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 Post subject: What sort of Evil Overlord are you?
PostPosted: 21 Sep 2007 15:00 
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Sergeant Major of the USMC
Sergeant Major of the USMC
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Joined: 23 May 2005 16:49
Posts: 5244
Location: Wandering the Wastes
On a website BOS linked me to there was a HUGE list of evil overlord types and their do's and do not's posted. Well yours truly is classified as a Benevolent Dictator. :ac :bs Posted below is the list for that Evil Overlord type.


a general rule, I will remember that I am not the Evil Overlord, and should not indulge in behavior that will confuse my subjects on this point.

I will ensure that all my potential heirs have interesting and important jobs to do, according to their abilities, so they will have less time to plot against one another.

If I do have a particular favorite among my heirs, I will go out of my way to show the others that I love them too. Even if this is not true.

Being aware of the possibility of evil twins, mind control, or just having a really bad day, if the Hero suddenly starts acting out of character, I will call for a careful investigation rather than his head.

I will not callously dump my old, reliable Hero for the latest flashy device, or a new "kewl" Hero. This invariably backfires, and it's so embarrassing to have to apologize to the Hero afterwards.

I will remember that the word "vizier" is always preceded by the word "evil" for a reason, and plan accordingly.

In face, I will reconsider the need for an Evil Vizier in the first place.

I will treat any flashy gift from a previously unknown wizard or inventor with the same caution I would a venomous snake.

I will not be tempted by immortality. It is more important that my land be ruled well than that it be ruled by me.

I will not base the distribution of my lands and property among my heirs on a flattery contest, even if I think I'm smart enough to spot a good metaphor when I hear one.

I will listen to the people, even though I will be horribly bored with one more farmer or peasant complaining about their minor problems. After all, peasant revolts have been started over less.

If the Hero is more popular than I am, I will not allow my jealousy to drive me to throw him into the dungeons, even if urged to do so by my Evil Vizier. Instead, I will appoint him to a well paid position for which he is not suited, such as Head of the Fisheries Department, and allow him to fade from the public eye. If this does not solve the problem, I will assign him as an ambassador to a friendly and unimportant country as far from the capital as possible.

If my Queen and my Champion ever seem to be getting excessively friendly, I will send my Champion off on that crusade against Evil I've been meaning to get around to. My Queen and I will seek marital counselling.

I will reconsider marrying for love or money, and will instead marry a woman based on her demonstrated head for management and commitment to good government.

When a quest needs to be accomplished, I will send my youngest son first, and thus avoid ending up getting his brothers killed.

My identical cousin or twin brother will either be given a nice job within my administration or killed outright, or possibly both and in that order. Imprisoning him in some form of mask will not be an option.

I will scour the books for any pesky "Must be married by..." laws that might come up and bite me, or even worse my heirs, in the ass at a highly inappropriate time. Such laws are only there to allow the Evil Vizier another shot at stealing my throne.

My wife will be advised in no uncertain terms against inviting Faerie Godmothers, Witches, or supernatural creatures of any sort to our child's christening.

Old women, gypsies, and indeed people in general will be treated courteously at all times by my courtiers, champions and guards, even if I intend to have these people killed. Especially if I intend to have them killed.

Plans to build an invincible super-weapon will be filed and ignored, unless we are actually at war.

A good network of roads and accompanying communications system are vital to good government, and I shall maintain both.

Wizards and withes will not be harassed by my loutish knights, but will instead be offered well-paid jobs in my Royal University, and provided with enough wine and food to keep them drunk, fat and happy.

In fact, I will reconsider the need for loutish knights.

If my brilliant yet ruthless wife is determined that her worthless son be named as my heir, I shall ask her to come up with a convincing plan for him to successfully rule once she is no longer there to pull his strings. If she is sufficiently brilliant enough to come up with such a plan, I shall accept her wishes rather than see all of my other potential heirs killed off. If her plan is not convincing, I shall have the pair of them killed then and there, or possibly that night. The welfare of my people comes first.

If my wife seems to be gathering a great deal of power to herself, I will praise her for it, shower her with honors, and quietly assign her to take care of a massive and nearly impossible public works project, such as building a pyramid in a swamp or a wall that surrounds our entire kingdom. If she still wants power after trying to drain a swamp for thirty years, she can have it.

I will avoid marrying family enemies, such as the grand-daughter of a man my father killed or the widow of a man I slew in fair combat. Instead, I shall marry a plain but bright girl with a talent for city planning.

When my tomboyish young daughter determines to prove that she is as good as any man, I will provide her with as much combat training as she can handle and a command of her own, with very skilled, loyal, and good looking body guards. A few tastes of bloody combat and their aftermath should get the bloodlust out of her system, especially if I include "field medicine" as part of her training. The inevitable affair with a guard should get me some grand-children, and taking care of them will keep her out of combat for a few years.

