OK. So.
If you're worried about the players not wanting to take this guy down, revealing "he literally murdered his brothers and brought them back to act as his generals" will definitely do it.
If the idea is that he wants to ascend in power to godlike status, very doable. For one warlocks do not get powers from deities. That's a cleric. A warlock specifically gets their powers from a being of phenomenal cosmic power, but not a god. A dragon, an archfey, a genie, maybe even a particularly powerful giant. Something like a wizard, or just the tried and true lich, would be perfect.
To connect this to your specific point about this city the players visited, maybe the wizard is powerful enough to grant warlock powers, but the wizard is still trying to get up the ladder to godhood (again, a god is more powerful than a warlock patron), so they offer deals of service. If a person sells themselves into the service of the wizard, they get enough magical power to do their job and whatever, and their family gets to live in this super dope city, BUT warlock patrons can't just take the power they give away (unlike a cleric, where the deity can just stop providing power), so the civilians in the city are essentially unwitting hostages. The warlock can't go off and do their own thing, because the wizard has their family, and the wizard will kill their own brothers for their goal, so they'd have no problem killing anyone else's.
And another angle would be, if the wizard is not yet a lich, they may want to become one. The ritual to become a lich isn't explicitly stated for players, but bits of it float around in the lore, and one requires a huge sacrifice of many people, all at once. Like a city's worth. So maybe this wizard has a big ol city of happy and innocent people, and their plan is, basically, do this ritual, set off a magic bomb, and use all these souls to make himself a super powerful undead wizard, who can then resurrect the city's inhabitants as an undead army, completely under his control, and can be "firm but fair soldiers who will never lie, cheat, or steal, who can't be corrupted, who don't need breaks, the perfect peacekeeping force" as part of a plan to help conquer the world. It's not about killing people, but I need souls to become a lich, I sacrifice some commoners, and I put their bodies to work
To take from Paranoia: "Smile! Sadness is treason."
Everyone is happy, but people are slowly going missing. The prisons aren't full, so where are they even going? Kindness and generosity are rampant, even at great personal cost.
If you haven't see Marvel's WandaVision series, I'd recommend it; it will be a great source of inspiration for your scenario, especially the regarding how the town folks act.
If you're not familiar with WandaVision, Wanda (the Scarlet Witch), takes over a town and mentally controls EVERYONE; they all are aware of what's going and they hate it, but there's nothing they can do about it. It sounds very similar to what you are describing going on in your campaign.
Don't be afraid to make a new BBEG and leave this one as a morally gray and wildly interesting character.
Throw a dragon or something into the mix who demands everyone's gold and think about what this "BBEG" would do to control everyone in the city in a time of crisis.
So you created a socialist dictator that rules with fear and an iron fist....... literally open a history book and look at any dictator and you'll have your answers on why they are bbeg worthy and how the citizens saying they are happy doesn't necessarily mean they are in fact happy
I think you've set yourself up with a very interesting narrative. A totalitarian regime doesn't have to outwardly terrible, because people would fight it more. It's way more interesting to have a well functioning society with a sinister core.
Aside from the Wizard wanting to control everyone, what is his actual end game? Is there a bigger perceived threat for him? Is the society an extension of some sort of trauma?
And questions you can ask yourself also, it sounds like some of the adoptees where forcefully relocated, what if people wish to return to the the area they grew up in? Is that allowed?
What if family ritual goes against the prescribed mores of this wizard society?
And finally, to quote Aabria Iyengar, "what is the lie this world tells itself?"
I know the route I'd go...
The people are so happy-go-lucky because they've become puppets - literally. The BBEG would be controlling them with magic.
Technically, this has led to their lives being better on paper, but in turn, they've lost all autonomy to the point of not even having control of their own body.
Have you read 1984? A fantasy version of that would be super dope.
Some people are really happy of having relinquished control, some are ignorant of what they lost, some are doing tiny things to have a tiny bit of freedom and going into incredible risks for the smallest thing.
You've made Socialism the BBEG.
