e-Villains

[Ghostwind]

e-Villains, the online companion to our full Villains product, is now available for download! This 24-page, full-color PDF includes four more villains that are a perfect fit for your campaign. Ranging in Challenge Ratings from 4-20, these villains are the perfect complement for your campaign and an exciting challenge to your world

 

[JoeGKushner]

e-Villains
Edited by Aaron Rosenberg and Wil Upchurch
Published by Bastion Press
24 full color pages
$3.99

Just as e-Minions is a pdf supplement for the printed Minions, e-Villains is a supplement for the printed sourcebook, Villains.

One of thing I don’t like about e-Villains right off the bat is that unlike the printed book, there is no introduction; it just starts off listing baddies to add to the campaign. Now why is this a big deal? It would’ve been nice to have those two pages to know what information is under what heading and it would’ve kicked the page count up a little too.

Now this book only covers four main villains and their henchmen.

Bryn Amanthys Weslock: The least likely villain, this young woman is a lawful good aristocrat whose family suffered at the hands of humanoids that a group of adventurers riled up. Now she uses his family’s authority to pass laws and collect taxes that hinder the adventuring lifestyle in numerous ways. Bad news for the ‘good’ aligned party is that she is very popular and any attempts to physically knock her down are likely to backfire on them. Now it’s ironic, but Bryn is actually the perfect target for a group of ‘evil’ characters like Assassins, Black Guards, Bandits, and other rough types who feel that she’s cutting into their turf. It’s also a nice change of pace to see someone whose main strength isn’t outright combat.

Caeseara Willowmane, a former Pegasus rider whose village was destroyed by goblinoids who were riled up by, yup, you guessed it, adventurers. She herself was almost slain in the battle but she escaped and found refuge at the shrine of an ancient goddess of vengeance. Now this 5th level fighter-7th level cleric rides a massive wyvern into combat, hunting those who are worthy of her vengeance. Her favorite type of prey? Why, adventurers of course.

Sara Anamander is a former human imbued with the spirit of the divine and has become a Fox Maiden, one of the monsters detailed in e-Minions. Her village was under the ‘protection’ of guards who often did more harm then good and she suffered a terrible fate at their hands but an ancient deposit of godling energy (perhaps a good tie on to those who won Requiem for A God) imbued her with new life and hatred for all humans. Now this Bard 5-Assassin 9 has a powerful doppelganger minion with whom she uses to assassinate important individuals and set kingdoms warring with one another.

Xanderwhal Drukin is perhaps the strangest of the lot. This Halfling was another victim of human war, a noble paladin who sacrificed life and soul to end a demonic threat that no one was aware of. Unfortunately for him, the demon lord Zuratorkul (yes, the same demon lord from Villains) took notice of him and crafted for him a new body with new weapons. Now this fallen paladin 5, fighter 4, blackguard 9 lives only to serve the cause of evil. At a CR of 20, he’s one of the most dangerous front faced fighters in the book. With the help of Yiri Trilikorian, a fallen monk who takes care of the keep Mirrorstone, he intents to launch hell upon those who left him to fend alone in his life.

Each character starts off with name, aliases, stat block, appearance, history, personality/goals, lair/tactics, campaign use, and minion. The campaign use section is a good tool for GMs as it provides different ideas on how to utilize the NPCs at different party levels broken up into the broad terms low, medium and high level. There are numerous ties to both Villains, e-Minions, and other books in the Bastion Line, and the characters in the book fall under two themes, the first of careless adventurers, and second of innocents lost in war time. Both make for good ideas for GMs wondering how to design their own NPCs.

The layout is standard two column with a bit more whitespace than previous books. Art is good full color illustratiosn that brink the baddies to life.

The book doesn’t live up to Villains as e-Minions to Minions did though for a few reasons. Number one, it’s smaller. Number two, none of the minions of the main baddies are illustrated. Number three, it’s more expensive. Number four, there are no new prestige classes here unlike Villains.

It’s a good book but Bastion has done better. If they can include some maps of Mirrorstone, add some more villains or decrease the price, this goes from an okay buy to an excellent buy. Otherwise it’s a good source of ideas for GMs looking for something a little different.

 

[Psion]

"Bryn Amanthys Weslock: The least likely villain"

I considered her to be the best idea of the bunch.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Steve Creech, Exec. Chairman, d20 Magazine Rack

This review is for e-Villains, a 25-page campaign supplement to the forthcoming book Villains by Bastion Press. e-Villains is written by James Jacobs and is available in .pdf downloadable format for $3.99 directly from the Bastion Press website (www.bastionpress.com). e-Villains contains the statistics, descriptions, histories, and motivations of four different potential bad guys that can be used in your campaign.

The first of these villains is a half-celestial/half-human woman named Bryn Amanthys Weslock. Lady Weslock, the sole survivor of a family massacre, is a lawful good woman who blames adventurers for the fate of her family. She has vowed to bring the “hobby” of adventuring under control once and for all by taxing them to death in the lands she controls. Caeseara Willowmane, a 169-year-old female elf, is the next entry. Another victim of the callous actions of adventurers, this once beautiful and loving elf is now a loyal follower of the goddess of vengeance. Like Lady Weslock, Willowmane now seeks to end the stupidity of adventurers by putting them on trial for their crimes and promptly pronouncing sentence (usually death).

Sara Anamander is a Fox Maiden (from e-Minions by Bastion Press), a shapechanger, who uses her levels of bard and assassin to eliminate key political leaders in hopes of plunging the civilized world into chaos. Her ultimate goal is the destruction of all humanity and the return of nature to its rightful place in the scheme of things. Like each of the previous villains, Sara has sustained great personal loss and tragedy which has altered how she views the world. The final villain is Xanderwhal Drukin, a former Halfling paladin whose soul has been corrupted by evil. Xanderwhal is now a diabolical, calculating individual that has amassed an army of monsters capable of laying waste to all the lands.

e-Villains has some very good points in its design and layout. Each villain presented comes with a fully developed background history that explains why they have become villains and what their existing motivations and tactics are. Each entry also comes with suggestions on how to use this character for a low, mid, and/or high-level campaign. The framework is even laid down to make each of these characters an arch nemesis that plagues the party through their entire career.
The technical problems are few with only a reference made to a missing appendix, which I assume is included in the forthcoming book Villains. The amount of ink used to print out this book is dramatically reduced compared to the last .pdf Bastion Press released. This is due largely in part to reducing the border to one side only rather than on all four sides.

Overall, e-Villains is a decent compilation of plot devices designed to vex your characters and is a good indication of what is to come with Villains. Each listing is filled with enough information that the character can take on a life of its own after only a few minutes of study and preparation. If you plan on buying Villains when it is released, I would definitely recommend e-Villains to complement it. If you’re just looking for a couple of completely designed bad guys that you can use without spending hours to roll up and develop, then e-Villains fits the bill quite nicely.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.