Evil. The word has been applied to
D&D as a whole--it's a touchy subject. Everyone who plays the game knows that the heroes, whose role is taken up, must face wickedness as a matter of vocation. There have been other sources in the d20 industry that tried to address this issue for the DM and player alike. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) makes a strange turn, according to its usual PG-13 policies, and tried putting "authentic" evil in
D&D, with no less aid than the mighty pen of Monte Cook. Enter the
Book of Vile Darkness.
WotC hyped the book as both a daring foray into the iniquitous and an experiment. It was to boldly look at depraved and sinister subjects without becoming prurient or juvenile. Of course, they said, such a book must be for mature audiences only--a sticker on the front of the book will warn away the unwary and inform parents. (They should have shrink-wrapped each book and put the sticker on the wrap. These stickers are annoying and they mar the cover of the book because they are so hard to remove.) With this book, a DM was to have rules for followers of darkness, against which the light of the heroes would shine more brightly. Did it succeed?
Book of Vile Darkness starts out by giving the reader the flavor of evil. It sticks to the central theme in
D&D that evil and good are absolutes, while acknowledging the idea of relative evil. Relative, evil in this case means, culturally and individually formed ideas of evil in which it's hard to apply spells like
detect evil. Though it leaves out other possibilities, these two extremes bring out the ideas of other possibilities just in their revelation--something Monte is very good at.
The definition of evil is still unclear, however, by the time one reads through many pages on defining evil, evil acts, and addictions. The ultimate meaning is left under the purview of the DM, his or her campaign needs, and (or) the simple
D&D alignment system. This is how it should be, however, and the
Book of Vile Darkness simply gives some context to evil and brings to mind how evil beings act. Even though "Fetishes and Addictions" might not present all inherently "evil" practices or materials, it certainly points toward corruption.
Corruption continues and excellent material follows with examples of maltheistic entities, depraved or debased races, villain archetypes, and examples of vile sites as potential adventure areas. Cannibalistic halflings who allied with evil to save themselves in a war are fun (even though they also already appeared in
Dragon), as are a race of humans so depraved they have no concept of goodness. The homeland of a tribe of goblins who willingly mutate themselves to ensure victory in coming battles is also high-quality stuff. What's even better is that all of this prose serves up examples one can use as a model for one's own vile villains.
Less stellar are the sample villains themselves. These few examples are interesting, but seem to follow a disturbing trend in
D&D that makes all bad guys into madmen and/or power mongers. What is the aim of the mysterious Dread Emperor, who is a great spellcaster with a 50% arcane spell failure chance due to his armor, and seemingly rules nothing, save the few slave children he leads about? What does a half-orc master of vermin see in a disease-ridden medusa, so that he would want to be petrified by her gaze? What did a glabrezu do to beat an ancient blue dragon's +23 Will save and possess it, since the DC for resisting that demon's possession would only be 18 (or 20 since the dragon is evil)? What's become of subtlety?
Even where
Book of Vile Darkness could be subtle, it isn't. Possession is an exciting idea for the game, and it's here. Unfortunately, the act of possession, though well defined, doesn't come close to the better stories in fiction and myth. The major problem here is not the mechanics, but the fact that a possessing fiend cannot hide its presence from the possessed if it actually wants to accomplish anything via the possession. While it's great to have rules for possession, these rules actually restrict part of the fun. A possessing fiend can ride a possessed being past spells that would normally block evil creatures, but the rules don't allow for a demon to, say, take over the victim's actions without the victim knowing it. What about the demon just giving little mental nudges towards corrupt acts (without revealing its presence)? Anyone who has read Terry Brooks's
Running with the Demon knows what I'm talking about.
Many variant rules are a bit better, but not a lot. There's a secret language of evil (ala Morbeth from
Lord of the Rings), but it seems queer that not even fiends use it much, because it's so evil. It induces fear in the goodly and evil alike, unless the particular individuals are of high enough level to avoid the effects, and it can charm mid-level evil beings. Rules for souls as power are weak (one soul provides 10 XP for item creation), especially when compared to pain as power (3 XP for a dose of liquid pain, which costs 200 gp). Most of the diseases seem like the same idea recycled (especially one that is basically just the Slaad mutation chart from the
Monster Manual), though a few are out of the ordinary. Evil weather is more biblical "Old Testament" than actually evil, but it's one of the better examples of vileness.
