The Evil Overlord Handbook

An undisclosed location

2011-04-04T20:57:00.002+08:00

While I can neither confirm nor deny the resurrection of Gar the Pitiless, he has asked me to pass on this missive from his undisclosed non-confirmable Fortress of Solitude:

Dear Peons-

Death is unpleasant. I don't recommend it, personally, but it does give one time to think. In the last few months I have had ample opportunity to condense and crystallize my decades of evil wisdom. Therefore I will, as time permits, be issuing the occasional Evil Overlord Aphorism. I hope to one day have them bound in the skins of my enemies and issued as a limited collector's edition, but we shall see.

Insincerely,

Gar the Pitiless

Sad News

2010-05-31T00:52:00.001+08:00

The evil overlord is dead.

While one can never count a 'good' evil overlord out, Gar appears to be taking his dirt nap pretty seriously right now.

You can stay tuned, but don't hold your breath.

Career Crisis, or, Getting back on the (High) Horse, or the Power of Negative Thinking

2010-01-12T14:01:00.010+08:00

I apologize, my minions, for such a long delay between posts. I know that some of you have been bereft without my guidance, and I would pity you, except for the whole 'pitiless' image that I must maintain -- though not for my own benefit- oh, no. An aspirational figure must always look beyond his own petty concerns and preferences. And so I must inform you that any botched attempts you made at world domination in my absence were doomed to fail due to the fact that I'm so super and you're so stupid. You should have waited for me to return.

I do, however, have a confession to make. After my arch-nemesis (Hamish the Asphyxiated) expired, it was as if a void opened up in my life. After months of planning and plotting and assorted maneuverings, I have to say I lost faith in the power of evil when Hamish was taken from my clutches. Life seemed almost pointless. I became Gar the Despondent.

However, just this morning I had a dark epiphany! I learned to see what I at first deemed a serious mishap in an entirely new light. I call it the Power of Negative Thinking.

My entire (and considerable - one might even say godlike) will was fixed on Hamish's death for months: How could the universe fail to see what had become an inevitability? Why should I be surprised that Fate or Chance heeded the titanic pressure put to bear upon it by none other than yours truly? Hamish's fate was not an interruption of my plans; oh no. The olive that blocked his windpipe, turned his face blue and had him convulsing on the carpet was nothing less than a physical manifestation of my unalloyed negative thinking! Destiny chose to do my dirty work for me, fearing my awesome powers. I would stand in awe of myself, were it not for the fact that I would then share that trait with you quislings.

With my shaken self-conviction now unshakeable, I will return to perfecting the art of Total Domination (TM) . In fact, you are permitted to wait patiently for my forthcoming book, tentatively titled "The Awesome Power of Negative Thinking" by yours truly. In fact, you are allowed send me large amounts of money to secure your copy.

why?

2009-08-24T15:30:00.004+08:00

Unbelievable. I spend months crafting a plan to destroy Hamish, to rip from him everything and everyone he loves and cares about, and he chokes to death on an olive.

Just- I just-

Why do I bother?

A slight problem

2009-04-26T12:42:00.004+08:00

No lesson today, my minions, just a little catch-up on my current schemes for Utter Domination, which have been set back just a scoch.

Immediately after returning from my, er, enforced vacation, I found myself spat out onto the Plain of Sorrow in an untidy pile of Gar pellets. The Plain is a place nearly as bleak and lifeless as the Abyss itself, and generally described as 'the ass-end of nowhere'. It says it on the map, actually, in parentheses. Good cartographers around here.

Anyway, through sheer force of will and a good deal of trial and error, I managed to reconstitute myself. There really is a place for everything, and everything really should be in its place. And I always thought my mother's little aphorisms were just her trite nature shining through.

I trudged my way out of the Plains, came upon a mud-walled village named Thrudd, subjugated the peasants there to my will, forcing them to clothe my sun-blistered body (no clothes in the Abyss, for future reference) , feed me from their pitiful stores of root vegetables and dried lizards, and give me their finest residence to sleep in (the mud hut that had moldy straw on the mud floor).

In the morning, after a nice bark-and-lizard soup flavoured with the ceremonial blessing of the entire village (apparently they spit in your food as a sign of respect, even awe in Thrudd), I continued my homeward journey, looking forward to finally arriving at my Dark Stronghold and reclaiming my rightful (or rather wrongful) place in the grand sheme. And a bath.

To make a long story short, it's gone.

That bastard Hamish tore it all down. I always thought the phrase 'leave no stone atop another' was just so much hyperbole. Apparently not. My Pit, my undead army, my poetry! All gone.

