BoVD Questions

[Dagger75]

I have used the book, made a few NPC's out of it. The spells are pretty cool. mostly wizard version of cleric save or die spells. I already have killed the high level cleric with one of the the spells from the book.

One player has a magic item from the book, The ring of Vile Weapon Damage. Got that off a maralith.

I think the book is pretty good for making some unique NPC's. If you can afford to get the book I would get it, it is not a requirement by any means. I can almost gaurentee you will find something useful in it.

 

[Nightfall]

Actually, there is a three-page appendix in the end with advice on running a campaign with evil characters.

I'll be using the book a lot in my campaign, with the Chaos cultists, other sort of Chaos cultists, and some less Chaotic cultists, too. If you want details about the campaign itself, the story hour link is in my .sig...

And I simply must give one of the Slaaneshi a nipple clamp of exquisite pain... Also, I'm thinking up ways to drop the Corrupted Creature template on the druid's animal companion, or the party's horses and pack animals. Thralls of Demogorgon, Graz'zt, and Juiblex will also be making appearances, along with the odd Cancer Mage and Demonologist. Or many Demonologists. Bwahahaha.

As a side note, our party in another campaign already took on a buffed-up vilewight. The link to the Story Hour is in the .sig, though Nightfall still hasn't gotten through even the first session with it...

Well not the fight with the Vilewight no, but I HAVE gotten through the first session thank you. If you'll recall I got to you next session.

 

[Knight Otu]

Any book that has a spell that has an ARTIFACT as a material component will always have a special place in my heart.

Material component or Focus?

 

[Omega Lord]

Material component my friend. As in it is CONSUMED by the spell ! I did quite a double take at that entry.

Course this spell does do 10d6 points of fire acid or sonic damage over an area of 10 miles.... PER LEVEL . That is one twisted spell.

 

[Bonehoard Taffer]

Well, I finally got a copy for my birthday. It has some pretty interresting stuff in it, and I think it has some pretty goofy stuff as well. Certainly, it seems tamer than some thought. Having said that though, I think there is some things that others will find distastful.

By far the art work has to be the worse part of the book, IMHO. Not in a vile sort of way, more of a schlocky sort of way. None of it turned my stomach. All the blood reminded me of some B splatter movie that I grew out of when I was 12. Here's my tip to the artists, if they ever happen to work on this sort of product again. Blood does not equal scary, gross, or vile. For me the overuse of blood, more times than not, ended up making the pictures look silly, rather than evil in any way. Actually, that lovely picture of the halfling over a dead ogre or giant some issues past in Dragon was worse than anything in the BoVD. Then did you notice that Belial's trunks appear to be made out of a face? If a devil lord ever appeared to me sporting trunks with a face on them, whether he could rip me to shreds or not, I would bust a gut laughing and tell him to come back when he has some real clothes.

My other complaint is that durned "intended for mature audiences" sticker. The glue that they used to hold that on, now that was vile. It took me two hours to get that off. The guy who decided they should use those stickers, he should be locked in a dungeon someplace.

All in all, I am glad I got the book. It could prove a useful tool. After seeing the book, I think some of the hype was a bit much, and it is refreshing to see that Wizards did not slip into utter depravity.

I am glad I stayed out of the discussions about the book before I looked at it, however, I do think that those few who spoke out against the book showed alot of character and conviction. I also think that many of those who criticized those against such a book did quite a job of hopping on the proverbial bandwagon. Finally, I think WOTC needs a kick in the butt for releasing the book the way they did. They had to know that for various reasons many would not buy the book, yet they also put info in that many would want. For them to publish a book with information that many would find useful, and lace it with info that some would find distasteful is a slap in the face of any loyal customer who has ever purchased their products.

 

[Knight Otu]

Material component my friend. As in it is CONSUMED by the spell ! I did quite a double take at that entry.

Course this spell does do 10d6 points of fire acid or sonic damage over an area of 10 miles.... PER LEVEL . That is one twisted spell.

Whouch! That one gets the official stamp of Nastiest Spell so far.

 

[mythago]

Yes, they really should have gotten the Delta Green artists to work on this one, IMO.

I was pleasantly surprised. Normally I wouldn't pick up something like the BoVD, because such things are usually...um...juvenile splatter-film mentality. Since it was Monte Cook, I figured how bad could it be, and indeed it was well-done.

There is info on evil PCs, but that's not the focus of the book. And the book also makes the point that being an evil PC is not about being cool and running around in black armor; it's about being on the wrong end of heroic fantasy, and what that means in game terms.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Ok, here's a question.