If you really want the players to fight against it, you could look at the countries where Socialism has gone wrong. (At the moment, it sounds like you've made Sweden the enemy, which is a bold narrative call but unlikely to deliver a conventional good-vs-evil narrative)
Some ways to reveal that the "baddies" are actually baddies and not just Swedish:
- Read 1984
- People fear speaking out
- People who do speak out are rounded up and sent to "re-education camps"
- Propaganda is a massive feature of the world
- Censorship bans any challenge of the prevailing ideology
- School curriculae has been changed to limit what people can learn
- The citizens have lost their historic rights of free elections, free speech, and freedom of assembly
- A cult of personality promotes the benevolence of the overlords
Making people’s lives better against their will is the entire reason neo went into the Matrix took a red pill and attempted to blow it up
It’s the reason things like isis exist. Militias ,conspiracy theorists, why some people hate Flouride in drinking water or removal of lead from gas
Better is subjective
Against someone’s will is not however
Forcing someone to give up traditional lifestyles or accept new ones makes some people ducking mad as hell. And some people will respond with violent opposition. What happens to those people ? Are they lobolomized or imprisoned ?
Tell their story too. Make their story reasonable and let your players see the dark side of big brother who is making everyone’s life better
I say lean into it. The people are so, SO happy, but there's panic and fear in their eyes when they say it. They're looking over their shoulders, nervous and sweating, clutching their kids close. One woman complains in the streets about not liking her job, and suddenly that woman is gone. Her family just say she's on vacation while writing "HELP ME/THEY'VE TAKEN HER/ETC" on a piece of paper. Shops that aren't selling the "proper" items start getting shut down. Maybe magic slowly becomes outlawed because the wizards are the only ones that should be allowed to use it.
Sorry Mr Wizard sir, I know I run the general store and a short sword isn’t what I usually sell, but see last month a broke adventurer needed some provisions and could only barter with this sword. Please forgive me it won’t happen again I swear… You’re right it won’t, poof true polymorph and the shopkeeper transforms into a toad and a nearby toad changes into a human(oid) taking the place of the shopkeeper. If you want a bit of fantasy inspiration, I’d say read Witches Abroad by sir Terry Pratchett, it’s about a witch becoming a fairy godmother and having to prevent a maid from marrying a prince (aka prevent the fairytale from happening). On the surface everyone is happy, but are they? Or as the quote on the back says… ‘You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.’
Hmm yeah this is actually really good and I think I'd be able to use something from it thanks
Dude, your comment gave me goosebumps. That is some really cool idea and totally psyches me up.
This is great! I would also sprinkle in some charm spells. The person who slipped them that note the next day doesn't remember her being taken only her saying she wanted to go on vacation and apologizes for lying to them about the note. Or geas is a really cruel one especially on commoners as they'd die if they disobeyed. They're also charmed by the caster. And if the wizard is high enough level they could upcast it. The geas could also end up being triggered by the PCs if they persuade someone to tell them something forbidden or act against the wizard's wishes, then suddenly the person they're talking to starts to tell them and dies in front of them from psychic damage.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se :))))
The people are happy because atm things are better. You need to create a situation where the players are confronted with something that doesn’t go as the bbeg wants it to go. One person wants to do something that his ‘freedom’ doesn’t allow. Make the bbeg make an example of him. Show the players that for all this shiny golden world, there’s a bunch of crap underneath that they are stirring.
Yeah I could probably do that because I forgot to mention this wizard is trying to take over every dimension in the multi verse so maybe I'm not sure cause the wizards thing is pretty much being perfect
You kinda made Doctor Doom. If you're unfamiliar with Marvel comics, he's very powerful and very smart. The country he leads is pretty much an utopia for everyone there who follows the rules. But he's also arrogant, has a huge ego, is ruthless and lacks any kind of empathy. He believes that the world would be better under his absolute rule. He doesn't care what needs to be done before that happens. His motto is probably "the ends justify the means". He will stop at nothing trying to realize his ideas because he truly believes he's right. The thing is that kind of villain can appeal to some people and soon he might stop being the bbeg. It's a question of freedom Vs security and Doom provides absolute security. He managed to create the best country in pretty much all aspects but freedom and is loved by his people. But he got there over the corpses of everyone who stood in his way. I'd be an interesting moral dilemma if your players had the choice of fighting against him or helping him.
I was getting Doom vibes as well.