So. I find myself in the position that all Evil Overlords must inevitably come to at least once in their careers: Plotting my revenge.

That's all I have the heart to write tonight, dear minions. Rest assured, however, you haven't heard the last of me. Nor has Hamish.

You win when you don't lose

2009-04-11T20:15:00.004+08:00

Generally speaking, I am against the use of foul language by an Evil Overlord. One should bring a certain level of class to the profession.

However, when your enemy banishes you to the Abyss/Null Space/Outer Void, 'never to return'; and you do indeed return, DESPITE the fact that your physical self had been broken down into particles no larger than an average raisin (if that), you are allowed and perhaps even expected to voice a few crudities.

So, to Hamish, Bringer of Light, I'd just like to say: SUCK MY EVIL, SWEATY, RECONSTITUTED BA%%S.

Evil Overlord Insomnia

2008-10-09T00:36:00.004+08:00

It has been a considerable length of time since I last cast forth pearls of wisdom for you eager swine. I would apologize, if I could work up the insincerity. The truth is I am a rather grumpy Evil Overlord at the moment, and haven't got the energy to spare.

I've certainly been busy, what with the trammeling of peasants and the beheading of plotters, and usually a busy Gar the Pitiless is a happy Gar the Pitiless. But lately I have suffered from difficulty sleeping, and the lack of rest is telling on my generally cheerful disposition.

The first handful of nights, I shrugged it off, owing to recent stress involving certain difficulties renegotiating a contract with beings from the nether plane. But even after the dispute was resolved (satisfactorily, I might add; these infernal creatures care mainly about quantity, not quality in regards to souls, and I've got absolute scads of villages under my domination, filled with the useless elderly and infirm, nearly all of them with perfectly servicable souls), I have had great difficulty in getting a good night's rest.

I swear, without a decent night's sleep I just feel less than human in the morning. And all the wailing and hair-pulling and heaping-of-ashes and the banging outside my Stronghold gates, from the relatives of the villagers I sacrificed to Hoth the Devourer, simply isn't helping matters. You'd think they'd have a little human decency and keep it down in the wee hours of the morning, at the very least.

I mean really. It's not like their dear old Granny or whomever is dead. She'll be perfectly fine up until the moment she keels over. Certainly, once she dies she'll experience an eternity of torment in the gullet of a demon, but it's not as if her relatives are going to get postcards from the afterlife explaining all that she's going through. Honestly, these peasants have no sense of proportion.

Well. I can't say that I've necessarily passed on any advice that will further your designs on Total Domination tonight, but the writing of this has passed a half hour that I would otherwise have spent staring up at my bedroom ceiling, so I suppose it was worth it. Now to test out the boiling oil I had my troops install at the Stronghold gates this afternoon. It had better be flammable. I specifically told them to make it flammable.

On the hiring of anyone with the appellation "Mad": Just don't.

2008-07-10T11:37:00.005+08:00

While there may well be uses for the insane in some (very) specialized organizations, I have yet to discover one in my own. This includes the criminally insane. Essentially, the point to be made here is when you hire/intimidate/blackmail someone into performing a task for you, what you want is results - predictable, calculable results that you can plug into your grand scheme. What you get, when hiring unhinged loons (and they all are, your Evil geniuses, Mad Scientists, Crazed Sorcerers et. al.) is chaos.

And anyway, why would you want to hire a mad scientist when there are so very many sane scientists out there willing to invent and improve upon the most heinous technology, and for nothing more than a decent wage and modest benefits? Sure, the mad scientist or crazed magician may be willing to work for free, just to prove his theory correct. But you have to remember two things here:

1) By and large, you get what you pay for, and
2) he or she is not working for you , or to advance your interests, but to prove their mad theory correct. He/she is in the grip of an obsession. And he/she is bug-f*ck crazy.

You do the math. Cutting corners is a bad idea.

A final thought: If you simply can't help yourself and decide to take a chance on the Mad Alchemist of Prrng or whomever, make sure you give him or her a research facility, far, far away from anywhere you might mind seeing turned into slag. It also wouldn't hurt to name the facility after a dead relative of your worst enemy, e.g. "The King Gustus Memorial Institute for the Advancement of Magics" or the like. That way, when things inevitably go spectacularly wrong, public backlash is channeled ina useful direction.

The Last Evil Overlord List You Will Ever Need

2008-07-03T15:11:00.004+08:00

It has come to my attention that there are several lists advising prospective Evil Overlords on what/what not to do (here, here and here being good examples). All of these lists bear a suspicious resemblance to one another.