The other good variant rules include expanded curses. Along with a new spell that bestows a curse that can't just be undone via
remove curse, there are examples of alternative curses for bestow curse as well. Better still are suggestions for the family curses and infamous dying curse, although these rules needn't be limited to evil creatures as
Book of Vile Darkness suggests. (
Ravenloft included rules for these long ago in the d20 world.) Wicked fun can be had with a "hivemind", as hordes of small creatures acquire intellect and even spell ability, and the lingering effects of evil are great for setting scenes and adjudicating
detect evil. Vile damage, a type that can only be healed in a holy area, is particularly good for scaring the wits out of characters (and players).
The villains created with the prestige classes presented in this book will do the same. While the name is off, the Cancer Mage is one of the vilest things in this book. Masters of the class have the ability to literally become a disease, lying dormant over the ages awaiting new victims. The plot potential is great there. Other classes are scary, if less stirring. Villains can truck with fiends in the majority of these vocations (perhaps too many, 11 out of 18), as thralls of a particular fiendish lord or a summoner that enslaves lesser evils--all specific enough to be a tasty addition to a campaign. Heroes will have at least grudging respect for the forces of evil if any of these are faced and used correctly. Particularly brilliant is the vampiric Lifedrinker (a version of which appeared in
Dragon 288), which uses life energy to fuel magic and feats of might (not unlike
Vampire: the Masquerade).
With the wheat comes the chaff, however, and the Ur-Priest stood out as metaphysically non-viable. Can a character "steal" energy from the gods? Perhaps. The Warrior of Darkness, is another lacking class, in which a weird mixture of alchemy, ritual scarring, and evil makes a fighter a physical powerhouse. It's not that the execution is unbalanced, it's that the class only comes across as evil because the description says it's evil. None of the powers are particularly vile. Neither is the Vermin Lord particularly vile, unless one considers association with creepy-crawlies an evil act unto itself. It is distasteful perhaps (or fascinating if you're an entomologist), but not necessarily evil. Both of the last mentioned classes could easily be re-described on some cultural (or other) level and find a home in the progression of good or neutral characters.
Some of the feats fall into that category as well, but some are obviously intentionally this way. Feats like Boost Spell-Like Ability or Quicken Spell-Like Ability (sure to be included in the upcoming 3.5e revision) are clearly applicable to all sorts of creatures, not just evil ones. Others, like Willing Deformity and the deformity feats that require it, are just plain weird and beg the question, what if someone is deformed in this way unwillingly? Do the same bonuses apply? Does the affected character need a feat to get the bonuses? These "feats" would have been better as mere descriptive possibilities, if they were carefully balanced to provide as many drawbacks as benefits (which most do anyway). Some of the feats, like Vile Ki Strike and Malign Spell Focus (+2 to the DC of Evil spells) are quite useful and inspire many ideas.
The spells in
Book of Vile Darkness are the same kind of mixed bag, leaning toward the valuable end of the spectrum, and there are a lot of spells in here. They range from disgusting and terrifying to kind of silly and tame to weird--yet most will provide some sick fun for a DM as a particularly demented baddie whips out a spell never heretofore seen by hapless heroes. The section on spells starts with a bit of moral reasoning as to why some spells (used to kill and harm other creatures) are evil, while others (used to kill and harm other creatures) are not. More usefully, we're treated to a new spell parameter (Corrupt) and the idea that some spells are limited in who can use them.
What's strange about some of the spell parameters is not why they exist (good ideas all, for the most part), but why they're applied to certain spells and not others. Corrupt, an indicator of magic so foul it rips away ability points when cast (
ala Call of Cthulhu d20), is the most unevenly applied descriptor.
Devil's tongue is a spell that allows a creature to transmute its tongue into a 15 ft. reach appendage capable of grappling and disarming. That it's Evil is questionable, despite the name. That it's Corrupt, doing significant Wisdom damage, is absurd. The only reason I can speculate the design leans this way is that the spell is only 2nd-level, which may be too low. Meanwhile, a spell that calls a small horde of minor fiends to the material plane to serve the caster for one year and requires a soul for casting is not Corrupt at all. Neither is another spell that renders land permanently barren, damages structures, and can only be undone with a wish spell.
