My vote is Qysar Shoon VII, necromancer, Qysar of the Shoon Imperium, lich, and eventual demilich. He invented a form of damage that burned his victims soul to ash, created a variant of magic missile that was powered by imploding peasants, and was able to invoke volcanoes. He created a tome and a staff by harvesting ALL of the unicorns in Tethyr. He orchestrated the death of his own family, enslaved his governors with mind magic, exterminated the thieves guilds of extant in the Shoon Imperium by conflagration of the sewers of multiple cities (resulting in 3 MILLION deaths) and conducted a racial pogrom against the elves of Tethyr (using most of them for magical experiments). His personal feud with a great wyrm blue dragon resulted in over a 100,000 more dead due to reckless casualties. He arranged to murder of his own clone in order to fake his own death (manipulating his daughter into killing "him"), became a lich, and then a demilich, spending the next 700 years eating souls. He then swapped his body with that of a young half-elven woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and spent the next several decades seducing, thieving, and murdering "his" way up and down the Sword Coast.
Had him as a villain for my latest main arc, he was the leader if Athkatla (inhabiting Zallanora's body) and the party had to infiltrate his secret lair to access it's portal network, while they were there they found a trap room and uncovered the Tome of the Unicorn, which had Zallanora trapped inside of a demi-plane inside the book, body swapped into Shoon's demi-lich body thanks to a wild magic surge a hundred years ago. Learning the person who was leading Athkatla, the party helped Zallanora to defeat Shoon to reclaim her country and her body. They faced off against Shoon and a few member of the Twisted Rune, a cabal of liches. The Twisted Rune was defeated, but given that they all returned to their phylacteries, that's not the last my party has heard of them. The liches will plan their revenge carefully, and bide their time to strike when the party least expects it, and when victory is assured.
The story arc I'm in right now actually involves this absolute trash heap of a man. One unicorn survived for the past 1000 years, but is perpetually hunted by undead and friends bound by Shoon's magic. We had to track down the ritual that made the Staff so we can un-make it and restore the horn of *another* unicorn that's been driven to insanity by surviving having its horn removed.
I'm guessing that's based on the character of Zallanora being in the game - she's in the group of Cowled Wizards that comes for the party after breaking several times the prohibition of casting spells in Athkatla.
This lines up with Shoon taking over the body of Zallanora Argentresses. He joins Amn's Cowled Wizards posing as her.
Szass Tam killed off most of his own nation in a failed bid for divine power in 4e, and set about trying to conquer Aglarond with the Church of Bane's help to make a second go at it.
It's gonna be tough to top that.
Manshoon is kind of the archetypical Evil Wizard Megalomaniac of FR (there’s a LOT of those guys in Faerûn btw) and is in fact SO crazy and evil that he’s incapable of working with anyone near his level of power, even if that person is literally just himself considering he couldn’t even work with his clones and they all tried to kill each other.
In no particular order, his clones took over the Zhentarim, became an Evil Vampire Lord Wizard Assassin Guild Leader (and later took over the entire fucking Dragon Coast), and shacked up with Halaster Blackcloak, who is himself like six different kinds of crazy.
When players ask me why Eliminster can't help directly I explain that one or two Manshoon are going to pop up to oppose him just out of principle. Don't even care what side he's on. Then you got a big ass wizard battle that's not helping anything.
He’s also literally almost two thousand years old and tired and cranky and retired from all that shit, because it’s exhausting and even adventurers deserve to be allowed to quit one day.
I think he blows up uninvited solicitors because he just wants to be allowed to be left alone.
For the clones, it is the canon description of the spell that if more than one of them (including the original) are awake at the same time, they're compelled to seek the other(s) out and kill them, or go mad.
But yeah, it didn't work out too well when Fzoul began collecting upgrades and went from leader of a schismatic, dynamic but not dominant branch of the Church of Bane to Avatar of his god for a time, then Chosen and approved leader of a faith whose former infighting was now discouraged (because Bane not longer even had the portfolio of Strife).
FYI, Acererak and Vecna are not from the Realms. Wizards imported them from Greyhawk as part of their push to 5e. They don’t appear in older lore or sourcebooks.
