Why? Because Lex never thinks he’s evil. In his mind, he’s the only one doing the right thing. Humanity can’t trust an alien god with their future, no matter how many kittens he rescues from trees. Lex isn’t mustache-twirling evil, he’s rational. Cold. Calculating. Absolutely convinced that he is the smartest man in the room and that everyone else is either too blind, too stupid, or too naïve to see the danger.
That, to me, is the perfect nemesis.
In my games, I’ve had plenty of recurring villains, necromancers, devils, cultists with too many teeth, but only a few that have earned that capital-N “Nemesis” title.
Magnus is one. He’s my classic evil necromancer, complete with black robes, pale skin, and an ego that can barely fit into the dungeon. But I’ll be honest, sometimes he feels like a cartoon villain. Fun to bring out for a good dramatic monologue, but not quite the existential threat I want.
Yoln was a better one. He was the nemesis in my AD&D 1st ed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer games. His evil had a face, a voice, a reason. Players hated him, but they also understood him. That’s good villainy.
Dracula? Always a favorite. But he’s more of a force of nature than a true nemesis. The devil you invite in by accident. The Refrigerator? Fun, but he is a misanthropic one-trick pony.
But lately… I’ve been circling something deeper. A presence that’s shown up in many of my games, even when I didn’t know it yet.
At first, it was just a phrase, The Whispering God. A vague mythos thread to tie things together. But somewhere between running a Buffy session and catching a train in downtown Chicago, I realized something. Magnus has heard those whispers. So has Yoln. And maybe, just maybe, they were never the real threat.
They were echoes. Shadows.
The true nemesis is something I’ve started calling The One Who Remains.
He’s not a person, not really. “He” is just a convenient pronoun. “It” would be more accurate. “They,” maybe. Or “We,” if I’m being honest.
Here’s what I know:
- He was once a human, or something like it.
- He helped end the Age of Old Ones, maybe in the Wasted Lands’ Dreaming Age, maybe earlier.
- He did something, some ritual or betrayal, that shattered his being across time and space.
Now he is trying to pull himself back together.
Like gravity pulling dust into stars, his scattered thoughts, identities, and echoes are coalescing. Slowly at first. Then faster. Always faster. And when he is whole again?
It will be too late to stop him.
Some worlds feel his influence only faintly, a name in a forgotten grimoire, a face glimpsed in a nightmare. Others bear him like a scar. In some, he is barely more than a drive or a hunger. In others, he takes on form: a warlock, a high priest, a masked prophet. In some campaigns, he’s just a whisper. In others, he’s a storm.
And in my multiverse?
He’s everywhere.
He’s the shadow behind the coven. The Patron no one names. The face in the mirror when the moonlight is hitting it wrong, or maybe just right.
He is the Nemesis not of a single hero, or of the world, but of all the cosmos. Of memory. Of meaning.
He is the end that waits, and the beginning that never should have been.
And the worst part?
He’s almost here.
I can’t wait for you to meet him.
Questions
What. Envious. Genre. What Genre am I envious of? Well none really. Though I do like hearing people talk about their superhero games. I can't ever keep one going for long.
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