“Life’s full of tough choices, isn’t it?”
A Bad Guy that makes deals is always a fun concept for a Table Top Roleplaying Game. A hag making a promise with a handshake, a genie ready to twist the words of a wish, a devil being devilish with the details. It’s always going to lead to fun, nervous roleplaying, and often with long lasting ramifications.
Combine that with a half-octopus form, shapeshifting powers, evil eels, Poseidon’s trident… and we’re looking at a true contender for Greatest Disney Big Bad Evil Guy.
Presence – 5 out of 5
Ursula presents us with 3 forms:
Standard Ursula, oozing with contemptuous glee, loud and proud, ferociously chewing the scenery.
Then we have Vanessa, a prim and proper human guise with a stolen voice, everyone she meets wrapped her round her conceited fingers.
And then, finally, we have Final Boss Ursula, a colossal octo-woman with a super-sized magical trident that can control the ocean.
Standard Ursula alone is a tremendous presence as well as an incredible manipulator. Most importantly, she’s a present Bad Guy from the start, not hiding who she is. She’s hiding her intentions, but she’s clearly a villain from the start, that gets what she wants because she has something the heroes want.
Add in her giant form and her, quite frankly, gorgeous disguise, and this is an easy 5 out of 5.
Atmosphere – 3 out of 5
She may be a powerful creature, but she’s no Poseidon. That’s an important plot point after all. So whilst we see her steering the story throughout, and steering the actual ocean in the finale, the world is not impacted by her so much. She does have an impressive lair, but beyond that space the ocean is a fairly jovial place, where sealife is content to spontaneously launch into musical numbers.
Having said that, there is a subtle but significant impact she’s been having on the world – there’s an awful lot of people missing because of her.
I can’t give you an exact head count, but when you see ‘Ursula’s garden’, there’s at least 40 pairs of desolate eyes staring back at her, and silhouettes at the back of a long, long tunnel suggest that there are many more sea folk ‘living’ with Ursula instead of swimming free.
Omniscience – 5 out of 5
Those aforementioned sea folk are trapped in Ursula’s Garden because they made a deal with her that went awry (or they went bad from their perspective). They made those deals because they believed Ursula had the power to help them. Everyone she has helped is in that garden, which means word-of-mouth isn’t bringing her victims. She’s reeling these people in because she knows what they want, and how to exploit that.
We see that, of course, with Ariel. Ursula immediately lasers in on what the princess needs and how to convince her to give up so much.
From that point on, she’s also constantly keeping herself appraised of where Ariel is and what she is doing, scrying on her at every chance she gets.
Aside from a chaotic, animal-ambush taking her by surprise in the third act, Ursula is in control the whole way.
Henchmen – 2 out of 5
Flotsam and Jetsam are the only goons Ursula can rely on, but they do have their benefits. As well as extending her vision, they don’t suffer from the same level of Henchmen Idiocy that many Disney support-villains have. They are cunning, and clearly learned manipulation from Ursula.
In terms of threat level though, they have sharp teeth and they can give a boat a good shove, but they’re not the toughest opponents. Not in a realm where sharks exist.
Threat Level – 5 out of 5
Jafar and Hades lost a point here because of show-boating and a lack of intent to kill. Not Ursula. She wanted to murder Ariel and Philip the moment her plan fell apart.
Of course, we know that Ursula doesn’t need to kill her opponents. She’s more than happy to shrink you down and add you to the garden. Which in your TTRPG is essentially the same as killing the Player Character.
Finale – 5 out of 5
The BBEG turns into a gigantic version of themselves and uses Poseidon’s trident to conjure whirlpools. It’s a great finale in a TTRPG as well as the movie.
Phillip owes his victory to a boat. Had that wreck not emerged for him to skewer Ursula’s tummy, this would have been an overwhelming loss. For your adventurers, this would be an incredible fight, especially given the danger of the violent seas.
Final Score = 4.16
Wishes and deals and such don’t need to be on a stat block, because they are very much up to the DM and player to hash out. You can’t/shouldn’t try and cover every nitpick and nuance that could come from a deal with Ursula. That kind of goes against the bad faith deal she’s going for.
What I have done is try to make written sense of the powers she demonstrates, and also weaponise a couple of them.
I’ve taken a few liberties here. Ursula in the movie was just getting warmed up when the ancient ship shanked her so severely, but with Poseidon’s trident in hand you can imagine what else she could have unleashed. She never got to use its lightning blasts, but they were definitely there.
| Disney Villain | Score |
| Ursula | 4.16 👑 |
| Hades | 4.00 |
| Jafar | 3.83 |
| Professor Ratican | 3.66 |
| Lyle Tiberius Rourke | 3.66 |
| Billy Pine, a.k.a Syndrome | 3.33 |
| Elsa of Arendelle | 3.16 |
| Hopper | 3.16 |
| Robert Callaghan | 3.00 |
| The Horned King | 3.00 |
It makes a lot of sense to that Ursula would be at the top. She’s out and evil from the first act, a class-act manipulator, and ready to throw a serious spectacle at the end of the campaign. I really don’t know if we’re going to get any better.
Thank You For Reading
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Gamer Peak 