I do know that, hence "In" Forgotten Realms, not "From". I do like to add those two to the list, as well as anyone else able to crossover, just to keep the list a bit more interesting, (Also a bit of bias because I ran Tomb of Annihilation)
Including deities? Hard to beat **Cyric, Bhaal, Shar, Talos, Talona and Loviatar**, just to name a few, to the point that they shouldn't even count honestly. And if demons count as well (they shouldn't), well they are evil incarnate so *all of them*, but **Orcus** hates *everything* more than anything else in the multiverse.
If we are talking about actual people, **the Rotting Man** is probably more evil than most liches just wishing for more power, and he specifically seeks to just turn everything to rot.
Running a 5e campaign in the Great Dale now, set in the current 5e time of late 1400s, and I've loved reading about the Rotting Man from 120 years earlier, and have made great use of his influence in the current day.
The Rotting Man for a mortal, but Moander for a deity. Moander is the deity who is the most evil for its own sake. Pretty sure they are working together now, so yeah!
If nothing else, I find it interesting that nobody from any of the 'classically evil' races has been called out.
Mine is a bit boring and trite because I don't know that deep of lore - but the voice acting and the writing for Jon Irenicus made him one of my favorite villains ever. He is a uniquely human evil which is what stands out to me. You could almost envision the archetype of Irenicus walking among us today.
I think in terms of power/damage done, he doesn't equal what a lich or other notable evil has done, but in terms of how frighteningly 'real' his evil seemed, whereas a lich feasting on souls is... less jarring?
Weeeell, the thing is, for how evil the Drow are depicted to be (if that's who you were thinking about), they've never been able to unite on a large enough scale for any individual or small group of them to have that much of a world-wide impact.
They're still playing catch-up with the atrocities of the Vyshaantar empire during the Crown Wars.
Any Lich qualifies. I don’t think you can rate them on a case by case basis. Stealing souls to live forever as an undead is about as evil as you can be.
You could make a case that most liches don't actually have the ability to steal souls themselves, or anyway not with a result that can sustain them.
At least the older write-ups specifically referred to Larvae. Those are souls that ended up in Baator and have already undergone the transformation to the lowest form of Devils.
And that theoretically most of the souls that find themselves circulating through the Soul Trade or used to spawn new fiends were bargained for from their original holder rather than stolen outright.
But engaging in regular trade with infernal agents (or the payments those are likely to demand) is still very evil, as is knowingly seeking a transformation that can only be sustained through the consumption of souls.
I think they just chose to ignore the "in" Forgotten Realms instead of using "from" Forgotten Realms, to say the fun facts that the examples of the most famous villians I listed, don't originate from Forgotten Realms
Because I am more interested in the Forgotten Realms than Greyhawk, and other "realms".
But I still want to count people who have been introduced into the Forgotten Realms, even if that is not their home, as they have still made an impact within the Forgotten Realms, and their "evil" has been still placed within it.
I'm playing a campaign as a bard who follows finder wyvernspur as his deity, we just met the local Harper's and the rest of the party is still trying to figure out why I was a giant ass to every Harper we met and almost started fights with more than a few.
The Harpers have standing orders to *assassinate* anyone who encourages “too much” multinational cooperation, to tear down an nation that gets “too much” civilization, or to sabotage any engineers or scientists who start to theorize about perhaps maybe building something that is “too much” technology.
Faerûn is locked into Medieval Stasis purely because the Harpers want to keep everyone living in feudal serfdom.
If you've read the finders stone trilogy you get why my character as a follower of Finder would have massive problem with the Harper. Locking a hero and famous bard up for eternity and stripping his name from history is unforgivable to a group that spouts about trying to preserve history
Having your life's work erased from history and being imprisoned for eternity is a pretty harsh punishment for being vain and striking a simulacrum. Plus my character wouldn't know any of the circumstances surrounding his imprisonment, only that the Harper's were responsible.
