JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Elder Evils is a 3.5 sourcebook of ancient alien powers design to ‘end’ your campaign. Written by Robert J. Schwalb, Elder Evils clocks in at 160 full color pages and has a host of artists like Wayne England and Michael Phillippi among others.
Before I get to the meat of the review, let me get my two ‘meta’ gripes out of the way. First off, this and Exemplars of Evil, both written by Robert, should have been one 320 page book as opposed to two separate books. Next, both books were supposed to be updated to 4e and have that 4e logo with the get more at D&D inside bit on the back of them. Well, it’s six months since 4e launched and no updates. Okay, not that my mini-rant is done, onto the review!
Elder Evils starts off with a brief chapter on how to use game mechanics to simulate the end times. Instead of the seven plagues, we get all sorts of game mechanics to insert into the campaign. These start off as small signs and grow to the point where no one can ignore them. These range from the sun ceasing to rise to the dead starting to rise. One of the nice things about these effects is that they provide some reasons why the players could be the ones drawn in against the big bad at the end. The other heroes of the setting are too busy dealing with the other aspects of the end times and must rely on the heroes to handle the root cause.
The rest of the book then breaks into different monsters; Atropus, Father Llymic, Hulks of Zoretha, Leviathan, Pandorym, Ragnorra, Sertrous, The Worm That Walks, and Zargon. There’s a lot of love for the various older material from D&D’s long history here and some great ideas to be had.
In terms of old edition love, Robert picks up some of the threads from the old Gates of Firestorm Peak with Father Llymic, an ancient elder evil whose existence in our world can only fully come when released from his prison of ice. Zargon, an old monster from 1st edition, is also given his share of the love. The Worm that Walks just had a huge adventure path and while might not have been the most unloved of creatures in terms of exposure, gets another write up.
Each of these write ups has background details. Some of these can come out through Knowledge checks. Each comes with Signs. The signs showcase the traits starting from Faint to Moderate to Strong to Overwhelming. At each stage, the theme of that monster gets stronger and stronger. Using the monsters in the campaign provides numerous encounters that start off at lower levels and work their way up to the higher levels of standard D&D. Several encounters are mapped out, making this a book that GMs can quickly use. For example, Ragnorra has ‘The Heart of the Crater’ where players must go to end her menance. It includes random encounters drawn from several books with page references, full page overview map, and several ‘dungeon delve’ style encounters with up close maps and the encounters that occur there.
Unique monsters, diseases, and other bits are also listed per monster. For example, for the Leviahan, his servant Axihualtl is a male advanced vampiric ixitxachitl clocking in at a mighty CR 19, three CR levels higher than the aspect of the leviathan itself. Brief campaign notes are included for using the monsters in Eberron and in the Forgotten Realms.
The good news about this is that it doesn’t rely on epic rules. The bad news is that it makes most monsters under a CR of 20 and could cause some head scratching to those who play in campaigns like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk where whole hosts of characters in the background should be able to break out the beat stick on them.
The only other problem with the book is in having this focus, its severly limited in terms of how many times you can use it per campaign. These are campaign ending monsters and their levels are so closely arranged that it’s unlikely the GM will be able to use more than one or them per campaign unless the GM is running some high level Ghost Busters or Destroy All Monsters type of campaign.
Robert J. Schwalb brings the evil in Elder Evils and the book is an enjoyable read, perfect for GMs looking to put some end games in place.
Before I get to the meat of the review, let me get my two ‘meta’ gripes out of the way. First off, this and Exemplars of Evil, both written by Robert, should have been one 320 page book as opposed to two separate books. Next, both books were supposed to be updated to 4e and have that 4e logo with the get more at D&D inside bit on the back of them. Well, it’s six months since 4e launched and no updates. Okay, not that my mini-rant is done, onto the review!
Elder Evils starts off with a brief chapter on how to use game mechanics to simulate the end times. Instead of the seven plagues, we get all sorts of game mechanics to insert into the campaign. These start off as small signs and grow to the point where no one can ignore them. These range from the sun ceasing to rise to the dead starting to rise. One of the nice things about these effects is that they provide some reasons why the players could be the ones drawn in against the big bad at the end. The other heroes of the setting are too busy dealing with the other aspects of the end times and must rely on the heroes to handle the root cause.
The rest of the book then breaks into different monsters; Atropus, Father Llymic, Hulks of Zoretha, Leviathan, Pandorym, Ragnorra, Sertrous, The Worm That Walks, and Zargon. There’s a lot of love for the various older material from D&D’s long history here and some great ideas to be had.
In terms of old edition love, Robert picks up some of the threads from the old Gates of Firestorm Peak with Father Llymic, an ancient elder evil whose existence in our world can only fully come when released from his prison of ice. Zargon, an old monster from 1st edition, is also given his share of the love. The Worm that Walks just had a huge adventure path and while might not have been the most unloved of creatures in terms of exposure, gets another write up.
Each of these write ups has background details. Some of these can come out through Knowledge checks. Each comes with Signs. The signs showcase the traits starting from Faint to Moderate to Strong to Overwhelming. At each stage, the theme of that monster gets stronger and stronger. Using the monsters in the campaign provides numerous encounters that start off at lower levels and work their way up to the higher levels of standard D&D. Several encounters are mapped out, making this a book that GMs can quickly use. For example, Ragnorra has ‘The Heart of the Crater’ where players must go to end her menance. It includes random encounters drawn from several books with page references, full page overview map, and several ‘dungeon delve’ style encounters with up close maps and the encounters that occur there.
Unique monsters, diseases, and other bits are also listed per monster. For example, for the Leviahan, his servant Axihualtl is a male advanced vampiric ixitxachitl clocking in at a mighty CR 19, three CR levels higher than the aspect of the leviathan itself. Brief campaign notes are included for using the monsters in Eberron and in the Forgotten Realms.
The good news about this is that it doesn’t rely on epic rules. The bad news is that it makes most monsters under a CR of 20 and could cause some head scratching to those who play in campaigns like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk where whole hosts of characters in the background should be able to break out the beat stick on them.
The only other problem with the book is in having this focus, its severly limited in terms of how many times you can use it per campaign. These are campaign ending monsters and their levels are so closely arranged that it’s unlikely the GM will be able to use more than one or them per campaign unless the GM is running some high level Ghost Busters or Destroy All Monsters type of campaign.
Robert J. Schwalb brings the evil in Elder Evils and the book is an enjoyable read, perfect for GMs looking to put some end games in place.
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