Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

[Houston GM]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

None of these are intended as full story-lines. Instead, they are just a few starter steps.

 

 

Atomic Khan!:Analogous to Dr Doom. Armored megalomaniac.

1) Khan starts by bringing peace to a war-torn African nation, and is hailed as a hero. His technological advances bring a new degree of prosperity to this nation.

 

2) Khan recruits villains to his cause, offering them a safe haven in this country where they will not be extradited. His most favored villains (the ones who do him the most favors) will receive diplomatic immunity.

 

3) Khan uses this country as a base for a military conquest of the continent, followed by the rest of the world.

 

 

The Cult of the Faceless: Chaos / Entropy cult that worships nothingness.

1) They find a way to get the Void wraiths to possess the dictator of a country, giving them a safe haven that they can operate out of.

 

2) They start stealing the necessary components for a ritual that will open a gateway which will suck the earth into the Void.

 

 

The Angler: Vice President Dick Cheney.

1) The Angler abducts and brainwashes the chiefs-of-staff for Obama, McCain, Pelosi, etc. This gives him direct access to information in their offices, and a voice to influence their opinions.

 

2) The Angler uses blackmail, bribes and hostages to gain control of the major news stations in the country. He leverages this control to influence public opinion on a grand scale.

 

3) The Angler makes contact with a human-looking alien race. He agrees to help them secretly take over the world in exchange for political power once the conquest is complete.

 

 

Caine: Claims to be the First Vampire, and is quite powerful.

1) Caine begins hiring mercenaries (human and metahuman) to attack "holy" persons and places that could impede his plans.

 

2) Caine seduces/coerces a group of mystics into performing a ritual which blocks out the sun in a major city (a la Buffy). This allows his cult to operate freely around the clock.

 

 

Doctor Anthrax: A deranged scientist who loves playing with bio-weapons.

1) Creates a plague which mutates into a strain that is wildly successful than Anthrax anticipated. Governments are forced to take drastic measures to slow the spread of this plague.

 

2) A person or pet that Anthrax is sentimentally attached to becomes infected with the mutated strain of the plague. The vaccine/treatment/cure that Anthrax created doesn't work on this strain. Anthrax has to enlist the help of others to find a cure soon enough to save his friend/relative/pet.

 

 

Doctor Noah: A guy who loves to gene-splice Humans and animals.

1) Noah creates a voracious swarm of tiny "locust-men" which attack the power and communications grid.

 

2) Noah invades an area with an army of human-sized "ant-men". These soldiers are strong, tireless, fearless, and completely loyal. They will not stop until Noah's goals are achieved.

 

 

Dorian Drake: Your typical corrupt CEO type, actually a Dragon in Human form.

1) Drake begins by taking over a number of companies using any means at his disposal (and bringing new meaning to the term "hostile takeover"). He uses shell companies and holding companies to conceal how widespread his involvement is. Eventually, he will be able to gain a monopoly in a crucial industry while maintaining the illusion that a healthy level of competition still exists.

 

2) Drake uses his monopoly to give his other diverse companies an advantage over their competitors. Collectively his corporate assets equal or exceed those of any megacorporation or zaibatsu in the world.

 

3) Drake's companies begin flouting the law in various countries (blatantly ignoring environmental laws, not paying taxes).

 

4) One government decides to bring Drake back in line by siezing all (known) corporate assets in that country and nationalizing them. Drake responds by supporting a coup. The successor government, in gratitude for his assistance, returns all of Drake's assets and gives him wide latitude in future business practices.

 

 

Cutter John: A guy who likes to make zombies out of body parts.

1) John abducts a college sports team in order to get a substantial supply of high-quality parts.

 

2) John creates an "industrial accident" near a military base in order to create a larger supply of high-quality parts.

 

3) John starts gathering a large supply of chemicals that will act as both a toxin and a preservative. Once he creates a sufficient quantity of this formula, he will release this into a city's water supply in order to create parts for an army of zombies. He hopes to disguise the deaths as a bioplague in order to get the area quarantined so he can work in peace.

 

 

Master Mind: The world's smartest man (so he claims).

1) Master Mind begins creating robot soldiers. He uses these robots to capture raw materials that are difficult to acquire, which also provides data on how the robots perform in combat.

 

2) Master Mind builds several undersea bases in order to create his army and avoid detection. He uses undersea mining as a main source of raw materials.

 

3) Master Mind sends his robot armies forth to conquer various capital cities. As part of his assault on Brazil, he launches some rockets into outer-space. These rockets disappear as they pass near, and then move behind, the sun.