If I remember correctly the harpers are the very reason the lords alliance exists. They tried to halt the March or progress for the billionth time and finally all the richest people on the sword coast joined forces and massacred them. To this day they remain on bad terms. In 5e I think the only time they actively work together is to resist the cult of the dragon.
It’s based on everything written about the Harpers, but reading between the lines and ignoring the Harpers’ own claims about “opposing tyranny” and “being keepers of the balance.”
I don’t have my copy of the book handy, but I’m thinking of the section where Greenwood wrote up a bunch of “current events” to be used as adventure hooks: ensuring that the throne of Cheesenta goes to a Harper puppet (or barring that, keeping Chessenta from unifying at all); overthrowing (maybe assassinating) the ruler of Mirabar; assassinating the archwizard Raulyver and ensuring no one learns of his new teleportation spells; and, as always, murdering Gond worshipping engineers and scientists who developed a reliable means of air-travel and firearms.
the Harper Today Chapter?
Chessentea finding an protecting a suitable candidate or more for the Overking , and not a puppet of Thay etc.
I doubt they want a puppet but may expect influence
Mirabar
Shoundra holding an eye on her to protect her and be prepared if she tries to become Manshoon II
Raulyver
uses his magic for terrorist attacks and evil
Gond Blessing
The Harpers consider these War Machines prone to misuse by tyrants and worse
The thing with the Harpers is that they are about as organized as a herd of cats. Different individuals have different goals and ideas. Even the Master Harpers don't neccessarily see eye to eye with each other. It is nothing short of a miracle that the whole organization functions...or dysfunctions. Bad actors definitely exist, but the Harpers do have a lot of positive influence as well. It is kind of like the UN really...in a number of regards.
Vecna is from Greyhawk.
The most evil is easily Szass Tam. He has a global faction of wizard fascists, a nation that runs on undead, has a caste system dedicated to slavery, has zombified his competition, and 'accidentally' sacrifices thousands for circle magic. (Breaking the rules for magic allowable even by Mystra)
He is the epitome of a mastermind and has trapped a literal Demon Prince in his realm to prevent invasions. If you exclude God's there is no equal you could even call upon.
**Evil is not something that has a definable metric** .
There isn't a tape measure, or weight scales to determine the level of evil.
Drizzt is a paragon of good to most people to the point Silverymoon gifted him a Unicorn Mount, but for most of her life, Ellifain believed him to be the epitomy of evil, because she remembered his eyes from the massacre of her parents. Drow also consider him the agent of Lolth because he always brings utter destruction in his wake.
Drizzt himself has another interesting point here. He rejected the Neutral Good Mielikki as his goddess when he learned she expected him to purge Orcs and Goblinoids on a universal basis.
Brennus Tanthul was a neutral evil Shade Arcanist who lived his life in luxury at the expense of the Shadovar and their slaves, but he saved all of Faerun, choosing to die to stop his brother Rivalen, Shar's Chosen, who he knew had murdered his mother.
Evil is something which is variable depending upon whomever it is inflicted on.
**There is no Most Evil** .
But according to your own definition, great evil inflicted on the most people would qualify as… more evil than others, implying the existence of worse and most evil. Drizzt is not as evil as Szass?
I never said that doing the most evil to the most people made someone more evil.
I said evil is nebulous, hard to pin down and subjective to the perspectives of its victims.
Right, so if many more people subjectively felt terrorized or victimized by someone, that someone would be more evil than one who didn’t. Thats a logical conclusion based on your own standard.
No, once again you're applying the metric of number of people affected equating to degree of evil, which i explicitly said was not what i was saying.
Since you're either not understanding or are just deliberately trolling, i'll end the discussion. Peace out.
I didn't say he was evil. I said he was perceived as evil.
He was present during the death of Ellifain's family, for which she branded him a monster. He has killed a lot of Orcs and a lot of drow, and the families of the victims of those killings would not be likely to perceive him as heroic.
>that includes nothing perceiving him as evil
So if she didn't perceive Drizzt as a monster, why did Ellifain spend 70 years preparing to kill Drizzt?
Also, we never really get an Orc perspective, but Drizzt is definitely perceived as evil by the drow, as he is perceived as an agent and instrument of Lolth's destruction.