Being magnanimous as well as pitiless, I thought I myself would write write down a concise, thoroughly original list on what to do to become a successful Evil Overlord:

1. Do whatever Gar the Pitiless says I should do.
2. Do not do anything Gar the Pitiless says I should not do.

How simple I make things for you, and how little you appreciate it.

Evil Opportunity Employer

2008-07-03T11:17:00.003+08:00

It is with no little contempt that I view those who aspire to Total Domination who, through an accident of birth or fortune, already hold high position in life. You know the sort. The Parricidal Princes, The Grand Viziers, The Dowager Empresses. For some reason we are supposed to applaud their 'cunning', when they've done the political equivalent of stepping from a scented bath into a warm robe held out by a servant. Bah.

Myself, I come from a long line of dirt farmers. Literally. Our lands were cursed, and could grow nothing. We also had a good sideline in stones. Due to the curse-induced seismic and meteorological activity, however much we dug out of the frozen, snow covered ground the day before, more was there the next day, awaiting the pick axes and shovels.

Being the youngest of thirteen, it was decided I was to have an education. Which was better than wielding a shovel, but also meant that, due to the curse, I had to walk ten miles to school and back each day in the snow, uphill, both ways. I like to think the experience toughened me for the travails inherent in the uphill climb towards Total Domination.

The point here is that Evil, unlike 'Good', is egalitarian and meritocratic. It cares nothing for birth, lineage, station or fate. Your typical hero? A handsome prince or feisty princess, or the same robbed of their birthright, or some pig farmer 'destined' to fulfill a prophecy (and incidentally, found a new lineage of handsome princes and feisty princesses).

Such is the modus operandi of the opposition. You'll find not a homely or overweight one in the bunch. It sickens me, it truly does. My own policy on the hiring and advancement of staff is strictly merit based. They are all self-made men and women. Literally, in some cases.

At the end of the day, I couldn't care less how many tumors or buboes your face may harbour, though I might politely request you sit at the other end of the table when it comes to organization-wide meals. You say you're the twisted offspring of a cannibalistic she-troll and a dark sorcerer? I say you've got the best of two worlds. Leprous seers, corpse-eating ghouls, swamp witches with the evil eye, they've all got their place under the vast umbrella of evil, because what matters at the end of the day are results.

Just remember who you work for, I remind them periodically. Or else.

There is no I in team. Perforce, Evil Overlords do not have teams.

2008-07-01T12:06:00.000+08:00

In the previous post, it was asked where I stand on begging for my life. This is an interesting question, and one that bears looking at in some detail.

For the vast majority of Evil Overlords, utter domination is not simply handed them on a plate (more on this in a post to come). Most of us struggle, fight, claw, backstab and poison our way to the top. It is a singular profession, a solitary calling, and partnerships are doomed to degenerate into bloody, non-revenue generating, tax base destroying civil wars. Three may rule a kingdom, if two are dead.

With that in mind, I am not ashamed to admit that my career has not been without its periods of setback. When you can rely only on yourself, it is almost a certainty that you will at one time or another be captured by the enemy, double crossed, etc., especially in your early days. The thing to remember when you have fallen into the clutches of an adversary is that the most important person in the entire world is you. Anything- absolutely anything- is acceptable if it leads to a positive outcome regarding your continued existence.

Some may call it megalomania, this idea that I am the most important person in the universe. I call it enlightened self-interest. I call it that, because I have an utter certainty that if I cease to exist, then all of you little people disappear. Now I might be wrong, but is it really worth it to take the chance? I think not.

So. When captured by an adversary and tortured, threatened with torture, or even looked at in an especially unfriendly way, I say and do anything that has the slightest chance of continuing my existence. I would (and have) sold my own mother into slavery in such situations. I mean, I always buy her back at a later date, and the first time I was faced with being impaled on a sharpened stake. And because she's my mother, she's somewhat obliged to forgive me. Best of both worlds, really.

Finally, the thing an Evil Overlord must always remember, no matter how deeply our pride or vanity might be wounded, is that words are just a bit of air we press out of our lungs across our vocal cords, while a sharpened stake through the abdomen is, well, a sharpened stake through the abdomen. And once you're in the grave, it's incredibly difficult to wreak your revenge. Especially if you are forced to wear a girdle keep your innards from falling out.

Evil Overlord Mantra When Captured by an Adversary:

I am the most important me I will ever have.

