Dungeon Master: Villain Sator Ivertillion

I thought it was time I'd revisit the material I wrote for creating villains. In this case, I am going to outline one particular example in the hopes that someone somewhere will find it useful. Feel free to change any part as needed. The below rules will assume Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, though it should be reasonably easy to convert it over to any other system. 

Stats

Level 5 Wizard

Ability	Score
Strength	10
Dexterity	10
Constitution	9
Intelligence	11
Wisdom	10
Charisma	18

Hit points: 17 (using averages)

Skills: Arcana, Insight, Deception, Persuasion

Proficiency Bonus: +3

Armor Class: 10 without mage armor, 13 with mage armor

The above ensure though he is a level 5, the spell save DC for his spells is 11. This gives even a level 2 player a chance to survive a spell, though it is still an incredibly deadly situation to be in for the level 2 party. His low health also makes it possible to kill for a low level party, especially when surprise is gained as well.

In general he should be run as a diplomatic and scheming character.

Appearance

He is a handsome man of average height. Due to his background, he tends to wear high quality clothes. He is young with no gray in his hair. When tired he cannot hide it from his appearance.

Background

Unremarkable in basically every way except his appearance and silver tongue, the best way to describe Sator's abilities is average. Coming from money, magic was taught to him from a young. While he was able to learn a great deal to the hard work and time he put into learning magic, he was never considered talented. In general, he is not a perfectionist and prefers to complete what he started or achieve what he is after instead. This philosophy runs through all his actions from his study of magic (even as a young student, he preferred to learn a spell and move onto another one instead of mastering it) to his personal endeavors.

As a child he was frequently sick. Even though he grew stronger with age, he still gets sick more often than the average person and doesn't have the same physical endurance. He is painfully aware of this fact and has learned how to cover up this weakness.

Despite being born to a rich family, he is fairly good with money. This is mostly attributed to his ability to talk his way into more advantageous situations that others could not. He also understands failure is an option and is quite used to his plans failing, though when aggregating his endeavors he comes out ahead. When things aren't going his way or his plan is failing, he is not against making changes or abandoning the plan altogether.

Why Is He a Villain?

This kind of villain should be hostile to the players' intentions simply due to circumstance. For this reason I have left out some parts of his personality in order to allow the Dungeon Master to pick the opposite of the player characters (if the players are lawful, he can be chaotic in order to act against them). This also means he can be made into a potential ally if the players find a way that can benefit both parties.

Playing Him

When used against a lower level party, this kind of villain can still pose a major when played straight and predictable. Due to his resources and skills he will outmatch the players. He should also be played as charming and adaptive to the situation if needed. He should be able to cause serious grief to the players in the diplomatic arena with his ability to win the approval of those he speaks to (players included). Sator does not lie often though he is very good at it and prefers the half-truth method of lying.

His average intelligence and wisdom can be played one of major two ways. At times he can be painfully predictable but at the same time his ideas will not be a bad one (though it won't be genius either). He is also capable of extremes where he can have completely flawed ideas and other times where he can have genius ideas. His ability to consistently have the full range of quality ideas (even though there will be more painfully average ideas than genius ones) should help him be less predictable.

He does not like combat and tries to avoid conflict by using his speaking skills. However, he will defend himself if needed while looking for ways to preserve his own life and his goal. Deciding whether he values his own life or his goal more should be made on a case by case basis by the Dungeon Master.

Conclusion

There he is. Feel free to change him in any way to make him better fit into your game. If there is anything that needs clarification, feel free to leave a comment. As always, I hope this helps.