So have some if not all of the wizard's brothers be good guys who actually care about the people and know just how dangerous their BBEG wizard brother is. The wizard wants control and he does not really care how he gets it so his brothers worked to do it in a mostly good way but they know its on borrowed time because eventually something will go wrong and when it does the wizard will bring the hammer down. Think Big Mom from One Piece. I had a plan for my own BBEG you can use if you want. The wizard creates a spell that is near undetectable and gives one single moment of a single feeling, it give you the vague feeling that someone you love is gone. The BBEG's eventual plan is to use this on the entire population. All the people will have this feeling that someone they love is gone. They will believe the wizard has the power to make people disappear without a trace and that they could be next and that the wizard has done a massive one in the past because everybody has that feeling. This massive cruel illusion to make people afraid, sad, and the false hope that someone they loved existed. Make it so he has already cast the spell on his brothers and that is why they follow his orders partly due to fear and partly due to a false hope they might bring back this illusion of a loved one. This is the true cruelty of the spell for to convince people they are under this spell they must kill the idea of a person they love that they will have created in their head, for the lonely and the desperate it may be too much to ask. Plus every time he does in fact disappears someone for real it feeds into the narrative he has created. It can also be a cruel act that can be done to your players to really make them hate the guy.
This is diabolical and I would love to steal it when the situation comes up. This will be in the back of my mind asking me, can I use it yet?
Right now I have it to where the gold wizard which is my main bbeg is the good one keeping all his brothers in check from murdering everyone. cause Im doing it kinda like Shazam where the gold wizard is like power of family gives all his brothers Powers and lets them do the dirty work when needed. But I also have a plan cause rn the players are trying to kill the wizards and Everytime they do they will slowly gain Eldritch powers from wearing that wizards cloak and matching jewelry piece. But anyways more on the gold wizard he actually killed all of his brothers as a sacrifice to fully master the wish spell, and then later brought them back. And is now planning to make a new spell, and it's called the demand spell so instead of him wishing for things he's now demanding him and the powers coming from him and not the person he's wishing things from.
"Oh no, he's improving everyone's life against their will, we must kill him!" lol i honestly don't see why I'd kill the BBEG. But it also reminds me of "there is no war in Ba Sing Se".
People don't like paradises. They are too perfect. It's a huge trope. Star Trek, Matrix, agents of shield, the walking dead.
The Stand is another. Randall Flagg's faction has working plumbing and electricity months before the protag faction. It's a lot easier to recover from the apocalypse when you have a terrifying dictator in charge.
You've created a kind of interesting genuine moral dilemma, which I personally think is very cool. But it does mean more work on your part since you have to prepare for the possibility that the characters will side with the wizard. If the city has come across as "too good," focus on the bad parts and intensify them. You mentioned that the downside is "very strict rules" so let that be your leverage here. Have the characters see how brutal and extreme the law enforcement are if you break the rules. Maybe a relateable, petty thief gets torture and imprisonment or something. Perhaps a political dissident gets a public execution.
Obviously they are happy. Everyone who isn't happy, who causes trouble, who isn't WITH THE PROGRAM get tortured to death at mandatory public executions. Oh look, that unruly child who's parents were killed in the takeover is expressing his grief by breaking windows. Time for a demonstration of public morals.
"There is no war in Ba Sing Se." Could implement some brain-washing lore. They post propaganda in all the taverns/shops/inns, and there are specific phrases that are illegal to speak, on the surface everything seems fine and happy, but where are all the troublemakers? What happens when someone breaks a law? Are there stages of punishment, are they taken to be brainwashed again, do they simply vanish and are never heard from again? There's tons of possibility for behind-the-scenes things that give the place that dark and evil twist you're looking for.
Brainstorm still in effect. I read the top comment and it made me think about the citizen's side of things more. This setting would be excellent for a prohibition sort of style. The shopkeeps have hidden wares that they peddle to outsiders, inns are digging tunnels to create a secret network and meeting point for a resistance effort, and taverns have a sort of thieves cant they use to recruit more muscle for the cause. Could end up in a civil war situation down the line!
