Heroes of Horror
by James Wyatt, Ari Marmell, and C.A. Suleiman
Developed by Mike Donais, Stephen Schubert, and Rob Watkins
160-page Hardcover
Heroes of Horror covers a topic that I have rarely used in my games: encounters, adventures and campaigns based around the horror genre. As a result, I suspect I'm the sort of person this book is aimed at: someone who, though an experienced DM, isn't experienced in creating horror games.
Heroes of Horror is also the second in the 3.5e genre series from Wizards, following Heroes of Battle, which I thought was excellent. The production qualities of the book are as standard for a Wizards book: quite excellent, especially the cover artwork. (What's happened to Regdar?) The interior art is good, if rarely exceptional. The cartography (Todd Gamble and Yasuyo Dunnett) is very clear and attractive; I must compliment the cartographers on their work.
Chapter 1: Dread Encounters (16 pages)
The book begins by looking at the techniques used in individual encounters, either as part of a greater horror campaign, or as a one-off to break up a campaign. The purpose of a horror encounter is examined - it's to provoke a reaction of fear in the players - and then the issues concerning that are explored. The role of tension, strange encounters, creepy effects, and the context of horror are some of these issues that are looked at.
As this is for a D&D game, there is some time spent on the actual villain of the encounter: where can you get inspiration from, and how do the game stats help in making the villain one of horror? It's very nice to see references in the text to the literary and movie uses of horror, and, indeed, the entire book is written in an extremely readable fashion. I found Heroes of Horror a delight to read, and that's very important to me.
After the discussion of the techniques, the authors provide two sample encounters: "Grandmother's House" and "Annalee's Baby". Interestingly, the latter may well play as just a "fight the ghost" without much horror... until the treasure is then examined.
The one misstep of the chapter comes with the introduction of the demigod of spite and vengeance, Cas. For an Australian such as I am, a moose-headed god is something of humour, not horror. (The only moose I know is called Bullwinkle). Although a demigod of spite and vengeance isn't a bad idea, Cas doesn't work for me at all. I also wish that the stats for the Avatar of Cas had been omitted - they don't really add anything to most games. (An Aspect of Cas, on the other hand, would have been useful).
Chapter Two: Dread Adventures (18 pages)
With this chapter, we move to a more difficult topic: rather than having elements of horror in just one encounter, how about having them for the entire adventure? Pacing is key, recommend the authors, who then go on to look at the construction of adventures.
The topic of using a horror adventure in a regular campaign, which is my preference, is covered, as are such topics as Mood, Setting, Plot and Story, Villains, and Techniques of Terror. There's a lot of useful material here. What's great about it is in addition to listing various elements of adventures for inspiration, the implications of using it are explored. For instance, the pitfall of rail-roading PCs in a horror adventure is discussed, and ways to avoid it are detailed.
The chapter ends with a sample adventure, "For Hate's Sake", which is described in outline rather than in detail; the actual encounters are left up to the DM to construct, although there are hints at what to include. It reads well, and one day I might expand it for my campaign.
Chapter Three: A Horror Campaign (20 pages)
At this point, we enter an area in which I have limited interest: advice on running a campaign that has a theme of horror. That isn't to say that I don't find the advice fascinating. The idea that both DM and players must agree to play a horror campaign is indeed well made; without that agreement, I doubt such a campaign could work.
The authors investigate the role of setting - whether a specifically horror-themed setting, or a more standard setting being used for horror - and move on to examining the three main D&D worlds (Greyhawk, Eberron and the Faerun) in terms of running horror there. Plot is also examined, with plenty of suggestions for elements that can be used over the course of the campaign.
Although the villains of horror have been examined in the previous chapter, there are special considerations for a campaign: How often do they appear? Do they come back after seemingly being destroyed? This is discussed here, as well as the possibility that perhaps things don't end happily for the heroes.
Somewhat oddly, the middle of the chapter is used to showcase a sample campaign outline, "Nightwatch" - I was surprised to see the advice continued after it; from the style used in the previous two chapters, I thought the sample campaign would be the last thing in the chapter. I said outline, and outline it is, although the climax of the arc is more detailed.
After this diversion, we get a number of one paragraph concepts for campaigns ("The Father of Monsters", "Conjunction", and "The Evil That Men Do", to name three), before moving on to the role of dreams and nightmares in a horror campaign. This is an extensive section, with good advice on describing and running dreams, and their use as plot devices.
