The Real Villains: Peter Themari

Continuing our series in which we look at the most authentically villainous content on offer in City of Villains, we're stopping by Peter Themari.

Themari's a very different kind of villain from Doctor Creed. He's cadaverous, decadent and concerned with nothing but indulging his own vile nature. He can be found in the Haven sector of Cap Au Diable, and is available between levels 10-14. You'll need to carry out three newspaper missions and succeed at a Mayhem Mission before your broker offers you Themari as a contact.

Themari's the first contact in CoV who is actively evil. Other contacts have had their own agendas: Fortunata Kalinda is an Arachnos lackey, Mongoose a snake hunter, Burke a mercenary and Creed a deranged scientist. Each one engages your services for reasons of their own. But Themari wants to do wrong for its own sake, and assumes you'll want to as well.

Themari's first arc puts you up against Longbow, who he fears will 'turn my lovely Cap au Diable into a field of pink and yellow daisies, where happy kittens frolic and play. Disgusting!' While it's meaty enough, it's his second arc that really stands out as a shocker.

Themari wants you to go after the fire-wielding hero Pyriss. The twist is that he doesn't want her dead, but corrupted. Defeating a hero is nothing compared to the joy of turning a force for good into one for evil. The mission arc involves finding out the truth behind the death of her parents (they died in one of Doctor Aeon's own forays into mad science) and then concocting a false story blaming the benign hero group, The Legacy Chain, for the tragedy.

The climactic mission has you and Pyriss breaking out of a Legacy Chain lair. The former heroine turns her fiery blasts on the very magicians who were trying to defend her.

Here's a hint: to get the most villainous possible ending, it's best to let Pyriss be defeated by the Legacy Chain although your formal objective is to get her out of there alive. She's transported to the hero hospital, only to cross an irrevocable line as she fights her way out. As Themari says: 'That is class, my friend, that is true villainy. There's no going back for her.'

Indeed there isn't, for we will meet Pyriss again, many levels later. For now, Themari is our first taste of evil for its own sake, rather than mere thuggery or profiteering.