The Top 100 Things I'd Do
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

He likes to play that near to the chest. Wizards and their mysteries, right? 

I don't think there's an entry on the Overlord List that explicitly says you need to know why the most powerful spellcaster in your organization decided to join it, but it seems like a good idea.

Oh, I'm sure I know what Togomor's whole deal is, by this point in the story. I'm just not telling you. 

Seventy-eight?

78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."

Taking people alive is more of a job for a spellcaster than for the Legions of Terror anyway.

Seventy-nine?

79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.

That destroys option-value... but, for better or for worse, I don't think my doomsday device comes with a reverse switch, so this isn't really applicable.

Eighty?

80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.

Togomor spends all of his high-level spells every day except for a reserve he needs to defend himself or respond to emergencies, and, especially if we're late enough in the story that I have powerful enchantments, so do I. My weakest troops fail to eliminate heroes all day every day, that's things working as intended or at least as expected - the problem with sending stronger troops is that I don't always immediately know which of the weakest ones' failures need to be escalated how far how fast.

That seems fair to me. Do you think that you're doing as well as you can, here?

Am I making some kind of obvious mistake that you're about to point out?

None that I see! I was just looking for more information.

I'll think on ways to improve how quickly we get sundry heroes' measures...

Eighty-one?

It's a visual media trope:

 81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.

?

OH!

Oh, that's funny.

I want to watch a scene in figment-theater where someone's knocked off a flying carpet by, like, a tree branch or a bridge or a balcony. 

Does this really come up often enough in Earth fiction to earn a spot on the Overlord List?

Earth has trains! 

What are those?

Trains are a kind of mindless construct that can have 40+ Strength and move as fast as pegasi. We task them with hauling heavy loads and ride them from place to place, but only where we've built special train-paths in advance - without train-paths they get lost or trip and fall over; trains aren't very dexterous or smart.

Also, some kinds of trains draw their animating force from the train-paths themselves! So you can't exactly take them off-road. 

Woah.

Are trains useful as weapons of war, or - if you encircled your lands with train paths, could they hold that line against infantry like the Quantium Golems in Nex? 

It'd be too easy to destroy the train paths, or to evade the trains - they have a real hard time speeding up and slowing down, or turning around. Most of the constructs people use in war are less powerful, but more maneuverable.

Togomor crafts constructs and he's nearly as mighty as a wizard can get - how difficult of a quest would it be to get your hands on the principles behind the construction of train-paths or war constructs, or enough of said principles that Togomor could rederive the rest? 

I'm afraid I can't tell a mysterious evil wizard how to craft powerful otherworldly constructs.

My own caster level is very high and/or is growing very quickly, depending on where we are in the plot of Curse of the Crimson Throne, and I canonically pick up Craft Wondrous Item at some point - I could take Craft Arms and Armor too, and then I'd qualify for Craft Construct.

Would you tell me how to craft trains?