RuneScape:Wiki Post/Editorials/Greatest Villains

Greatest Villains (editorial)
In this article, we are going to take an expedition through the major villains of RuneScape, good, bad, and ugly. The criteria I will be using to rate these villains are their: Deviousness/Intelligence Common sense (It’s always painful to watch an evil plan be concocted only to be foiled by the adventurer that was “left for later”) Lack of morals or kindness And, of course, power. Note: Since I haven’t yet completed the quest Nomad’s Requiem, I will not be able to include Nomad in this article

First up is Zemourgal. Now, he obviously has power and intelligence. He knows that a hero is in the possession of an extremely powerful artifact and constantly tortures his dreams in an attempt to obtain it, and is able to raise an entire undead army to storm Varrock when he doesn’t get his way. We don’t even have to worry about his lack of morals. Controlling a legend’s free will but keeping his mind intact to witness the horrors he is causing? A more evil act would be hard to find. But, his common sense is somewhat questionable. Including a kitchen in your private zombie lair with access to a sewer system that goes right past his traps, leaving the keys to finding the combination to a door out in the open and putting a convenient set of pipes above lasers? Really? How about something simple, like a sealed area that he can just teleport to when needed.

Next, Agrith Naar. Now, I have to admit, being able to control the weather and form it into natural disasters is pretty powerful. Forming an evil cult on the basis that a demon will be summoned so he could return to his realm and gain power is pretty cunning. It would have worked so well, if he hadn’t killed a friend of the most suspicious member of the group (and, by the way, it probably wasn’t a good idea to recruit him in the first place) and left a golem to witness the event. Also, maybe he shouldn’t have said that they were going to summon him while he was in his human form, or no one may have made the connection

Now we have General Khazard, who does a pretty good job of ensuring that his plans succeed. Instead of slowly increasing the power of the monsters you have to slay, he goes straight from the scorpion to his hellhound, and then attempts to kill you himself (twice!). Not to mention the shadow sword quest, where he gets you to run errands, and then go to be attacked by Bouncer’s ghost, all while misleading you to think that he doesn’t know who you are (even going so far as to make you get a note from Sin Seer to make you think that he is completely unaware that you “killed” him). But, what he lacks is that malicious flourish. Instead of lying and keeping the Servils as slave fighters, he keeps his end of the deal and releases them. Any villain in their right mind wouldn’t do that! They would keep them as hostages to ensure that the player wouldn’t try to escape so their lives would be saved. Nice job of letting the adventurer keep their armor while in the fight arena and giving them a severed leg so they could deal the final blow to Bouncer’s ghost, by the way

Then there is Morgan Le Fay, the villain of the Camelot quest series. To be honest, she doesn’t meet the criteria of a true villain. She begs the adventurer to spare her son when they try to kill him, and she doesn’t instruct him to attempt to attack the adventurer when they come to take the Holy Grail. I especially loved how she hid it in an obvious place and left a riddle to help the adventurer find out where it is, too. She definitely isn’t very powerful (she isn’t even able to kill Merlin, just imprison him in a crystal and take away his ability to use magic), and she isn’t willing to kill the Knights of the Round table, for some reason (even though she was able to capture them).

Lucien. The baddest of the bad. Raising monstrously powerful skeletons, stealing the Staff of Armadyl and the Stone of Jas, and casting spells able to dissolve the mightiest warriors into a pile of ash. He is so powerful that he is able to summon the most fearsome demons, and he even enlists the aid of the entire black knight organization. His web of evil is spread almost across the entire map of Gielinor. When it comes to evil plans, he might just have the best. Usurping the god of evil is no petty crime. Morals? What morals? He kills six adventurers in cold blood, and who knows what evil he has planned once he defeats Zamorak. Just to make sure that this stays hidden, he hires Moravio to find the Stone of Jas, and keeps the center of his resources in a location so remote and unnoticeable that no-one would ever suspect his intentions. But, there is a downside to hiring an independent treasure-hunter to find a very mystical and powerful artifact: they tend to want it for themselves. But no matter, just teleport in and steal it. The problem is this: he leaves you for dead. Twice. You would think that by the first time, he would realize that this adventurer needs to be dealt with personally.

Now for the Dagannoth Mother. She decides to avenge her mother by capturing the king of Miscellania and attacking the Relekka. But why? What did the Fremenniks have to do with her mother’s death? True she is very powerful, being able to resist most forms of combat and having the ability to change those resistances at will, and attempting to wipe out the Fremennik civilization is very heartless. True that she kept the strongest guards possible to defend herself. What her plan lacks is originality. She sends a swarm of monsters to avenge the death of her parent. Even if Miscellania is out of the picture, why didn’t she predict that the adventurer that killed her mother would come back and foil her plan? Plenty of Fremennik legends have fought the Dagannoths before.

And finally, Glough. He concocts a dastardly plan to both attack humans and have the entire gnome empire on his side. When this seems to be failing, he summons a monstrous demon to kill the adventurer. Now, I admit, the way in which he framed Charlie and all the while was constructing an armada to attack the heart of the human nations was very clever, and you can’t say that he is weak for being able to summon a black demon. It just seems that his plan was doomed to fail as soon as our favorite adventurer became involved. But, Glough has a backup plan. Enlisting the help of one of his former sub-ordinates, he attempts to gain an alliance with the monkeys instead, and does his best to ensure that the 10th squad can’t relay this information to the king.

So, which is the greatest Antagonist in all of RuneScape? I’ll leave you to decide.

21:25, February 22, 2010 (UTC) (p.s. sorry if it's a bit long. Edit out the dagannoth mother and agrith naar sections if it's too long)