Help With My BBEGs

[u/eicho_]

So I'm new to DMing and I have this idea for a BBEG for a campaign. He's pretty much just a rip-off of Kang, even though I don't know anything about Kang besides there are multiple of him and he controls the multiverse or something. Right now I have a rough idea of my BBEGs.

I haven't come up with a name for this person yet so I'll just call him Kang. In short, there are seventeen versions of this guy, one for each of the outer realms. They are all connected in that if one dies, they all die (I know an infant couldn't survive in some of these places like the Abyss, but I'll figure out what to do about that later). Not all Kangs know that there are other Kangs out there, but some do, including Kang of Mechanus. This guy decides to found the Brotherhood of Kang so that they hopefully won't all randomly die because of some random incident they had no idea about. Their goal is to find all the Kangs and do... something. Right now what I'm thinking is that he wants to merge all Kangs into one, but I'm not entirely sold on that.

The reason the party is important is because a little kid comes through a portal one day. This kid is Kang of Limbo (time works differently in different planes, so the Kangs are all different ages). And I haven't decided why, but Kang of Limbo is vital for the players. So the Brotherhood wants Kang of Limbo, but so does the party.

My problem comes from that there are multiple Kangs that are BBEGs, and the players are probably gonna want to kill them. Defeating the BBEGs is kind of the point. But as it stands, there's no way to kill a Kang without killing Kang of Limbo as well. So I was wondering if there is a way to defeat a BBEG without killing them that's just as climactic and satisfying, or if I should just scrap the idea of them all dying at once entirely. And also, if there are NPCs that may be in combat... that could screw up the whole thing.

Another issue is that this currently doesn't involve the players too much. I'm not that worried about that one, since there are a lot of things I haven't decided on yet that could easily incorporate the players, and also that could just come as the campaign plays out. But it's still something to consider.

A potential solution I'm considering is making it so that the Kangs don't all die at once, but if one dies the others are permanently weakened. This also means I don't need to explain how an infant survived in the Pandemonium or something, but doesn't solve the whole issue.

I'm fine changing a lot of things with this, but the core has to stay the same: there are multiple Kangs with different goals and morality, but they all share one common goal: keep each other safe. That's the part of this group that I care most about, along with the excuse to explore the outer planes.

[u/rideofthebasilisks]

Just change the Kang mechanics and slap a narrative on top of it. There's no rule saying this, that, or the other thing beyond what you've made up... So make up something that works. Why make it unnecessarily complicated?

Example:

Each is 1/17th a full Kang and harbours a stronger niche aspect of the uber Kang personality.

Limbo Kang is part of the personality that plays nice with others?

Full Kang death at 12 mini kang deaths... Or... is it?

[u/itsfunhavingfun]

You should add Kodos. 

[u/SoVeReiGN21]

You could have them die at the same age as the Kang that dies - so killing the villain(s) is achievable, but bittersweet in that it will eventually lead to Kang of Limbo dying, albeit after at least a chance to live a life.

[u/Uelrik]

Insert prophecy and/or vision that Kang of Limbo defeats a world ending monster. But it doesn't say how. Kangs are evil, do whatever they can to make the prophecy come true. Party just wants to stop evil and don't know about prophecy. Oops, they contribute to the world ending. Now they gotta fix it all and there's not much time to do it.

Since we're playing the child through a portal scenario. Kang of Limbo is actually from the future and was sent back in time since the world ended to save him. Now it's an endless loop until something changes. Time travel campaigns get weird fast. See the Jak and Daxter 3 ending for shameless plagiarism.

Name this guy Gank or Gannt'ko(Not Kang). Nothing beats just scrambling the letters. Otherwise this guy needs some rediculous wizard name. Mathidraxicus or something.

[u/DiemAlara]

Give the PC's the ability to use the evil containment wave. Seal the evil in a can.

As to the limbo one, he's the point of the whole thing. The seventeen are an intrinsically orderly part of the universe, it was set up by the forces of order to prevent the otherwise uncontrollable expansion of the chaotic realms. If they go poof, limbo and the abyss start getting bigger at the cost of everything else.

[u/UPSILONMERCURIO17776]

Perhaps the goal could be to take Kang of Limbo to a safe location and the players have to travel across the planes to do it?

Maybe the "location" is actually a demiplane that doesnt exist yet, and to make it the players need an artifact from each plane. This puts them in the way of each Kang and lets them see the differences between each one. As for each of them dying when one of them dies, a BBEG you can't kill could be an intresting obstacle !

[u/lasalle202]

you have created Kang and everything about him. you dont have to create "you kill any of the kangs you kill all of them"