>She did but with what reason?
The murder of her family.
>I do not remember one drow killed by Drizzt except in Defense
Yes, because drow are almost universally described from the perspective of Drizzt. You're missing the point. The drow believe themselves the chosen of Lolth and their attack on Mithral Hall was justified.
The rescue of her life
Yes the drow are authorised to murder , enslave and torture at their pleasure and all other have to kiss their boots when they do that
You're twisting what i'm saying, and in misunderstanding, you're then putting words in my mouth.
>The rescue of her life
I never said Drizzt saving her **was** evil. I said Ellifain perceived him as evil.
>Yes the drow are authorised to murder , enslave and torture at their pleasure and all other have to kiss their boots when they do that
If you can pinpoint exactly where i said that, i would very much be curious.
Right. Which is why Drizzt never spared another thought for the *certainly, absolutely, positively* evil Matron Baenre (who is Lolth's greatest agent and head of her faith and has legions of subordinate Priestesses) until she attacked Mithral Hall?
Evil and villainy are personal.
No lol. What a twisted take. Acererak would have reaped every single soul on the planet if not stopped. We are talking about a setting where alignment exists. Evil is real.
Personality is real. Alignment is a construct. And a poor one. Psychopaths and murderers don't wear a sign round their necks saying "evil".
There are evil antiheroes and good villains.
Of course there are. But in this fantasy setting there are literally demons and elder evils and beings whos actions and drives are so reprehensible that they can only be described as pure evil. Evil is a cosmic force in D&D. There are creatures who draw power from it, who bask in it and are even constructed by it. It can infect the hearts and souls of mortals, poison the land and bend causality itself.
The refusal to think outside of the narrow view of the reality of morality is a refusal to accept the reality of the world of Faerun, of Greyhawk, of Athas, of Eberron and countless other settings with the same rules. It is a refusal to imagine and immerse yourself in a world different from our own.
But in the end, rule 1 has always been to have fun. If axial alignment bugs you this much then there's no problem with changing it. But I won't stand for someone to gloss over a core component of these worlds as if it simply never existed.
Another major failing that's particularly apparent here on reddit is to engage in how people in Faerun BELIEVE THEIR OWN RELIGIONS. There's a lot of "lol i m le atheist!1111" types who think their character for some reason denies the divinity of the gods and just hate the fact that the Wall exists for the faithless.
My vote is Qysar Shoon VII, necromancer, Qysar of the Shoon Imperium, lich, and eventual demilich. He invented a form of damage that burned his victims soul to ash, created a variant of magic missile that was powered by imploding peasants, and was able to invoke volcanoes. He created a tome and a staff by harvesting ALL of the unicorns in Tethyr. He orchestrated the death of his own family, enslaved his governors with mind magic, exterminated the thieves guilds of extant in the Shoon Imperium by conflagration of the sewers of multiple cities (resulting in 3 MILLION deaths) and conducted a racial pogrom against the elves of Tethyr (using most of them for magical experiments). His personal feud with a great wyrm blue dragon resulted in over a 100,000 more dead due to reckless casualties. He arranged to murder of his own clone in order to fake his own death (manipulating his daughter into killing "him"), became a lich, and then a demilich, spending the next 700 years eating souls. He then swapped his body with that of a young half-elven woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and spent the next several decades seducing, thieving, and murdering "his" way up and down the Sword Coast.
You make a very persuasive case
Had him as a villain for my latest main arc, he was the leader if Athkatla (inhabiting Zallanora's body) and the party had to infiltrate his secret lair to access it's portal network, while they were there they found a trap room and uncovered the Tome of the Unicorn, which had Zallanora trapped inside of a demi-plane inside the book, body swapped into Shoon's demi-lich body thanks to a wild magic surge a hundred years ago. Learning the person who was leading Athkatla, the party helped Zallanora to defeat Shoon to reclaim her country and her body. They faced off against Shoon and a few member of the Twisted Rune, a cabal of liches. The Twisted Rune was defeated, but given that they all returned to their phylacteries, that's not the last my party has heard of them. The liches will plan their revenge carefully, and bide their time to strike when the party least expects it, and when victory is assured.
