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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Simon Collins" data-source="post: 2008510" data-attributes="member: 9860">Beware! This review contains major spoilers.Demonology: The Dark Road is a sourcebook dealing with summoning, binding and controlling demons (and devils) for the D&D game. Note that the author does not distinguish between demons and devils in the text - they are all classed as demons - my review will use the same presumption for simplicities sake. It costs $13.99.Presentation: This is a softback book with a page count of 64. The front cover has a nice picture of a demonologist summoning a demon within a pentagram (Lesson One: Never stand inside the summoning circle when summoning a demon!!). The back cover contains information on the book, on a black background. The inside front cover portrays four demons whilst the back cover shows an insane letter. The first page contains credits and contents and the penultimate page shows the OGL and D20 Licence. The text is restricted, as usual in Mongoose Publishing's products, by a fairly wide margin and plenty of white space between paragraphs and around drawings. The internal black and white artwork is generally good (in fact some of it is better than the front cover).Whats Inside: A two page introduction covers the purpose of the Encyclopaedia Arcane series and demonology itself, with some flavour text. A three-page overview of demonology deals with corruption and how to avoid it, the terminology of demonology, and the dangers of demonology. The six-page section entitled To Tread The Dark Road deals with why someone begins to practice demonology and the types of practitioners, before going on to detail three prestige classes - the Demonologist, the Binder and the Possessed. The next (8 page) section, The Art Of Summoning - First Steps, deals with research and study, summoning rituals, the risks of summoning, required knowledge, some rules on Summoning (with an example), shifting the odds (modifiers to summoning), controlling the demon, and the consequences of failure. The Art Of Summoning - The Neophyte (8 pages) deals with siphoning demonic energy, multiple summonings, named demons, blood sacrifices, group summonings, possession (including an example using the rules), accidental possession, possessing others, driving out the demon, dismissing demons, and demonic familiars. The Art Of Summoning - The Dark Road (6 pages) deals with powerful demonologists, covering self-possession (letting a demon possess you), soul sacrifices, and soul servitude (all with related rules information). The following section, Bound Demons, deals with binding demons into items (including creating demonic armour and demonic weapons through the process) over 6 pages. The next page has four demonological feats (Change Instruction, Dismiss Demon, Permanent Control and Quicken Summoning). Two pages of magical items follow. Next is a section giving advice to DMs who want to introduce demonology into their campaigns (including alignment considerations and rules clarifications). A two page section looks at other races who might use demonology (e.g. drow, hags, Yuan-ti). Next is a ten page section entitled Demonic Entities which deals with soul harvesting, demonic families/types, and ritual components, followed by a description for all the demons from the Monster Manual, complete with illustrations (huzzah!), demon-type, and summoning information. The book finishes with a page of notes from the designer that clarifies a few of the issues within the main text, and a final rules summary.The Good: Interesting prestige classes, a workable set of rules for essentially a (limited) new magic system for demonology (using DCs as per the skills system), binding demons into items, blood sacrifices, selling your soul for power, new feats - the list goes on of all the creative stuff that can be found in this book. This is a major step up from the Slayer's Guides. And what's more, it seems to be well-balanced enough at first glance to be usable for PCs (as the designer's notes encourage you to do).The Bad: I'd like to have seen some new demons (but hey, Green Ronin have plenty) and the book suffered from Mongoose Publishing's spacious layout once more. Thats about it really.Conclusion: This book had my mind racing with ideas as I read through it, and I'm looking forward to incorporating ideas from it in my next adventure. Not only useful for DMs though, this is worthwhile getting as a player too. All round a huge improvement on previous Mongoose products and definitely worth the money.</blockquote>

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