The Care and Feeding of Evil Empires part 4

Part 4.

Twisted Lieutenants: Of course, as everyone who’s watched The Masters of the Universe (or any other ‘toy franchise’ cartoon show) knows, the Dark Lord can’t enslave the world all by himself (no matter what he says). No, he needs a cadre of complete and utter blaggards who are champing at the bit to conquer the world, or at least cut off a slice for themselves while the Dark Lord is taking the lion’s share. Each of these lieutenants is a credible villain and threat unto themselves, and truly worthy of their own Action Figure (or two! Maybe even with a kung-fu grip!) In many ways, it’s not surprising that the Dark Lord has to keep busy with evil projects; if this crew was left sitting around with nothing to do, they’d get ideas that the Dark Lord couldn’t afford, and he has enough problems in that direction. And even if they’re kept busy, each of the Dark Lord’s lieutenants will have their own agendas and side projects, any one of which might bode ill for the world in general.

Some of these listings are organizational niches, while others are personality traits, and others are personal strategies. There is some overlap: A ‘Dragon’ might also be a ‘Fallen Paladin’, a ‘Starscream’ and a ‘Walking Nightmare’. An ‘Evil Wizard’ might also be a ‘Consigliore’ and a ‘Chessmaster’. A Spymaster might also be a ‘Smooth Talker’, a ‘Secret Policeman’ and an ‘Oracle’. The Coven of Evil Witches might contain a ‘Temptress’, a ‘Chamberlain’ and an ‘Oracle’. And so it goes on and on. This is neither a list of character classes, nor a definitive listing of types. It’s just a rundown of some of the classic types of underlings for your basic ‘Dark Lord’ type; for a more comprehensive compilation, go to TV Tropes, and kiss a big chunk of your spare time goodbye.

• The Dragon: The ‘Dragon’ is the Dark Lord’s right-hand man (or woman; hey, some of the nastiest ‘dragons’ in fiction are female), his chief enforcer, and general all-around ‘Go-To Guy’. The archetypical Dragon is Darth Vader to Emperor Palpatine’s Dark Lord. The Dragon is competent, tough, methodical, disciplined, relentless, utterly merciless, but most of all, he’s Reliable. When the rest of your followers are a bunch of treacherous psychopaths, a Dark Lord learns to appreciate having at least one person he can rely on. If the Dark Lord tells the Dragon to go out and slaughter all the Sverglons, then the Sverglons’ days are numbered. While the Dragon is classically a more than competent combatant, he needn’t be; he could be a commander who leads a truly elite corps of soldiers, and leads them with such ferocity and skill that he doesn’t need to be personally able. The Dragon is rarely the first of the Dark Lord’s lieutenants that the heroes meet; if they do, then they’re lucky to survive the encounter, and probably only do so by running away in abject disgrace. Far more likely, they’ll only meet him after they’ve battered the mooks, fought most of the other lieutenants, done some serious leveling up, and breached the Dark Lord’s citadel. The Dragon is rarely, if ever, the Starscream. After being the Dark Lord’s Enforcer, the Dragon’s usual foremost job is being the Dark Lord’s bodyguard. And Dark Lords don’t care how competent a guy is, they’re not going to make someone who’s plotting to backstab him his chief bodyguard. If the Dragon does ever betray the Dark Lord, the only way that the Dark Lord will know it is if the Dragon lets him live long enough to tell him WHY.

• The Beast: The Beast is another of the Dark Lord’s enforcers. But where the Dragon is marked by unnerving competence, the Beast is noteworthy for sheer savagery and viciousness. Almost all of the Dark Lord’s minions are fearsome; the Beast is a one-man terror campaign. While the Dragon is probably a better soldier or field operative, the Beast brings a certain raw enthusiasm to the field; more than a willingness, an eagerness to indulge in sheer wanton bloodshed. The Dark Lord sends the Dragon when he wants results; he sends the Beast when he wants to send a message. For the most part, that message is: ‘Surrender or this will happen to YOU’.

• The Brute: The Brute is the Big Guy. What he lacks in the Wizard’s smarts, or the Dragon’s competence, or the Beast’s savagery, he more than makes up for with sheer brawn. The Dark Lord usually sends the Brute when the job calls for sheer destruction over raw bloodshed. The Dark Lord likes to promote the image of the Brute as an unstoppable, relentless, irresistible juggernaut, and the Brute’s tough enough to make it stick. The Brute is classically a simple soul, who does what he does just because the Dark Lord is the boss, but that need not be so. Indeed, a wily, cunning Brute is something to be feared, indeed.

• The Chamberlain: The Dark Lord isn’t really that interested in running what he has; he’s interested in getting as much more as he possibly can. But a conquered realm doesn’t run itself, so the Dark Lord needs someone to run the place for him. The Chamberlain has the less-than-enviable job of making the services of the Dark Realm work, collecting taxes, and balancing the books. The reason why this is such an unenviable job is that as a rule, Dark Lords don’t really get the whole concept of ‘Budgets’, as budgets involve ‘Consequences’, and then you start getting into ‘Responsibility’, which Dark Lords find the very notion of repugnant. As a result, the Dark Lord tends to cut orders, and ask whether there’s money to cover it later (if at all).

