“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
―
But do we?
We – a great many of us of a certain age anyway – drew a
great deal of it from Gary Gygax’s Appendix N, mainly from Michael Moorcock’s
Elric saga and from Robert E. Howard’s Conan checkered exploits, I imagine.
Some may have drawn heavily from Tolkien, Robert Aspirin’s Thieves World,
or Glen Cook’s The Black Company. Maybe even Terry Brook’s Shannara
series. That’s all well and good, but I might be so bold as to suggest that
there is far greater inspiration to be found beyond the confines of the
“limited” scope of Fantasy. Do I hear shocked gasps? Exasperation? Angry
shouts? I beg your forgiveness for such heretical belief, Gentle Reader; but I
persist in that conviction. And crave your continued indulgence.
Hear me out. There is gritty verisimilitude to be had in applying
aspects of the real world to your gaming. How frightening might your evil
empires be if modelled on Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, or
perhaps Khan’s Mongol Empire? To further elucidate, I once leaned rather
heavily on the Great War and Stanley Karnow’s history of Vietnam to aid
flesh out an early protracted and never fully realised campaign. Trenches
marked a “demilitarised” zone, patrols swept the space between, raids plunged
deeply into enemy territories, terror strikes struck the surrounding
settlements.
Let’s not confine ourselves to the real world, either. Literature
is a bottomless pit of inspiration. There’s every type of character under the
sun in novels, both heroic, and not. Dicken’s Bill Sykes is a heinous
psychopath. The Artful Dodger is without remorse. Fagen is a dose of poison, no
matter how you try to digest him. But villains and heroes are not always so
easily discerned in literature.
Is Dumas’ Edmond Dantes a hero or a villain? He began The
Count of Monte Cristo a hapless victim, but he certainly became the novel’s
chief antagonist after escaping prison. Sorry; is it too late to declare there
may be spoilers throughout this exploration?
And consider Heathcliff: There’s another conflicted soul,
if there ever was one. One or two of you might be asking, who the deuce is
Heathcliff? For shame, if you do. Emily Bronte’s tortured antagonist of Wuthering
Heights is as complex an exploration of how one might slip into evil as
Edmond Dantes is.
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Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne |
Let us now consider Shakespeare, shall we? Shakespeare?!
Yes, Shakespeare. Still with me? I expect a few readers
might abandon this piece at his mere mention, which is a shame, really – even
criminal, to my mind – because everyone should steal what they can from Shakespeare.
There is a veritable cornucopia of inspiration to be had in the bard, a great
deal more than anywhere else, I would warrant. Indeed, his works embody the
breadth and width of the human condition.
You doubt me? You may but, to my mind, he created some of
the most inspirational villains of all time!
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Othello and Iago |
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Lady Macbeth |
Her guilt, in turn, lays her low. In fact, her guilt
drives her mad.
I expect that Shylock is Shakespeare’s most
unfortunate creation, for obvious and perhaps misinterpreted reasons. He’s greedy.
He may be Shakespeare’s most vengeful creation. He’s certainly the
personification of everyone’s worse picture of a moneylender.
He’s vilified now for him – Shakespeare. Ought he to be?
But ought Shakespeare bear the brunt of Middle Age antisemitism? Jews were
barred from almost every sort of profession in his time. Besides, many modern
readers believe that Shylock is a sympathetic character, and that the play was
a plea for tolerance.
Whatever your view, who can forget Shylock’s grisly fee,
that pound of flesh? Shylock only escapes his own punishment by conversion.
One can only wonder what an imaginative DM might do with
such grist for the mill! Here are characters of unparalleled evil, and complexity.
Certain villains ought to have pleasant facades, and dark aims, don’t you
think? Lest they fall into cliché. Evil can be dressed up as a I man who perceives
himself wronged; a woman who plots to raise hers and her husband’s station by
whatever means ambition dictates; or a persecuted minority who proposes a
sociopathic contract that no one in their right mind would seriously suggest or
expect honoured – but does.
Speaking of pleasant facades, I might direct you to
another of Shakespeare’s cast of characters. Not all are evil, but they, as a
whole, contribute to an overall arc within his Henriad. I speak on Falstaff and
his motile crew of misfits.
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Poins and Hal |
Ned Poins is the best of that entourage. He’s Hal’s
closest friend and confidant during his wild youth. He appears benign, but he
is a jealous sort. He devises various schemes to ridicule Sir John Falstaff,
his rival for Hal’s affections.
Is Ned actually benign? Is Ned a good soul? Or is he as
much a self-interested parasite as Falstaff is, if better dressed and genteelly
mannered?
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Sir John Falstaff |
One imagines this scamp harmless. He’s something of a
coward, after all. Is he, though? However amiable he may seem, he is a villain
at heart. He prefers that others do his dirtiest work for him. In that vein, he
surrounds himself with petty criminals, and lives on what he can beg borrow or
steal.
