Grandiose Goals For Grandiose Villains

[Clonus]

Open up a dimensional gate under the sea that leads to a total water world and let the water flood in until everything but the mountains is drowned.

Erase the memories of every human being who isn't under my protection

Trigger an electromagnetic pulse that will fry every civilian computer and power grid on the planet

Start a chain reaction that causes every volcano in the Ring of Fire to erupt, triggering a new Ice Age

Envelope the Earth in a shrink field that causes all humans to reduce in size.

Unite all of humanity into a single harmonious hive mind

Travel back in time and prevent the origins of every superhero.

Expose all of humanity to radiation that will give the survivors superpowers

Replace humanity with android duplicates

Start a zombie epidemic

Cause a nuclear exchange

Invite a invading alien or demonic army

Cause the sun to go nova

Abduct a city to a primitive world and then use it to conquer the natives

Use a power enhancement device to convince the lower level villains to unite and defeat the superheroes and the more powerful villains

Expose the superheroes to something that causes berserk rage, totally discrediting the survivors

Create and spread a biological weapon that will kill 99% of men.

Trap all the players of the most popular MMORPG in virtual reality

Cause every nuclear warhead to spontaneously explode.

Convince a large number of major investment players that the market is about to collapse, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy

Infilitrate the major drug syndicates, then poison the the product to eliminate the addicts.  

Accelerate plant growth so that a years growth happens in a day.  

[Lord Liaden]

It's been a common complaint among Champions players for years that the official villain team, Eurostar, is moribund, because its goal of uniting Europe has in some ways already been accomplished (albeit with some rocky patches). It occurred to me a while ago that the team's leader, Fiacho, being convinced of the inherent superiority of European culture, and looking at the chaotic state of the world, might feel nostalgic for the colonial era, when European empires dominated the globe, bringing "order" and '"civilization."  So I modified Eurostar's goal of uniting Europe, not just economically and politically, but forging it into a military force that can reassert worldwide colonialism, but this time under a single rule rather than competing empires.

[DShomshak]

Immanentize the Eschaton.

 

Dean Shomshak

[steriaca]

Kidnapping everyone in the world sounds grand on paper. It just leaves one problem, who will pay the ransom?

[Jhamin]

10 hours ago, steriaca said:

Kidnapping everyone in the world sounds grand on paper. It just leaves one problem, who will pay the ransom?

 

The citizens of the alternate Earth you dump them all in. 

 

Earth B needs to pay up or have double the citizens with no extra resources.  If your demands are met you put everyone back where you got them.

 

Sort of the Anti-MCU Thanos.

[wcw43921]

I have a character--one Doctor Invictus by name--who believes he was born to accomplish "great things."  To that end he has created what he considers "the ultimate instrument of peacekeeping"--the Mindshock Bomb, a device capable of generating a specific electromagnetic effect that renders people and mammals unconscious for hours at a time, with no effect on inanimate objects or other electronics.  He is almost ready to detonate a city-yield Mindshock weapon in the heart of Los Angeles, demonstrating for all the world that he has the power to stop invading armies dead in their tracks, and give whichever nation possesses the Mindshock the power to inflict absolute chaos upon their enemies.

 

What Invictus fails to mention is that the Mindshock is not entirely without lethal effect.  In previous tests the Mindshock was found to have killed, on average, nearly ten percent of the targets in its area of effect.  In Los Angeles, with a population of nearly four million, the lethal potential of the weapon is nearly four hundred thousand people--and that doesn't include the collateral damage of cars, planes and other vehicles suddenly going out of control, surgeons losing consciousness mid-operation, and other such calamities.  Invictus considers these "acceptable losses."  Others--including, hopefully, the heroes--may wish to differ.

[Scott Ruggels]

Oh please, please , oh please drop it on Los Angeles.  😁

[Mark Rand]

Washington,. D.C., or New York City would be better.

[Mark Rand]

One other idea is to threaten to blanket the world with electromagnetic pulses, wiping out everything electronic.  As a demonstration, Moscow, Beijing, New York City, or Washington, D.C. would be hit with a pulse.

[wcw43921]

5 hours ago, Mark Rand said:

One other idea is to threaten to blanket the world with electromagnetic pulses, wiping out everything electronic.  As a demonstration, Moscow, Beijing, New York City, or Washington, D.C. would be hit with a pulse.

 

That was the plot of GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan's first outing as James Bond.  No demonstration, though--an electronic break-in at the Bank Of England, electronically transfer billions to Janus' accounts, then obliterate the evidence with the GoldenEye EMP weapon.  London is rendered catastrophically immobile, and he becomes obscenely rich.  Any power-crazed supervillain would salivate at the thought.

JANUS: "The government is about to learn the cost of betrayal--inflation adjusted for 1945."