As a result, Dark Realms tend to fall into one of three categories. First, there are affluent states with well-run services; the Chamberlain pulls this off by taxing the populace lightly, and paying for most of the Dark Lord’s harebrained schemes with the Dark Lord’s own private funds. This works until the Dark Lord figures out that his coffers are full of sand, gold-plated iron ingots, and paste jewels. At which point, the Chamberlain either runs VERY fast for the opposition, or suffers a fate that would make Sisyphus thank his lucky stars. Second are wretched hives of misery and starvation that require large parts of the Dark Lord’s forces to keep under wraps. Oddly, Dark Lords seem to find this state of affairs quite acceptable. And third, there are apparently affluent states that are actually floating in seas of red ink. Here, the Chamberlain is pulling a Ponzi Scam, suckering foreign money lenders into investing funds in exchange for immunity from the Dark Lord’s pirate fleets. When they complain when the Dark Lord’s pirates take their ships anyway, the Chamberlain simply has the Dark Lord’s troops hold the money lenders for ransom.

Chamberlains are rarely dangerous combatants, but they are formidable intriguers. Hey, they control the money, and as long as the Ominous Stronghold is run properly, the Dark Lord more or less leaves the Chamberlain alone to do the dreary paperwork. Also, every Dark Lord ever hatched understands the transcendent wisdom of Roman Emperor Severus Septimus’ last words to his sons: “Pay the Legions, and screw everyone else.” And the Chamberlain is the one who plays paymaster on payday. The Chamberlain is, after the Coven of Witches (see below) the one most likely to know ALL of the traps, secret rooms, hidden caches, secret passages and doors, and their triggers and safeties. Hey, he’s the one who signed off on the workmen’s orders.

Of the Dark Lord’s lieutenants, the Chamberlain is the one most likely to really understand what a ramshackle house of cards the Dark Lord’s reign really is. Ironically, this drab bureaucrat, rather than the far more dramatic figures that surround him, is the key to the survival or fall of the Dark Realm. He is the one who will either contrive the mechanism that stabilizes the governmental structure, despite the Dark Lord’s antics, or bring the whole thing crashing down when he absconds with all the Dark Lord’s money. Screw Destined Heroes, it’s the accountants you really have to worry about!  

• The Chessmaster: Chessmaster is equal parts personality type and personal strategy. The Chessmaster knows that a smaller, properly arranged and coordinated force can overcome a much larger, poorly deployed force. He also knows that an enemy’s strength can be used against him, and that these principles can be used on the battlefield, in the streets, in the back alleys, and in the corridors of power. Other people plot; the Chessmaster has plots, counter-plots, plots within plots, contingency plans, emergency plans, preplanned alibis and scapegoats, decoys, stalking horses, emergency caches of weapons and gold, booby-trapped caches of crocked weapons and fake gold, and on and on like that. The Chessmaster has studied Strategy & Tactics, and he not only knows the gambits and ploys, and how they work, he understands why they work and don’t work, and why they fail, and how that failure can be used by an opponent, and how to use that failure against an opponent.

But the Chessmaster has three real weaknesses. First, Chessmasters have a nasty tendency to overcomplicate their stratagems, and fall into the ‘I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know’ loop. Second, they tend to lay long-term complicated plans with too many failure points, that don’t allow for unexpected developments. And Third, there’s a tendency to fall into the ‘Gameplayer’ trap, where the Chessmaster sees himself as playing a game against an opponent, and it becomes more important to him to ‘outplay’ that opponent than it is to just win. And remember: if a ‘Chessmaster’ talks a lot about being such a savvy chessmaster, then he’s not a real chessmaster. The first rule of being a true Chessmaster is that you don’t talk about being a Chessmaster.

• The Consigliore: The Consigliore has a truly remarkable ability, one that most of the other lieutenants would kill for. He has the ability to tell the Dark Lord that he’s being an idiot to his face, and not only NOT be immediately decapitated for it, but be rewarded for it. For some reason (I leave the details to you) the Dark Lord trusts the Consigliore’s opinion, out of respect for his wisdom or intelligence or education or common sense or possibly, simply his honesty. The Consigliore has the Dark Lord’s confidence, and enjoys a degree of job security (and personal safety) that the other lieutenants envy. On the flip side, should the Consigliore’s advice ever backfire on the Dark Lord, let alone should the Consigliore ever betray the Dark Lord, then his life isn’t worth a wooden ‘gold piece’.

• Covens of Evil Witches: These are not the nicey-nice ‘in touch with mother nature’ type witches that the New Agers talk about. No, these are the evil, nasty child-eating type of witch that the Brothers Grimm talked about, the kind that gain power from the suffering and woe of others.

Dark Lords often seek out the services of witches, singly, in triads or in full covens, to seek out power or lore from them, for their services as personal retainers, or as covert operatives of various sorts. The Dark Lord thinks that he got a bargain; he’s wrong. The Witches (or more accurately, Hags) feed on chaos and mortal suffering, which they know will flow like rivers in the Dark Lord’s wake, and their power, both their personal power and the power they derive from their service to the Dark Lord, will swell enormously. While the Dark Lord lives almost entirely in the moment, going from conquest to conquest, the Hags are in for the long haul. They will exploit their positions in the Dark Lord’s organization to learn everything about everyone in it, the Dark Lord himself foremost. No matter how secretive he is, all of the Dark Lord’s secrets (and wealth and power) will eventually be controlled by the Hags. From behind the throne, naturally. From this position, the Witches will manipulate the Dark Lord’s court, keeping it a constant simmer of frustrated ambition, envy, resentment and spite, while keeping the malice just shy of the level that would impede the efficiency of the court.

