I'm looking for ideas for antagonists for my first WFRP 3 campaign this winter.

One group, I've decided, will be a band of mutants and beastmen who live out in the darkest parts of the woods and in abandoned ruins.

The catch is that I don't want them to be a typical band of Chaos marauders. I want them to have personalities.

This may or may not go against GW's canon or fluff, but I'd like the beastmen in the group to be more than just mindless killing machines.

I want them to be somewhat devious, cunning and sardonic about their state.

But most importantly, I don't want the PCs to just hack them to bits right away. I would like their conflict to be a little more complex.

SO, I'm basically asking you folks if you had any ideas on memorable antagonists of the mutant/beastman variety. Specific attachment to a Chaos God is not really important. They're just "general" Chaos, if you catch my drift.

If that discussion gets boring, let's just talk about cool villains in RPGs!

Well, the beastmen do have prsonalities - if you have the Beast of Chaos miniature book, and read the short stories, there are many intruiges found within the beatsmen society.

They have a human mindset, and live in tribal families where the strong rule the herd. They can almost be places as an nomadic germanic tribe of sorts. But they have an utter hate for humans that live the "good" life.

Last time we were playing WFRP, my party met a bray shaman NPC... well, at least his head. A few knights brought it home as a trophy, but the head was alive and cursed them - they turned into pigs. To break the curse, someone had to attach the head back to it's body - well, at least this was, what the shaman told them. They didn't really like the idea, they hated him. He was a sarcastic bastard, who liked to nag the party, never shut up, and was still able to cast dangerous spells. His manner was a bit inspired by Heath Ledger's Joker.

Finally, after bartering a huge price for the job, they did it. They put the head in a lead box, searched through piles of dead beastmen on the battleground, until they finally found the body in a shrine of Tzeentch, guarded by a minotaur. When the head was placed back to it's place, it sighed, and feigned death. Of course the adventurers wanted to burn him, but just before the pit fighter bent over the corpse, to pour oil on it, the bray shaman's eyes popped open, and cast a terrible spell on him. Next round the bounty hunter shot him in the head with his crossbow. He threw the largest damage I've ever seen - around 40, with TB included.

By the way, the curse was broken, the three knights turned back into human - one of them died in the process, the other lost his mind, the third is in coma.

That's... beautiful. I love it!

A very old world folkoric feel to it. Like a Hellboy story.

That's exactly the kind of thing that I'm looking for.

Keep 'em coming! Every GM can benefit from these stories.

Well, I'm thinking Illusion of normality, a family or group that are lead by a shaman than have magical amulets or spells that can make the rest appear to be normal. They have their own house in a quater of a larger town Nuln/Altdof size, and at home they act as their true selves in the cellar/dungeon like living quarters of the house.

This together with their lust for eating human flesh, could make a ' The Killings in th e xx Quarter ' scenario.

Of course the family would have infiltrated the local vigilantes that have made their own 'city watch' to hunt down the murderers. The shaman would of course be the outraged leaders of the vigilantes as a cover. A typecal well spoken protagonist/agitator type this shaman and patriarch of the family or group. Just an idea...

And after all I think Jay owes us a session demo video

Tome of Corruption from WHFRP 2nd ed, would be a great help to you. Lots of opportunities to play as chaos PC's

Yeah Tome of Corruption is probably my favorite 2nd Ed. book. Lots of useful stuff in there.

But what I'm looking for isn't mechanics or Beastman pecking orders.

I'm looking for interesting angles for using Beastmen (and regular mutants) in general. See the post above about a sentient Shaman head. That was gold.

I want my players to remember "Carl", not because he was jsut really hard to kill in combat, but because of the things that he does and the way that he talks.

My PCs once stumbled upon a secluded grange in the middle of a forest. The whole family living there was mutated, preying for animals, sometimes beastmen and the occasional unlucky traveller who got lost in the woods. It began with one new PC, an apprentice to a plague doctor, meeting a really beautiful girl, who lost her way just like he did. It was a nice scene when the other PCs found the man hanging on a hook in an old shed, still dressed in his bizzare clothing, wearing his mask. They almost put him out of his misery instead of helping him.

In the course of the events the PCs killed about half the family (there were quite a lot of these inbred bastards) and managed to escape. I had a detailed profile for every one of the family, so it was kind of sad when one of them died. But should the characters ever return there it would be an interesting rematch. They never even found the totally degenerated uncle, whom the family kept in a pit in a empty barn nearby. He wasn't much human anymore, and part of the reason why the family never had trouble with beastmen. Besides that they had a lot of brute force and some magic to keep themselves safe.

****, I have no idea where I left the notes about them...

Try reading the Black Library books Kight Errant and Knight of the Realm to get ideas on how you can tie in one of your characters with 3 wealth with a major beastman leader ( his brother in fact). Very good ideas in both books for how those kind of ties can be used for roleplaying and making it PERSONAL.

Some of the best antagonists I've ever ran were once protagonists. In one of our campaigns I had a soldier join the party as an NPC for a couple of games. As his story developed, he told how his family line was cursed. The curse had caused the death of his loved ones and the ruin of his life. He sought the evil wizard that had cursed him so long ago.

He ran with them a few times then split off as he pursued his own agenda. Over the course of the campaign they crossed paths with him many times, each time he was a little more corrupted by the things he did as he chased his foe. Soon it was clear that he had succumbed to the evil he perpetrated and must be stopped.

As the campaign progressed, it turned out that the 'evil wizard' the soldier was seeking was the same Daemonologist that the players had been dogging all along. In the end they had to stop the soldier from destroying the population of a small town as he attempted to get his revenge on the Daemonologist. They had a choice. They could do away with the big evil they had been chasing the whole campaign right then, but it would cost many innocent lives.

During the course of the game my players came to identify with the soldier. They understood why he was doing the things he did. They felt sorry for him and left him alone to chase his quest until it was almost too late. When they finally put him down, it was a bitter kill for them.

In another game I had a retired knight that carried around with him a small retinue of squires. He worked against the players, constantly in their way and trying to defame them. Taking credit for their accomplishments, etc. He was very arrogant and very hard to deal with, but they were loathe to do away with him for fear of how it would make them look.

I carried this out for months until they grew to hate him. They finally challenged him to a joust. The old knight allowed one of his squires to second him. During the course of the event, the squire was killed. It only then came out that the squires were the sons of the old knight and he was teaching them to be strong so that they could best serve the Empire.

That really threw my players for a loop.

P.S. Loved the Bray Shaman story

I know it might sound a bit kitsch but why not make them a group of 'freedom fighters' who help mutants in trouble, protecting them from the law and enabling them escape to a life of freedom in the wilderness. They could be based on the x-men, not obviously but enough that the PC's will eventually spot it (eg. the leader has only one eye in the centre of his forehead, the regenerating mutant has clawed hands not knuckles, etc.). This not only gives you a moment of intertextuality and recognition that players will often enjoy but it also allows you to explore the idea that mutants aren't the faceless villains they can often seem to be (or the Church of Sigmar portrays them as) and present the concept that mutants don't choose what happens to them.