I suspect he is only bosom buddies with Prince Hal (later
King Henry V) for what he can ultimately gain from this future king: wealth,
respectability, perhaps power. Certainly lazy leisure.
His schemes do not work out in the end. Hal, it would
seem, has always seen Falstaff for what he is; and thus, Falstaff is ultimately
repudiated in the end.
He later succumbs to fever, powerless and poor, and
desperately penitent, fearful of what awaits him after a lifetime of debauchery
and sin.
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Bardolph |
Which might explain his continued loyalty to Falstaff.
John Falstaff props him up, keeps him on the “straight and narrow,” and gives
him purpose, however criminal.
Oddly enough, he’s loyal to Hal, as well, perhaps giving
us insight into the man he might have been, making him both an angel (if
fallen) and a devil.
He’s ultimately hanged for looting.
“Ancient” Pistol is Falstaff’s ensign, or standard
bearer. A swaggering soldier, boastful of his prowess and exploits, but
essentially a coward.
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Prince Hal and Pistol |
Despite his noted cowardice, he assaults and kills a man (likely
from behind, I would imagine), but eludes capture with Falstaff’s aid.
He does exhibit a small degree of loyalty to his mates: He
tries to effect Bardolph’s acquittal, but is altogether unsuccessful, likely
because he won’t stick his neck out so far as to risk his own.
He too, like his patron, enjoys the company of
prostitutes, likely because no other woman will have him. He marries one, in
the end, the less than ladylike Doll Tearsheet.
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Mistress Quickly, Nym, and Pistol |
One wonders how good a friend Nym ever was to Falstaff.
Indeed, he aids others to thwart Falstaff’s bid to woo other “friends’” wives.
And he courts Mistress Quickly, a brothel madam who was once Falstaff’s
paramour, marrying her while Falstaff lays dying. He even crosses swords with
Pistol as Falstaff is succumbing to his fate, presumably against his rival to
Falstaff’s seat as head of their criminal troupe.
Nym, is far from clever, however – far from it; he would
likely never have held that seat for long, even had he risen to it. Despite
believing himself smarter than his compatriots, he is dim, brazen, and sloppy:
He likely evaded capture only as long as he was in Falstaff’s service: he is
caught brazenly looting alongside Bardolph, sharing his fate.
Mistress Nell Quickly is Falstaff’s equal. She may
even be smarter. In fact, I suspect she is. She’s a survivor, anyway, latching
onto whomever can protect her, and further her criminal schemes. Reputedly an
innkeeper, her pub is a front for a brothel. She has innumerable links to the underworld
but is smart enough – usually – to safeguard her assumed respectability. She’s
apprehended often, it would seem, for criminal behaviour, but always seems to
slip the noose. That might be because, despite her relatively low station, she
is smarter than those who surround her, yet disguises it under a barrage of barely
concealed vulgarity.
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Falstaff with Doll Tearsheet |
She’s learned her trade well: She’s an incorrigible
flirt, a skill she’s developed to part her “suiters” with their coin. Doll also
has the quickest of tongues, noted for its wide array of colourful insults.
If she has a fault – beyond pickpocketing and possibly
“rolling” her clientele – it would be her temper. Doll’s reputation for wild
tirades precedes her. Her anger might be mere façade, however – in fact, I
would suggest it is – as she can suddenly switch from tirade to sentimental
intimacy and back again in the blink of an eye.
Buyer beware. Doll dies in the end, having contracted one
of the venereal diseases she is often accused of spreading far and wide among
her many “suiters.”
Isn’t that an interesting band of dramatis personae. Much
could be made by them. Most could be considered evil. Yet who would know at
first glance? They are “king’s men,” men-at-arms, companions of the prince.
There women are innkeepers and barmaids. And yet…?
I would not present them as primary foes in a campaign –
far from it – but as flavour within it, a bit of a twist on who the principal
players can trust, however amiable they may seem. Besides, not all evil
characters in your game need necessarily be sinister and malicious; some might
merely be malcontents and victims of their lot in life. They may see themselves
as pragmatic opportunists.
“I know you all, and will
awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at.”
Henry IV, Part 1 – Act 1,
scene 2 – William Shakespeare
The Art:
Thieves' World, cover art by Walter Valez
Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, by Thomas Bewick, 1832
Othello and Iago, 1901
Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, by Johann Heinrich Fussli, 1781-1784
Poins and Hal illustration, by Fred Barnard, c. 1870
Falstaff with big wine jug and cup, by Edward von Grutzner, 1896
Bardolph, by Henry Stacy Marks, 1853
Prince Hal and Pistol illustration, by Henry Courtney Selous
Mistress Quickly, Nym, and Pistol, by Charles Cattermole, 1880
Falstaff with Doll Tearsheet, by Henry Fuseli, 1805