 

4) Observatories start detecting "new" asteroids on unusual orbits and discover that other asteroids have "disappeared" from well-established orbits. None of these orbits takes them close to the earth, so it's mostly reported in astronomical journals. Master Mind is building a death star in earth's orbit, but exactly opposite the earth on the far side of the sun, so as to avoid detection. The asteroids are being moved into position to be used as raw materials.

 

 

Set: Current Avatar of the Egyptian God

1) Set begins collecting powerful Egyptian relics that are stored in museums around the world. The first attempts will be straight-forward museum break-ins.

 

2) Heroes become aware of Set's attacks and thwart a couple. Set raises the stakes by creating diversions. In one case he blankets a city with a massive sandstorm. In another case, he sends a massive swarm (at least 1 mile in diameter) of venomous scorpions to drive the human population from the area. While heroes respond to these crises, he can recover the artifacts unopposed.

 

---------------

 

Hmm. These ideas sound fun. My next campaign needs to be higher-powered.

[Nerdnumber1]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Maybe the powers aren't so temporary. Or so benign.

 

Maybe, after three or five or ten doses, the consumer...changes.

 

Giving someone flight for between 5 seconds and 1 hour, cyclopse-style, always on eye beams, or head exploding mental powers are anything but benign. Note that these powers are different every time and the only way to find out what you got is to test it and you can't tell when it will wear off (seconds to days in rare cases). "I'm bullet-proof! Check this out! *Raises a shot gun to head* People do stupid things all the time without spontaneously gaining super powers. Now imagine it mixed with alcohol .

[sinanju]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

1. Introduce an oil-consuming bacterium into all the major oil-producing nations. It consumes oil, turning into an inert white sludgy plastic. If introduced into oil wells, it would turn them into useless masses of plastic. Evil Genius has the cure, of course. For a price.

 

2. Hack into national and international financial networks and hopelessly scramble the data--and it's done with enough lead time that all the backups are also corrupted. Or not even corrupted, just encrypted with a key so complex that there's no way for anyone to crack it in less than decades. Evil Genius will cough up the key...for the right price (which may not involve money, of course).

 

3. Orbital Mind Control Lasers. Nuff said.

 

(All three schemes stolen from Destroyer novels, by the way....)

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Ive got several. My campaign is home-brewed, so they arent characters youd be immediately familiar with, but here are a select few

 

Atomic Khan!: Analogous to Dr Doom. Armored megalomaniac. (Im really proud of his name )

 

A country adjacent to Atomic Khan's (AK's... he runs at least one, doesn't he?) attacks and nearly destroys AK's nation before AK pulls out the stops, drives back the invaders and very quickly ends the war, annexxing the invading country. The other country's reason to invade is unclear, but AK had been negotiating with that country for vital resources that would aid AK's plans for world domination (yeah, I expect he was the one at the table -- Megalomaniacs don't tend to delegate). The UN wants AK to reestablish the annexed country, but NATO doesn't want a war in their own back yard if they can help it.

 

If the heroes investigate they discover that somehow AK somehow manipulated (or controlled) that other nation's leaders to attack, giving him the pretext to counterinvade. Ominously, AK is in negotiations with a third nation for more vital resources, and they aren't going well.

 

The Angler:

Vice President Dick Cheney. He secretly arranged to have a Khan-Bot reprogrammed to assassinate President Bush (last night's adventure). The PCs saved Bush's life and thwarted Cheneys (first) attempt to become President, so that he can declare a state of emergency and suspend the upcoming elections....

Since his most recent attempt on the President failed, the Angler (TA) failed, TA has acquired a mind-controlling device and is now subtly putting supers in his power. He isn't programming them with anything more specific than undying loyalty to him, but when he thinks he has enough supers in thrall, he plans to unleash them to take over first, the USA, then the rest of the world. He plans to keep GWB on as a front man, so it won't initially be obvious who's been pulling the strings. A powerful telepath will probably be the first to notice something awry.

 

Caine:

Claims to be the First Vampire, and is quite powerful. There is a cult of Vamps that worships him as their God

The cult of Vampires engineers the overthrow of a small third-world country, installing one of Caine's non-vampire minions as dictator (like Renfield, but less obviously insane). One of his first edicts is that all adult citizens donate one pint of blood per month to the national bloodbank. This will provide an endless supply of food for the vampire puppeteers while providing revenues for the national coffers as they sell the surplus. The Vampires plan to establish embassies in first- and second-world countries from which to extend their influence over the rest of the world. (assuming that all vampires worldwide aren't

 

Doctor Anthrax:

A deranged scientist who loves playing with bio-weapons. Occasionally lets one out somewhere to see what it will do.