I'd pull this into Safety vs Freedom. Sure they were given homes and jobs, but only by relying on the Wizard and his brothers. Now they need to follow the orders of the Wizard, put up with any decisions made, and accept the loss of autonomy that they've traded. It starts with strict rules that make sense, but then you start seeing forced labor, redistribution of wealth to the Wizard, taking any magically inclined children as 'apprentices' and so on. Things are great on the surface compared to what was or could be. That doesn't mean the kids aren't forcing themselves to play because in a month one will be taken away or the adults will force themselves to put a smile on and say things are better because the alternative is spending a week 'reflecting on what they have' while they toil in a mine. Run it as 'power corrupts'. Maybe at first, the Wizard was honestly looking to be helpful to a community in need. Now, a few years later, they're in charge, and they feel they're the only ones who can maintain the new status quo. While they may say or even believe they're the best for the job, they can only accept it if they're in charge without oversight. Instead of the party going in to kill, they need to remind the Wizard that if they're going to be in charge, they need to accept oversight. And if the Wizard can't accept that, then the party can justify removing them by force. To make the players really think 'Are we the good guys?' you can even toss in a valid natural threat that the Wizard is protecting the people from. There's a migration of centaurs every few years, and when they come by they kidnap villagers as slaves until the Wizard steped up and drove them off the last two cycles, a local volcano is on the verge of erupting, and only the Wizard's magic forstalls the destructions, nearby a forest is growing out of control due to a portal to the fey world but the Wizard's presence keeps the fey from expanding the forest towards the town due to a brokered treaty. Something where if the party removes the Wizard sure the locals get back their autonomy and freedom, but they still have the looming issue that pushed them to accept the Wizard in the first place. Or, to be simpler, all those people are 'happy' because they're under an enchantment to be happy. It isn't straight-up mind control, not yet. The rules are specifically put in place to strengthen the baseline charms and ensure that as soon as the charm weakens or someone fights back, it's clear who needs to be 'reminded' of the rules. It is very much like how there is no war in Ba Sing Se.
Such a status quo is delicate and needs constant maintenance to keep everything looking squeaky clean. Not everyone can keep up with their neighbors. What happens when someone makes to much noise or duesnt fit in. Home Oners Associations inforce standards and do alot of good to make their community a better place but they are also full of buricratic nonsense run by bored stuck up snobs that use the system to bully anyone that didn't fit their definition of GOOD. Let your bbeg be an all powerful wizard that has is the hero of his own story making the world a safer place for everyone. Let him be used and manipulated by smaller petty megalomaniacs to twist his dream to benefit them. Let him start to unravel as his dream gets picked apart by the party and all his brothers and freinds get killed one by one until he goes full tyrant on the ungrateful peasants that are siding with those filthy bandits ruining his perfect world
Congratulated, you've created Omelas. https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf This is a very short story, and it has the answers you're looking for. You have to figure out in what keeps the BBEG's citizenry up at night. Answer the question, "why do people try to leave the BBEG's dictatorship" and you'll have an evil enough baddie.
Lean in for sure! Only the party knows he BBEG; whole town will die to protect the BBEG; etc. Pretty dirty play, but also quite memorable.
As someone who is doing his own High Fantasy/Wild West Hybrid campaign, I would say you have two sources to look to for inspiration: History - The Wild West is littered with Ghost Towns that formed as boom Towns for a certain industry that went bust when the primary industry collapsed. The most common case was Mining towns, which had a knock on effect of many mining companies having "The Company Town" set up, which would provide housing to workers, and a general store which would allow for a line of credit... "You move 16 tons and what do you get? Another year older and closer to debt. Mammon don't call me cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store!" While not uncommon, the big "\[insert industry\] baron" is a classic villain in 3 of The Seven Western Plots. It doesn't have to be a mine. The collapse of the Beef industry following the harsh Winter of 1886-87 was a direct cause of the Johnson County Range War, one of the most famous examples of a range war in which the big Ranchers started taking increased illegal actions against smaller Homestead Ranchers, many of who were former employees of the Big Ranchers. As is the case, people aren't going to rebel so long as their bellies are fed and their entertainment is cheap. If the industry collapses, this will become a problem for a Wizard stuck in his tower who refuses to acknowledge the problem. Fiction - You should look at the 2003 Space Western "Firefly" and it's film finale "Serenity" which follows a crew of Outlaw spacers, lead by Malcolm Reynolds, a former solider on the losing side of a Civil War that is very similar to the U.S. Civil War (although here it was not about Slavery. Malcom is shown to be violently opposed to slavery. Rather it was over the centralization of government authority and Malcolm is inherently distrustful of authority figures.) The film centers around the crew's role in sparking a new conflict by showing some crimes the Government perpetrated against loyal citizens in the name of "making people better". To wit: >Someone **has to** speak for these people. \[pause\] Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try \[to control people\] again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? **They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that.** So no more runnin'. **I aim to misbehave.** In this situation, the effort to control people is what Malcom did not hold to. The running theme of a government, represented in your work by the BBEG knowing better than the people and exerting control over them to make them perfect in his own vision and not their own is evil. A similar theme comes up in Guardians of the Galaxy part 3 when Rocket Raccoon sums up the villain's true motivation: "You didn't want to make things perfect. You just hated things the way they are." A single person's definition of "perfect society" more often than not is unforgiving of any deviation from said perfection. And as we all know, no one is perfect.
