Evil Voldemort has now appeared atop the highest tower of Cardboard Castle. Please ignore the snake who appears to be doing something really creepy and x-rated.
In the Dungeons and Dragons game, just like in good fantasy fiction, it is the villain of the episode who makes or breaks the story. Good villains in D & D often means an evil wizard. After all, what would the Harry Potter saga be without Voldemort… (sorry, I mean “He who must not be named.”
Like H.W.M.N.B.N., a good villain must have a truly evil goal in mind, something for the heroes to thwart or fail to thwart until the world is on the edge of ultimate doom. Brother Garrow, the shape-changer masquerading as a vampire cleric of the Blood of Vol religion, wanted to find an ancient mechanical evil in an earth-rending robot, and bring it back to life. He was fully thwarted and died a horrible death, but the robot would later be given life and unleashed anyway. Malekith the Pyromancer wanted to subvert the entire college of magic at Cymril University and set them on a path to a new age of necromancers and undead evil. Unfortunately, the heroes got side-tracked with looting the Peppermint Wizard’s Candy Store and Alchemy Shop, so he is still out there subverting successfully.
Morgoth the Mad and the High Lama of Krakatos
Some wizards, like Morgoth the Mad are based on published game characters, and some are entirely my own creation like the High Lama. Both of these wizards are not only lead figurines that I painted myself, but they both lend an oxymoronic meaning to the idea of “Good Villains”. Morgoth was certainly evil when he tried to sack the city of Gansdorf. But his son, Kath, was adopted by the heroes and raised to be a hero himself (though one that bore endless suspicion because who ever heard of a hero with bat wings?) The High Lama did only evil magic spells, but he also raised an orphanage full of adolescent were-rats. Any mentor and teacher, no matter how evil, cannot be all bad in my book.
Lucan Stellos was not actually a wizard himself. He was an agent of the Kingdom of Breland who should’ve been a great hero, but got turned into a vampire by the evil vampire queen of Sharn.
His sister, Grilsha Stellos, however, was a level 6 sorceress who used her magic to help her brother carry out the will of his evil mistress. She loved her brother and fought for him courageously, but in the end she fell in combat with the player characters. It was her death that shook Lucan free of the power of his mistress, and so he let himself be captured, expecting to be destroyed.
Instead, the heroes set him on a path to redemption as a good vampire, killing other vampires in the name of a forgiving god and vengeance for his lost sister.
And let me end this silly list of evil wizards with the Lizard Wizard. Old Lizzie is dragon-born, half man, half dragon. And he uses his evil dragon magic to loot and plunder for the pleasure of himself and his lizard-man minions like Kato who follows him here. In the picture, you can see old Eli Tragedy trying to drive the Lizard Wizard out of the Cardboard Castle with his magic wand of really painful cold sores.
And that is not the end of my list of evil wizards. They are immensely fun to play with, so naturally I have a lot more. But I will not inflict them upon you here and now. Too much evil in one essay is never a good idea.
Catch a Falling Star 