Equally bizarre and uneven is how the use limitations are applied in other spells. Such magics would make wonderfully hideous additions to depraved scoundrels of all sorts, but the rules of the spell prevent this, as in
boneblast, which can break a victim's bone with a touch. Sorry, it's limited to undead casters. Why? It would seem to make sense that such a limitation would only apply if the creature casting the spell were affecting some aspect of its own nature. This basic logic isn't followed for the most part. Of course, a DM is free to remove such boundaries, but must pay close attention to how those limits may have been used as balancing factors (where they shouldn't have been, or should have been only as an option).
With the idea of balance comes a major weakness in the
Book of Vile Darkness. In literature, myth, and media, evil is depicted as the easy path to power for the weak-minded, power-hungry, and the mad. Darkness grants great power to those willing to pay the price. To some villains, eternal torment or servitude to a maltheistic entity after death is worth it due to the might gained in the material world, but the vast majority of abilities and rules in
Book of Vile Darkness don't grant any more power than some good counterpart might. While some may call this fairness or game balance, to me it's lack of consideration for the ultimate attraction and price of evil.
Star Wars d20 touched on the temptation of evil, along with the rewards of using it, with the Dark Side of the Force. The power of the Dark Side was "front loaded" with more power. As one traveled down the path of darkness, the returns were less and less favorable, but it was harder and harder to turn back. Concepts like temptation and redemption are not to be found here (but one notes they are in Monte's
Book of Hallowed Might). More importantly, evil doesn't have that much power.
Take sacrifices, a staple for scenes from Conan books and other fantasy literature.
Book of Vile Darkness's sacrifices are bloody affairs where the performer of the sacrifice has to make a Knowledge (religion) check to garner any benefit. The profit from a sacrifice is actually very little, but the real clincher in the rules is "most deities give only one reward per day, per temple no matter how many victims are slain". Couldn't the system, which uses the HD of a victim as an important factor, have just as easily allowed the HD of multiple victims to stack for a bonus to the sacrifice check?
One wonders why an evil person would bother with a sacrifice with these parameters, other than those that might be required by an evil deity, given that the rewards are not only hard to acquire (DC 25-50 for the most significant), but also limited. The only ones that can last longer than 24 hours are
limited wish, wish (restricted to once in a lifetime), and dark craft rewards. A dark craft award grants leader of a ritual a sort of virtual form of experience or gold pieces with which to craft a magic item from the sacrifice. These points are very few, and no matter how many are used (even 1 point) the item is evil--beyond the level, one notes, created by the sacrifice of one being (as defined in
Book of Vile Darkness), even if that's all that was used. Not only is the system ultimately lacking in what is there, it misses opportunities like ritual magic, the use of sacrifice as a form of spell energy, or even a significant relationship to the spells in the book.
Equally weak are the spell components for evil, especially when such items are used at the caster's option to increase power. Use the dried heart of a 15 HD+ metallic dragon and you get +1 to the save DC of the spell cast...30% of the time. Of course, according to the relevant equipment chart you can buy that heart for 7 gp. Yes, that's right, a 15 HD+ dragon heart garners a 30% chance to gain +1 to the save DC of the spell, and one's on sale in the local bazaar for 7 gp. The heart merchant will sell you a demon heart for 18 gp, a devil's for 20, and those of any humanoid for 1 sp. That latter heart has a 25% chance to give +2 effective caster levels for the spell in which it's used.
Yet the other equipment seems to have a place in the book, even if none of it is inherently evil. Torture devices, we got 'em, and drugs too, along with fiendish traps, evil alchemy, and execution equipment. Some new poisons are delineated for our games, along with more detailed rules for their manufacture. All of this stuff is pretty good, though some of the rules are odd or out of place. For example, unlike what I've heard about real (expert) torture, which aims at maximizing pain while minimizing "real" damage, the rules for torture merely give Intimidate check bonuses with random damage from the devices. One would suppose that an execution is merely a
coup de grace against a helpless opponent (with damage given for things like hanging or environmental exposure and pressure on organs by crucifixion), but no, it's a skill check--and one that's allowed against pinned opponents in certain circumstances. The first part is bizarre, but this last thing is something that should have been left on the editing room floor, because it sets a terrible precedent in the game, making coup de grace attacks too easy to set up.
