Hey Game Fans, we’ve shown you the theoretically steps for how to put together an Antagonist/bad guy for your RPG fun, but that’s a theoretical. Today i’d like to take to an opportunity to show you how this works in actual practice. I haven’t exactly decided what kind of a Big Bad Monster that’s Going to Break Your Tiny Face ™ to use in this, but let’s dig into the idea and see what we can come up with. As always, we start with the Antagonist and work our way down from there.
Plot Point 13 The Unbroken Circle
So i had a strange thought for an Antagonist in the shower a couple of days ago. The core concept of this creature is an extraplanar creature that changes the fate and destiny of mortal creatures on the prime material plane. (It’s a similar idea to the Chaos God Tzeentch, from the Warhammer Universe from Games Workshop, but it’s a very broad similarity. It also bears some similarities to the Elder Gods from Lovecraft and his contemporaries.). By manipulating the strands of fate and destiny, this creature is working towards its own barely understood goals. It’s changed the history of the world several times through these machinations and it’s set to rewrite history one more time if the characters can’t stop it.
The Unbroken Circle
So the Antagonist I’m building for this story is a broad, conceptual foe who works through intermediaries to accomplish its goals. It’s a creature from beyond the Prime Material Plane, so it doesn’t necessarily follow the rules and laws of the natural world, so let’s give it a rough idea of what it typically looks like (A creature with this kind of power typically can change the way it looks).
Appearance
The Unbroken Circle typically appears as a 15 foot tall humanoid creature. It’s body is split right down the middle with the left half appearing dessicated and withered by the ravages of time. The right half is hale and hearty with the pallor of a newborn child. Both sides have barely legible text engraved into the skin, the left side ancient languages that haven’t been spoken in ages. The right side is covered in languages that haven’t been invented yet. The left side has two withered pinions of featherless wings, while the right has two full feathered wings. Covered by a white cowl that cloaks its face, The Unbroken Circle speaks in a dozen voices at the same time.
Ambition
The Unbroken Circle is a creature trying to outrun time. It was created by a bizarre interaction in extraplanar energies that allowed a creature that was never supposed to exist to be birthed into creation. It was not supposed to exist, so for most of its life it was not subject to the laws of the universe. It eventually drew the attention of ancient deity of time. The two creatures did battle, and though the Unbroken Circle won the battle, it was afflicted with the power of time. Time knows it isn’t supposed to exist, so it’s trying to erase it. The Unbroken Circle is working to undermine the power of that ancient deity and escape the ravages of time.
Power
The Unbroken Circle has access to parallel timelines where its manipulations have resulted in favorable outcomes to it. This gives it access to legions of followers, magical resources and a host of other assets it can use to fight its battle against time on the Prime Material Plane. There are limitations to its power, and it’s searching for three specific artifacts of that ancient Time deity to break these limitations. Once these restrictions are lifted, it can finish its final plan and remake the past, the present and the future and merge the timelines into one unbroken stream of time.
Endgame
The Unbroken Circle is seeking three artifacts to dominate reality. They are the chosen icons of an ancient deity of time and have been hidden throughout reality by its last few worshippers. When the Unbroken Circle collects these three items, it can remake the pattern of reality and at that point its power is absolute.
Minions: The Points of the Circle
The lowest level of minions likely encountered by player characters, the Points of the Circle are cultists and servitors. The difference is subtle, as cultists are worshippers of the Unbroken Circle from the Prime Material Plane and servitors are the minions it pulls from parallel timelines. Cultists are a scarcer resource for the Unbroken Circle, as they choose to worship it and follow its plans. Servitors come from realities where the Unbroken Circle has taken control of reality and are imprinted with its worship.
Specialists: The Weavers
Weavers are the most common specialists in the employ of the Unbroken Circle. Infused with extraplanar energy, they are granted abilities that allow them to manipulate the fate and destiny of mortal creatures they get close to. This ability lets them work the Unbroken Circle’s agenda directly. This power makes them valuable to the Unbroken Circle and objects of veneration by the Points of the Circle.
Lieutenant #1: The Oracle
The left hand of the Unbroken Circle, the Oracle is an ancient diviner and practitioner of Prescience. It uses these ability to aid its master by finding irregularities in time and predict the location of the missing artifacts. It doesn’t travel far from its master’s side and is a Seneschal for its demense outside of time and space.