"Fair" Fights

2008-06-29T10:02:00.000+08:00

"Your enemies want you to be stupid and ineffectual, just like them. Well you know what? Screw them, that's what." -Xulthar the Reviled

The same mouth-breathers who complain about your actions being "wrong" and "evil" will also rail against your so-called 'dishonourable' acts. This generally boils down to the fact that an Evil Overlord will under no curcumstances 'fight fair'. Your job is not to engage in fair fights. Your job is to win. Therefore you will make the fight as unfair as possible. The last thing you want is a level playing field.

How many times has my Army of Doom captured some hapless hero and brought him to me (rather like a cat with a rodent, actually; distasteful, but they mean well), whereupon the prisoner demands I fight him in 'honourable combat' or some other version of the same?

First, honourable combat is a feature of the code of chivalry, which is reserved for the nobility. I am not a member of the nobility. By the fool's own rules I'm not obliged to comply with his request. Second, even if I was nobly born, I'm not stupid. He's spent his whole life training to stick a sharp length of metal into his enemies, whereas I had better things to do with my time. How on earth would that ever be a 'fair' fight?

It boggles the mind. Like I'm actually going to tell my troops to stand aside while I fight this muscle-bound ox one to one. Look, Sir Whatever of Wherever, you were captured. You already lost. You are, essentially, already dead. So why on earth would I allow you the opportunity to cut me in half with that humping great longsword my men have already taken away from you? Do I look like I was dropped on my head as a child?

I mean really. Have some class. Your whining about me being 'dishonourable' is really you whining about the fact that you aren't getting a second chance that you simply don't deserve. Be a man and go get beheaded without all the snivelling.

Enforced hiatus over

2008-06-25T15:44:00.000+08:00

My apologies for the lengthy delay between posts. We had an eensie weensie coup attempt, and I found myself briefly housed in my own Pit of Doom. Then there was the escape, the destruction of the enemy, the burning and pillaging of sympathiser villages, the days upon days of racking my brains for ingenious and ironic tortures.... In other words, life sometimes interferes with higher pursuits. One must always be on guard against the daily grind. And traitors.

In any case, today I offer only one small, albeit key bit of advice concerning the mindset of an evil overlord, brought to mind when the rebels dropped me down the Pit of Doom: Always think ahead. They didn't. If they had, they might have asked themselves if I had ever actually dispatched an enemy in this fashion.

While they would have come up with many rumours to that effect, if they'd bothered to track them down they would have found that it had always happened to a friend's brother's uncle or some such. Because, really, why would I have a humping big hole in the floor of my throne room, where I might accidentally fall in, never to return? In actuality the Pit is a rather nicely furnished studio apartment, complete with running water and an extensively stocked pantry. And an escape tunnel. And my reserve Army of the Undead.

Having the Pit is a good (meaning fear-inducing) PR move, and it usually keeps my minions in line, knowing they might be tossed in if they displease me. In actuality, I get rid of enemies in far less spectacular, and far more efficient ways.

And so should you.

Love and the Evil Overlord, briefly

2008-03-07T10:37:00.000+08:00

I shall write on this while the experience is still fresh (and painful).

When you have a beautiful princess staying with you on an enforced holiday, and over the course of several weeks you bend her emotions to your will through a combination of stunning, original poetry, expensive gifts and sleep deprivation, do not, in any case, take her word for it that she's fallen madly in love with you.

In fact, rather the opposite is likely to have happened. She will, in all probability, wait for the moment when you are at your most vulnerable (physically and emotionally) to attempt to drive a hat pin through your eye.

A hat pin. Through your eye.

I thought we had something special.

Inferior retroactive competition

2008-02-25T17:28:00.000+08:00

It has come to my attention that there is in fact another Evil Overlord Handbook out there. I assure you, if you are pinning all your hopes and schemes on that inferior work, well, let's just say you'll almost certainly get what you deserve.

Good and Evil: It's all relative

2008-02-21T23:16:00.000+08:00

The world needs Evil Overlords far more than it needs heroes.

Now I don't expect most readers to accept this fact right off the bat, but over the course of this work, the above truth will, I am certain, impress itself upon you, much like a thin sliver of wood being forced under a fingernail. You may not like it. You may well shriek and beg to have it removed. But you really won't be able to deny it.

First things first, though: Let's just get the whole morality, justice, good and evil rigamarole out of the way right at the beginning, shall we? It needs to be dealt with early, because the 'Evil' in 'Evil Overlord' has some fairly negative connotations. By the end of this section, you will see why that shouldn't bother you overmuch. I'll make it as brief as possible, since I consider the issue deadly dull.* I'll also make it easy-peasy for all the slow learners out there. No need to thank me. That's why they call it a thankless task, after all.