But, should some blithe spirit ever taint the Dark Lord with any sort of remorse or repentance or love, or in any way ever deviate from the ‘True Path of Evil’, the Hags will turn on him in a trice, bringing the whole shebang down around his ears. They won’t even try to ‘redeem’ him for Evil; they’ll just cut him off at the knees.
In the wake of the Dark Lord’s downfall, or fall the Evil Empire that he creates, the Witches will do everything they can to stir things up to make the chaos and destruction as epic as they possibly can, ladling out information about the whereabouts and status of the Dark Lord’s treasures and weapons to their optimum effect. And in the aftermath, they’ll squirrel away those treasures, artifacts, weapons, books and monsters as best they can, and hunker down to await the next deluded fool who wants to assume the mantle of the Dark Lord.

• The Dark Priest: For the most part, Dark Lords don’t have a lot of use for Gods, bright or dark. But, on the other hand, given how much he pisses off the Bright Gods, the Dark Lord figures that it wouldn’t hurt to have an opposing god on his side (more or less). So, the human sacrifices that the Dark Lord makes aren’t so much worship, as they are paying protection. But the Dark Priest is the Dark God’s (or Arch-Devil’s; hey, six of one, half a dozen of the other) man, not the Dark Lord’s, and he is seen as an annoying necessity, not really a part of the Dark Lord’s entourage. Unless the Dark Priest can set himself up as the Oracle or the Consigliore, he can expect to be frozen out of the Dark Lord’s operations. For the most part, the Dark Priest’s relations with the Dark Lord will eerily mirror those of the mainstream gods with the mainstream secular authorities: a separate and distinct power structure that operates outside but alongside the Dark Lord, working toward similar but separate goals, and offering succor and opportunities that the Dark Lord doesn’t.

What the Dark Priest offers a setting is, of course, that personal touch from his Unholy Patron. In a darkling travesty of a Blessed Priest bringing the blessings of his or her god to a benighted world, the Dark Priest will bring the unholy curses of his patron to this world.  He’ll pass out Unholy Symbols of his patron like they were Halloween candy. He’ll pass around blasphemous Unholy Texts like they were Chick Tracts. He’ll cast Curses and Anathemas to *ahem!* ‘cleanse’ the world of all that icky virtue. He’ll found uncouth shrines, idols and temples to his patron’s glory wherever he can. He’ll spread the foul word to the evil demi-humans and the tortured Dark Legions, founding cults and sects with abandon. He’ll drag entire villages and towns into his foul celebrations of his patron, and force them to adore his patron, and pledge eternal servitude- or WORSE than Die!

Of course, once the Dark Lord’s grip on that particular locale is removed, you’re going to have Holy Clerics coming in by the busload to undo the damage he wrecks. But even so, with some people, once they sell their souls, it’s sold for good. Idols and shrines will go underground, covens will form in secret, the Unholy Texts will be passed around in secret and so on. What this means for the GM is that he now has a reasonable excuse for this hidden diabolist temple, or that buried idol of fill in the blank, or the Unholy Text that’s tucked away in a bookcase and forgotten, or whatever vileness he needs to drive his plot.

• Evil Wizard: Every Dark Lord has to have an Evil Wizard working for him, even if the Dark Lord is a wizard of no small wisdom and power himself. It’s a rule.

If the Dark Lord is not a wizard himself, then the Evil Wizard is his advisor, information font and/or heavy magical cannon, and there may be some measure of respect and trust between them, sort of a ‘Dark King Arthur and Merlin’ act. But if the Dark Lord is a wizard, then the Evil Wizard is an apprentice, assistant, a conquered rival, or even the Dark Lord’s old master, whom he’s subjugated. In this case, you couldn’t cut the resentment between them with a chainsaw. If she’s female, then she’s a darkly beautiful seductive Evil Sorceress, and is also the Dark Lord’s mistress. Hey, it comes with the position. You say ‘sexual harassment’, he says ‘perks of the job’, and she says ‘what’s your point?’

In any case, the Evil Wizard is the head of the Dark Lord’s R&D division, and more than likely the head of his Mystical Assets Investigation arm as well. The Evil Wizard often, but far from always, acts the part of ‘Starscream’ to the Dark Lord’s ‘Megatron’. If the Dark Lord has that connection to the Coven of Evil Witches (see above), then the rivalry between the two mystics is of a level of malice on par with Grand Opera. While the Evil Wizard takes care of poking around in ‘Things that Man was not meant to know™’ as the Dark Lord is busy going around defiling the natural order, he’s also the one who is most likely to have his own action going down on the sly. He’s got his own secret lab (or multiple secret labs, so the Dark Lord can find out about ONE of them and feel like he’s got a grip on the situation) where he’s brewing up nastiness all his own.

Evil Wizards are often (though not always) Genre Savvy, so  the Evil Wizard is the lieutenant most likely to have a bag packed with a map and a loaded wand of fireballs in his room at all time, and to have a teleport circle to ‘Outtahere’ ready for when the Dark Lord’s karmic check finally comes due. Also, he’s probably used the Dark Lord’s resources to create several little remote hidden sanctuaries that are no doubt well stocked with recuperative potions, charged magic weapons, books of lore, and quite possibly the odd golem or other animated servant.

