Hello everyone!
The BBEG of our ongoing campaign is not carved in stone yet, so I'm looking for some inspiration. As far as I've encountered them, the overwhelming majority of evil masterminds in pop culture and fiction are male. I'd like to have anything different than that, but at the moment, I can't think of many examples to draw inspiration from.
I don't have a lot of specifications for what I'm looking for. Apart from not being male, they should just be examples of true spite, not someone who can be bargained with. And they shouldn't be the right hand of another greater villain, but stand on their own feet in terms of scheming and orchestrating bad stuff. (So no Darth Vader, but an Emperor. An Empress, actually, or really anything but a dude.) They can come from any genre, media and setting. Favorable if they can pack a punch or two or more, though not mandatory.
D&D has Tiamat and Lolth, Star Trek TNG has the Borg Queen. But other than that, my mind's completely blank right now. I'd really appreciate any suggestions for more baddies to take a look at, characters that help me to get into other evil mindsets than those I'm most familiar with.
Thank you very much!
Few top of my head
But that said often you can just take a male villain and change them to a woman. Or non-binary. Would it be anything diffrent if it was EMPRESS Palpatine? LADY Vader would change a few things, but imagine on Mustafar Anakine being late in pregnacy. Duel with Kenobi plays out and she is left legless. Then waking up and being told "in your anger you killed them". Oh the self-loathing and hatred towards kenobi. Dammit I need dark-as-frakk Lady Vader fanfic now.
Sometimes the simplest solution is the best... Actually didn't think of just changing their gender, thanks!
Also yeah, my head's must have been REALLY empty yesterday, 'cause of course I know the Dathomir witches, Hela and some others mentioned in other comments. Just didn't come to mind when I sat down, don't know why