Intro

The Evil Overlord. The Blood Mage. The Accursed Queen. The Big Bad.

The Dark Lord. Yes, he – It's usually a guy, did you notice that? –

has many names. But for the sake of convenience, we shall refer to

him by two titles in this paper: the Evil Overlord and the Big Bad.

He usually has a very long name, at that. We'll get to that later,

though.

The Evil Overlord is a very misunderstood person. He has to put up

with dozens of whiny peasants, incompetent warriors, lousy

protection, and overly cheerful, overly luck Mary Sues. Indeed, you

really have to pity the Evil Overlord, if you think about it for a

moment or two. Still, you have to wonder why they got into the

profession in the first place. I'm sure that teaching offers many of

the same onuses.

Still, it's difficult to write a story without an Evil Overlord. Who

will plot, if not the Big Bad? Who will wield vast armies of darkness

against the armies of light, if not the Evil Overlord? Who will

commit random acts of brutality, if not the Big Bad? Who will utter

the immortal line, "This cannot be! I am invincible!" if not the Evil

Overlord? Who will attempt to kidnap the hero, overthrow the throne,

destroy a god, blow up the world, create a super virus and manage to

be back home, sitting and stroking his cat, in time to meet up with

the hero, if not the Big Bad? Exactly.

We need a villain, both in reality and fiction. We need someone to

point to, so that we can go, "He's the cause of the problems! If we

get rid of him, we will be free!" But we can't just have any Evil

Overlord. We need a powerful, shadowy foe. We need one who can muster

endless armies with a twitch of his finger, who has demons at his

beck and call, who has super technology and godlike magic. We need

one that we can look at and go, "Oh, hell. We're screwed."

Sadly, too often the Big Bad is anything but. More like a, "Hm.

Really. Wow. Thrilling."

So, dear reader, I have compiled this little essay. Do enjoy, and do

remember at least some of the lessons within.

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1) Physical

The Evil Overlord's appearance is as varied as his name. Tall, short,

fat, thin, beautiful, ugly and everything in between. However, there

are some basic threads that can be found within the average story.

So, here are some of the basic subclasses of Big Bad.

The Dark Mage: The mage is almost always thin, sometimes to the point

of looking skeletal. If he is thin, then he is tall, and usually

inhumanly beautiful. This is, of course, due to the fact that he uses

Dark Magic, which is Very Bad. Capitals necessary. Common colour

combinations include the gothic look and the handsome, Anglo-Saxon

appearance. (I'm not saying that the Anglo appearance in general is

handsome, I'm saying that he's a handsome example of that species.)

If he is going gothic, then his skin is pasty, vampire-like white

with blood red lips and black hair. He'll also likely have claws. If

he's Anglo, then he'll be blond, almost certainly white-blond, with

blue or brown eyes. Green seems to be a colour reserved for the Good

Guys.

The Corrupt Priest: Either fat and short, with several chins and

flaring nose, or tall and thin, with a long, pointy nose and a face

made for scowling. The fat version of the Corrupt Priest is the most

likely to play buddy-buddy with the Good Guys, because everyone knows

that fat people are happy. The tall, thin one is usually the one

to "evoke feelings of unease." (Make sure not to say "feelings of

disease." That's very different.) Make sure to note all the jewelry

that they'll be wearing!

The Plotting High Councilor: Never fat, a man whose appearance ranges

from plain to beautiful. Of course, he's never quite as handsome as

his king/queen, and his face is often disfigured by a frown when he

scowls at his ruler's back. The Plotting Regent is almost identical

in this case.

The Barbarian Horde Leader: Hairy in the extreme, with a beard and a

huge sword that can shop off a dozen heads at once. His clothing will

vary in inverse proportion to how cold it is where he comes from,

i.e.: If he's from somewhere cold, he'll wear next to nothing, if

it's warm, he'll be lavishly bedecked. His facial hair will be wild

and untamed, his hair black-brown, black or brown, with the rare

exception of a lighter brown. Definitely brown eyes!

The Rebel Leader: Usually none too pretty to look at, with scars all

over. He'll have most of the characteristics of the people he lives

amongst, though his negative characteristics are usually grossly

exaggerated.

-------Aside the First: As a general rule of thumb, Evil Overlords

who are not Dark Mages are never better looking than more than a

quarter of the Good Guys. Dark Mages are, of course, inhumanly

beautiful, which should tip you off straight away.-------

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2) Names

Big Bads have names that go on for a mile. i.e.: Dark Lord

Kanandisnehrsiotihs of Sqjoiasntip'sn. A basic technique, evidently,

is to mash your fingers to the keyboard, delete all of the numbers

and symbols (except for apostrophizes) and add a few vowels and

apostrophizes. Add a title like Dark Lord and give him a place to

rule for. The more impossible to pronounce, the better. Now, you try.

