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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry@home" data-source="post: 2009588" data-attributes="member: 159">The Book of Vile Darkness - a book of great controversy, a book of great potential, a book that will change the face of how people perceive D&D forever.Well, not really. At least, not in my humble opinion.The Book of Vile Darkness spans 192 pages, is a full-color illustrated tome, hardcover, and although in my opinion perhaps not quite worth to me full cover price, it is definitely worth the price charged at most of the discount emporiums that this title is currently available.Chapter 1, The nature of Evil, is a useful, though not fully in-depth look at what goes into both the definition of evil in a campaign, and what should go into a villain when designing him or her. Other products, such as Kenzerco's villains product, may go into greater detail, this book describes the motiviations of a villain more from the standpoints of desire and revenge. The main mechanics of this book fall into covering the whys and wherefores of said power and revenge, hence the focus.Chapter 2 through 6 cover the mechanics of evil. Chapters 2 (Rules for possessions, sacrifices, curses, and diseases), CHapter 3 (Equipment from devices to poisons), Chapter 4 (Feats), Chapter 5 (Prestige classes), and Chapter 6 (Magic) -- all of these are the meat and drink of an evil villain. In my opinion, the thought that went into said devices and methods is very good, and very thorough, giving me more ideas than I have ever thought about for my evil NPC's.However, and should I have one gripe about this book, this is it -- it does not go far enough. Lest you think I've lost my mind, I refer to the POWER that these devices and methods confer. For example, the idea of corrupt spell components is a brilliant one, and one I cannot believe I never fathomed before. However, for all the trouble one goes through to acquire some of these things, one must wonder why a villain would bother. For example, using the heart of a good dragon of at least 15 Hit dice as a spell component, which is consumed by the spell in the casting, nets you -- What? a +1 DC to your spell's saving throw modifier. even then, there is a chance for failure, and I cannot see a caster, even a fairly high level one, having a ready supply of these on hand as "throwaway items." Some others are much better in my opinion (humanoid brain doubles your range, anyone?) but in all, to me the effects do not outweigh the trouble of fresh producrement for a villain. For this much trouble, one would more likely research the creation of an ability boosting item, or an item that gives the equivalent of spell focus. No chance of failure, and once procured, such is permanent.Similarly to sacrifices. While many of the sacrifice benefits are good, most do not strike me as incredibly useful, unless a villain were to do them JUST before undertaking a difficult but quick mission, or just before leading his troops to victory.The chapter on poisons is excellent, and very well extrapolated from the Song and Silence work of last december. Where was this darned book when my player with his PC ninja wanted to make centipede venom??? A truly excellent chapter on poisons, and of some truly nasty equipment. How about an NPC that is addicted to distilling liquid pain from innocent victims for both spell use and pleasure?!?! How would your players react to such a foul monster? Also, I want to see the look on the next party thief who runs into another player sadistic enough to put a glyph of warding on his OWN backpack, just on the principle of warding out theft.  Alas, if there were only smilies in reviews. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />Both the feats and prestige classes are good, though to me uninspired compared to some of Monte's Malhavoc Press work. I could easily see some of Monte's Eldritch feats fitting into this book in a heartbeat. As they are though, the prestige classes will be just the thing for the DM with that devil-worshipping cultist that the party wants to track down and slay. There's nothing quite like seeing a cultist with powers that match their object of worship. In particular, watch for the Soul Eater Prestige class; this combined with an already physically powerful creature will be a memorable villain for any campaign. I have always been a fan of "relentless hunters" as an NPC concept, and I am torn between this one and the Mortal Hunter PrC as for which one will be the scariest for PC's to encounter.The long-awaited Demons and Devil Lords chapter was good, and Monte decided to stick with the non-epic side fo the power scale for most of the unique creatures therein. Much has been macde in independent reviews and conversation about the realtive power levels; frankly, I am glad that the villain are within the reach of high-level and low-epic PC's; back in the heady days of 1st edition D&D, it was considered a great accomplishment (indeed, the pinnacple of one's career) to destroy or banish a demon or devil prince; Taking onthe ultimate bad guys and winning was a great thrill back them. By putting most of these dark luminaries in the range, it introduces the feel that evil can indeed be palpably beaten, though it be overwhelming and lethal if unchecked.A grand selection of evil monsters and templates grace the final chapters. Without going into too much detail here, many old monsters are revisited, such as the baubau, the Chasme, and eye of fear and flame. New ones (such as the Kocrachon, or the impalers, slaymasters, and slaughterkings, make life for PC's uncertain, nasty, brutish, and short.Finally, a small (VERY small) section is devoted to both running PC anti-heroes in a campaign, as well as outright villains. As the book notes numerous times, it is NOT a glorification of same, and a rather frank discussion into differences of motive, methods, and other points to alter in your campaign if you go through with an all-evil campaign.OVERVIEW: The book of Vile Darkness is light on the vile, heavy on the dark. If one has watched the following three movies:1) Hannibal2) Seven3) 8 mmthen this book cannot shake you. It has nothing viler than these movies. In fact, even the art, even the dreaded page 112, that being a picture of a dwarvish looking male impaling a planetar or deva with his sword, is not disgusting, though it might border on blasphemous to some. My own wife found the item known as the Despoiler of Flesh more disgusting than anything in the book, while I did not think any worse of it than the Eye or Hand of Vecna. Everyone will likely find a "squeamish button" somewhere in the Book, but everyone's squeamish button will be in different places.If you are looking for a book of ideas to challenge your PC's get this book. If you are looking for a book to complement a campaign of evil PC's, and wish to let them become as evil as possible in a mature yet not adolescent story, get this book. If you find torture, slavery, sacrifice, and ultra-powerful demon-lords abhorrent, DO NOT GET THIS BOOK.Thank you for your time.</blockquote>

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