Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011715" data-attributes="member: 18387">DEMON: Servants of DarknessWritten by Allen Thomas -128 pg Trade Paperback, Perfect Bound, Black & White.This is a campaign sourcebook for the Hero System detailing the enigmatic occult group from whom the book gets its title. The book is best used in modern or super heroic genres but with some modifications can make an excellent addition to a fantasy campaign. This is a comp copy and was not playtested. Again, this is not a d20 book but is for use with the Hero System but as many sourcebooks it is easily adapted to other rules engines.Overview: DEMON is a twisted crawl into the belly of a fantastical black magic cult set in modern times. The themes are occasionally mature but handled in a tasteful fashion. The DEMON organization has been around through previous editions of the Hero System but this is the first definitive treatment that the popular mystics have received. This book is well written and executed to create a powerful mystical organization whose goals could threaten all of humanity. Impossibly complex, the organization of DEMON is built to keep your players guessing and on the seat of their pants. Layout & Design: The cover art is well done in the comic style of Storn Cook. Interior artwork is standard for Hero which is to say that it is passable but not much more than that. A few pieces really stood out as above par on pages 11, 45, & 148 - unfortunately they were not signed. The maps were done by Keith Curtis and are excellent. The layout is Hero System standard and the book seems densely packed with text, more so than usual for Hero Books.Chapter One First, let me say the first 40 pages of the book deal almost exclusively with the power behind DEMON: Luther Black. The sections read like a novel rather than a character write up. Luther Black was born on leap year 270 years ago and thanks to his gypsy mother will live to the ripe old age of 280 – in other words time is running out. To use DEMON, the GM needs to understand Luther Black – his powers, weaknesses, and his visions. The author builds this master villain and his plan with exceeding exactness that allows a GM to intersect his game at various points and leaves the ultimate success or failure in the hands of individual games – to the reader it is not at all clear if Luther Black will succeed in his planned apotheosis or if he has already failed.  From the great wars, to the depression, and into the nineties, we follow Luther Black and thus DEMON as the organization grows and changed into the Byzantine cult that it finds itself in modern times. Various sidebars and plot-points are used throughout the book that provides hooks for using DEMON during other times. As mentioned, the back-story reads more like a depraved novella than an introduction to a gaming book.Chapter Two – Demonic overview.This short section is invaluable, providing a concise breakdown of who knows what. It details the goals of the organization and the methods to pursue those goals.  This section also provides the reasoning behind the various teaching styles DEMON uses to recruit new members. One of the many ingenious ideas in this book is that DEMON could care less about your personal religious beliefs; the organization recruits Satanists, Kali Thugs, and nihilists with equal abandon. I get the feeling that this section will see lots of reference if you use DEMON in your game.Chapter Three – The Leadership of DEMONLuther Black starts out this chapter under his assumed name, the Edomite but quickly we start to get into other facets of the organizations. The Inverted Trinity serves as Black’s personal enforcers who remain unknown to the larger organization. These are spooky creatures, less human than Blacks own shriveled husk. Each of the Inverted Trinity has been possessed by a malign entity or been corrupted into a malign entity – powerful and utterly ruthless they are foes that should inspire fear even among the super heroic.The Inner Circle are beings corrupted by Qliphothic energies (Qliphoth are negative cosmic energies equating with the ten positive Sephiroth – Gnostic/Hebrew forces of good, at least as far as I was able to figure out.). They run the operations that keep DEMON in check and are all suitably evil. The majority of them seem to spring right out of some Chuthulu inspired nightmare but the final member of the Inner Circle stands out as a cut above. Dyer Vander Bleek is a powerful occultist and infernal trafficker but somehow you feel sorry for this poor fellow who is both out of his league and totally fails to comprehend the situation that he has found himself in. The Edomite, The Inverted Trinity, and the Inner Circle are the powerhouses behind DEMON and all strive towards their own, occasionally conflicting goals. Many of these characters are a match for super heroic characters and bring to the table unusual threats and powers that the heroes may not be prepared to face, something sure to inspire fear and loathing at any game table.Chapter Four – Mephistophelean EvilWhen the players speak of DEMON, odds are that they will be referencing the characters and groups presented in this chapter – wholly unaware of the greater evil of the previous chapter. However, this chapter does more than just present villain stats. The greatest parts of the DEMON source book are in the details and this section provides great details without becoming a manual.The chapter leads in with a section on recruitment. The author is well researched and laid out some practices that could have been taken from a real world cult, most of them are reprehensible. One of the examples of active recruitment occurs in support groups after all “recovering alcoholics, drug users, persons with cancer or who have a loved one with cancer, people who have been recently divorced or lost a child, people who feel they lack confidence or any other failing – all of these are susceptible to DEMON’s pitch.”The nuisances of the chapter are something to be experienced rather than explained so I will leave it at that.This chapter also covers the various “levels” of initiation: Brethren, Initiate, & Morbane. Each level has various archetypes from “the victim” to the “faithful servant of evil” that provide dozens of hooks for a games master. Two special types of rank and file DEMON members deserve to be called out – the Demonbound & the Supervillians.  The Demonbound are a cunning addition to the DEMON stable that allow for the creation of one-shot villains to challenge the players and come with a number of templates that can be used to make them interesting and less predictable. The Demonbound, as the name implies, are people who are possessed by a demon through a ritual, sometimes these are DEMON agents and sometimes they are hapless bystanders which makes wanton slaughter of the Demonbound and difficult decision. The super-villain section illustrates the various methods for creating supers who are aligned with DEMON (Qliphothic corruption, magical item based villain, and possessed villain).Chapter Five – The DemonhamesThis is a short chapter detailing commonalities in the various bases used by DEMON and then two example Demonhames. The example Demonhames come with useful maps and neither of the bases is ultra-powerful making them perfect places for your heroes to get their feet wet in the scum filled pool that is DEMON. Following the examples is a discussion of DEMON around the world – while DEMON is a worldwide cult they don’t always fare as well as they do in the United States or the West in general. There are some great teasers for DMs to work with in this section.Chapter six – Profane RegaliaWhat evil cult worth the name does not posses some malignant artifacts of bygone evil? This section details a few dozen items used to empower the Morbanes and their lackeys.Chapter Seven – Gamemaster’s Demonic DesignsThis section covers everything that is left – the anatomy of a satanic ritual, demonic trappings, hooks & black magic plots, and finally DEMON in other genres. If I had to pick on a section, this would be the section. It is fairly skimpy and many GMs could use the extra uumph when it comes to getting the DEMON ball rolling at their table. Still, the section is not bad.Summation – or Wow, you made it!The negative – the Inner Circle is interesting but a few of the members need tweaking or could have had more expanded write-ups (Coin Collector, I am looking at you). The Profane Regalia section is technically correct but seemed uninspired when viewed against the rest of the book. Finally, I had mentioned that the final chapter seemed a tad anemic. These are minor quips more than actual flaws and I really had to stretch to come up with these.  The Positive - DEMON is an excellent sourcebook for most genres but will require more work for anything that is not a modern superhero or action style campaign. The book is well written and entertaining to read, always a significant bonus in my book. Finally, the topic has the ability to stray into the childishly perverted but the author does a fine job of managing to convey the depravity of the organization while keeping the books overall rating to PG-13.Randy MaddenEosin the Red</blockquote>

Verification