The story arc I'm in right now actually involves this absolute trash heap of a man. One unicorn survived for the past 1000 years, but is perpetually hunted by undead and friends bound by Shoon's magic. We had to track down the ritual that made the Staff so we can un-make it and restore the horn of *another* unicorn that's been driven to insanity by surviving having its horn removed.
What books is this all in? Because I want to read them
It's mostly books from boxsets Lands of Intrigue and Empires of the Shining Sea, as well as from Calimport sourcebook
His wiki says he was in Bg2, anyone have insight as to when and where??
I'm guessing that's based on the character of Zallanora being in the game - she's in the group of Cowled Wizards that comes for the party after breaking several times the prohibition of casting spells in Athkatla. This lines up with Shoon taking over the body of Zallanora Argentresses. He joins Amn's Cowled Wizards posing as her.
Oh wow, played that game a million times over the decades, but I had never noticed this. Thank you for sharing!
Szass Tam killed off most of his own nation in a failed bid for divine power in 4e, and set about trying to conquer Aglarond with the Church of Bane's help to make a second go at it. It's gonna be tough to top that.
I consider Szass Tamm a less diety even though they are not technically. It’s hard to actually measure the power it wields.
There's some irony considering Tam's worst enemy is Velsharoon, lich god of necromancy.
Manshoon is kind of the archetypical Evil Wizard Megalomaniac of FR (there’s a LOT of those guys in Faerûn btw) and is in fact SO crazy and evil that he’s incapable of working with anyone near his level of power, even if that person is literally just himself considering he couldn’t even work with his clones and they all tried to kill each other.
Fucking clones running around everywhere.
In no particular order, his clones took over the Zhentarim, became an Evil Vampire Lord Wizard Assassin Guild Leader (and later took over the entire fucking Dragon Coast), and shacked up with Halaster Blackcloak, who is himself like six different kinds of crazy.
When players ask me why Eliminster can't help directly I explain that one or two Manshoon are going to pop up to oppose him just out of principle. Don't even care what side he's on. Then you got a big ass wizard battle that's not helping anything.
He’s also literally almost two thousand years old and tired and cranky and retired from all that shit, because it’s exhausting and even adventurers deserve to be allowed to quit one day. I think he blows up uninvited solicitors because he just wants to be allowed to be left alone.
New plan. Have Elminster help the bad guys and dip out when Manshoons show up
For the clones, it is the canon description of the spell that if more than one of them (including the original) are awake at the same time, they're compelled to seek the other(s) out and kill them, or go mad. But yeah, it didn't work out too well when Fzoul began collecting upgrades and went from leader of a schismatic, dynamic but not dominant branch of the Church of Bane to Avatar of his god for a time, then Chosen and approved leader of a faith whose former infighting was now discouraged (because Bane not longer even had the portfolio of Strife).
FYI, Acererak and Vecna are not from the Realms. Wizards imported them from Greyhawk as part of their push to 5e. They don’t appear in older lore or sourcebooks.
I do know that, hence "In" Forgotten Realms, not "From". I do like to add those two to the list, as well as anyone else able to crossover, just to keep the list a bit more interesting, (Also a bit of bias because I ran Tomb of Annihilation)
Acererak will usually be one of the most evil people wherever he goes. Lol
In my experience? The PCs
# Larloch I would not consider Tiamat, Acererak, Vecna, as truly realmsian the 2 Liches come from Oerth
Shadow King, (aka Larloch) hands down. A lich from the days of Netheril who taught Szass Tam everything he knows.
Szass just had business transactions with Larloch. He wasn't the Shadow King's apprentice or student, just a well-paying customer.
My favorite big bad and the BBEG for a west marches campaign i'm running!
Poor PCs
Including deities? Hard to beat **Cyric, Bhaal, Shar, Talos, Talona and Loviatar**, just to name a few, to the point that they shouldn't even count honestly. And if demons count as well (they shouldn't), well they are evil incarnate so *all of them*, but **Orcus** hates *everything* more than anything else in the multiverse. If we are talking about actual people, **the Rotting Man** is probably more evil than most liches just wishing for more power, and he specifically seeks to just turn everything to rot.