[Christopher R Taylor]

I do really like the "steal the moon" plot in Despicable Me

[BNakagawa]

[steriaca]

I'm more partial to Sun Stealing myself. But I believe a new villain has that covered.

 

...also "stealing the Sun" doesn't actually mean taking the Sun away, just keep the light and warmth away somehow.

[carmachu]

On 7/23/2022 at 10:08 AM, Mark Rand said:

Washington,. D.C., or New York City would be better.

Why not all three?

[Lord Liaden]

Because then there'd be nothing to balance Chicago.

[DShomshak]

Mass transformation of people into a different species.

 

Example: In an issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA years ago, Marvel villain The Viper transformed the population of Washington, D. C. into berserk snake-people. I don't remember why she though this was a good idea, but as best I recall she's kind of nuts.

 

Marvel villain Stegron the Dinosaur Man wanted to turn people into dino-humanoids like himself. He expected he'd rule the altered humanity.

 

In a recent adventure, the PCs in my campaign fought a mad villain from a doomed future in which humanity was almost extinct after a massive nuclear war against the and between megavillains. A group of survivor scientists mutated themselves into grotesque but nigh-unkillable and radiation-resistant creatures (sort of like D&D Umber Hulks). They realized, however, that they were too few to form a viable breeding population. They sent the villain back in time to get a heaqd start by mutating a bunch of people before the war starts, whether the people want it or not. Reconstructing the process with available tools required experimentation, though, resulting in ferocious mutant creatures in the city sewers and subways -- including victims of not-quite-successful human experiments. CHAMPIONS dungeon crawl!

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Part of the Champions adventure Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth involves King Cobra unleashing a zombie-virus type "Ophidian Plague" transforming its victims into berserk snake-people. In his case that is at least consistent with his conviction that a blend of human and reptilian represents the next step in human evolution (But he is unquestionably nuts.)

 

The Champs master villain called the Slug's main shtick is transforming large numbers of humans into Elder Worms like himself, stimulating the latent Worm DNA left in humanity after forced interbreeding experiments when the Worm ruled prehistoric Earth. (Best not to think about that too much.) 🤢  In the past he's done that to New York and London.

[Lord Liaden]

Of course Luther Black, the mastermind behind the 5E/6E version of DEMON, has one of the grandest schemes of all: a decades-long plan to fashion the entirety of DEMON into a gigantic ritual to free the equivalent of H.P Lovecraft's Great Old Ones; but not to serve them, but to control their release so as to channel their power into himself, and become one of them.

[Christopher R Taylor]

The Chairface Chippendale episode where he tried to write his name on the moon is a great example of a villain plot.  Yeah its stupid and pointless but here's the thing: what would Florida Man do with godlike powers?  Not everyone who gets a lot of power is going to be a brilliant mastermind, most of them are going to be idiots who blow things up because wheee! I can do it!  

 

Don't think of every single boss as a great planner with amazing plots.  Most of them should be like a poor kid from a rusty trailer who just got a multi million dollar NBA contract or won the lottery.  That makes the really smart, interesting, crafty villains stand out.  And while its fun to take down Dr Genius' latest brilliant scheme, its just as fun -- if not more so -- to stop Chairface Chippendale from writing his name on the moon.

[steriaca]

I am reminded of something in the Ranma 1/2 fanfiction Girl Days. A multipart episode within the story involves a big costume party at the Kuno estate. An honest to goodness Wizard by the name of Fred Yiffburger decides to take over the world by casting a spell which brings out the inner nature of a person to the outside. But of course, the spell is miscasted and there outer appearances match there inner nature. Ranma was dressed as Priss from Bubblegum Crisis. Akane was dressed as Sailor Mercury. Tatawaki Kuno was dressed as Indiana Jones. Ryoga was Luna (or should I say P-Chan was Luna).

 

There is also a big universal law which Fred Yiffburger doesn't believe in. That the universe works against anyone trying to conquer the entire world.

[Steve]

Generate artificial earthquakes beneath the ocean that will unleash tsunami waves able to bury coastal cities beneath hundreds of feet of seawater.

[Mark Rand]

Here's two more.

 

Triggering a country's earthquake faults.

 

Wiping out social media and/or streaming services.

[steriaca]

Just now, Mark Rand said:

Wiping out social media and/or streaming services.

I think, unless your 20 years old or younger, this would be more celebrated than tragic. Force everyone to get face to face again. 

[Mark Rand]

35 minutes ago, steriaca said:

I think, unless your 20 years old or younger, this would be more celebrated than tragic. Force everyone to get face to face again. 

Yeah, but the companies that provide these services, and a lot of customers, especially politicians and celebrities, would be angry.

[steriaca]

Black Gear wants every man, woman, and child as cyborgs. He believes that the combination of man and machine are cool and can't believe your average person wouldn't want to be this.

 

Beyond that, he hires his converted cyborgs out as henchmen in order to get the cash to eventually get his dream of cybernizing the world.