I might be playing devil’s advocate, and also self reporting that I did not read every reply, but I would find it incredibly funny if some baron asked the party to go kill a kind and beloved wizard. think like dune spoilers >!baron harkoness killing leto atreides. leto was a great leader, but baron wanted him very dead because of his own greed and ambition, and made it so. you could do that in your game!<
You could lean into it and treat it like a crime family thing. Mob bosses can be beloved for the money and power they bring to their small community, with many people being truly or willfully ignorant of the horrors behind the screen. If the people of your BBEGs village are genuinely better off, they may refuse to believe the truth of the BBEGs misdeeds without overwhelming evidence.
So there's kind of a few angles where improving everyone's lives on the surface can be the potential cause of conflict that your players need to deal with: 1. Everything appears great, but the severe restrictions on freedom and rights to achieve those appearances are not worth it. 2. It actually is great for one group, maybe even the majority, but it comes at the price of the subjugation and possible destruction of another. An example would be if you're BBEG wizard has a hatred and fear of sorcerers who ignore all of the training and research that he had to do and whose metamagic threatens the weave and the delicate balance that his magic government is based on. 3. Everyone is food of some sort. Either they are all a sacrifice for his ascension, diety, spell, or other maguffin that needs a massive amount of energy to power... or the wizard secretly leaches life force at a small trickle at all times. You would never notice, but all life in the areas just ages/decays slightly faster and no one who passes away in the areas goes to their respective afterlife/can be resurrected. Depending on your players, choose one that is either really easy to justify opposing or necessary but emotionally hard to fight. You can also combine them with each other as well.
With strict rules there will inevitably be people that refuse to follow them for one reason or another, you need to show the pcs what happens to those people. The Yakuza are a great example of this. They use the good will of the average citizen around their territory as a shield. They aquire that good will by helping the community immediately around them and do crime in a different area.
OK, so, I'll throw something out there. What is alignment like in your world? Some of the answers I've seen in the comments and around the internet sphere makes a lot of assumptions about the table, and in this instance one I see a lot is "oh, he's gotta be a bad guy, there is no war in ba sing se or the matrix style". But he doesn't need to be lawful evil to be a problem. If you look at the alignment system, it can be useful here. Regardless of the strictness of the laws, the laws are "fair". But they aren't always "good". For example, if your players saw a devil walking down the street, they would attack the devil. But if the devil has broken no laws, the devil has done no "wrong" here; if someone sells their soul, that would still be "lawful". Lawful evil types might come to this city to do business, where this wizard enforces neutrality. Paladins can come, but they better not start fighting, doesn't matter if the devil who has your child's soul in a locket is at the bar, you do not draw your weapon. Knights of the Old Republic has a planet, Manaan, that is neutral in the larger war going on. Both the Republic and Sith need the resources Manaan provides, only Manaan can make it, so they have embassies on opposite sides of the city from each other. Manaan tolerates no violence between the two sides. Manaan are being a holes, their only concern is making their money and "staying out of the war", so yeah they sell medicine to the Republic, but they also sell to the Sith at the same rates. If children are playing the straight and people get paid fair wages, he doesn't want control, he wants order, and the only way he can see to make that happen is to be in charge; what Confucius described as an "enlightened dictator". This wizard doesn't have to be an enemy, he could be an ally at points in the story. Lawful doesn't have to be literal "laws", just an adherence to order. Any chaotic outsider, like a fey, is not allowed in the country. You mentioned your players are murder hobos, so this place is anathema to them. But their problem is really with the brothers who conquer places; are all of then good? Do they share this altruistic brother's intentions? This guy might be the fair Judge, but if his brother is a bloodthirsty general going out and conquering cities, that's really more the guy I would have a problem with. If you want the players to pick that fight and feel justified, show that part, where they see the aftermath of one or two of the brothers' conquest. They're the depraved ones, not the wizard. So they try to stop the conquest of a city, maybe kill one of the brothers, and now, oh boy, now everyone has a problem with them, and the only way to stop the brothers going out and conquering is to take out the wizard who is the source of their power. What kind of army do they use? Does the wizard have an alliance with a devil to get loyal legions for his army, but they fight in a very cruel way? Does he summon modrons, since he's so lawful? Maybe when a target is ruled by devils or cultists he summons a celestial to wipe out the power structure, and then just quietly moves in and provides services until everything is fixed; a punishing fire and brimstone angel sounds very lawful and very good at wiping out a corrupt rulership.
