In the last post, which can be found here, we created our villain’s background and appearance. In today’s post, we will finish fleshing out our villain’s personality. A good villain does take a bit of work to create, but in the end I hope it is evident that the end result is worth the effort!

Who Is Our Villain – Personality

One of the most important aspects of any NPC is their personality. Without a fleshed out personality, an NPC is nothing more than a forgettable figure the adventurers interact with. They are not engaging, hold no influence, and at the end of the day make no real impact on the players. Thankfully, the 5th edition Dungeon Master’s Guide provides inspiration to help flesh out those details that make an NPC memorable.

Personality – Talent

To start, we are going to determine what talent our villain possesses. You may be asking yourself why are we bothering with such a minor detail, the adventurers are never going to care. While the adventurers may never see this talent, the more detail you create for your NPCs the better you can bring them to life. Sticking to our theme in this series, I consulted the NPC Talent table in the DMG and received the talent of being able to speak multiple languages fluently. This talent can easily help explain why our villain is able to recruit so many different followers!

Personality – Mannerisms

Our next step is going to be determining the mannerisms of our villain. This is a vital aspect of the personality and will heavily influence interactions with our adventurers and assist in making the NPC more memorable! Once again I went back to the DMG to consult the NPC Mannerisms table and received the mannerism of being prone to staring into the distance. This is yet another good fit for our villain as we found out that he is being manipulated by a succubus and makes for a good visualization of this interaction for the players!

Personality – Ideals

After gathering mannerisms and talents, we move on to creating ideals of our NPC. This is one of the core pieces of our NPC, as it will involve deciding an alignment for them. Seeing as our villain is really a misguided, unappreciated person, I am going to say that he is Chaotic Neutral. The reasoning here is that he is causing havoc to further himself (chaotic), while having no strong feelings about what he is doing as it benefits his end goal (neutral). Now that we have an alignment, let’s see what ideals we receive! The NPC Ideals table has a slew of options, based on alignment, to choose from. Looking at our NPC so far, I feel he is going to favor more of a chaotic ideal over a neutral ideal. After rolling on the table, we find our NPC ideal to be change. Yet another fitting result as our villain is seeking to change his favor with Torm!

Personality – Bonds

Just like player characters, NPCs need a bond to hold onto. Despite being a villain, our NPC surely has something, someone, or somewhere that they truly care about. To begin with, we are going to consult the NPC Bonds table. After rolling, we find that our bond is that they are drawn to a special place. This is a very generic bond, so let’s take a minute to flesh this out a bit. We know that our villain is being influenced heavily by a succubus, so it stands to reason that this bond may not be their own. The special place they are drawn to, at the urging of the succubus, is the dungeon we are going to explore. The villain had never been to the dungeon before he left his clan, but once he was influenced to visit it’s become something he is willing to kill to keep sacred.

Personality – Flaws and Secrets

The final step in creating a fleshed out personality for our villain is to determine his flaws and/or secrets. This is a key component in how our villain is going to interact with our adventurers as the discovery is likely to lead to their downfall. Once again we find our DMG to be very useful in giving inspiration. After consulting the NPC Flaws and Secrets table, we find that our villain is susceptible to romance. This flaw is an interesting one, as we wouldn’t normally associate a villain as being the romantic type, but it is a great personality flaw that can be used to explain their actions.

Personality and Background Final

Name: Dworic Battlehammer

Race: Hill Dwarf

Occupation: Adventurer

History: Devout servant of Torm. Naive, feels unwelcome in his clan, failed at adventuring.

Scheme: Gain favor with Torm (really a succubus)

Method: Gather followers for Torm through any means necessary.

Description: 4′ tall, 163 lbs, Brown hair and eyes, short burnt beard, and a noticeable birthmark on the right side of his face.

Talent – Can speak multiple languages

Mannerisms – Tends to look out into the distance

Ideals – Change

Bonds – Drawn to a special place

Flaws and Secrets – Susceptible to romance

We finally have a full concept of who our villain really is. While we may not have a detailed backstory yet, we have a solid framework to build upon. In the next post, we will cover creating the stats for our villain. Until next time, may your dice roll well.

Creating A Random Adventure – The Villain Pt. 3