My brave but foolhardy son shall be showered with love and praise, and will be sent into the worst of the fighting whenever possible. He'll either get some sense knocked into him or be killed.

My cowardly but clever son will be given love and praise and a nice position in the church, or possibly as an administrator. If he is both cowardly and a fool, he will be quietly killed. I can always adopt an heir, and the good of my people is more important than the purity of my line.

I will avoid producing extra-marital offspring. Yes, my needs are important, and a "spare" might come in handy someday, but 99% of the time bastards just cause trouble.

If a bastard son should show up, I will welcome him, shower him with gifts, and find a nice crusade for him to head off on. My Queen will just have to deal with it.

It is only proper that my standard of living is better than that of my subjects. Indeed, my subjects rightfully expect that of their ruler. However, I will never mistake my personal prosperity for that of the general populace and drive them into destitution.

Firmly disciplined peasants = good. Oppressed peasants = bad.

If the god of my country is not only demonstratably real, but has taken a close personal interest in my career, I will not tick Him off by pulling stupid stunts I darn well know are against His rules. My weasely workarounds and excuses are *not* going to impress Him, and the country really doesn't need another bout of divine wrath.

I will keep my children's feelings in mind when picking spouses for them. While political considerations are important, it won't help the planned alliance if my daughter's first reaction is to poison her new husband.

I shall not, under any circumstances, fund construction projects intended to "rival the glory of the Gods themselves." Instead, I shall base my development plans on the actual needs of my kingdom.

Should I be lucky enough to have a beautiful daughter, I will at no time declare her to be more beautiful than a named goddess, and will instead restrict myself to referring to her as "very beautiful". Similarly, I will not compare myself to any known divinity.

If asked to judge a beauty a contest between several rival Goddesses, I shall decline as politely as possible. If forced to participate, I shall base my choice of winner on the Goddess most able to offer post-contest protection, and prepare for the worst.

If my beloved son should bring his married lover to my capital city, I shall strongly advise the two of them to reconsider their relationship, and order them to leave. Love is grand, but my son's romantic life is not worth a major war.

Rather than relying on passing heroes to solve my monster problems, I shall invest in a well trained standing army.

If a Forest of Evil should exist on my lands, I will systematically clear-cut it, thus converting it into small farms over a period of 5-10 years rather than leaving it to fester.

If I feel that I absolutely must win back the Holy Land from the Infidel, I will not ride out to do so myself, leaving my evil and foolish younger brother on the throne. Instead, I will dispatch a loyal and competent general to take care of the problem.

I won't take any actions that could result in a bastard child until I have at least one legitimate heir, preferably two. My country doesn't need some noble (especially one related to the Queen) claiming that the reason there's no legitimate heir is because I've been too busy chasing other women to have sex with my wedded spouse.

If my Queen and I have fertility problems, I will get them taken care of promptly. Adoption is good, if nothing else works.

I will remember the "The greatest good of the greatest number" is a meaningless noise, because one can never tell who makes up "the greatest number," one cannot compare "good"s to tell which is "the greatest," and one cannot know ahead of time what all the ramifications of an action are going to be. Instead, I will simply act sensibly (and cautiously) to give my people a chance to improve their lives.

I will learn from my mistakes, rather than repeating them in the hopes the result I wanted will eventually occur.

I will not draft so many men for my armies that my fields can't be harvested.

I will not make enemies of any wizard who can cause earthquakes, melt stone, or shape rock. If I do, I will move out of my castle immediately.

I will not force anyone under four feet tall to fight in my army.

The three impossible tasks I set for my daughter's suitors will actually have something to do with qualities necessary in a future Benevolent Ruler. (Though admittedly the ability to do the impossible is a potent qualification all by itself.)

If a noble-spirited yet penniless peasant boy disguises himself as a prince with the aid of a powerful magical being just so he can woo my daughter, when his true identity is finally revealed I will not fly into a rage and have him imprisoned. Such actions are only a recipe for disaster.

When my trusted underling or long time friend informs me of a plot against the throne, I will give the claim serious consideration and begin an investigation. I will not cast my underling into the dungeons, nor shall I exile my friend, until and unless the investigation is complete. Of course my family might betray me. We're royalty. I shall plan accordingly.

Prisoners and Exiles shall be comfortably housed and well fed, and regular inspections by trusted third parties shall confirm this. I am not interested in punishment, I am interested in the good of the kingdom, and if I have made a mistake then I need to be able to reasonably make amends. If I were absolutely certain of their guilt, I should have had them executed.

