Accidental Antagonist

The first recurring villain I created for my D&D group was an accident. I had set an end fight for the first adventure of a new campaign. The monster at the end went from a one off combat to a continuous thorn in their side. It all happened because of a failed saving throw. That was how my villain’s story began.

We had decided to adventure in Planescape. The city of Sigil was a new setting and we were hot off of flying around Spell Jammer and wanted to try a more on the ground setting. Sigil was our first city campaign. The adventures were all going to start inside the city limits but would be able to branch out into where ever we needed them to. This was mostly based on the unique quality of Sigil that made it the City of Doors.

Since we’d never played a city campaign before I had decided to start everyone with a slight bit of familiarity. I sent them into the closest thing I could come to a dungeon; the sewers.

They were chasing a couple of kobold thieves who had run off with a small piece of the group’s property. They followed them into the sewer system for Sigil and trailed the thieves back to their warren. It was fairly standard adventure from there. They moved from section to section looking for traps and killing kobolds. The enemies were mostly standard kobold fighters with a couple of shamans. I think there were a couple of pet attack rats thrown in for good measure.

As they neared the end they began to hear whispers of Grishnak. Some of the kobolds mentioned him and what the terrible violence he would wreak against the players. I used wreak a lot back then; less so now, it sounded fantasy to me.

The group began to wonder what sort of monster Grishnak was. A goblin or possibly an orc. He couldn’t be an ogre. They were only level one. I wouldn’t throw an ogre at a first level party.

They entered the final room. A large area decorated with furs and stolen, broken, and discarded furniture. It was built across a large chamber where the wash from the sewers gathered into a rushing torrent. The floor was the metal grating over the rapids of filth that raced towards a large waterfall into the abysmal depths below.

Standing in the center of the area was Grishnak the Unkillable, Destroyer of Worlds; a level two kobold barbarian. He wore slightly too large studded leather armor that had clearly been made for someone larger. A scar down one side of his face hinted at previous combat. In his claws he carried a battle ax that glowed with an inner light.

We had come across the rules for giving monsters class levels and I decided to give Grishnak two levels of barbarian. I was even playing around with voices for some of my characters. In this instance I went with high pitched and a bit squeaky. Think Invader Zim.

I remember creating the description to fit the party. One of the members of the group was a Halfling and the armor would have fit him. Glowing with an inner light was our group’s cue that the weapon was enchanted, in this case a +1. It would have been the first piece of magic treasure for the group aside from a couple of potions.

I liked the fight because I’d given Grishnak an ability that let him shove people around if he hit for enough damage. I thought it would be fun to knock a couple of PC’s off the platform into the water below. I’d come up with some rules for what would happen. They got a save to grab the edge of the platform as they fell. If they hit the water there was enough space between them and the falls to make a swim check. They could either hold their position or if they rolled well enough get to one of the ladders on either side of the water. I also made allowances for another party member to throw them a rope and help them.

As is often the case for any Dungeon Master, I didn’t account for one thing. One of my players also had knockback on his character.

The fight started pretty well. The players dwarf fighter got hit and went off the edge. He made his save and was able to grab the ledge and start pulling himself back up. Grishnak got in a couple of more good hits. He focused the healer who was quickly in a bad way. The fighter made his climb check with a little help from the mage and was back in the fight.

The dwarf ran forward and struck Grishnak with his flail and launched him backwards towards the edge of the walkway. Grishnak failed his save and went over the edge. The group fired arrows and spells at him to get him while he was in the water. They mostly missed. Then Grishnak had a chance to save himself with a swim check. It wasn’t even a particularly difficult check. Most likely he’d survive. He had a good strength and could make the swim to shore roll fairly easily. Even if he didn’t hit that it would be really hard for him to fail the stay in place roll. I rolled a two. Grishnak, his armor, and magic axe sailed over the falls and he was gone.

This should have ended the epic story of Grishnak the Unkillable, Destroyer of Worlds. Except, I ran a Christmas adventure. We were approaching the holiday and I wanted to run something fun and a little silly. The group was around level five and I wanted to give them some fun stuff to deal with.

I decided to have Santa Claus hire the group through an intermediary. They were to go liberate a small town from a local lord who had gone mad with power and taxes. Using the power of Sigil I sent them to a small more traditional fantasy setting. To defeat the lord they needed to infiltrate his keep. There was a small side entrance that wasn’t as sturdy as the main way into the keep. The group decided to use this. I had them encounter some traps. Fight against a blind swordsman with a sword that had a permanent darkness spell cast on the blade so when it was drawn everything in sixty feet was cloaked in shadows.

Just before reaching the lord they faced Grishnak. I’d leveled him up a bit to match the party and gave him some better equipment, a lot more health, and a couple of minions. These included a kobold shaman.

The fight went well. The group waded in and started hacking away at Grishnak’s war band. The shaman cast a couple of buffs on Grishnak making him stronger and ramping his armor class. Grishnak spent one round taunting the group for what they had done to him. Then, with a bellow of rage, Grishnak got stuck in and nearly one shot the warrior with a critical hit.

The priest immediately responded with by fearing Grishnak and running him out of the room. The spell forced Grishnak to move as fast as he could directly away from the caster. This sent him sprinting deeper into the dungeon. Past the lord and into the treasure room.

At this point Grishnak made a partial save and stopped moving. He was still feared but unable to move. This condition lasted until the group arrived and began fighting the lord and his men. It faded as the group was finishing off the room.

I decided that Grishnak would see this and opt for the better part of valor. He grabbed what he could carry, a sack of gold and a girdle of giant strength. With full hands Grishnak ducked out through an emergency secret door into another part of the keep. He then bailed on the entire job and left the castle through the main gate while the players were mopping up.

Grishnak would return a couple of more times. He worked for a mage, a lich, and mob boss. Every time through a failed save or moment of opportunity he would end up ducking out the back through a treasure room with sacks of gold and a magic item or two. He was always wearing the items he’d stolen from the previous adventures. Taunting the group with their past failures and escaping once again.

I’d love to tell you how Grishnak’s story ended. Unfortunately, like most campaigns, our Planescape journey fizzled and died. Lack of time and new and exciting interest in other things took hold. Grishnak is still out there wreaking havoc.

I used him one other time. He was an opponent in an X-Crawl I wrote for my friends. They battled him in DJ Drexel’s Dayton Crawl. Unfortunately, none of the players were the same so there was no recognition of who he was. I will use him again. If we venture into D&D in the near future Grishnak will return in some form. Perhaps he finally got that war band he always dreamed of and is now ravaging the northern lands. He may even have conquered a small barony or fiefdom.

I hadn’t meant to create Grishnak. He was essentially an accident of dice and circumstance. I’ve created other villains who were specifically designed to challenge the party and force them to suffer. To be thrown at them again and again. Sometimes there was a level of success and sometimes not. However the rest performed, Grishnak was my first. I’ll not say best, but then he’s the only one they never killed.