Ironically, the Evil Wizard, as treacherous and unreliable as he is, is often the agency that brings the Dark Lord back from his should-be-final judgment, in one of those ‘how did he survive THAT?’ escapes that Dark Lords are so good at. Be it last minute teleports, or revealing strange exit passages, or rides on draconic mounts, or even bringing their Dark Lord back from death, the Evil Wizard often comes to his master’s rescue, no matter how dysfunctional their relationship is.

In the case of resurrection or harrowing the Dark Lord from Hell, the Evil Wizard’s motivation may be to bind his former master into his service as an undead thrall; Odd, you’d think that someone usually as Genre Savvy as the Evil Wizard would know that those sorts of things NEVER work out.

• The Fallen Paladin: Have you ever wondered why the Big Bad in an epic always asks the Good Guy to come over to his side? After all, the Hero despises him, the Big Bad knows that. Simple. Because, sometimes they say ‘Yes’. Okay, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but not to hear the Dark Lord tell it. Somehow, by hook or by crook, the Dark Lord has brought on of his nemesis over to his side. Saying that the Dark Lord digs on this is understatement of almost ludicrous proportions.  The exact details, like how the Dark Lord pulled this off, how the ‘Paladin’ in question feels about it, how the Dark Lord treats him or her, and so on are up to the GM, but there’s one thing that’s absolutely certain: the rest of the world is absolutely APPALLED! Oh, and whether it’s a fallen paladin, a shamed princess, a disgraced king, an apostate cleric, a sullied ‘white wizard’ or whatever, the Dark Lord is going to gloat about it every time he gets a chance. As a rule, Fallen Paladins make for GREAT ‘Dragons’.

• The General: Being a Dark Lord is a busy job. As much as he’d like to lead his Dark Legions in mayhem, destruction and wanton slaughter, he can’t always be there, enjoying the bloodshed. And, while carnage is always fun, any army spends the vast majority of its time drilling, and that’s usually pretty boring. That’s what the Dark Lord has the General for. Whether he affects a noble lineage, or makes out like he’s just another grunt, the General is always a fiend for order and discipline, and is an expert on all things military. Whatever his origins, the General is always very good at being a military leader, with logistics, strategy and tactics alike, and odds are he’s a pretty dang good horseman and melee fighter as well. He wouldn’t be the Dark Lord’s general if he wasn’t.  While he will make noises about being concerned about the men in the legions under his command, the General will throw them into any meat grinder without blinking an eye. Being competent is how the General gets his job; being ruthless is how he keeps it (and stays alive). Still, as hard as he is on his men, he’s even harder on the enemy- and captives- and civilians- and innocent bystanders; that’s how he gets rich.

The General will make a production of being apolitical and above the petty bickering and politics of the Dark Lord’s court. This is a complete sham; he’s very politically savvy (some of the great political weasels of history started as generals), and he’s setting himself up to be the pivotal player in any uprising against the Dark Lord. Or in putting it down. By keeping himself aloof from the minor matters, the General keeps himself and the Dark Legions unencumbered by any problematic obligations to any side. Which means that at the right time, he can pick whichever sides suits him the most, and resolve the issue decisively.

Of the Dark Lord’s lieutenants, the General is the most likely to have his own entourage of Colonels, Majors, Captains, Lieutenants and Ensigns. Indeed, he may recapitulate the Dark Lord’s court, with his own Dragon, Wizard, Consigliore, Spymaster and Toady. Of course, one reason why the General refuses to get involved in the intrigues of the Dark Lord’s court is that he realizes that he may also have his own Starscream, and he can’t afford to give the treacherous bastard any ammunition.

• The Great Hunter: Bog Beasts don’t just turn themselves in so they can run around a Dark Lord’s labyrinth. The Dark Lord has to send someone to fetch the vile beast, and the man he sends is the Great Hunter. The Great Hunter is an expert tracker, hunter and trapper, and can be counted on to bring the Bog Beast back alive- no guarantees about the other minions along on the hunt, though. The Great Hunter may be a cold, silent Zen stalker, or a boisterous braggart, ala Gaston in Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’, but however he presents himself, the Great Hunter is very good at hunting. When he’s not off capturing Bog Beasts or other bizarre creatures, or bringing in boar or deer meat for the Dark Lord’s table, the Great Hunter can be found patrolling the frontiers of the Dark Lord’s domain; hey, he knows all the passes and choke points that intrepid heroes will try to use to sneak and infiltrate the Dark Tower. If the Dark Lord doesn’t employ a Master Ninja (below) he’ll send the Great Hunter to deal with specific targets. The Great Hunter’s primary weakness is, of course, his insistence on the big hunt, over the simple kill. He’ll give his target ‘a sporting chance’, and try to stalk them, instead of a quick simple takeout.

