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VILLAINS, MINIONS

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AND THEIR TACTICS

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Foreword New Warlock Subclass

by Matt Colville by Ted Sikora
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Epic Antagonists, Menacing Minions, Comprehensive Battle Strategies and Step-by-Step

Guidelines for Creating Your Own Legendary Big Bads for 5th Edition RPG Adventures
dillon henrickson hÜbrich
l e fort pinto syrene Plus
3 One-Shot
Adventures!
 A STORY IS ONLY AS
GOOD AS ITS VILLAIN

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WHAT GOOD IS AN ADVENTURE WITHOUT CONFLICT? What’s the point of having
incredible abilities if they’re never truly tested? How do you make your party break into
a nervous sweat without logging countless hours sweating over your own creations?

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With The Game Master’s Book of Villains, Minions and Their Tactics, your party will find the
answers to these (and other) questions—most of which they’ll wish they’d never asked.

FEATURING TIPS AND STRATEGIES busy GMs can use to incorporate the
included BBEGs into a new or existing game, each of this book’s 25 amazing

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antagonists features detailed lore, goals and motivations, story hooks, minion
details, combat tactics, special abilities and stunning full-page illustrations so
you’ll be able to dominate the world and bend it to your will before your party
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can ask directions to the armory. You’ll also find advanced tactics and combat
strategies for dozens of the most common monsters and minions from classic
TTRPGs, so you can focus on story and strategy at the same time.

INCLUDES
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3 one-shot adventures Step-by-step instructions Mind-blowing

incorporating villains for creating your own full-color
from this book monsters, minions and the illustrations
masterminds behind it all and more!

Compatible With Your Favorite

5th Edition Fantasy Tabletop RPGs!

@GameMaster_5e
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VILLAINS, MINIONS

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AND THEIR TACTICS

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Epic Antagonists, Menacing Minions, Comprehensive Battle Strategies and Step-by-Step

Guidelines for Creating Your Own Legendary Big Bads for 5th Edition RPG Adventures
dillon henrickson hÜbrich
l e fort pinto syrene
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 e m aster’s b
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VILLAINS, MINIONS
AND THEIR TACTICS

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contents

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04 06 118
Foreword | Introduction Creature Tactics
Strategies and stat block analysis to ensure
08 you’re making the most out of every combat.

Villains & Mini0ns

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A collection of 25 incorrigible characters (as well as
their thematically appropriate assistants) suitable for
General Tactics
Creating a Villain
How to Make a Minion
pg. 120
pg. 174
pg. 180
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use in your upcoming campaign.
182
Vak the Serpent, aka Bohr the Blacksmith
Nicodemus, the Vermin King
pg. 10
pg. 14 One-Shot Adventures
Wuldric, the Cannibal Cleric pg. 18
The Wound of the Forest pg. 184
Patious, the Dryad pg. 22
The Child pg. 26 Love Locked in Iron pg. 200
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Thalin, the Forest Master pg. 30 Contaminated Corruption pg. 216

Brezzik Mercator, Warlock of the Crown pg. 34
pg. 38
Harkon the Red
Ishmael Grace, Master of Chains pg. 42 232
V’aatzi, the Decider
Etienne, the Ringleader
pg. 46
pg. 52
Index
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Yumog, the Cave Master pg. 56

Grael, the Tinkerer
Volpest, the Five-Headed Regicide
pg. 60
pg. 64
236
The Desolate Grim
Grissek’k, the Orc Queen
pg. 68
pg. 74
Credits
The Created pg. 78
Hafli, the Giant of Parthund Pass pg. 82 238
Mauugh, the Troll pg. 86
Arah of Black Venom pg. 90 Bios & Acknowledgments
Lord Sebastian, the Undead King pg. 96
Zyyrlos, the Fey Dragon pg. 100
Kynikk, the Debauched pg. 105
The Colossus of Charnax pg. 110
Nezzeroth, the Undying pg. 114
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 Foreword

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YOUR STORY IS ONLY AS GOOD AS ITS VILLAIN.
This isn’t true, of course; there are lots of great stories without anything resembling a “villain” in
the classical sense, but this isn’t an Ibsen play—we’ve got monsters to kill and worlds to save. It
may not be true, but it’s close enough.

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There’s a great story from Michael Douglas about his decision to play the hunter in the
forgettable movie The Ghost and the Darkness. He was used to playing leading men, and in this
script, his character didn’t even show up for 45 minutes.
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He talked to his dad about it, and the legendary Kirk Douglas said something along the lines of
“No, no, that’s perfect. You get to play the dude everyone spends the first half of the movie talking
about!” I mean, Kirk Douglas probably didn’t say “dude,” but you get the idea.

That’s the fun of establishing villains. Before your players ever meet Mauugh, or Ishmael Grace,
Master of Chains, they’ve heard about them. They’ve met the people who’ve suffered because
of them or who are seeking revenge upon them. Maybe they’ve met their agents, heralds and
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harbingers, who told the heroes death was coming.

Defeating a villain in combat is satisfying in direct proportion to how much time you spent
setting them up. I think, in balance, we make our best worlds when we make our NPCs human
and relatable and our villains melodramatic and dastardly. Feel free to play them up. Let them
twirl their metaphorical mustaches. Let them be cruel. Or maybe they’re not cruel; maybe they’re
vain and capricious. But whatever defines your villains, dial it up. Revel in it.
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The more fun you have playing them up, the more fun your players will have taking them down.