If you can pronounce it after reading over it once or twice, then the

name isn't Bad, and you can safely use a derivation for a Good Guy.

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3) Evil Plots

Evil Overlords have one plot, and that's it. They're lovely, simple

people who like to take things one step at a time. First, they focus

on capturing the Sacred Relic With An Obscenely Long Name. The hero

either has this, or must race to get it before the Big Bad does. Why

people keep things of Unimaginable/Godlike Power laying around makes

no sense, but I'm sure it really helps with plots. If they manage to

capture it, they then set out to their next plot, generally

tormenting the Good Guys if he's captured them, or using it for

Unimaginable Things. If he doesn't capture it before the Good Guys,

then he chases after them.

Like I said, simple. It doesn't occur to them to start stocking up on

favours now that their dreaded foe has the Sacred Relic With An

Obscenely Long Name Of Godlike Power. But I guess that's another part

of the job.

Acceptable things for Big Bads to quest after include: Sacred Relics,

Super Technology, Heroes, Countries, The World and one of those

assortment packs of chocolates. Evil Overlords do not quest for: True

Love, True Luvvvvvvvv, the perfect Dark Tower, Evil Minions with some

skill, those really annoying little geometry kits that disappear

whenever you need them or a good hairstylist.

While reviewing the case of the Dark Lord Kanandisnehrsiotihs of

Sqjoiasntip'sn, for instance, one can clearly see where he went

wrong. a) Rather than killing the child destined to kill him, he

abandoned it in a forest, a habit ranking up there with sending the

Trusted General who owes the parents to do it for him. b) When he

heard about the Good Guys, he sent his weakest troops and ignored

them. c) When he was first defeated by the Good Guys, he simply sent

a group of slightly stronger people to take care of it, and so on and

so forth. d) He uttered the immortal words; "This cannot be! I am

invincible!" e) He decided to listen to the hero's stalling speech

about how good would triumph and felt obliged to give one of his own,

causing the rest of the Good Guys to make it in time to save their

friend.

-------Aside the Second: Evil Overlords make speeches. How else would

we know that they're qualified?-------

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4) Evil Minions

There are several classes of Evil Minions. First, the Primary Evil

Minions. There is the Talented Female Assassin, who will almost

invariably be captured by the hero, who will fall in love with here.

The Spy, either male or female, who is planted within the Good Guys

may follow one of several courses of action: Returning to his master

with information, defecting to the Good Guys, being caught and killed

by the Good Guys, killed by his master for no reason whatsoever, or

simply killed in some other way, shape or form. The Evil General, who

is his master's right hand man, and The Former Evil General, who is

quite likely to betray his ex-master.

Assorted other Evil Minions include; weak mages, twisted animals,

anything with an ugly name, puppet princes, puppet kings, mindless

hordes and demons. Of course, demons have a lovely tendency to turn

on their masters, which makes you wonder why anyone would summon one

in the first place.

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5) Background

A Big Bad's background varies, depending on which subclass over Evil

Overlord he is. The Dark Mage could be a former prince, a former

friend or a former petty enemy. The Plotting High Councilor will be

noble, and will have some sort of grudge against the current ruler.

Perhaps He was in love with her, or the king stole his crush. The

Barbarian Horde Leader was trained by his parents to hate the evil,

civilized people. The Corrupt Priest was once a noble, or possibly a

peasant insulted by a noble who vowed to get revenge. And the Rebel

Leader was, obviously, chaffed under the harsh yoke of the nobility.

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6) Defeat

Evil Overlords are strangely easy to defeat, once you get down to it.

All you have to do is find someone with a secret talent that the Big

Bad has never prepared for, with enough insanity to do something that

dozens have perished doing before and, of course, mad good looks.

Being sporting people, Evil Overlords always leave that little

loophole on the off chance that someone might be suffering from a

lack of insanity at the time. Either that or they have some sort of a

contract with the Evil Overlord Union that states that they have to

give the insane people a chance, too.

-------Aside the third: It is required that the Big Bad scream "This

cannot be! I am invincible!" After all, that's how the Good Guys know

they've won. I wouldn't be too surprised if some of them wouldn't be

able to tell if it had ended or not.-------

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7) In addendum

So, now you've taken a peak into the world of the stereotypical Big

Bad. Think about it for a moment, take a look-see to find an Evil

Plot that's actually a genuine threat, and make sure that your Big

Bads aren't just symbols. Better yet, if you can make an Evil

Overlord that people can understand, you've done a glorious job. And

remember! You don't want your Big Bad to have to go to Evil Overlords

Anonymous!

Gryph