Poisons are more successful, in that we now have more of them, but the rules for manufacture follow closely the
D&D fear of these potent factors. In other words, poisons are so dangerous in the game they are controlled with heavy-handed and unrealistic rules. (Don't believe me? Look at the damage from cyanide in
d20 Modern, then look up its real effects.) The manufacturing systems are thusly designed, stating (quite falsely) that raw poison from an animal is not as potent as some "refined" version and that poison harvested is usually volatile and easy to ruin. Some poisons do indeed have to be refined from some source or another, but (as an example) snake poison is often dried (into powder) and stored for future use in antivenins--so where's the fragility? Despite these rules, it is possible in the real world to simply remove a rattlesnake's poison and use it immediately to great effect (especially since it'll probably be more than one "dose").
The drug rules are better, actually quite realistically replicating the effect of drug use and abuse. Drugs produce initial effects, usually beneficial to the user or at least pleasurable. Yet, prolonged use does ability damage and results in addiction and withdrawal (also doing ability damage). The rules also take a more realistic tack towards the legality of drugs--as with poison, in most ancient societies, besides those with religious aversions, such substances were legal and largely uncontrolled. Unlike the drugs in
Book of Vile Darkness, though, they were also cheap (where they could be purchased).
Magic equipment in the book are like the spells, ranging from grisly to odd, but satisfying for storytelling possibilities. New powers, specific items, and variety of new wondrous vileness will leave your players fearing what's in the villain's trove (or what she's gots in her pocketses). Why some things are considered artifacts, though, is a mystery. Angel tears, demon blood, and Vasharan crossbows (created by that evil human race I mentioned earlier) fall into this category, with no explanation how one might replicate them (other than mentioning that ever elusive "special ritual".) Still, many of these items have real (nasty) flavor, including a short bit about demonic machines (two of them great, one goofy).
On the subject of demons, you need to know that I'm not a big fan of the core
D&D cosmology (The Great Wheel)--it's just too much of a shallow hodge-podge and has too many internal metaphysical/mythological inconsistencies to be particularly rousing (for my taste). Yet, in spite of the fact that I expected to find the archfiends useless, their statistics and suggestions for use proved me wrong. Regardless of the particular tack of a campaign, such creatures provide a possible target for epic-level, campaign-altering play, and they were designed with this in mind. While some may argue that such lords of evil should have some divine status, suggestions also appear for doing just that. How these creatures fit into the official
D&D milieu is clarified, but variants are also given. Thus, for finicky DMs like me, the section on the archfiends is not a loss at all. Take this with the fact that Monte Cook gives some basic insight into the cult of each evil master (coupled with prestige classes in the front of the book) and you have
at least one good basis for an entire story arc (if not campaign) pitting heroes against ultimate evil they can actually defeat.
The extra creatures that round out
Book of Vile Darkness will help you design that campaign, but you'll still need your handy
Monster Manual (and probably Green Ronin's
Legions of Hell and the
Fiend Folio to keep it interesting). CRs here vary from very low to nearly epic, but most will run out of challenge in midlevels. The templates are very good, and will allow a variety of wickedness, even though there are only three.
So,
Book of Vile Darkness is a mixed bag. For the most part, it contains very little in the way of a gaming philosophy that changes anything, despite overreactions from more conservative, well-known
Dragonlance authors. Creative DMs probably thought of most of the fluff possibilities presented in this book long ago. While acknowledging the value of an analysis of evil in the game for some gamers, what is most useful about the book is at least a portion of the crunch, giving useful numbers and game effects to those ideas. You'll find the prestige classes, feats, drug rules, and some other tidbits a nice base, whether you use them as is or not, and the spells and monsters are great (just watch out for some of the weirdness in the spell parameters). Other systems, of course, fail to provide a good foundation for a subject in the game, but may at least get you thinking on how you want to handle certain things. The work here isn't so much vile as it is a study in possibility--and every time new frontiers are breached, there'll be some good and bad.
Book of Vile Darkness is proof.
(B-, or 3.5)
This review was originally written for
Gaming Frontiers on 05/12/03.