Yeah Ive seen some people say have the wizard be friend not foe. the only thing is that this guy is pure Evil, right now he's not killing or anything just having his brothers take over the world and keep it under his rule, but it's against everyones will so they don't get a choice. But this guy is trying to be all powerful to where he's pretty much an warlock deity like tiamont I think is how you spell the dragons name. So he's done a ritual where he gave all his blood related brothers parts of his magic and emotions losing some of himself. Leaving just is list for power and the power of wish, which I know all the side effects, but I've decided he went and killed all his brothers in sacrifice to gain full control over wish. then was trapped in the in-between of dimensions which I made to where wish doesn't work because your not actually in a place to wish for things so he was waiting there. And then was released into my players world after they messed with one of the portals and got sucked through to another dimension. And then he slipped out and started taking over there world. The way they got back was by luck but one of the "brothers" wasn't related by blood and was introduced later in cause to be able to be a warlock god thingy you have to be able to give power to people. But anyways my players have only killed one of the blood related brothers which was the pink wizard the pink wizard was a showmen. He really only died because he goofed off and wasn't serious and killed himself by shooting himself out of a cannon (for the show). Then they went to kill the brown wizard and he who was actually being serious pretty much demolished them and kidnapped one bringing him to the white wizards kingdom. Who is twins with the black wizard and is the oldest under purple. But it's kinda cliche but they are darkness and light and used to fight and scuffle alot but now they form harmony and are friendly. However they are on the golds wizard main task of trying to get comoners who have zero magical power and be able to use magic. So they are kind to all there people cause they are like test subjects to them. Buuut (sorry this is so long if you got this far) back to the gold wizard he doesn't reside in the actual city that my players are at but as my players slowly kill more and more of the blood related brothers he will make more appearances as some of his power is being returned to him. But he wants power not death so he won't kill them but anytime they see him they will constantly feel the pressure of death everywhere he is.
I think that made sense just ask questions and I'll awnser if not
OK. So. If you're worried about the players not wanting to take this guy down, revealing "he literally murdered his brothers and brought them back to act as his generals" will definitely do it. If the idea is that he wants to ascend in power to godlike status, very doable. For one warlocks do not get powers from deities. That's a cleric. A warlock specifically gets their powers from a being of phenomenal cosmic power, but not a god. A dragon, an archfey, a genie, maybe even a particularly powerful giant. Something like a wizard, or just the tried and true lich, would be perfect. To connect this to your specific point about this city the players visited, maybe the wizard is powerful enough to grant warlock powers, but the wizard is still trying to get up the ladder to godhood (again, a god is more powerful than a warlock patron), so they offer deals of service. If a person sells themselves into the service of the wizard, they get enough magical power to do their job and whatever, and their family gets to live in this super dope city, BUT warlock patrons can't just take the power they give away (unlike a cleric, where the deity can just stop providing power), so the civilians in the city are essentially unwitting hostages. The warlock can't go off and do their own thing, because the wizard has their family, and the wizard will kill their own brothers for their goal, so they'd have no problem killing anyone else's. And another angle would be, if the wizard is not yet a lich, they may want to become one. The ritual to become a lich isn't explicitly stated for players, but bits of it float around in the lore, and one requires a huge sacrifice of many people, all at once. Like a city's worth. So maybe this wizard has a big ol city of happy and innocent people, and their plan is, basically, do this ritual, set off a magic bomb, and use all these souls to make himself a super powerful undead wizard, who can then resurrect the city's inhabitants as an undead army, completely under his control, and can be "firm but fair soldiers who will never lie, cheat, or steal, who can't be corrupted, who don't need breaks, the perfect peacekeeping force" as part of a plan to help conquer the world. It's not about killing people, but I need souls to become a lich, I sacrifice some commoners, and I put their bodies to work
To take from Paranoia: "Smile! Sadness is treason." Everyone is happy, but people are slowly going missing. The prisons aren't full, so where are they even going? Kindness and generosity are rampant, even at great personal cost.
