Summary
While most magic items inDungeons & Dragonsare designed with the player in mind, there are plenty of unique items that can be used against the party. Most villains in your D&D campaigns will likely use more than just their raw power to exert control, and giving them access to magic items is one way to enhance their abilities.
While this can just be a +3 longsword or arcane focus, some magic items are uniquely beneficial to NPCs who are working to undermine the party, rather than just kill them. While you may justify most random trinkets that make their way into a villain’s treasure hoard, the best magic items add specific effects that make them stand out.
Rarity
Legendary
An updated versionof the Deck of Many Things with over 40 additional cards, The Deck of Many More Things is probably one of the riskiest magic items you can give to your players, but when given to a villain, the waters are murkier.
Let the dice decide your villain’s fate and be prepared for anything to happen in the upcoming fight. Alternatively, if you don’t mind a little DM fate tweaking, you can decide exactly what cards are in the deck and which ones they will pull to avoid messy or unsatisfying outcomes.
The deck can also help flavor mages to play into the theme chaos, as many of the cards can lead to wildly different results.
Given to a devout villain who worships a being of pure evil, the Talisman Of Ultimate Evil can act as a symbol of their devotion while giving them access to powerful effects. Any creature of a non-evil alignment automatically takes damage just from touching it, making it unusable for most adventuring parties.
Those who can wield it can use its charges to open a rift beneath any creature and immediately snuff them out of existence if they fail a high DC Dexterity saving throw. While this can be extra punishing for players, you’re able to use this effect to allow your villain to demonstrate their power on a beloved NPC.
Very Rare
Actually being three connected items, the Lord’s Ensemble together allows any character wearing them to become completely anonymous and disguise their appearance perfectly. This is especially important for villains whose mere identity can put them at risk.
With these items, you can have your villain hiding in plain sight, and even be an infiltrating NPC known to your players. You could use this to drop hints during encounters while they’re in the ensemble and make discovering who this person might be the primary thread of the adventure.
Rare
A small metal sphere that must be installed somewhere on your body, a docent is essentially a secondary operating system meant for a warforged. However, any creature can use this to gain access to a sentient being that both advises and assists them while also being able to keep them from dying after reaching zero hit points.
In role play, your villain could be seen talking to themself, and using the spells accessible to the docent to be warned of an approaching party. Since the docent can also stabilize whoever it is attuned to, this can mean your villain is able to get away from deadly fights should they be dragged away by loyal minions.
A Blod Stone is a diamond that contains the blood of a specific creature. Anyone attuned to the Blod Stone can sense the location of the nearest blood relative or owner of the blood in the stone. An especially vengeful villain can use thisto hunt downevery member of one of the party’s family.
The trick is to find a way for your villain to get the blood in the stone in the first place, which can also be used to warn them if the party is encroaching on their territory. If or when the party catches onto why and how their family members are dying, it can lead to a race to see who reaches the next NPC first.
Rarities
Uncommon, Rare, Very rare
Anytime you can give your villain a journal or diary to write down their most heinous secrets and juicy gossip is a great way for your players to engage in the adventure with more information. An Arcane Grimoire is a way for a wizard villain to both buff their class abilities and to impart dark lore.
you may use any of the arcane tomes in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything if you want to access specific spells or unique abilities of the tome itself. In contrast, an arcane grimoire can be especially useful for other wizards in the party tolearn unique spellsonly the villain had access to.
The Staff of Power is an exceptionally powerful staff that in most ways gives your villain a number of buffs and spells that bring them from formidable to deadly. This is best for spellcasting characters who need a recognizable prop that is a symbol of their power and threat to the world.
An interesting ability of the Staff of Power is that its wielder can break it, releasing the remaining energy, and causing a massive explosion centered on the staff. A villain on the verge of defeat might use this action as a last ditch effort to defeat the party, and even has a 50 percent chance of being whisked away to another plane.
Armor (plate)
Although typically in plate armor form, you can choose any form of the Armor of Invulnerability that best suits your villain’s style and proficiency. Simply put, the armor makes its wearer resistant to non-magical damage and immune for ten minutes when activated.
During low level adventures when your party has yet to obtain a handful of magic weapons, this can allow you to safely introduce your villain and establish them as a nearly unbeatable threat. Then, the party has to prepare and obtain powerful items themselves over the course of an adventure before they are ready.
A fairly unique item in D&D, Kyrzin’s Ooze is a symbiotic goop that, when drunk, transforms the imbiber into an ooze-like being. This includes being resistant to poison and acid damage, the ability to squeeze through narrow spaces, and a powerful acid breath attack.
Although dying while infested with the ooze doesn’t save the villain, it instead transforms their corpse into a Black Pudding, which essentially gives them a second boss stage. The only issue with Kyrizin’s Ooze is it’s controllingly thematic, and will make your villain more or less “the ooze guy” when introduced to your players.
Weapon (any)
Flavored as any weapon likely to be wielded by your villain, the Weapon of Throne’s Command has a number of spells that are useful for controlling the party for their own whims. In addition, it also gives the wielder proficiency with intimidation and persuasion, which can be used on NPCs to show off their enhanced authority.
Both in and out of combat, a number of the spells can force party members to turn against each other or completely remove them from combat, which is thematic for a villain whose motivation is control. This weapon can also be the focus for apolitical intrigue campaign, where advisors backstab each other to get one step closer to it.