His latest plague mimics the effects of alcohol, lowering inhibitions and coordination. Eventually, they pass out, and if a treatment is not found, they will die.

 

Doctor Noah:

A guy who loves to gene-splice Humans and animals, creating "Moreaus".

The black market for "sex toys" just got more variety. Police are discovering that someone has genetically spliced humans and animals to create sex slaves available to the highest bidder. The problem? The law needs proof they are "human" to recognize their humanity, and no animal cruelty laws have been broken (that they have evidence for). Both the police and the SPCA are asking for the heroes' help!

 

Potentially NSFW Examples:

 

Master Mind:

The world's smartest man (so he claims). May also possibly have telepathic powers (I havent decided; hes not on paper yet)

 

The world's Nerdiest villain builds a device to teleport ComiCon 2008 to his secret island headquarters so he can enjoy the event without being arrested and obtain (by duress) any memorabilia that suits his fancy. Either the heroes must recognize that the Con is in danger and thwart his plan before he carries it out or they must find out where the con (and all the people) have disappeared to.

 

Of course, since he's "the World's Smartest Man", it's only fair that he scatter clues about that any sufficiently intelligent person could use to deduce the whereabouts of the missing Con. Feel free to make the clues and answers to them as obscure as possible as only a TRUE nerd... I mean, GENIUS! will know the answers.

 

Example clue: A life-sized model of the Jupiter 2 (picture) is left standing on the site where the convention center was previously. Upon careful examination, the navigation dome (top deck, center) is set to coordinates that corespond to the location of the next clue, etc., etc.

 

Set:

Current Avatar of the Egyptian God

As god of the storms, Set begins to drive hurricanes backwards across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean sea and into Egypt in an effort to restore Set worship in his homeland. The avatar of Horus, weak after centuries of neglect, appeals to the heroes to stop Set before he becomes too powerful to be stopped. Of course, Horus knows where the Maguffin is hidden for just such an emergency, but he's too old and weak to make the journey (unlike the heroes). If Set realizes the heroes are going after the One Thing That Can Stop HimⓇ he will summon (traditionally) evil creatures such as scorpions, clouds of biting flies, hippos, crocodiles, etc., to hinder the heroes. If these things don't stop the heroes (and they shouldn't), Set himself will drop what he's doing and confront them himself. Hopefully they'll have the Maguffin in their mitts by then.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Is the Angler a murderous cyborg?

You could have him go after the comedians who mock him. THough that would be playing his hand.

[Nerdnumber1]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Is the Angler a murderous cyborg?

You could have him go after the comedians who mock him. THough that would be playing his hand.

 

No, that's ridiculous. Everyone knows that he has people to kill for him. Also, he comes back from his multiple heart attacks by means of infernal traficing, not just simple technology.

 

(its a joke... I hope )

[assault]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

The Angler: Vice President Dick Cheney. He secretly arranged to have a Khan-Bot reprogrammed to assassinate President Bush (last night's adventure). The PCs saved Bush's life and thwarted Cheneys (first) attempt to become President' date=' so that he can declare a state of emergency and suspend the upcoming elections....[/quote']

 

Take Bush hunting, and "accidentally" shoot him... It's worked in the past.

 

Set: Current Avatar of the Egyptian God

 

Too easy.

 

Mummies. Sphinxes.

 

Animal mummies. Alien mummies. Ancient alien spaceships. Pyramids. Martians.

 

King Tut.

 

Lost Cities in the desert. Magical trinkets. Raising the dead. Cursing the living.

 

Restoring the modern world to the way it was in the past.

 

Baboons. Crocodiles. Cobras. Apep. Typhon.

[Jagged]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Caine: Claims to be the First Vampire, and is quite powerful. There is a cult of Vamps that worships him as their God

 

Eco-Terrorist

Many a story writer tells tales of vampires trying to block out to sun to plunge the world into eternal darkness. Caine isn't that stupid, such a thing would kill off the eco-system and Caine likes the eco-system. After all, he considers himself the highest predator at the top of the food chain. The current eco-system gives him food in abundance and if he wants for sport there is always the opportunity to hunt some super-hero prey. No, Caine likes things as they are thank you very much.

 

He is starting to worry about the food chain though. Humans are getting so plentiful they are destroying their habitat. They are damaging the environment with their chemicals and waste. The hormones and steroids they inject into their food gets passed onwards through the food chain. Is it any wonder that humans don't taste as good as they did a mere two hundred year ago?

 

Humans are so short lived they can't plan ahead for future generations? Its time someone took things in hand and made them look after themselves. What would any good farmer do if his flock was so effected?