If a brilliant but rather unstable wizard/artificer/scientist/etc. proposes to build a perfect/ultimate/doomsday weapon, I will immediately classify the project as the highest secret in the land, set him up in the most remote and isolated laboratory in my kingdom, protect him from any interference, and make sure that the 3 rarest and most difficult to obtain materials for the project are never within a hundred miles of the place.

If tempted to switch clothes with a peasant who happens to resemble me in order to pass for one of the common people, I shall instead have the peasant tell me detailed tales of his life over drinks in my nice, comfy sitting room, then give him a few coins and send him on his way. My job is too important to be left in the hands of an untrained peasant, and if he really can do it just as well as I can then I should just abdicate right now.

If I feel absolutely compelled to ignore common sense and disguise myself as one of the common people anyway, I will make sure at least two people who are not in the same chain of command, and are not my Evil Vizier, know where I'm going. Also, I will take along a competent bodyguard who knows when to stop calling me "Sire."

If I find that my son has been dressing as a peasant in order to mix with the common folk, I'll send him off to a nice monastery and get to work on a new heir... one with some damn sense this time.

If I find that my daughter has been dressing as a man in order to get some adventure in her life, I'll step up the military portion of her training and just let her get it out of her system openly instead of sneaking about and risking trouble.

If I am aware that my preferred heir is unacceptable to my subjects for some stupid reason (such as being born female in a country that allows only male rulers), I will do my best to ensure the person who actually takes the throne will be an acceptable substitute by my standards, and/or trained to take the advice of the more sensible heir. (Sadly, it turns out that some of the few laws the ruler cannot change to fit his preference in most monarchies is that dealing with who's eligible to succeed to the throne. So that route's out.)

If a mad scientist shows me plans for clearly unworkable or useless devices (other than doomsday devices or ultimate weapons), I will not laugh at him or exile him from the land. I will first attempt to cozen him into turning his talents towards research that could actually benefit our country, and if that fails, arrange for him to meet private investors and let them take the onus of turning him down.

If, by the nature of conflict, I am forced to attack another country, and if, by reason of necessity, enemy villages must be burned down with entire families slaughtered, etc, I will make sure another team will go through the village and adopt any children left behind so they do not grow up to be the Beloved Hero Who Will Kill Me For Slaughtering His Family. Rather, he will be raised with the knowledge that I am a benevolent ruler and be sure that he knows the knight who did the deed in the first place. By the time the hero grows up, that knight will surely be ready for the "early retirement package" or be able to deal with a hero with delusions of grandeur and revenge on his mind.

I will warn my children that witches and fairy godmothers have a bad habit of pretending to be beggars. If any of my children get sent out on a quest, I will make certain that they have extra loaves of bread handy to share with any beggars they encounter. Additionally, I will fund suitable public works programs to minimize the number of beggars in the kingdom.

If I am a benevolent Queen, I shall make arrangements to have my children spirited away to safety should I die and my loveable lug of a husband get remarried to an Evil Stepmother.

If the census determines that we have a seventh child of a seventh child in the kingdom, I will immediately offer to sponsor him or her to the Royal University and will keep a friendly but close eye on his progress. Seventh Children of Seventh Children always end up powerful, and I’d just as soon have that power on my side.

I will not commission clothing made from a fabric I cannot see. Naturally, I am under no obligation to mention its invisibility as the cause. "Wrong color" will suffice.

Since it is human nature to desire and wish, I will, at all costs, avoid talking with such absolutes as "everything" and "forever" and cultivate putting limits on such desires so that I don't starve by having everything I touch turn to gold, living forever aged senility, or having to keep my daughter imprisoned in a tower because she is the most beautiful in the land.

When I feel death creeping up on me, I will not make my heir promise me that he will have my body entombed within the sacred Halls of the Great in the Valley of Kings across the Desert of Despair and over the Mountains of Agony a thousand leagues from my kingdom as proof of his legitimacy to the throne. My foresight should have already made sure that my heir was competent and such foolish ventures are unnecessary. Just dump me in the garden please.


Go here to see what type of evil overlord you are 'compatible' with.

http://www.globalguardians.com/eviloverlordwiki.html




Cheers, Þórgrímr

_________________
Benno the Mad Wrote:
man, you gotta realise that thor and bos fell out of the patriot tree (like the ugly tree, but instills patriotism instead of ugly) and hit every branch on the way down.


"Gone now, dispersed by the brutal destruction of this one day, was the belief that the Darkman and his army of the dead were so superior as to be invincible. By attempting to destroy the morale of the Marines, the Darkman had restored it to full vigor. Dia De La Muerto had failed in its objectives."
The Gunny: Stand of the 300

Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war

Gunny's color #FF2400


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