The chapter ends with a section on adventuring in a dreamscape - where the realm of dreams (or nightmares!) is a real world that can be entered. Four pages are devoted to this, which scarcely seems enough, but the basics are covered well.
It's been interesting reading the first three chapters of Heroes of Horror; it's really good to see a book that is aimed at the DM, and gives great advice about constructing the game. It's even better that it's written in a very readable style; something that is not always shared with earlier D&D books. For me, these chapters are the best thing about Heroes of Horror, but with the next chapter we move on to new game rules, and there's a few nice things in store for us there...
Chapter Four: Rules of Horror (22 pages)
Peering at the table of contents, I see listings for Dread, Fear, The Taint of Evil, Horror Environments, and Campaign Rules. Looking at the actual text, I find the actual rules. Hey, I guess we're past the generic advice and into the mechanics of the game!
Dread talks about modelling the terrified apprehension of the characters as a horror adventure or campaign continues by use of standard D&D conditions: Shock (dazed & stunned), Weariness (fatigued, exhausted), Sickness (sickened, nauseated) and Obsession (fascination and confusion). This is very good material. I approve heartily of extending the uses of existing rules elements.
Fear examines the problems with the existing fear mechanics: namely, after you're shaken, there's nowhere to go, and being "frightened" means running away and not having much fun. It looks at alternative ways of dealing with the problem, and also introduces mechanics for a few phobias. They'll be used again later on in the book.
The Taint of Evil gives us yet another evolution of the Taint mechanics - previously in Oriental Adventures and Unearthed Arcana. This section is very impressive, with some evocative symptoms of becoming physically or mentally tainted. There's something quite Lovecraftian about many of the symptoms, which are divided into Mild, Moderate and Severe effects, of Corruption (physical) and Depravity (mental). Having an actual nasty thing occur to your character seems much scarier than just saying "you feel frightened". This is very well done, and I'll be using it in my current Ulek campaign.
Horror Environments gives rules for locations that aren't quite right. Perhaps you become corrupted by taint in them, or they aid the beings of the night. Haunted sites, graveyards, and catacombs are but three locations that can qualify and are listed here. This section also helps you in describing what might be in those locations.
Campaign Rules looks at a few optional rules that could be used in a horror campaign, including replacing a few problematic rules, such as Alignment. I particularly liked the suggestion of replacing alignment with taint - in certain campaigns, that'd be very useful. Divination, Death and Resurrection are also covered - things that probably will come up in any D&D horror campaign!
I like this chapter very much; the material in it looks very good for evoking horror with the mechanics of the rules (rather than just the situation, as was explored in the first three chapters).
Chapter Five: Heroes and Antiheroes (44 pages)
Two classes, six prestige classes, about 30 feats. Those are the contents of Chapter 5. The first page discusses the role of player characters in a horror campaign - whether they are traditional heroes, such as in Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, or if they are instead antiheroes, whose motives are questionable, such as Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone.
The Archivist is the first of the two new classes, and, in some ways, conforms to my view of a real-world cleric: divine spellpower is something the archivist is discovered in dusty tomes. Wisdom gives bonus spells and Intelligence determines the DC. With d6 hit dice, 4 skill points/level, medium armour and simple weapons, the Archivist isn't likely to be in the thick of battle. They are primarily a spellcaster, comparable to clerics in their abilities in this manner.
Where they excel is in their knowledge of the things that go bump in the night. As they gain power, their knowledge of aberrations, elementals, magical beasts, outsiders and undead grows, and they use that knowledge to help fight them: either by granting his or her allies bonuses against them, or by directly combating them with some arcane bit of lore.
Unusually, the archivist also can eventually gain access to every divine spell - if they can find a scroll or tome that describes it. The archivist begins by gaining spells as a wizards (two free cleric spells every level), but can scribe any divine spell into their spellbook. I find it unsettling that domain spells could be learnt in this manner, but I admire the idea of it. The archivist is a really interesting class.
The Dread Necromancer is the other new class in Heroes of Horror. It's rather nice to see such a classic archetype get the full class treatment, as the prestige class versions of the Necromancer haven't quite been so inspiring. The poor Dread Necromancer will eventually become a lich at 20th level, which gives plenty of room to explore his or her necromantic powers.