Look, it's quite simple really. Most people would claim that they know right from wrong, good from evil. In reality they know nothing of the sort. I'll prove it with a simple multiple choice question:

Theft is:

a) wrong
b) right
c) I don't know

The correct answer for you is c) of course, as I haven't told you what to think yet. Now let's go through the wrong answers, shall we?

Answer a) is incorrect. Consider the following: A penniless man steals a loaf of bread from a miser to feed his starving children or aged, infirm grandparents. Or, why not, his starving children and his aged, infirm grandparents, after having exhausted all honest means to secure sustenance for the useless, er, helpless relatives. In fact, the rich miser who was stolen from was actually the cause of the man's penniless state, in some wholly legal but utterly reprehensible fashion. And all this after the man had saved the miser's life at great personal risk.

Would you still say that his stealing the loaf of bread was wrong? If so, Evil Overlording isn't really for you (inflexibilty in thinking, unfortunately, is a deal-breaker). You should however consider a career in an allied profession, perhaps banking or insurance work.

Now if you answered b) you should know two things. First, your dedication to criminality does you credit. Second, you're an idiot. The best you can ever hope for is a low-level position in a second-rate criminal organization, where you will prosper until the inevitable day when you try to double-cross your boss on a big score and end up as part of the foundation of a municipal building or the main ingredient in meat pies. I mean, really. I'm surprised you were able to read the question, let alone answer it. You're a hopeless dolt.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The answer is, as I said, c). Not just because I say so, but because you simply weren't given enough information. (An Evil Overlord must never allow someone else to set the boundaries of anything, be they tests or socially acceptable behaviour or sovereign nations.) Here, you didn't have enough information to make a coherent decision, which is the problem with most people and their pathetic attempts at moral judgments. They assume. They make knee-jerk decisions, and they are generally wrong.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying morality is relative. The tired little trick I played with that question can be applied to virtually every crime/sin imaginable. Murder? Check. Cannibalism? Check. Evil Overlordship? Double check with stars and hearts in multi-coloured ink.

Think of it this way: A person intelligent, capable and powerful enough to seize power from an established power is, ipso facto, more deserving of said power.

Allright, now I can sense some of you struggling to think about that last statement. Please don't. You'll only sprain something. Just take my word for it at this stage. I'm the Evil Overlord. You're just an aspiring faceless cog. I know what I'm talking about, whereas you probably struggle to turn food into poop.**

Evil Overlord's Daily Affirmation: Good and Evil are whatever I say.

* For those of you who wish to delve into an in-depth analysis and discussion of morality, ethics and the like, too bad. This is, as the subtitle states, a practical guide to ultimate power, not '101 Ways To Soulfully Gaze Into Your Navel, You Snivelling Twit'.

** Try a little fibre.

Preface

2008-02-20T12:09:00.000+08:00

If my estimates are correct (and of course they are; I'm never wrong about such things), the Armies of Light will be breaking through my 'final' defenses in about two months, nine days and fourteen hours. As every conceivable preparation was made for this ultimate conflict months ago, I find myself with a deal of time on my hands. Not one to be idle, I thought I would avail myself of the opportunity to set down some of the precepts that any Evil Overlord should know, be it when they first start out or when they are rather further along on their path to domination.

At first I considered entitling this work Memoirs of an Evil Overlord, but really that's rather staid, uninteresting and inaccurate to boot. Plus it smacks of a defeatist attitude, as if my meddling in the affairs of the world is past. Which of course is far from the case.

Then I entertained the idea of calling it Confessions of an Evil Overlord, which has a much more naughty feel to it, and is sure to pique the prurient interests of a wider audience than boring old Memoirs. But ultimately I decided that accuracy was what I was truly aiming for. Thus the final title.

You see, there comes a time in every great man's life when he wishes to share his knowledge with future generations. Which is why, once I smash the Armies of Light in approximately two months, nine days and fourteen and one-half hours, I will institute a compulsory literacy program throughout the land, then make this work of practical genius required reading for all my thralls, failure to comply resulting in beheading.

Now some might ask, "Aren't you worried about competition?" The answer of course being no. Any Evil Overlord worthy of the title welcomes the opportunity to prove his superiority over upstart pretenders. Have at it. Come against me and I will crush you, for while I will have taught you everything you know, rest assured I will not have taught you everything I know.

Have a great day,

Gar the Pitiless