• The Interrogator: Knowledge is Power; this isn’t just a trope for the Dark Lord, it’s a transcendent truth. And knowledge that others don’t want to share is usually the most powerful of all. Enter, the Interrogator. The Interrogator is a master of pain, cooption, and fear. While the common interpretation of the master interrogator is that of a giggling sadist, in truth sadists make for very poor interrogators. Interrogation isn’t about inflicting pain, it’s about getting information. Indeed, a savvy interrogator knows that observation and trickery are often more useful in getting people to talk than pain is. Hey, all they had to do to Galileo to recant his ‘heretical’ observations of the planets was show him the instruments of torture. The Interrogator has a wide and varied bag of tricks that he can use to get the information he wants, without ever having to go into the torture chamber. Mind you, these tricks are every bit as damaging to the subject’s psyche as the rack is to their body, but the Interrogator WILL get the facts he wants. He’ll leave a shattered wreck of a mind behind him, but that’s the nature of the business. Of course, the Dark Lord WILL insist that the persons under questioning be tortured, out of pure Good Form, and when it gets to that stage, the Interrogator is just as thorough and methodical in completely screwing over his poor victim’s body as his mind and spirit. Of course, there IS the nagging question as to what happens to those poor souls once the Interrogator is through with them…

• The Jack O’Blades: Dark Lords love an underling who can make Evil look dashing and sexy, and the Jack O’Blades just nails that. The Jack O’Blades isn’t just deadly with swords; he isn’t just a cunning, canny servant of Evil; he has FUN being a deadly servant of Evil! He is the laughing, flamboyant daredevil of the Dark Lord’s crew, the guy who makes it sound like he actually likes you- as he’s trying to skewer you.

The Ur- example in fiction of this guy is Rupert of Hentzau, from The Prisoner of Zenda, though Rochefort from The Three Musketeers has elements of this as well, depending on who’s playing him. The Jack O’Blades primary assets are his skill, his wits, his speed and his panache. The essence of the Jack O’Blades’ tactics and strategy, on almost every front, combat, strategic, political, and personal, is ‘Get them off balance and keep them there’. The Jack O’Blades uses a deft combination of footwork, bladework, badinage, sleight-of-hand and psychological sabotage to seize the initiative in whatever situation he’s in. He’ll usually open up in a friendly enough manner, but once he has his target’s measure, he’ll zero in on their weaknesses and vulnerabilities with all the tender compassion of a tiger shark. He’ll ridicule whatever his target holds dear, be it their honor, their dignity, their loyalty, their learning, their God, their compassion or their simplicity. Besides his mind games, the Jack O’Blades has an impressive bag of nasty tricks, traps, gadgets, pranks, scams, cheats, loaded dares, gambits and hold-outs, all designed to give him unexpected advantages, while making the other guy look like an oaf. The Jack O’Blades is the type who’d propose a toast before a duel, and spike the other duelist’s drink. The Jack O’Blades will do everything he can to paint his target as an inept bungler of one sort or another, while setting himself up as the voice of judgment. If you’ve ever seen a playground wiseass rip up another kid, you know what I’m talking about.

However, the Jack O’Blades has several serious weaknesses. First of all, his method requires that his target rises to his bait. If he can’t get his target off-balance, the Jack O’Blades is at a severe disadvantage. Second, the Jack O’Blades genuinely enjoys himself as he messes with his target, and he sometimes gets so wrapped up in playing Cat-and-Mouse that he forgets that he’s not a cat, and his target isn’t a mouse, and he may forget the larger issues at hand, in favor of the fun at hand. Third, the Jack O’Blades has an Ego that compares with the Dark Lord’s; he hates to fail, and he’s a sucker for dares, especially if they’re made in public. And Fourth, and this is related to the third weakness, the Jack O’Blades is extremely vulnerable to ‘Losing Face’. Most of his effectiveness comes from cannily manipulating social dynamics to keep his target off balance, while being amusing enough that onlookers don’t interfere. But if the Jack O’Blades goes too far (something that’s all-too likely if he gets carried away and goons out), or if he breaks a social taboo, then those same social dynamics turn against him. It’s not that the Jack O’Blades cares about ‘Decency’, and he regards ‘Honor’ as a chump’s hang-up, but he relies so heavily on popular opinion to get over that being out of synch with that support throws him off his mark.

• The Mad Scientist: The ‘Mad Scientist’ needn’t be a Scientist or gadgeteer, though there’s nothing stopping him from being one, depending on the setting. The ‘Mad Scientist’ is the underling primarily responsible for researching and developing new weapons, potions, curses, plagues, monsters, and other nasty new toys for the Dark Lord. The ‘Mad Scientist’ might be an alchemist, a conjuror, an artificer, a golem-builder, a molder of monsters in clay, or a combat engineer; what is important is that he or she has the ‘Mad Scientist’ mentality. To the Mad Scientist, his research or his craft, the developing of new potions or golems or whatever, is all-important. The costs of these developments to others, and the ends to which the Dark Lord will put them are irrelevant. As Tom Lehrer put it: ‘I’m only concerned with if it goes up; where it comes down is not my department.’ The Mad Scientist is blissfully apolitical. Indeed, he may not be aware of any regime changes. That is until funding for his research is interrupted, upon which he becomes shrill, demanding- and DANGEROUS. Even the Dark Lord walks carefully when the Mad Scientist is enraged.

Mad Scientists seem to come in two basic varieties: the Chatty Psychopath and the Sullen Paranoid. The Chatty Psychopath is only too willing to talk about his work (if nothing else). He is very informative on this subject, verging on TMI; everything else, he finds trivial and boring, and either shuts up or hares off onto his preferred topic. He’s willing to discuss his work with anyone- even the person he’s vivisecting- as he’s vivisecting them. The Sullen Paranoid, on the other hand, only discusses his work with people he absolutely has to, when he absolutely has to. He’s absolutely convinced that someone (no, everyone) is trying to steal his secrets! He only tolerates the Dark Lord’s intrusions because the Dark Lord funds his research, and seems to understand in a grubbing, simplistic way, the deeper significance of his work. Oh and the Dark Lord leaves him alone for the most part. The Sullen Paranoid’s lab is booby trapped to a fare-thee-well; indeed, if the Sullen Paranoid spent as much time working in his lab as he did trapping that lab, the Dark Lord might be the undisputed master of the world by now! Either one invariably believes that a person’s worth is in direct proportion to his or her understanding of the Mad Scientist’s forte. The Sullen Paranoid simply views anyone of any real worth as a threat to him.