 

Possible plot devices:

People caimpaigning against a new chemical factory/hydro dam/whatever are complaining that Big-Evil-Corp Inc have hired super powered cronies to strong arm the protestors. The heroes go to investigate only to find the cronies dead and strangely low on blood. Meanwhile the head of the relevant planning committee has aquired a strange taste for beetles.

 

A factory that produces chemicals and pesticides is found destroyed. Factory workers have been torn to shreds. A day later a video is released onto the internet saying that "all substances having a hormonal or thyrostatic action" must be banned from food production or more such attacks will take place.

 

The war on obesity: Caine likes his meat lean, which could be reason enough to take to fast foods, but what if he decided to punish those on the wrong side of the Body Mass Index? What would motivate you to get down to the gym?

 

Big-Evil-Corp Inc have done a very public u-turn on that-thing the ecologists where all complaining about and have decided to invest in renewable energies and sustainable farming instead. What could be the cause of this change of "heart"? Might Caine have offered the CEO life everlasting? Might that explain strange deaths in the boards of rival companies?

[Jagged]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Atomic Khan!: Analogous to Dr Doom. Armored megalomaniac. (Im really proud of his name )

 

The War from Time

Atomic Khan hi-jacks the worlds communication channels and announces from his new base in the Cretaceous period that he now has absolute control over Time. Unless the governments of the world conceed all power to him he will remove their leaders from the time line. As he says this President Bush "vanishes" and a T-Rex appears on the White House lawn.

 

The truth is that this is all an elaborate hoax. From he secret hide-out he has managed to cook up a few dinosaur-like creatures which he will deliver to cities of the world using his new powerful teleportation device. The same device he used to kidnap the President. His base in the "Cretaceous period" is little more than a film set with a few large ferns

 

From deep inside his base Atomic Kahn and President Bush play Checkers to pass the time

[Jagged]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Atomic Khan!: Analogous to Dr Doom. Armored megalomaniac. (Im really proud of his name )

 

Do Andoids Dream?

The President invites the heroes to the White House to thank them for their recent efforts. When they are alone in the Oval Office he says he has something rather worrying he needs to confide. He then proceeds to remove his face and reveal that he is actually a very complicated android.

 

The President explains that it is obvious that he has been replaced by a robot duplicate and that the duplicate is so realistic that even he didn't know he was a robot. Obviously the culprit behind the switch must be waiting till some point in the future before triggering some programme that will let him take control. Maybe he has done it already and I (the robot President) haven't noticed, or have been programmed not to notice!

 

The inner workings of the robot President have been signed by Atomic Khan.

 

The Robot President shouldn't turn evil until the very last minute when your players return the real President to the White House at which point the Robot President can morph into a very formidable fighting machine.

 

Depending on the humor level of your campaign and the ploitical leanings of your players you may want the Robot President to do a better job than the real thing, or at least be more popular

 

EDIT: I think I knicked this idea from an old 200AD story, Sam Slade?

[Jagged]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Doctor Noah: A guy who loves to gene-splice Humans and animals, creating "Moreaus".

 

Attack of the Bat-Men

Dr Noah has successfully created an army of man-bats which he unleashes onto a city of your choice. The heores battle against this army and turn the tide. Eventually finding Dr Noahs base (Ark?) and defeat him and his strongest henchmen.

 

The heroes are patting themselves on their backs when Caine steps out of the shadows. Unbeknownst to everyone he has been directing things from the side lines, just waiting until Dr Noah was successful. Now Caine is ready to reveal himself and his army of (now fully Vampiric) Bat Men!

[Jagged]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Dorian Drake: Your typical corrupt CEO type, except that hes actually a Dragon in Human form.

 

Can we go all "Big Trouble in Little China" on this one?

 

Jade Eyes

Once in every few hundred years if a dragon is lucky they will find a human that is capable of baring them a child. Jade Eyes is one such person and Dorain Drake will do anything he can to possess her. Kidnap, blackmail, drugs, he will destroy the city if thats what it takes.

 

Once the heroes have defeated him Jade Eyes will suggest he might have better luck if he tries flowers and chocolates instead.

[input.jack]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Wow...Jagged is on a freaking roll! Amazing ideas

[Jagged]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Wow...Jagged is on a freaking roll! Amazing ideas

 

Cheers.

 

My name is Jagged and I am a Champions Referee adict, its been 6 months since my last campaign.

[bubba smith]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

try a NINJA HERO campaign

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Mod Note: Let's be sure to keep comments on The Angler and his boss to their fictional versions in input.jack's campaign and not their real life counterparts - NGD is available for them.