The Dread Necromancer has a set spell-list, similar to the Warmage in scope and application. Charisma is their sole spellcasting ability score, and, like the Warmage, the Dread Necromancer is proficient with light armour. When added to the Lich Body special ability - they gain DR 2/bludgeoning and magic at 2nd level, which rises to DR 8 by 15th level - the Dread Necromancer is looking a lot tougher than a standard wizard, if not a standard cleric, something their d6 hit dice emphasize.
Their spell list is suitably necromantic, and the Advanced Learning ability opens up the possibility of new necromantic spells from other supplements. Their other special abilities involve various manipulations of negative energy: fear aura, enervating touch, undead mastery - you get the picture. It's not quite a class I'd be happy seeing a player take, but it has great application for NPCs. I'd almost like to see a more light-hearted take on it, so a PC could play a character like Anita Blake, but that's not quite applicable for a book called Heroes of Horror, I guess, which does tend to the darker side of things. Regardless, this is good material.
The Corrupt Avenger is very much like a prestige class version of the paladin or ranger. Affected by taint, the corrupt avenger will do anything to bring down those who threaten what he or she loves. The result is quite interesting.
The class has a full base attack, d12 hit dice, the minor use of arcane spells, which can be cast in light armour, a "favoured enemy" bonus against a sworn foe, and - as the name implies - they've been (moderately) affected by taint, which they can suppress the physical manifestations of on their person. The alignment restriction is "non-evil", so a member of this class has fallen from purity, but is still on the right side of the battle.
d12 Hit dice always makes me pay attention to balance issues; however, as their spellcasting requires light armour, this does seem reasonable. I rather like their Frightful Fury and Unnerving Fury abilities, which cause their foes within 30 feet to become shaken or unnerved; I rather wish the regular Intimidate skill was as useful as these abilities. There's even provision for fallen paladins to enter this class. This is nice to see.
The Death Delver is obsessed by death, having had at least one near-death experience. Instead of seeking to affect the outside world, the death delver seeks to understand death itself, and thus draw strength from this knowledge.
This is another minor spellcasting class (levels 1-4 of a dedicated spell list, mostly undead-related or protection from undead spells), but with d8 hit dice and a cleric's base attack progression. As it gains levels, it progressively gets better at resisting death, and occasionally picks up one or two offensive power.
I have a hard time of seeing how this class would fit into a regular party. It does not have particularly useful combat abilities, and a cleric is far better at using spells to help others. It doesn't really seem to work as a foe, either. It seems quite disappointing.
The Dread Witch is a 5-level prestige class that offers 4 levels of spell-casting progression. It's main focus is on the manipulation and creation of fear. Indeed, a dread witch becomes more powerful if otherwise it would be frightened. Personally, I'd prefer to see their power increase the more foes they've terrified, but there may be problematicalimplications there.
The trouble with the dread witch, from my perspective, is that the "I thrive on my fear" mechanic only works as a PC mechanic, and, to make things worse, is then trumped by the "I'm immune to fear" mechanic of the paladin. Why isn't the dread witch just immune to fear and gains power from others trying to use it on her?
The Fiend-Blooded (10 levels) provide a new transformational prestige class; this one turns you into a half-fiend by its end. It tries something different by having +1 increments to ability scores, which I don't think is entirely successful - there's too much chance that the increment is insignificant at that level. The class is clearly set up for sorcerers to take it, and has 9 levels of spellcasting progression. Thematically it's a nice addition to the book, but I'm dubious about the stat increments.
More successful is the Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine (10 levels). This a paladin-like prestige class for use in a tainted campaign. The purifier has no taint, and can help free people from taint, and gains special powers against tainted creatures - something that can be used in conjunction with the "taint as alignment" option detailed earlier in the book.
The Tainted Scholar (10 levels) provides a means of implementing an archetypal role in the horror campaign - the poor researcher (or wizard) who has seen too much. Embracing taint, the scholar gains more power from it, but at an ever-increasing cost. Ten levels of spellcasting, and "secrets" and "lore" abilities make this similar in appearance to the DMG's Loremaster.
I'm dubious about the mechanics of setting the DCs of the Tainted Scholar's spells: 10 + spell level plus half the corruption score may be badly abused, especially by DMs who don't have to worry about the ongoing effects of corruption in their NPCs. When you could have a viable NPC with a 40+ corruption score, I get nervous.
At this point, we reach the new feats. Here, Heroes of Horror updates a few feats from The Book of Vile Darkness, as well as introducing a few original ones. They're about what you can expect. Some feats enhance the archivist's abilities, some add new options for tainted characters. Nothing really stands out for me.