While the Mad Scientist is responsible for giving the Dark Lord all those insane monsters and weapons, what he really gives to the Gamesmaster is that he can not only be trusted to do strange catastrophic things that can permanently alter the landscape in surreal ways, but do it REPEATEDLY so he can figure out how it works!

• The Master Ninja: You know the deal- silent, deadly, ruthless, efficient as all hell, has a small but lethal band of humanoid shadows that work for him, and regards his work for the Dark Lord as a Zen excuse to practice his ‘Art’. While the Master Ninja is definitely something that Player Characters will have to worry about in the immediate, he doesn’t really offer the GM much in the way of world-building opportunities. Except for one thing: that cadre of highly-trained fighters. While they all revere the Master, and hold the Art in as high esteem as he did, they will each have their own individual insights and approaches to the Art. And when the Master dies, which of their wildly varying interpretations will prevail? So, the Master Ninja working for the Dark Lord gives the GM an excuse for having ninjas in a cultural setting that shouldn’t have them, and his cadres of disciples gives the rationale for having multiple, competing, viciously rivalry-prone ninja clans!

• Oracle: The problem with having a mighty reach is that groping around in the dark is just asking to have that reach lopped off. As I’ve said before, Dark Lords know that Knowledge is Power, and if a Dark Lord ever hears about someone who has mystical access to information that affects him, tactically, strategically or mystically, he’s going to jump on that oracle. Of course, as always, the problems with such an oracle, be it an oracle, seer, clairvoyant, augur, prophet, python, diviner, sacred chicken, crystal ball, magic mirror, well of omens, sacred text, summoned spirit or elemental or demon, or whatever, are twofold: First, how do you know the oracle is for real? Fortune-telling has been a lucrative endeavor since three minutes after the First Lie was told, and Spirits, demons especially, aren’t exactly famous for being honest. And Second, even if the Oracle is on the up-and-up, how can you be sure that you’re interpreting the prediction properly? Oracles are even more famous for being obscure and incomprehensible. And an Oracle who’s being held against her will can be subtle. Even so, the Dark Lord and all his lieutenants will pay scrupulous attention to the Oracle’s predictions. How that turns out, is entirely up to Fate- which is to say, the GM.

• The Spymaster: Not every Dark Lord can have an Oracle, and so most make do with Spymasters. What Interrogators can’t pry from unknowing lips, and Oracles cannot make clear, the Spymaster ferrets out with his networks of spies, informants, moles, dupes, scouts, ninjas, double-and-triple-agents, brainwashed plants, and reliable (and otherwise) sources. Of the Dark Lord’s lieutenants, the Spymaster is the most insecure; in the first place, the Spymaster is the most likely of the lieutenants to be gone from the Dark Lord’s court for long periods of time, scouting out various fronts in person, meeting with contacts, getting the feel of a town, city or countryside, arranging for blackmail and treachery and so forth. Alas for the Spymaster, this leaves him open to backbiting and adverse lobbying from the other lieutenants; after all, if the Dark Lord’s wrath is focused on the Spymaster, then it’s not being directed at them. In the second place, the Spymaster is the least flashy and impressive of the lieutenants; his victories aren’t as dramatic as the others, and he’s automatically to blame for any failure of Intelligence. And military leaders love to blame their intelligence for their failures.

If the Dark Lord has an Oracle, then he, she or it will be vicious rivals with the Spymaster, especially if one says one thing is so, and the other contradicts. The General and the Chamberlain usually will be at odds with the Spymaster; the General will blame his failures on the Spymaster, and the Chamberlain hates the idea of having the Spymaster looking over his shoulder. With the exception of the Master Ninja or the Great Hunter, or possibly the Jack O’Blades, the rest of the Dark Lord’s lieutenants will view the Spymaster with a mixture of fear and resentment. Killing or discrediting the Spymaster will usually be their first move in any coup against the Dark Lord; co-opting the Spymaster is simply not an option. If the Dark Lord has a Consigliore, then the Spymaster will be deadly jealous of him, and work ceaselessly to discredit him; if not, the Spymaster will bend over backwards to snaffle the position for himself.

The Dark Lord himself will view the Spymaster with profound ambivalence; the Spymaster is a shrewd, crafty, conniving, scheming, duplicitous master of intrigue and subterfuge. And if he’s not, then WHY is the Dark Lord paying him? On the other hand, being a Spymaster is a full-time job. A good Spymaster doesn’t merely collect new information, he hoards old information, weighs new information against known certainties, re-evaluates old information in the light of new information, carefully judges the accuracy and veracity of all the information he has, and cautiously weighs everything smelling about for lies, prejudice, misunderstandings, deception and disinformation. And all THAT is before he tries to glean political, financial, social, strategic or tactical insights from it all. That’s a LOT of time and hard work, which the Dark Lord would vastly prefer to spend plotting someone’s downfall. And removing a Spymaster means that the Dark Lord would have to find a new Spymaster, who would have to be brought up to speed, leaving the Dark Lord effectively blind until the new Spymaster gets his bearings. At which point, the Dark Lord finds himself in exactly the same place he was before, as the new Spymaster would have to be effectively identical in nature to the old one. So, though it goes against his very nature, the Dark Lord finds himself in a position where he actually has to be <hard swallow of bitter gall>  JUST to his Spymaster, and only punish him when he’s actively treacherous.