 

 

Atomic Khan discovers Atlas' true nature and mission. During a fake master plan that brings him into conflict with the heroes (which was the goal of the operation, the front operation was never intended to succeed) he captures and escapes with Atlas...and talks to him.

 

He explains that he understands Atlas' mission and wants to help - indeed it is very similar to his own goal to help humanity and let their betters do the hard thinking for them. If Khan takes over, his advanced knowledge would help transform the world technologically to a point that Atlas could fulfill his mission. After sufficient conversation, Khan just lets him go as a gesture of goodwill for his 'brother'.

 

Khan has three goals here, any of which will satisfy him. A ) Atlas decides Khan is right and either actively aids him or refuses to try to stop him anymore, weakening the hero team, B ) Atlas, disgusted by how Khan could explain how close their goals are begins to question his own mission, again perhaps abandoning the hero team to return to space or do some 1970's style soul-searching, or C ) Atlas quietly works out his doubts internally and keeps the details of his time with Khan secret from the rest of the team, making them suspicious that perhaps Khan has controlled or reprogrammed him somehow. Their paranoia is exactly what Atlas doesn't need at that time and might help facilitate a rift between Atlas and the team, driving him to Khan, making the team fulfill their own suspicions. Which at a later date Khan can reveal to them (away from Atlas), hopefully horrifying them and breaking their spirit that they could have done that to a friend and ally.

 

Of course...his plan will fail. Or will it?

[Clonus]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

1. Open a magic wormhole to some other place with a large army/horde who have agreed to take over the world for you.

 

2. Create and disperse a biological weapon that will (in theory) wipe out anyone with a prostate except the mastermind. "She said not if I was the last man in the world? Let's test that proposition."

 

3. Build a spaceship filled with everyone you like. Use it to drop a big rock on everyone you don't like. Which is, y'know just about everyone.

 

4. Do the Wanted Thang. Cast a spell on the entire world erasing their memory of superheros and supervillains and altering all documents recording them. Sure, they'll start to rediscover their powers as time goes by, but you'll have the upper hand for years.

 

5. Rig the American election.

 

6. Create a planet-wide electromagnetic pulse that affects all computers except for some protected government systems...and of course the computers belonging to your corporation.

 

7. Kidnap all the weather controllers in the world and put them in a machine that can control the world's weather.

 

8. Drain the "souls" out of every human in one of the largest cities, using their energy to create a perpetually producing power plant...or perhaps power an army of robots under your control.

 

9. Take control over all of a certain family of numerous animals (rodents, birds,) and use them to attack humanity.

 

10. Raise Atlantis. Not only does it give you a kingdom under your control, the tsunamis and flooding will devastate coastal areas worldwide. The most powerful nations in the world will be hard pressed to recover much less challenge your new nation.

 

11.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Cha.

[McManus]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

What happens when megalomaniacs clash? What if Khan, Anthrax, and the Angler all want the same McGuffin...with the heroes...and the world...caught in the middle.

[Highwayman]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

What happens when meglomaniacs cooporate? Dr. Noah has been working on a contagious transformation retrovirus, but can't quite get it right. Dr. Anthrax wants the samples in a top-secret biowarfare lab, but can't find human minions with the special abilities needed to penetate the security...

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

What happens when meglomaniacs cooporate? Dr. Noah has been working on a contagious transformation retrovirus' date=' but can't quite get it right. Dr. Anthrax wants the samples in a top-secret biowarfare lab, but can't find human minions with the special abilities needed to penetate the security...[/quote']

 

• "Hey! You got mutant DNA in my Minions!"
  
• "Well, you got minions in my semi-contagious retrovirus."
  
• "You know, with a little fine-tuning I could make that more contageous."
  
• "Keep going, I'm listening..."
  

...And soon thereafter the world had yet another serious problem (or two).

[Highwayman]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

Master Mind claims to have planted a series of stolen Soviet nukes in and around the Canary Islands. Unless he is paid an insane ransom, he will detonate the nukes, setting off massive landslides and creating a devestating tsunami. He has, of course, anticipated some heroes will try to intervene, and has some supervillian minions and carefully-crafted deathtraps waiting for them...

 

 

The bombs are, in fact, old Russian bomb casings packed with broken x-ray machines and Volkswagen parts. The real plan is to spark a panic in Florida, use that as a cover for the theft of a space shuttle that happened to have been scheduled for launch, and use the shuttle to put his orbital mind controller/death ray/Twinkie detector in orbit. With the heroes ambushed and ensnared in inescapable traps on the other side of the Atlantic, it's inconceivable anything could stop him..

 

[input.jack]

Re: Evil Schemes for the Average Megalomaniac

 

*sniff* I love you guys.......