There's a smattering of new spells including, at last, the updated Summon Undead spells (although they've later been collected in their updated versions in the Spell Compendium). Of most interest to me are spells such as Greater Harm and Mass Harm, both of which take an approach that is surprising given the nature of the original Harm spell: they use d12s to determine the damage rather than a flat 10 points per caster level. The result is curiously unsatisfying in the case of Greater Harm. At 20th level, you get 20d12 damage, but that's an average of 130 damage, compared to 150 damage for the regular harm! Of course, Greater Harm has a close range, but even so, this seems odd.
This chapter also includes a single Rod and three Artefacts.
Chapter 6: Creatures of the Night (23 pages)
What would a book about horror be without a few new creatures? Safer, no doubt. The authors begin this chapter with a discussion of using existing creature types in a horror campaign. The references to vampires and the undead are required for this type of book, but the discussion takes an interesting turn once other creature types, such as fey and giants, are considered.
The new monsters don't entirely thrill me, although there are some gems there. I particularly like the Taint Elemental, the living embodiment of a corrupted area. Its slam attack corrupts whatever it strikes, which has already given my players a few nasty moments.
Other monsters, such as the Phantasmal Slayer (the embodiment of fear) and the Grey Jester (a fey that feeds on laughter and joy) could well prove good spurs to creating adventures. There are only about a dozen new monsters here, but D&D does already possess a legacy of horrific monsters; we're not exactly being short-changed.
Conclusion
Heroes of Horror provides a fairly good introduction to the material and skills required to run a horror campaign. As with Heroes of Battle, it is written in an extremely readable style that distinguishes it over many other rulebooks.
Experienced DMs may find that the material is too slight for their uses, although the expanded and upgraded rules for taint are extremely good.
Ultimately, I'm not entirely satisfied with Heroes of Horror. Although I like the individual sections in it as I read them, the entirity of the book doesn't quite come together for me. It is not to be denied that there's some excellent advice here, but the division of it into "encounter", "adventure" and "campaign" sections seems to work against it forming a unified whole.
I rate Heroes of Horror as a solid 3.5 out of 5, rounded up to 4 out of 5 for the purposes of the EN World review system.
by James Wyatt, Ari Marmell, and C.A. Suleiman
Developed by Mike Donais, Stephen Schubert, and Rob Watkins
160-page Hardcover
Heroes of Horror covers a topic that I have rarely used in my games: encounters, adventures and campaigns based around the horror genre. As a result, I suspect I'm the sort of person this book is aimed at: someone who, though an experienced DM, isn't experienced in creating horror games.
Heroes of Horror is also the second in the 3.5e genre series from Wizards, following Heroes of Battle, which I thought was excellent. The production qualities of the book are as standard for a Wizards book: quite excellent, especially the cover artwork. (What's happened to Regdar?) The interior art is good, if rarely exceptional. The cartography (Todd Gamble and Yasuyo Dunnett) is very clear and attractive; I must compliment the cartographers on their work.
Chapter 1: Dread Encounters (16 pages)
The book begins by looking at the techniques used in individual encounters, either as part of a greater horror campaign, or as a one-off to break up a campaign. The purpose of a horror encounter is examined - it's to provoke a reaction of fear in the players - and then the issues concerning that are explored. The role of tension, strange encounters, creepy effects, and the context of horror are some of these issues that are looked at.
As this is for a D&D game, there is some time spent on the actual villain of the encounter: where can you get inspiration from, and how do the game stats help in making the villain one of horror? It's very nice to see references in the text to the literary and movie uses of horror, and, indeed, the entire book is written in an extremely readable fashion. I found Heroes of Horror a delight to read, and that's very important to me.
After the discussion of the techniques, the authors provide two sample encounters: "Grandmother's House" and "Annalee's Baby". Interestingly, the latter may well play as just a "fight the ghost" without much horror... until the treasure is then examined.
The one misstep of the chapter comes with the introduction of the demigod of spite and vengeance, Cas. For an Australian such as I am, a moose-headed god is something of humour, not horror. (The only moose I know is called Bullwinkle). Although a demigod of spite and vengeance isn't a bad idea, Cas doesn't work for me at all. I also wish that the stats for the Avatar of Cas had been omitted - they don't really add anything to most games. (An Aspect of Cas, on the other hand, would have been useful).