Alrighty then,

I have a question. Does the Book of Vile Darkness adequately describe what a villian's motivation is? For example, what makes a cleric choose to follow say, Tharizdun, knowing that to fail in a task means that the most horrible things would happen to said cleric? I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, excellent book by the way, and I was wondering what motivated the death eaters to follow Voldemort? They were genuinely afraid of him and yet followed after him. In the Dragonlance book The Legend of Huma, the main villian cast a spell that would basically erase him from existance, kind of like balefire does in Wheel of Time, because he had failed the Dark Queen. That was a pretty drastic measure, I think.

I have pondered over this quite a bit lately and perhaps I just don't have the imagination I need because I can't see what would motivate a villian. Is it just power? Is it the need to feel dominion over someone else? Again that may just be power. Is it pride? I remember when the original furor over the Book of Vile Darkness happened, I mean I started some of it, a poster said something to the effect of without vile darkness we wouldn't have villians like Darth Vader. Now, from what I know about Star Wars lore it was his pride that saw him on his way to the dark side. Pride was Soth's downfall as well if I recall, Count Strahd too.

The Book of Vile Darkness is supposed to help you create memorable villians, a Dm's toolkit. There are prestige classes for thralls of the demon and devil lords, do they sufficiently explain why a sentient being would take these classes, or is it just Monte's brand of cool evil stuff? What is it in real life that motivates someone we consider evil, like the DC shooter, or Hitler or Stalin or any number of people throughout the worlds history.

Anyway all thoughts would be appreciated.

Son of Thunder

 

[Crothian]

Material component my friend. As in it is CONSUMED by the spell ! I did quite a double take at that entry.

Plot hook: Area devistated by this spell. THen same area devistatyed by this spell. Adventures seek what's going on and fine a caster destroying evil artifacts using the spell. He believes that destroying the land in this way is a worthwhile sacrifice to get rid of these things that cannot be destroyed in any other way.

Just an idea I had.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Re: Ok, here's a question.

Alrighty then,

I have a question. Does the Book of Vile Darkness adequately describe what a villian's motivation is? For example, what makes a cleric choose to follow say, Tharizdun, knowing that to fail in a task means that the most horrible things would happen to said cleric? I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, excellent book by the way, and I was wondering what motivated the death eaters to follow Voldemort? They were genuinely afraid of him and yet followed after him. In the Dragonlance book The Legend of Huma, the main villian cast a spell that would basically erase him from existance, kind of like balefire does in Wheel of Time, because he had failed the Dark Queen. That was a pretty drastic measure, I think.

I have pondered over this quite a bit lately and perhaps I just don't have the imagination I need because I can't see what would motivate a villian. Is it just power? Is it the need to feel dominion over someone else? Again that may just be power. Is it pride? I remember when the original furor over the Book of Vile Darkness happened, I mean I started some of it, a poster said something to the effect of without vile darkness we wouldn't have villians like Darth Vader. Now, from what I know about Star Wars lore it was his pride that saw him on his way to the dark side. Pride was Soth's downfall as well if I recall, Count Strahd too.

The Book of Vile Darkness is supposed to help you create memorable villians, a Dm's toolkit. There are prestige classes for thralls of the demon and devil lords, do they sufficiently explain why a sentient being would take these classes, or is it just Monte's brand of cool evil stuff? What is it in real life that motivates someone we consider evil, like the DC shooter, or Hitler or Stalin or any number of people throughout the worlds history.

Anyway all thoughts would be appreciated.

Son of Thunder

If that is the type of resource you are looking for, you may be happier with "The Villain Design Handbook" from Kenzer. This was my first Kenzer book, as it is very light on Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign specific material.

VDH has a chapter on stereotypes, and a chapter on archetypes ( deviants, devoted, fallen, inhuman, power mad and visionary )and then a short chapter on thought processess, motivations and schemes of the villain. I'd have to describe the VDH as fluff heavy.

Monte's material is usually fluff lite. BoVD's coolness IMO is the crunchy stuff. New rules and descriptions of the truly "inhuman" brand of evil.

If you want something broader in scope that will help you create all types of villians, not just the inhuman or deviant archetypes that the BoVD focuses on, then you should give the VDH a closer look - here's a link to the 3 reviews posted on ENWorld:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=kokv

Personally, I feel the books are very complimentary, and am glad I have them both.