Dark Speech & the Warlock

[Quidam]

After scanning the rules listed in the Book of Vile Darkness for Dark Speech, I'm left with a few questions-

Is dark speech widely recognizable as such?

Is dark speech easily recognizable as evil?

Is speaking a word of it an evil act?

Having a warlock waiting in the wings, I'm curious about the repercussions of the use of baleful utterance.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Since you have to be evil to use dark speech, the evil part doesn't matter too much any more.

Still, I think it's an evil act, and regocnizable as such. People probably won't know that you are using "the" Dark Speech, but I'm sure they'll know you're up to no good.

 

[Quidam]

Since you have to be evil to use dark speech, the evil part doesn't matter too much any more.

So you're saying a CG warlock either cannot choose (or use) baleful utterance or that doing so will erode his alignment from good to neutral to evil.

Anyone else play with this interpretation?

 

[Shazman]

There's nothing in its description that says the invocation is evil, so I would say no

 

[Kae'Yoss]

So you're saying a CG warlock either cannot choose (or use) baleful utterance or that doing so will erode his alignment from good to neutral to evil.

Yes. I know that warlocks can be good characters that have inherited their powers from an ancestor, so they don't have to be evil, and the invocation doesn't have the evil descriptor or anything, but in this case I think it fits with the theme of Dark Speech. That dark speech is not evil. It's Evil.

Maybe baleful utterance is only a diluted version of dark speech (meaning that CG character won't drop dead when he utters it), but it surely will bring him over to the Dark Side. not at once, but piece by piece.

 

[Patlin]

As someone who has Complete Arcane but not Vile Darkness (being aware I would aquire negative levels just for posessing it) I'd reject that interpretation. Nothing in Complete Arcane suggests this outcome, and it's supposed to be playable without consulting BoVD.

 

[wayne62682]

Baleful Utterance's use of "Dark Speech" is flavor text, nothing more. There's no repercussions for using it like there would be for the actual Dark Speech as outlined in the BoVD.

 

[starwed]

Also, Baker mentioned elsewhere (when discussing whether Baleful Utterance needs a verbal component) that the dark speech aspect was supposed to be just a bit of cool flavor, and he hadn't really considered the game mechanic aspects.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

It's a question of flavour.

 

[Crothian]

I like the flavor text and think it works well as Evil.