Chapter Two: Dread Adventures (18 pages)
With this chapter, we move to a more difficult topic: rather than having elements of horror in just one encounter, how about having them for the entire adventure? Pacing is key, recommend the authors, who then go on to look at the construction of adventures.
The topic of using a horror adventure in a regular campaign, which is my preference, is covered, as are such topics as Mood, Setting, Plot and Story, Villains, and Techniques of Terror. There's a lot of useful material here. What's great about it is in addition to listing various elements of adventures for inspiration, the implications of using it are explored. For instance, the pitfall of rail-roading PCs in a horror adventure is discussed, and ways to avoid it are detailed.
The chapter ends with a sample adventure, "For Hate's Sake", which is described in outline rather than in detail; the actual encounters are left up to the DM to construct, although there are hints at what to include. It reads well, and one day I might expand it for my campaign.
Chapter Three: A Horror Campaign (20 pages)
At this point, we enter an area in which I have limited interest: advice on running a campaign that has a theme of horror. That isn't to say that I don't find the advice fascinating. The idea that both DM and players must agree to play a horror campaign is indeed well made; without that agreement, I doubt such a campaign could work.
The authors investigate the role of setting - whether a specifically horror-themed setting, or a more standard setting being used for horror - and move on to examining the three main D&D worlds (Greyhawk, Eberron and the Faerun) in terms of running horror there. Plot is also examined, with plenty of suggestions for elements that can be used over the course of the campaign.
Although the villains of horror have been examined in the previous chapter, there are special considerations for a campaign: How often do they appear? Do they come back after seemingly being destroyed? This is discussed here, as well as the possibility that perhaps things don't end happily for the heroes.
Somewhat oddly, the middle of the chapter is used to showcase a sample campaign outline, "Nightwatch" - I was surprised to see the advice continued after it; from the style used in the previous two chapters, I thought the sample campaign would be the last thing in the chapter. I said outline, and outline it is, although the climax of the arc is more detailed.
After this diversion, we get a number of one paragraph concepts for campaigns ("The Father of Monsters", "Conjunction", and "The Evil That Men Do", to name three), before moving on to the role of dreams and nightmares in a horror campaign. This is an extensive section, with good advice on describing and running dreams, and their use as plot devices.
The chapter ends with a section on adventuring in a dreamscape - where the realm of dreams (or nightmares!) is a real world that can be entered. Four pages are devoted to this, which scarcely seems enough, but the basics are covered well.
It's been interesting reading the first three chapters of Heroes of Horror; it's really good to see a book that is aimed at the DM, and gives great advice about constructing the game. It's even better that it's written in a very readable style; something that is not always shared with earlier D&D books. For me, these chapters are the best thing about Heroes of Horror, but with the next chapter we move on to new game rules, and there's a few nice things in store for us there...
Chapter Four: Rules of Horror (22 pages)
Peering at the table of contents, I see listings for Dread, Fear, The Taint of Evil, Horror Environments, and Campaign Rules. Looking at the actual text, I find the actual rules. Hey, I guess we're past the generic advice and into the mechanics of the game!
Dread talks about modelling the terrified apprehension of the characters as a horror adventure or campaign continues by use of standard D&D conditions: Shock (dazed & stunned), Weariness (fatigued, exhausted), Sickness (sickened, nauseated) and Obsession (fascination and confusion). This is very good material. I approve heartily of extending the uses of existing rules elements.
Fear examines the problems with the existing fear mechanics: namely, after you're shaken, there's nowhere to go, and being "frightened" means running away and not having much fun. It looks at alternative ways of dealing with the problem, and also introduces mechanics for a few phobias. They'll be used again later on in the book.
The Taint of Evil gives us yet another evolution of the Taint mechanics - previously in Oriental Adventures and Unearthed Arcana. This section is very impressive, with some evocative symptoms of becoming physically or mentally tainted. There's something quite Lovecraftian about many of the symptoms, which are divided into Mild, Moderate and Severe effects, of Corruption (physical) and Depravity (mental). Having an actual nasty thing occur to your character seems much scarier than just saying "you feel frightened". This is very well done, and I'll be using it in my current Ulek campaign.
Horror Environments gives rules for locations that aren't quite right. Perhaps you become corrupted by taint in them, or they aid the beings of the night. Haunted sites, graveyards, and catacombs are but three locations that can qualify and are listed here. This section also helps you in describing what might be in those locations.