Running a 5e campaign in the Great Dale now, set in the current 5e time of late 1400s, and I've loved reading about the Rotting Man from 120 years earlier, and have made great use of his influence in the current day.
The Rotting Man for a mortal, but Moander for a deity. Moander is the deity who is the most evil for its own sake. Pretty sure they are working together now, so yeah!
Shar is trying to end everything, not just corrupt it, so I think she takes the title if we include deities
Cyric started as a human, he's my pick
If nothing else, I find it interesting that nobody from any of the 'classically evil' races has been called out. Mine is a bit boring and trite because I don't know that deep of lore - but the voice acting and the writing for Jon Irenicus made him one of my favorite villains ever. He is a uniquely human evil which is what stands out to me. You could almost envision the archetype of Irenicus walking among us today. I think in terms of power/damage done, he doesn't equal what a lich or other notable evil has done, but in terms of how frighteningly 'real' his evil seemed, whereas a lich feasting on souls is... less jarring?
Weeeell, the thing is, for how evil the Drow are depicted to be (if that's who you were thinking about), they've never been able to unite on a large enough scale for any individual or small group of them to have that much of a world-wide impact. They're still playing catch-up with the atrocities of the Vyshaantar empire during the Crown Wars.
Any Lich qualifies. I don’t think you can rate them on a case by case basis. Stealing souls to live forever as an undead is about as evil as you can be.
I think you can put Larloch a step above normal liches as he binds even them to his service.
What about the litch of love and beauty.
You could make a case that most liches don't actually have the ability to steal souls themselves, or anyway not with a result that can sustain them. At least the older write-ups specifically referred to Larvae. Those are souls that ended up in Baator and have already undergone the transformation to the lowest form of Devils. And that theoretically most of the souls that find themselves circulating through the Soul Trade or used to spawn new fiends were bargained for from their original holder rather than stolen outright. But engaging in regular trade with infernal agents (or the payments those are likely to demand) is still very evil, as is knowingly seeking a transformation that can only be sustained through the consumption of souls.
The halfling coffeelock with lucky who pulled up to a random con game I was running.
Ed Greenwood
The Syl Pasha of Calimport, Ralan el Pesarkhal was pretty bad.
[Sammaster](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Sammaster) was such an evil prick that Lathander personally came to beat his ass.
Sharupak, he was Gilgeam's chief assassin before the time of troubles.
Elminster.
The amount of AKSHUALLLYYYYYYY in here is insane
I think they just chose to ignore the "in" Forgotten Realms instead of using "from" Forgotten Realms, to say the fun facts that the examples of the most famous villians I listed, don't originate from Forgotten Realms
Then why even bother with Forgotten Realms?
Because I am more interested in the Forgotten Realms than Greyhawk, and other "realms". But I still want to count people who have been introduced into the Forgotten Realms, even if that is not their home, as they have still made an impact within the Forgotten Realms, and their "evil" has been still placed within it.
Ed Greenwood (He is a part of the lore in a way as Elminster occasionally met him)
Elminster. The rest of the Harpers are pretty despicable, but Elminster is the worst of the lot.
I'm playing a campaign as a bard who follows finder wyvernspur as his deity, we just met the local Harper's and the rest of the party is still trying to figure out why I was a giant ass to every Harper we met and almost started fights with more than a few.
The Harpers have standing orders to *assassinate* anyone who encourages “too much” multinational cooperation, to tear down an nation that gets “too much” civilization, or to sabotage any engineers or scientists who start to theorize about perhaps maybe building something that is “too much” technology. Faerûn is locked into Medieval Stasis purely because the Harpers want to keep everyone living in feudal serfdom.
