Barius was the character I created as the love interest and villain for a 24 hour comic I drew called "What You Can't Have". I love intellectual villains and also prefer them to have a believable motivation. Not exactly sympathetic, but usually they suffer from the flaw of being willing to do evil in the name of good.

He was a general in a war his country had with native tribes that lived in a series of mountains and who were killing people in trade caravans and anyone who invaded what they saw as their borders. The problem is that those borders kept expanding and moving into another country's space. The natives would hide in the caves and use the knowledge of the grounds and the area to their advantage. They were small in number, but so vicious and brutal it took ten years to finally break them. Barius joined the war against them at sixteen, and at twenty-six he completed the final decisive campaign that broke them.

His home country has a rigid caste system of nobility, warrior class, craftsmen/merchants, servants/slaves, religious, and finally the casteless. The only way you can switch between the castes is to marry into one, or get lifted up by the emperor. (You can also join the military to enter into warrior caste, but it means a lifelong commitment to the military and as these are not peaceful times it is unlikely that you will live a long and happy life.) Because of his brilliant tactics that won the war. Barius was uplifted to Nobility.

He could have retired into luxury, but instead Barius ran for a senate seat and won. Unfortunately he had even greater ambitions and wanted to break the caste system, using his love interest, a casteless gladiator named Silver, as his means of achieving it.

His ambition was his downfall and he met his death at the hands of Silver in the temple where he intended to claim she was a goddess and he was her chosen speaker.