Campaign Rules looks at a few optional rules that could be used in a horror campaign, including replacing a few problematic rules, such as Alignment. I particularly liked the suggestion of replacing alignment with taint - in certain campaigns, that'd be very useful. Divination, Death and Resurrection are also covered - things that probably will come up in any D&D horror campaign!
I like this chapter very much; the material in it looks very good for evoking horror with the mechanics of the rules (rather than just the situation, as was explored in the first three chapters).
Chapter Five: Heroes and Antiheroes (44 pages)
Two classes, six prestige classes, about 30 feats. Those are the contents of Chapter 5. The first page discusses the role of player characters in a horror campaign - whether they are traditional heroes, such as in Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, or if they are instead antiheroes, whose motives are questionable, such as Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone.
The Archivist is the first of the two new classes, and, in some ways, conforms to my view of a real-world cleric: divine spellpower is something the archivist is discovered in dusty tomes. Wisdom gives bonus spells and Intelligence determines the DC. With d6 hit dice, 4 skill points/level, medium armour and simple weapons, the Archivist isn't likely to be in the thick of battle. They are primarily a spellcaster, comparable to clerics in their abilities in this manner.
Where they excel is in their knowledge of the things that go bump in the night. As they gain power, their knowledge of aberrations, elementals, magical beasts, outsiders and undead grows, and they use that knowledge to help fight them: either by granting his or her allies bonuses against them, or by directly combating them with some arcane bit of lore.
Unusually, the archivist also can eventually gain access to every divine spell - if they can find a scroll or tome that describes it. The archivist begins by gaining spells as a wizards (two free cleric spells every level), but can scribe any divine spell into their spellbook. I find it unsettling that domain spells could be learnt in this manner, but I admire the idea of it. The archivist is a really interesting class.
The Dread Necromancer is the other new class in Heroes of Horror. It's rather nice to see such a classic archetype get the full class treatment, as the prestige class versions of the Necromancer haven't quite been so inspiring. The poor Dread Necromancer will eventually become a lich at 20th level, which gives plenty of room to explore his or her necromantic powers.
The Dread Necromancer has a set spell-list, similar to the Warmage in scope and application. Charisma is their sole spellcasting ability score, and, like the Warmage, the Dread Necromancer is proficient with light armour. When added to the Lich Body special ability - they gain DR 2/bludgeoning and magic at 2nd level, which rises to DR 8 by 15th level - the Dread Necromancer is looking a lot tougher than a standard wizard, if not a standard cleric, something their d6 hit dice emphasize.
Their spell list is suitably necromantic, and the Advanced Learning ability opens up the possibility of new necromantic spells from other supplements. Their other special abilities involve various manipulations of negative energy: fear aura, enervating touch, undead mastery - you get the picture. It's not quite a class I'd be happy seeing a player take, but it has great application for NPCs. I'd almost like to see a more light-hearted take on it, so a PC could play a character like Anita Blake, but that's not quite applicable for a book called Heroes of Horror, I guess, which does tend to the darker side of things. Regardless, this is good material.
The Corrupt Avenger is very much like a prestige class version of the paladin or ranger. Affected by taint, the corrupt avenger will do anything to bring down those who threaten what he or she loves. The result is quite interesting.
The class has a full base attack, d12 hit dice, the minor use of arcane spells, which can be cast in light armour, a "favoured enemy" bonus against a sworn foe, and - as the name implies - they've been (moderately) affected by taint, which they can suppress the physical manifestations of on their person. The alignment restriction is "non-evil", so a member of this class has fallen from purity, but is still on the right side of the battle.
d12 Hit dice always makes me pay attention to balance issues; however, as their spellcasting requires light armour, this does seem reasonable. I rather like their Frightful Fury and Unnerving Fury abilities, which cause their foes within 30 feet to become shaken or unnerved; I rather wish the regular Intimidate skill was as useful as these abilities. There's even provision for fallen paladins to enter this class. This is nice to see.
The Death Delver is obsessed by death, having had at least one near-death experience. Instead of seeking to affect the outside world, the death delver seeks to understand death itself, and thus draw strength from this knowledge.
This is another minor spellcasting class (levels 1-4 of a dedicated spell list, mostly undead-related or protection from undead spells), but with d8 hit dice and a cleric's base attack progression. As it gains levels, it progressively gets better at resisting death, and occasionally picks up one or two offensive power.