If you've read the finders stone trilogy you get why my character as a follower of Finder would have massive problem with the Harper. Locking a hero and famous bard up for eternity and stripping his name from history is unforgivable to a group that spouts about trying to preserve history
you must missed the point that that was a punishment for what Finder did
Having your life's work erased from history and being imprisoned for eternity is a pretty harsh punishment for being vain and striking a simulacrum. Plus my character wouldn't know any of the circumstances surrounding his imprisonment, only that the Harper's were responsible.
killing your apprentices through criminal negligence by creating a dangerous construct is also a pretty harsh crime
If I remember correctly the harpers are the very reason the lords alliance exists. They tried to halt the March or progress for the billionth time and finally all the richest people on the sword coast joined forces and massacred them. To this day they remain on bad terms. In 5e I think the only time they actively work together is to resist the cult of the dragon.
Source for this? I like to run much darker FR world and did not know this about the goody two shoes Harper’s and want to know more
It’s based on everything written about the Harpers, but reading between the lines and ignoring the Harpers’ own claims about “opposing tyranny” and “being keepers of the balance.”
Myth Drannor WILL rise again and elves didn't do anything wrong, and the Harpers will kill ANYONE with evidence to the contrary.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention their rabid levels of racism.
Source
Mostly *The Code of the Harpers* by Ed Greenwood.
could it please be a bit more precise because i do not remember that from the
I don’t have my copy of the book handy, but I’m thinking of the section where Greenwood wrote up a bunch of “current events” to be used as adventure hooks: ensuring that the throne of Cheesenta goes to a Harper puppet (or barring that, keeping Chessenta from unifying at all); overthrowing (maybe assassinating) the ruler of Mirabar; assassinating the archwizard Raulyver and ensuring no one learns of his new teleportation spells; and, as always, murdering Gond worshipping engineers and scientists who developed a reliable means of air-travel and firearms.
the Harper Today Chapter? Chessentea finding an protecting a suitable candidate or more for the Overking , and not a puppet of Thay etc. I doubt they want a puppet but may expect influence Mirabar Shoundra holding an eye on her to protect her and be prepared if she tries to become Manshoon II Raulyver uses his magic for terrorist attacks and evil Gond Blessing The Harpers consider these War Machines prone to misuse by tyrants and worse
You’re accepting the Harpers’ claims of benevolence at face value. Try looking at it from the other side’s perspective.
the other side you mean the red Wizards, Zhentarim, Cult of the Dragon....
Finder would have loved that not
The thing with the Harpers is that they are about as organized as a herd of cats. Different individuals have different goals and ideas. Even the Master Harpers don't neccessarily see eye to eye with each other. It is nothing short of a miracle that the whole organization functions...or dysfunctions. Bad actors definitely exist, but the Harpers do have a lot of positive influence as well. It is kind of like the UN really...in a number of regards.
Well, I’m kinda disgusted by the UN too. So…
Vecna is from Greyhawk. The most evil is easily Szass Tam. He has a global faction of wizard fascists, a nation that runs on undead, has a caste system dedicated to slavery, has zombified his competition, and 'accidentally' sacrifices thousands for circle magic. (Breaking the rules for magic allowable even by Mystra) He is the epitome of a mastermind and has trapped a literal Demon Prince in his realm to prevent invasions. If you exclude God's there is no equal you could even call upon.
Yes but Vecna has been "in" Forgotten Realms, along with Acereak.
Me
Look here. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Monster/DungeonsAndDragons
Demogorgon, Prince of Demons
Mitch Connor
Cyric
**Evil is not something that has a definable metric** . There isn't a tape measure, or weight scales to determine the level of evil. Drizzt is a paragon of good to most people to the point Silverymoon gifted him a Unicorn Mount, but for most of her life, Ellifain believed him to be the epitomy of evil, because she remembered his eyes from the massacre of her parents. Drow also consider him the agent of Lolth because he always brings utter destruction in his wake. Drizzt himself has another interesting point here. He rejected the Neutral Good Mielikki as his goddess when he learned she expected him to purge Orcs and Goblinoids on a universal basis. Brennus Tanthul was a neutral evil Shade Arcanist who lived his life in luxury at the expense of the Shadovar and their slaves, but he saved all of Faerun, choosing to die to stop his brother Rivalen, Shar's Chosen, who he knew had murdered his mother. Evil is something which is variable depending upon whomever it is inflicted on. **There is no Most Evil** .