Matt Colville
Founder and head of writing and design for MCDM Productions

The Game Master’s Book of Villains, Minions and Their Tactics 5

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Introduction

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Welcome to The Game Master’s Book
of Villains, Minions and Their Tactics...
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t’s happened to the best of us. Your party has summoned their forces and
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all of their allies to stand at the breach between the undead horde and the
realm of the living; the lich king Astervale, his pale dragon riders and the
manifested monstrosities summoned by the wand of a thousand scars charge
the gate, as the encounter your campaign has been building toward reaches its
thunderous climax.
But once your party rolls initiative and unleashes the full breadth of their power,
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Astervale is transformed into a shoe, the dragon riders are banished to the elemental
plane of air and the thrumming wave of undead is sundered into ash with a quick
wave from the cleric’s holy symbol. A battle several months in the making is over in
about 18 seconds.
And that’s assuming your party cares enough about stopping ol’ Astervale to stand
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in his way. More often than not, the villains we present as antagonists to the party
are killed the moment they start monologuing or are greeted with chuckles, or
worse, indifference, as the party shrugs and finds a shinier goose to chase. Your party
deserves a better class of criminal (or law-abiding, villainous big bad).
And you’re gonna give it to ’em.
With The Game Master’s Book of Villains, Minions and Their Tactics, your players
will shudder every time you introduce a new NPC, gasp when their malevolent
plots are revealed and cry like true victims of hubris when their best-laid plans are
undermined by the strategic masterminds and brutally efficient bad guys (or gals, or
oozes) you bring to life at your table.
 What This Book Is
The Game Master’s Book of Villains, Minions and
Their Tactics is a collection of dastardly, dangerous and
outright deadly villains, each paired with a unique set
of minions born out of their backstories. Each of the 25
villains is presented alongside a detailed breakdown of
why they are the way they are.
This book also includes goals, motivations, story
hooks, ways to ratchet up the tension, tactics and
treasure hoards for each villain, while still keeping
each open-ended enough for you to plop them into
any ongoing adventure. Additionally, each villain has
a suggested party level associated with their challenge
rating as well as suggestions for how to make them
easier or harder for your party to deal with.
You’ll also find stat blocks, formatted for the 5e
system, for each of the villains as well as their minions
so you can easily incorporate them into the world's
greatest roleplaying game. The Creative Commons
license for the 5e system is on pg. 236.
This book also features an entire section dedicated
to helping you kill your PCs more efficiently (or at
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least give them more of a challenge), running through
the most popular monster types—goblins, weretigers
and chimera, oh my!—and analyzing their stat blocks to
ensure each time you bring them to the table, you’re able
to put their best claw forward. There’s also a fair amount
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of space dedicated to building your villains from the
ground up in the unlikely event your party dispatches
the original creations contained in this tome and you
need to call in some backup.
The Game Master’s Book of Villains, Minions and
Their Tactics also features three one-shot adventures,
each centered on a villain from the book, in case you
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want to hit the ground running without having to
develop a storyline yourself. These adventures are rated
for specific levels, but that shouldn’t stop you from
tailoring them to your party’s needs.
This book is yours now. Its contents are yours to
control, wield or let run wild. Use every entry at your
own discretion.
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What This Book Is Not
This book is not a tome of fake history or a textbook
of psychological profiles. It does not include every
answer to every question you might have about a
villain’s backstory or motivations. Though many of the
characters in question are paired with specific locations,
artifacts or historical events, there is not enough space
in this or any book to log every possible answer to
questions that may arise during gameplay. If you have
a question about a villain, or disagree with aspects of
their outlined goals and motivations, you should feel
empowered to answer the question or revise the impetus
for their actions yourself. If the short introduction to
each character does not offer the lore you’re seeking,
The Game Master’s Book of Villains, Minions and Their Tactics
consider the void yours to fill and do so in a way that
benefits your game and players.
This book is not a military strategy manual. While
it features dozens of pages of tips and tricks for making
the most of your minions, it does not include a tactical
breakdown for every beast, fiend, monstrosity or
malevolent force in the great history of TTRPGs. That
shouldn’t stop you from taking the lessons presented
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in the Creature Tactics section and applying them to
creatures that were not included or those you’ve created
yourself (which for obvious reasons were also not
included in this title).
Although it is somewhat bulky, this book will not help
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you in an actual fight. Please do not attack anyone with it.
How to Use This Book
When you see text styled like this, it is flavor text and
should be read out loud to describe specific actions,
relay important information or provide details of the
character’s surroundings. Not reading it to your party
might mean they miss out on essential info, funny
lines or both.
GM NOTE: THIS IS A NOTE FOR YOU
Text contained inside a box that looks like this is
meant to draw your attention to information that
is important for you to know or is imperative to
a plot point in the one-shot adventures. It is also
used to point out opportunities for you to make
a variety of choices for different reasons or call
attention to places that might lead to important
things you need to consider when using different
options at your table. They are important to read,
which is why most are fairly short.
Maps. The maps in this book are presented on a grid,
with each square representing a 5-foot-by-5-foot space
unless otherwise noted. As mentioned earlier in this
introduction, this book is yours now, as is everything in it.
If you want to expand, contract or simply not use a map,
that’s your call. But you should use them. They are cool.
Without further ado, please enjoy The Game Master’s
Book of Villains, Minions and Their Tactics. It will
not make you a dangerous or deadly individual, but it
will help you embody one (or several) in a way that will
have your party wishing they’d gone to the pub after all.
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