I have a hard time of seeing how this class would fit into a regular party. It does not have particularly useful combat abilities, and a cleric is far better at using spells to help others. It doesn't really seem to work as a foe, either. It seems quite disappointing.
The Dread Witch is a 5-level prestige class that offers 4 levels of spell-casting progression. It's main focus is on the manipulation and creation of fear. Indeed, a dread witch becomes more powerful if otherwise it would be frightened. Personally, I'd prefer to see their power increase the more foes they've terrified, but there may be problematicalimplications there.
The trouble with the dread witch, from my perspective, is that the "I thrive on my fear" mechanic only works as a PC mechanic, and, to make things worse, is then trumped by the "I'm immune to fear" mechanic of the paladin. Why isn't the dread witch just immune to fear and gains power from others trying to use it on her?
The Fiend-Blooded (10 levels) provide a new transformational prestige class; this one turns you into a half-fiend by its end. It tries something different by having +1 increments to ability scores, which I don't think is entirely successful - there's too much chance that the increment is insignificant at that level. The class is clearly set up for sorcerers to take it, and has 9 levels of spellcasting progression. Thematically it's a nice addition to the book, but I'm dubious about the stat increments.
More successful is the Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine (10 levels). This a paladin-like prestige class for use in a tainted campaign. The purifier has no taint, and can help free people from taint, and gains special powers against tainted creatures - something that can be used in conjunction with the "taint as alignment" option detailed earlier in the book.
The Tainted Scholar (10 levels) provides a means of implementing an archetypal role in the horror campaign - the poor researcher (or wizard) who has seen too much. Embracing taint, the scholar gains more power from it, but at an ever-increasing cost. Ten levels of spellcasting, and "secrets" and "lore" abilities make this similar in appearance to the DMG's Loremaster.
I'm dubious about the mechanics of setting the DCs of the Tainted Scholar's spells: 10 + spell level plus half the corruption score may be badly abused, especially by DMs who don't have to worry about the ongoing effects of corruption in their NPCs. When you could have a viable NPC with a 40+ corruption score, I get nervous.
At this point, we reach the new feats. Here, Heroes of Horror updates a few feats from The Book of Vile Darkness, as well as introducing a few original ones. They're about what you can expect. Some feats enhance the archivist's abilities, some add new options for tainted characters. Nothing really stands out for me.
There's a smattering of new spells including, at last, the updated Summon Undead spells (although they've later been collected in their updated versions in the Spell Compendium). Of most interest to me are spells such as Greater Harm and Mass Harm, both of which take an approach that is surprising given the nature of the original Harm spell: they use d12s to determine the damage rather than a flat 10 points per caster level. The result is curiously unsatisfying in the case of Greater Harm. At 20th level, you get 20d12 damage, but that's an average of 130 damage, compared to 150 damage for the regular harm! Of course, Greater Harm has a close range, but even so, this seems odd.
This chapter also includes a single Rod and three Artefacts.
Chapter 6: Creatures of the Night (23 pages)
What would a book about horror be without a few new creatures? Safer, no doubt. The authors begin this chapter with a discussion of using existing creature types in a horror campaign. The references to vampires and the undead are required for this type of book, but the discussion takes an interesting turn once other creature types, such as fey and giants, are considered.
The new monsters don't entirely thrill me, although there are some gems there. I particularly like the Taint Elemental, the living embodiment of a corrupted area. Its slam attack corrupts whatever it strikes, which has already given my players a few nasty moments.
Other monsters, such as the Phantasmal Slayer (the embodiment of fear) and the Grey Jester (a fey that feeds on laughter and joy) could well prove good spurs to creating adventures. There are only about a dozen new monsters here, but D&D does already possess a legacy of horrific monsters; we're not exactly being short-changed.
Conclusion
Heroes of Horror provides a fairly good introduction to the material and skills required to run a horror campaign. As with Heroes of Battle, it is written in an extremely readable style that distinguishes it over many other rulebooks.
Experienced DMs may find that the material is too slight for their uses, although the expanded and upgraded rules for taint are extremely good.
Ultimately, I'm not entirely satisfied with Heroes of Horror. Although I like the individual sections in it as I read them, the entirity of the book doesn't quite come together for me. It is not to be denied that there's some excellent advice here, but the division of it into "encounter", "adventure" and "campaign" sections seems to work against it forming a unified whole.
I rate Heroes of Horror as a solid 3.5 out of 5, rounded up to 4 out of 5 for the purposes of the EN World review system.