If the Spymaster is in charge of internal security, then he’s a Secret Policeman, and his style can be summed up simply as ‘Gestapo Tactics’.

However, the Spymaster offers several things to a GM, beyond his usefulness as a NPC in a campaign: in the first place, there is no such thing as a reluctant Spymaster; either scheming, intrigue and subterfuge are meat and drink to you, or it’s not. And since Spymasters trust absolutely nothing, not even their own memories, the Spymaster keeps a set of journals that rival the Necronomicon for toxic revelations. Even centuries after the fall of the Dark Lord, any one of the Spymaster’s special journals could contain information that can be used as the basis for a run, or story arc, or even campaign. Besides facts regarding the Dark Lord’s forces and resources, or mystic details and insights stolen from the Dark Cleric or Evil Wizard, there is blackmail in those very mundane pages that could rock the foundations of the successor states if brought to light.

And beyond that, while the networks and connections the Spymaster builds in other nations will die with him (that is, if they don’t dry up on him), the secret physical constructions that he builds in the Dark Lord’s lands and enemy lands (and everyone’s the Dark Lord’s enemy, whether they want to be or not!) will last for centuries. Secret tunnels, trap doors, and hidden caches are a Spymaster’s stock in trade, after all.

A canny Spymaster (if that isn’t redundant) knows that buying information is a mug’s game; paid snitches will tell you whatever you want to hear, as long as you pay cash. A much better way of gathering information (one that the CIA has used to good effect IRL) is to invest in various legitimate businesses in target realms, thus gaining legal access to various forms of sensitive information. When you pay a snitch, that’s the last you see of that money, and more than likely the last you see of that snitch. On the other hand, a business just keeps churning out information: a drayage business would have the very best maps of a target realm, and have pertinent information about the habits (and bribability) of Army officers; an architect’s firm would know all the weak points in a castle’s construction; a band of smugglers would know all the secret paths and hidden campgrounds that a sneak attack force could use, or hidden bays and anchorages, as well as the details of the layouts of harbors. A string of taverns could be built at crucial spots along the road within the target realm, large, comfortable, sturdy, dry, well-appointed taverns that are as unto minor fortresses- with caches of food, water, medicine, weapons and maps in the cellar and secret tunnels, so the Dark Legions can sweep in without being burdened by the weight of supplies or the speed of supply trains, or having to forage for food, traveling like lightning towards the minor strongholds that await them. Warehouses could be built inside enemy city walls- with secret tunnels to outside those walls. A fleet of barges could be built to ferry cargo- or the Dark Lord’s troops- up and down the river, with ferries and landings at commercially (and strategically) important points. Hidden tunnels with secret doors could be built to allow smugglers (and troops) through impassable mountain ranges. Bridges could be built across wide rivers- at points where the Dark Lord’s troops could seize them. Granaries can be built that could double in a pinch as stronghold towers- or their contents could easily be poisoned, weakening the target population. Caches and secret underground hideouts could be littered across the countryside for poachers and smugglers- and bands of demi-human guerillas. And best of all (for the Spymaster, if no one else), as all these endeavors have intelligence and military value, the Dark Lord won’t be screaming for a return on his money, so the businesses involved actually have a decent chance of returning a good profit! If he survives the fall of the Dark Lord, the Spymaster might very well find himself the master of a good-sized trade empire!  

• The Starscream: It seems that every Big Bad in cartoons has an underling that you’d have to be brain-dead to not know that he was scheming to take over. So why does someone who’s as proud of being ruthless as the Dark Lord put up with this for five seconds?

Simple.

The Starscream is the Dark Lord’s bellwether.

Everyone plotting against the Dark Lord reacts to the Starscream in one way or another. Either they try to cultivate the Starscream, figuring that he’ll jump at the proposition, or they’ll try to get him to shut up, so the Dark Lord will calm down enough for them to get the jump on him. However they do it, the Dark Lord knows that when the Starscream shuts up, something’s going to go down. The Starscream also acts as a sort of ‘Lancer’ for the Dark Lord, challenging his plans and schemes in ways that are, despite himself, useful to the Dark Lord. Though it helps that the Dark Lord has the Starscream pegged, and he knows that he can slap him down anytime he wants. And finally, slapping down the Starscream on a regular basis allows the Dark Lord to send a warning to his other lieutenants, that he’s perfectly willing and capable, eager almost, to do the same to THEM.

And of course, the Starscream is another source of bases, caches, traps, weapons, and stashed monsters that aren’t a part of the Dark Lord’s Table of Equipment, and so can survive the fall of the Dark Lord’s Realm.

The Starscream thinks that the Dark Lord doesn’t know about these caches.

How cute.

