BBEG in BX

 

There is no Orcus in BX. There is no Strahd, no Acererak, there are no Evil Elemental Princes, no Vecna, no Kas. The only BX BBEG that would threaten a higher level party that I can think of is The Master from X4 and X5, and I’m not so sure that he is not a villain from that odious perversion, BECMI 😉.

Apart from a lack of legendary villains, if you look at the rules – both Basic and Expert – there a few monster options that lend themselves to making a campaign-central, plotting, scheming, malicious and dangerous BBEG. AD&D did a thorough job of this. Here is some of you get in AD&D that you don’t get in BX:

-        Beholders

-        Demons

o   Demogorgon

o   Jubilex

o   Orcus

o   Succubi

o   Types I-VI

o   Yeenoghu

o   Lolth

-        Devils

o   Asmodeus

o   Baalzebul

o   Barbed

o   Horned

o   Pit

-        Hags

-        Liches

-        Demi-liches

...and many more. 

Think about how many campaigns revolve around these monsters. With Rappan Athuk and Slumbering Tsar, a massive chunk of Frog God Games’ Lost Lands revolves around or is affected by Orcus.  From WotC’s 5^th Edition adventures, we find Strahd, Demogorgon and Acererak. Paizo’s Pathfinder is a world unto itself, yet still uses all of the monsters mentioned above.

Of course, you could stat these monsters up and wedge them into a BX game. Nothing wrong with that. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. But something in me wants to see what a BBEG that is purely BX would look like and how a campaign centered around that BBEG would play out. 

I broke out my B and my X, flipped to the Monster sections and took a good look at potential bad guys. There is a lot to work with here. 

Quick-glance Options:

1.         14^th level fighter.

2        Tyrannosaurus Rex

3.          An Intelligent Sword

5.         An Efreeti. 

        A cloud giant king bent on restoring the glories of his ancient kingdom. The High Suzerain.

6.         A 13 HD red dragon.

7.         One of each max-level character class.

        I am going to brainstorm on some of these and come back with some ideas, see if I can come up with something interesting.