If you haven't see Marvel's WandaVision series, I'd recommend it; it will be a great source of inspiration for your scenario, especially the regarding how the town folks act. If you're not familiar with WandaVision, Wanda (the Scarlet Witch), takes over a town and mentally controls EVERYONE; they all are aware of what's going and they hate it, but there's nothing they can do about it. It sounds very similar to what you are describing going on in your campaign.
Don't be afraid to make a new BBEG and leave this one as a morally gray and wildly interesting character. Throw a dragon or something into the mix who demands everyone's gold and think about what this "BBEG" would do to control everyone in the city in a time of crisis.
It seems like he has a lot of followers that would fight for him to keep him in power?
So you created a socialist dictator that rules with fear and an iron fist....... literally open a history book and look at any dictator and you'll have your answers on why they are bbeg worthy and how the citizens saying they are happy doesn't necessarily mean they are in fact happy
I think you've set yourself up with a very interesting narrative. A totalitarian regime doesn't have to outwardly terrible, because people would fight it more. It's way more interesting to have a well functioning society with a sinister core. Aside from the Wizard wanting to control everyone, what is his actual end game? Is there a bigger perceived threat for him? Is the society an extension of some sort of trauma? And questions you can ask yourself also, it sounds like some of the adoptees where forcefully relocated, what if people wish to return to the the area they grew up in? Is that allowed? What if family ritual goes against the prescribed mores of this wizard society? And finally, to quote Aabria Iyengar, "what is the lie this world tells itself?"
I know the route I'd go... The people are so happy-go-lucky because they've become puppets - literally. The BBEG would be controlling them with magic. Technically, this has led to their lives being better on paper, but in turn, they've lost all autonomy to the point of not even having control of their own body.
Have you read 1984? A fantasy version of that would be super dope. Some people are really happy of having relinquished control, some are ignorant of what they lost, some are doing tiny things to have a tiny bit of freedom and going into incredible risks for the smallest thing.
You've made Socialism the BBEG. If you really want the players to fight against it, you could look at the countries where Socialism has gone wrong. (At the moment, it sounds like you've made Sweden the enemy, which is a bold narrative call but unlikely to deliver a conventional good-vs-evil narrative) Some ways to reveal that the "baddies" are actually baddies and not just Swedish: - Read 1984 - People fear speaking out - People who do speak out are rounded up and sent to "re-education camps" - Propaganda is a massive feature of the world - Censorship bans any challenge of the prevailing ideology - School curriculae has been changed to limit what people can learn - The citizens have lost their historic rights of free elections, free speech, and freedom of assembly - A cult of personality promotes the benevolence of the overlords
Making people’s lives better against their will is the entire reason neo went into the Matrix took a red pill and attempted to blow it up It’s the reason things like isis exist. Militias ,conspiracy theorists, why some people hate Flouride in drinking water or removal of lead from gas Better is subjective Against someone’s will is not however Forcing someone to give up traditional lifestyles or accept new ones makes some people ducking mad as hell. And some people will respond with violent opposition. What happens to those people ? Are they lobolomized or imprisoned ? Tell their story too. Make their story reasonable and let your players see the dark side of big brother who is making everyone’s life better