Bold Costumes, Black Hearts is a book of pre-generated villains for the unjustly obscure D20 superhero game Deeds Not Words. Like all of Cryptosnark Games’ products, it was written exclusively by Scott Lynch. The book is large, at 148 pages long, and it’s available only in .pdf form, either at RPGNow.com or the author’s web site at www.minasithil.com/cryptosnarkgames The book is in landscape format, optimized for viewing on a monitor.
In my last review I raved about how good Plain Brown Wrapper Games’ supervillain supplement The Bad Guys is. I’m embarrassed to say that I actually like this one better. It has many of the same plusses that made The Bad Guys so much fun, but without the drawbacks. It’s reasonably priced at $8.95, it’s funny, witty and clever (although without the edginess of the Bad Guys), the villains aren’t quite as original but they are certainly well written and well thought out. It’s even produced by another tiny little company that nobody has ever heard of. At the same time, even though this was done on the cheap, the art and layout are so good that you don’t have to be embarrassed by them. The illustrations are in black and white, less than half of the villains get character portraits, none of the pictures are spectacularly good, but they’re all good enough.
We begin with a set of quotes from famous literary villains. A few of them are stuffy and dry, but some are utterly spot-on brilliant. Then we have a fairly long and entertaining introduction, in which the author talks at some length about what makes an effective motivation for an antagonist, how to play villains, the different things a villain might want. Next we have a kind of random plot seed generator. Next we have about ten pages worth of special NPC villain Classes, Prestige Classes and Feats.
This transitions smoothly into a list of archetypal villains, each with a different villainous motive, each made to fill a particular niche in a comic book world. We have Bulkington, a giant super-strong criminal who isn’t as dumb as you expect him to be; Malice, a cyborg mercenary who works best as a master-villain’s second-in-command; the Rani, a powerful psychic dedicated to protecting mutants from persecution; Baron Azathoth, a world-conquering arch-fiend with vast technical and magical resources at his disposal; Doctor Deadline, a non-super-powered maniac who is obsessed with time and likes to put heroes in death-traps (holy holistic hotpants, Ratman!) There are many others as well, including a few real surprises like an obsessed former KGB colonel with his own nuclear submarine and a few obvious ones, like an extradimensional invader who constantly makes speeches about how unstoppable he is. All of them are solid, carefully crafted and humorously written. Every one comes with no less than four stat blocks, each depicting them at a different level of power so as to make them easier to fit into your campaign.
Next we have a list of six supervillain teams, organized from the least to the most powerful. First up, we have the New York Dolls, a trio of riot grrrls who bear a suspicious resemblance to some of the characters in the movie Kill Bill, until you notice that this book was written years before that movie came out! Loud, sassy, in love with theft and havoc, these little ladies are on a cross-country spree of destruction that only the PCs can stop.
Next up we have the Zero Sum Gang, a trio of low-powered sneaky anarchists at war with corporate America. They’re interesting and sympathetic, and surprisingly effective despite their low Threat Level.
Next we have the Nocturne, a horrible goth gang of vampires, sorcerers and evil mutants. While only moderately powerful, they’re extremely ruthless and evil, routinely using lethal force against meddling heroes. They aren’t as well fleshed out as the members of the zero sum gang, but the strength of the team’s overall concept gets past this.
Then we have the War Saints, an international mercenary team run by the mysterious Marquise. While they’re impressively tough and evil, there isn’t enough space to give the individual members of the team as much depth or detail as you might like. This is the only entry in the book that feels a little thin. The Marquise herself is interesting, the group’s illustration is good and I liked the description of how the unit’s rules function, but overall the team could have benefited from a lengthier treatment.
The final team is the Midnight League, my favorite group of the bunch. They’re a group of Golden Age villains who are still pursuing a life of crime in their twilight years. Ancient and evil, with a particularly Golden Age feel to each of them, they may not be in their prime anymore, but they have so much more skill and experience than almost any conceivable group of PCs that they’re incredibly dangerous. My favorite of the group is the Voice of Fear, who used to appear on the radio back in the 1930s and use his evil voice to give people nightmares and psychological ailments. Occasionally he used his power to force radio listeners to mail him money, but for the most part he just liked to do people harm. Tee hee!
This is followed by a list of fifty-two briefly sketched in solo villains. The author doesn’t waste much ink on any of them and none of them have character portraits. They’re each about three or four hundred words long, not counting stat blocks. Nonetheless, all fifty-two concepts are strong. It would have been nice to give each one more individual attention, but of course we can only demand so much from poor Scott Lynch for our nine bucks.
The fifty-two supplemental villains are arranged in order of Threat Level, from the least to the most powerful. My personal favorite is the very last one, Autonomous Destruction Device 13. This cute and fluffy fellow is here to destroy our world, and he’s just about tough enough to rip it in two with his adorable furry little hands. However, he’s also wildly distractible and easily entranced by cute things. It’s a very funny concept and it’s handled pretty well, in the limited space the author has.
After the lists of villains and teams, we have two extra goodies. A clever and funny random goon generator and the unnecessary but undeniably amusing Random Ninja generator.
Go ahead and buy this one. You’ll get a lot of product for your money and it’s all great stuff. If you don’t play Deeds Not Words you will still love this book. And anyway you should start playing it if you don’t already. It’s a great game and you’d really enjoy it.