Lieutenant #2: The Arrow of Time
The right hand of the Unbroken Circle, the Arrow was the avatar of the Deity of Time that the Unbroken Circle defeated. Taking the avatar as prize of war, the Unbroken Circle reworked it as an assassin and troubleshooter. When interlopers obstruct its plans often enough, the Arrow of Time is dispatched to hunt them down and destroy them.
How to use this Antagonist?
As Antagonists go, this one’s a little out there. Its motivations are a little bizarre to track and beyond the core goal of finding it’s three artifacts, it can be hard to build adventures and arcs to that play to its strengths. It has a diversity of minions for you to use, because virtually anything can be a servitor from a parallel timeline. The way i look at framing adventures and story arcs for a creature like this is to assume that whatever its plan is, it has backups and contingencies to help fix things that go off kilter.
For example, The Unbroken Circle has decided that a specific country is going to create difficulties in its ideal timeline and sends several weavers to work towards different ways of either diverting that country’s current path, or outright working to weaken or destroy that country. One weaver might attempt to influence the governing body of the country while another one goes to work on the population. A third weaver might work in outlying areas to weaken the trade routes that supply the country with raw materials and currency. A fourth and even a fifth weaver might go to the task of antagonizing its neighbors and turning them against the country. In the end, through a combination of factors the country is weakened and unable to affect the Unbroken Circle’s plans for the future.
Adventure Seeds
The Eye of Fate
Cultists operating in a major city have found a potential point where the Unbroken Circle can influence the future. A weaver has been sent to the cult to give them additional resources towards achieving this goal. The cult’s activities have been noticed by the local nobility, who hire a party of adventurers to investigate what they are up to and to stop them if necessary. The adventure centers on the Cult attempting to arrange a political marriage between two rival houses who’ve been at each other’s throats for a century. Turning this enmity to amicability changes the future fortunes of the city, if they can succeed.
The Path of Time
A recently excavated tomb reveals details about a lost city in the mountains far to the north. Rumors abound of ancient treasure, secrets, and magical items lost to the ages being secreted in this place. Of more importance to the Unbroken Circle is the existence of a temple to its ancient enemy that may have secrets to where one of the artifacts is hidden. The characters stumble across the trail to the city (or are hired by a friendly noble) and have to make it to the city and prevent the Unbroken Circle’s minions from finding that temple.
Arc Seeds
The Pattern of Fate
The Oracle has located a confluence of time, and believes that the presence of one of the three artifacts is causing this. It dispatches a team of minions to locate the artifact. At the same time, the characters are sent on an adventure to clear out the ruins of a cemetery that has been infested with undead. In the depths of the boneyard, they find a strange map that leads to fabled treasure. The path of these two groups will intertwine as they follow various leads to the portal of the Eclipsed Moon. While the portal is active, both groups have the ability to enter it and find the treasure (and the artifact) if they can handle the guardians of that lost place.
The Death of a Kingdom
Almost overnight, the Kingdom’s fortunes have turned. The Queen has lost her mind, the nobles are nearly in open rebellion and the townsfolk are caught in the middle. Worse, the neighboring countries have become just as belligerent in their dealing with the Kingdom and war seems to be a foregone conclusion. What madness has taken hold, and can anyone turn aside this dire fate?
Campaign Seed
Keepers of Destiny
Using the last of its power, the ancient foe of the Unbroken Circle reaches through time to contact very specific champions to find and protect its legacy from the Unbroken Circle. These individuals are moved out of their normal times and brought together now to find and protect these places of power and artifacts. They will have to face down the Unbroken Circle’s full power if they are to succeed and set right ancient wrongs and manipulations of time.
Conclusions
So that’s a start to finish setup for an adventure, a story arc, or even a full campaign. From these elements you can create a variety of stories and encounters that tie into this Antagonist. Some of the elements are purposefully vague so you can tie it into your own world or into a published campaign setting. I also tried to give you enough of a skeleton to build these opponents in a flavor of your own choosing (I’ll put mine together in a week or two). So, will the Circle be Unbroken, or can you change Destiny?
I hope this gives all of you some insights and ideas on incorporating this style of a Plot Element into your game without it becoming a burden to your fun. If you’d like to see more of these, or have a question about a specific plot element that you’d like to know more about, drop me a line on twitter, which you should be able to see over there on the right side of the screen. Game On,
Game Fans.
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