• The Temptress: She’s almost as beautiful, charming, graceful and accomplished as she is Evil; oh, we’ve all seen the Film Noirs, we know the routine. Every Dark Lord seems to have at least one Temptress on his payroll. It’s a rule or something. Exactly where this femme quite fatale’s heart lies is a real crapshoot. She could truly love the Dark Lord; she could be his mistress and be somewhat fond of him (though fonder of luxury and power); she could simply be one of the Dark Lord’s followers, and the Dark Lord regards her charms as just another weapon in his arsenal; she could be his Starscream, and the Dark Lord regards are schemes as a twisted sort of foreplay; she could be a simon-pure opportunist, willing to betray the Dark Lord the second the winds of fortune shift; she could be a Good Girl under it all, willing to turn to the side of the Angels when that one special hero shows up; she could be a secret agent for some power, there to undermine the Dark Lord from within. With the Temptress, you pays yer money, spins the wheel, and takes yer chances. It’s not like you can trust her to tell you the truth.

The Temptress can be either a niche or a personal strategy, and mixes easily with most other roles, including the Dragon, but not the Beast or the Walking Nightmare. There is a high possibility that she might be a member of the Coven of Witches, or their pawn. If the Temptress is the token woman in the Dark Lord’s crew, she will work that angle for every possible concession she can. If there are two women on the crew, they’re either best buds or vicious rivals (heck there’s nothing that says they can’t be BOTH), and if there are three or more, then the other two usually close ranks against the Temptress.

While the Temptress’ primary value is to spice up the Dark Lord scenario with a little sex appeal, she does give a GM other options. The Temptress is tied with the Spymaster as the lieutenant most likely to survive the Dark Lord’s fall, largely because nobody really expects much of her in the way of combat. So, if she screams like a little girl and runs when the Dark Lord’s karmic check comes due, nobody snarls, ‘Coward! At least DIE like a villain!’ and blasts her in the back. And, since she has those kinds of reflexes, the Temptress is the most likely to seize the opportunity to make off with something valuable in the chaos, be it jewelry, gold, Artifacts of Incredible Power (or at least components thereof), Tomes of Dark Lore, dragon eggs, or, really, whatever that has resale value that she can haul off. She’s also high on the list of lieutenants who might know about that ‘Go Room’ that the Dark Lord has set up, and having no Male Ego to coddle, she’s a much better bet to beat any of them to it. The upshot here being that the Temptress is a means by which a dramatic element that logically should have gone down in flames with the Dark Lord survives, thus explaining the continued existence of something that anyone with a lick of sense would have destroyed immediately, once the Dark Lord was overthrown.

• The Toady: Another classic, almost every Dark Lord has a toady, a sniveling, groveling sycophantic yes-man. Hey, given the Dark Lord’s obligatory sadism and ego, it’s almost unavoidable. Like the Temptress, the Toady’s true nature is almost unknowable by others; indeed, the Toady may not be completely certain of it himself. The Toady can be anything from a masochistic true believer, to a brainwashed former nemesis, to a simple shameless bootlicker, to scheming opportunist, to a patient mole for another power who’s biding his time and waiting for the proper moment to strike. The thing that makes the Toady noteworthy is that while everyone presumes that they know exactly what he’s about, nobody really knows which way he’ll jump in any given situation. Even more than the Temptress, who can be trusted to put her self-interest first, the Toady is a complete wildcard, who could do anything in a crisis from killing himself to save the Dark Lord to killing himself to kill the Dark Lord, with a truly bewildering array of possibilities between the two. As despised as he is, the Toady can be the surprise that decides a crisis.

• The Walking Nightmare: For Dark Lords, one of the problems of having a court of darkling lieutenants is that eventually they get used to you, and stop being afraid. Well, that happens, when they see you every day. And for Dark Lords, being feared is one of the main reasons they got into the gig in the first place! What’s the point of putting up with all the hassle of being a Dark Lord, if your subordinates start calling you ‘Bob’? And constantly beating down your underlings is annoying, time-consuming, problematic and tiring. So, how do you keep those pesky minions in line, without wearing out your pummeling arm?

You have a Walking Nightmare.

A Walking Nightmare is someone who has ticked the Dark Lord off, and has been condemned to a spectacular perambulating hell. Besides being a punishment upon an enemy, the Walking Nightmare is a constant reminder that the Dark Lord can do this to YOU. Of course, that being the way that Dark Lords roll, there is an element of twisted ironic revenge to it: the valiant Paladin is reduced to a shattered miserable wretch clutching at a devil-blade he can’t drop; the pious cleric is now a shambling Undead insult to the very gods he once honored; the noble Prince is now an ogrish brute; the dashing swashbuckler is imprisoned in a suit of demonic armor; the beautiful princess is cursed to be a Medusa, her lovely visage turned into a reptilian nightmare, and she is forced to wear a mask, lest others be turned to stone. And, since just hurting them to make a point isn’t enough, the Dark Lord gives them dark powers, as to use them as weapons. After all, what’s the point of simply wrecking their lives? Why not turn them against their own, and inflict truly exquisite anguish by making them hurt the ones they love?

Of course, the Dark Lord doesn’t take everything: he leaves them Hope. He informs them that HE and he ALONE can reverse their condition. If he is ever killed, their condition will be PERMANENT! It’s not that he has any mercy in the cesspit that he calls a soul. It’s just that the very cream of the jest is not only revenging himself on an enemy, not only turning that enemy against their own, but in having that once enemy protect his life as though it was their own. <insert diabolical laughter here> 

And, of course, since the very best torment is not only for these noble souls to endure this but to PASS THE CURSE ON, these conditions are contagious after a fashion, thus leading to various sorts of evil beings that owe their existences to the Dark Lord.