Curses! is a pdf product from Silven Publishing. It's written by Eytan Bernstein, and presents new options for evil campaigns or evil PCs and NPCs in the form of curses or hexes, and includes new spells, feats, prestige classes and background material on curses. Curses! is a 24 page pdf, 18 of which are devoted to the content of the pdf. Curses! normally retails for $4. This review was done as part of Crothian's Review Project.
Disclaimer: The reviewer is also a d20 freelance writer with recent published material through another publisher. Every effort has been made by the reviewer to ensure that this is an impartial review.
Initial Impressions:
This pdf from Silven publishing comes as a zip file containing four different files, each clearly titled and fully bookmarked - a version for home printing with borders removed, a version for print on demand printing, a screen version and finally a version only containing high resolution covers. The general presentation and layout was good, although there is no definite chapter designation and so various sections just follow into each other. The prestige classes, for example, start on the same page that the feats end, and there is no logical break between different sections of the pdf.
The cover art by Dana Driscoll depicts a graveyard scene with an open grave, quite apt, and there are two further small interior art pieces by the same artist. Other than these simple art pieces, the pdf is devoid of artwork. Towards the end of the pdf there are two blank pages - presumably one was meant as a placeholder for the back cover, but I was somewhat perplexed as to the reason for these blank pages. The pdf has a detailed table of contents and a page serving as an introduction to the pdf, the author, the editor and the company. My general impression was favourable in terms of overall appearance, although I would've preferred to see logical section breaks within the material itself.
The Details:
While there are no chapter designations, the pdf is still nonetheless divided into four different sections - overview, spells, feats and prestige classes. I think this product is quite suitable to those roleplaying in, for example, medieval earth or in evil campaigns, although most of the material is DM orientated, and I wouldn't be inclined to use the prestige classes for player characters given their overall flavor. It does, however, make a tantalising read from a DM perspective, and there are quite a number of interesting applications of curses that I can see myself using. I'm particularly fond of the idea of curses that don't show any immediate effect, such as the healing curse variant of Bestow curse that prevents magical healing, and the prestige classes would make for interesting and quite scary villains. But lets look at the content in a little more detail.
Overview: The pdf starts by presenting an overview of curses and their application throughout history. I found this an interesting read as the author delves briefly in Greek mythological curses, ancient Egyptian curses, religious curses, voudoun and the concept of the evil eye. I generally appreciate this kind of historical background, and this is well done and provides some sort of framework for the material to come. History often contains loads of ideas that can translate well into fantasy words, and as such provides some useful material.
Spells: As this pdf is about curses, it contains a number of new curse spells. The rules are expanded to include a curse descriptor for spells, which is required to differentiate with respect to effects related to curses such as the various new feats. A helpful list of all player's handbook spells is given to which the curse descriptor can be applied such as the various power word spells, or simple spells like bane or doom. In addition, a useful table is presented to expand on the curses available through bestow curse, and there are some good ideas there and some curses that I'd certainly select when using bestow curse in game. Examples include spell failure curses, healing resistance curses and fear of the undead.
There are seventeen new spells presented in this pdf, all related to curses. There are some useful spells presented here without any glaring balance issues, and many are useful even if you do not want to use the remainder of the material in this book. Curse of Ineptitude, for example, gives the target a 50% failure chance on their next action, while Detect Curse, Magic Circle vs Curses, and Protection from Curses give some aid against the numerous curses presented in this pdf, such as Toady (a minor Baleful Polymorph), Mute, Impart Blasphemy and the Curse of Utter Hopelessness. A good variety with some interesting options for curse orientated players, or those serving deities of vengeance.
Feats: A number of new curse-related feats are presented in this pdf. Some are really good, such as Undeath Infusion which is a metamagic feat which turns creatures killed by your spells into undead upon their death. Others such as Curse of Blood (the caster takes permanent hp loss if the curse is to have no saving throw) and Death Curse Contingency (invoke a powerful curse upon death) are not all that useful for player characters, but quite fun for NPCs and the like. I think it remains one of the pdfs strong points in that it caters well to non-player characters.
Prestige Classes: There are four prestige classes presented in the pdf: the Blood Hexer (a powerful user of curses with detrimental effects to the Blood Hexer), the Evil Eye (one who has a pact with a demon that grants special powers through a third eye), Hexomancer (a specialist in effigy use and using metamagic curses), and the Servant of Vengeance (a powerful servant of vengeance or justice). While I thought the prestige classes were generally good, they're far more suitable to NPCs than PCs. Some of the abilities are a little strong, such as the Hexomancer's effigies which allow it to cast touch attack spells into the effigy to affect the victim wherever it is, or the evil eye granting permanent true seeing quite early in the character's overall progression, or Eye for an Eye, allowing the Servant of Vengeance to inflict on an opponent the same amount of damage it has just inflicted on an ally. Other than some minor balance issues, I think the flavor makes for some scary and focused NPCs, and probably if done right some lasting villains to freak out your players.
Conclusions:
Curses! is a pdf product from Silven Publishing devoted to curses. It presents a good variety of useful material, though I think more focused on DMs than on players, something that the pdf actually mentions. If you want to expand on curses then this contains some good material and ideas, although it does not delve into, for example, cursed magical items. This is not the first product to deal with curses (Heyoka Studios has a Book of Curses), but I think it contains novel material that many DMs will be able to use to creating interesting encounters. Based on some ropey layout issues and minor balance problems, usefulness of the material and somewhat niche quality, I'd grade this pdf with three and a half stars, rounding up to four stars.