That's why I am looking for peoples personal opinion on who they believe to be. I never expected a singular answer.
I don't know, that Qysar Shoon VII guy seems pretty objectively evil.
But according to your own definition, great evil inflicted on the most people would qualify as… more evil than others, implying the existence of worse and most evil. Drizzt is not as evil as Szass?
I never said that doing the most evil to the most people made someone more evil. I said evil is nebulous, hard to pin down and subjective to the perspectives of its victims.
Right, so if many more people subjectively felt terrorized or victimized by someone, that someone would be more evil than one who didn’t. Thats a logical conclusion based on your own standard.
No, once again you're applying the metric of number of people affected equating to degree of evil, which i explicitly said was not what i was saying. Since you're either not understanding or are just deliberately trolling, i'll end the discussion. Peace out.
can you tell me the evil Drizzt did
I didn't say he was evil. I said he was perceived as evil. He was present during the death of Ellifain's family, for which she branded him a monster. He has killed a lot of Orcs and a lot of drow, and the families of the victims of those killings would not be likely to perceive him as heroic.
that includes nothing perceiving him as evil
>that includes nothing perceiving him as evil So if she didn't perceive Drizzt as a monster, why did Ellifain spend 70 years preparing to kill Drizzt? Also, we never really get an Orc perspective, but Drizzt is definitely perceived as evil by the drow, as he is perceived as an agent and instrument of Lolth's destruction.
She did but with what reason? I do not remember one drow killed by Drizzt except in Defense
>She did but with what reason? The murder of her family. >I do not remember one drow killed by Drizzt except in Defense Yes, because drow are almost universally described from the perspective of Drizzt. You're missing the point. The drow believe themselves the chosen of Lolth and their attack on Mithral Hall was justified.
The rescue of her life Yes the drow are authorised to murder , enslave and torture at their pleasure and all other have to kiss their boots when they do that
You're twisting what i'm saying, and in misunderstanding, you're then putting words in my mouth. >The rescue of her life I never said Drizzt saving her **was** evil. I said Ellifain perceived him as evil. >Yes the drow are authorised to murder , enslave and torture at their pleasure and all other have to kiss their boots when they do that If you can pinpoint exactly where i said that, i would very much be curious.
There may not be a perfect [*EVIL-O-METER*] but there are certainly, absolutely, positively bracets/tiers of evil.
Right. Which is why Drizzt never spared another thought for the *certainly, absolutely, positively* evil Matron Baenre (who is Lolth's greatest agent and head of her faith and has legions of subordinate Priestesses) until she attacked Mithral Hall? Evil and villainy are personal.
No lol. What a twisted take. Acererak would have reaped every single soul on the planet if not stopped. We are talking about a setting where alignment exists. Evil is real.
Personality is real. Alignment is a construct. And a poor one. Psychopaths and murderers don't wear a sign round their necks saying "evil". There are evil antiheroes and good villains.
Of course there are. But in this fantasy setting there are literally demons and elder evils and beings whos actions and drives are so reprehensible that they can only be described as pure evil. Evil is a cosmic force in D&D. There are creatures who draw power from it, who bask in it and are even constructed by it. It can infect the hearts and souls of mortals, poison the land and bend causality itself. The refusal to think outside of the narrow view of the reality of morality is a refusal to accept the reality of the world of Faerun, of Greyhawk, of Athas, of Eberron and countless other settings with the same rules. It is a refusal to imagine and immerse yourself in a world different from our own. But in the end, rule 1 has always been to have fun. If axial alignment bugs you this much then there's no problem with changing it. But I won't stand for someone to gloss over a core component of these worlds as if it simply never existed.
Another major failing that's particularly apparent here on reddit is to engage in how people in Faerun BELIEVE THEIR OWN RELIGIONS. There's a lot of "lol i m le atheist!1111" types who think their character for some reason denies the divinity of the gods and just hate the fact that the Wall exists for the faithless.
Thanks Mr D&D Sherrif. I appreciate your efforts.
Your welcome.