The votes have been tallied and our latest Patreon poll has a winner. It was down to the wire, but Antipaladin managed to snag that coveted spot in The Evil Party. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming our chaotic evil fire genasi to Handbook-World! (Better luck next time, Assassin!)

I don’t know if you guys have ever attempted an evil campaign, but the couple of times I tried I found myself sharing in Antipaladin’s struggle. It is hard being senselessly evil! I mean, how can you actually function in normal society? How much of a sociopath do you have to be? Are you morally obliged to kick the puppy?

I struggled with this until, in the depths of some long-buried forum post, I came upon a simple idea. The revelation was this: evil can have friends. You are allowed to care for your fellow party members. You are allowed to have relationships with other people. Even if, like Antipaladin, you happen to be chaotic evil, you can still be more than a sneering caricature. I mean sure, if you’re down for a comedy game then go nuts. Tie adventurers to railroad tracks or whatever. But if you’re trying to represent a slightly more serious form of villainy, then you’ll want to be a believable character first and an avatar of pure malevolence second. That means you are motivated by more than evil will always triumph because good is dumb. It means that you can pet the puppy if you want to.

So as a thought experiment, why don’t we put our favorite villains to the test? How would your favorite fictional evil-doer react to a cute puppy? And for the sake of argument, let’s concentrate on human-like villains. While it’s amusing to imagine the Xenomorph Queen or Galactus meeting Patches, I don’t think that will reveal too much about the nature of evil PCs. Everybody clear? OK then. Pick your villain, put them in a room with an adorable pupper, and let’s hear how it turns out in the comments!

ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.