Partial Review. Revision Soon!
So here's how my review is working out. I'm not finished yet and may revise it. I tend to hate the chapter by chapter breakdowns, but that's usually how I do it anyway.
Hordes of the Abyss
ISBN 13-978-0-7869-3919-0
Written by Ed Stark, James Jacobs, Erik Mona
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
160 full color pages
$29.95
Demons are a fan favorite for gamers and have a long history in role playing games. This includes unofficial expansions in previous editions such as Mayfair’s Role Aid’s demons line and in 3.5 with Green Ronin’s Armies of the Abyss and Legions of hell which were latter combined into one book. This doesn’t count Mongoose take on it with books on Demonology or OGL variants dealing with the lower planes nor Necromancer Games take on the demon lords in Tome of Horrors series.
Of course that doesn’t touch on the official expansions from TSR to Wizards of the Coast. The old Monster Manual from 1st edition and it’s sequel, along with the numerous supplements for Planescape and even in late 3.0 products like the Book of Vile Darkness to Dragon magazine’s support, including new demonology articles.
The book uses standard two-column format. Broken into five chapters with three appendices, the book makes good use of white space or has the illusion of it with dark red borders. Chapters are laid out towards the outside margin towards the top of the page and page numbers on the bottom outside margin. Page count is standard for Wizards of the Coast products and with the full color and hardback format, isn’t unreasonable, but other publishers like Steve Jackson games with their larger books at full color in hardback, are catching up.
Cover art is handled by Sam Wood. Interior artists include fan favorites like William O’Connon and Wyane Reynolds among others. Interior art is fairly solid but some reuse of art lowers that value. For example, while the full color picture of Graz’zt and Iggwilv by Wayne Renolds on page 101 is fantastic, it’s the same picture that was used for the cover of Dungeon magazine #121. The terrible illustration of Orcus as some balor style demon instead of his bloated self on page 73 comes from the Book of Vile Darkness on page 137.
Cartography is handled by Jason Engle and Kyle Hunter. They provide overviews of different locations, as well as mapped out lairs and encounter spots. The difference in their styles makes it fairly easy to tell for example, that Jason Engle did the Twelve Trees on page 134 while the overview of Thanatos is probably by Kyle Hunter.
The book starts off with Demonic Lore. Want to know how a demon dies? There’s a charming little table that you can roll a d20 on and see anything from the skin of the demon peeling away to rotting away to nothing more than a foul odor. It’s a nice little touch to showcase just how different demons are from standard creatures.
The section on the origins of demons is merely a suggestion that demons arose from the Abyss after the deities, devils, and other powers left that plane and went to others. Pretty boring stuff.
The section on physiology covers a few areas but only in brief detail. For example, demons don’t sleep and those that do breath have powerful lungs and can breath in any Material plane. They don’t need to eat, but can apparently eat limitless amounts of food and some take great enjoyment from it, especially the devouring of sacrifices.
In terms of why demons don’t overrun the Prime campaign, not a lot of thought is given. Perhaps because, when looking under Six Truths About Demons, that the Abyss calls to them. Which doesn’t explain why when fiendish portals open that they fight to keep them open and “take steps to avoid its subsequent closure.” Of course enjoying chaos for it’s own sake might explain a little of that.
This includes the different roles that a demon can play in a campaign. Roles include assassin, brute, corruptor, manipulator, and the overlord. Under each type include suggested demons, combat tactics, how to use these types of function in the campaign, how to fight against this type of demon and general notes.
For example, those fighting against an assassin have to have some protections and knowledge bases in place ahead of time as the assassin isn’t a straightforward encounter. Suggestions include having friends around ala the buddy system, to capturing the assassin. Basic information that well-experienced role players will have gone far beyond. No suggestion on proper spells to select when trying to determine if you’re under such a threat, and no guides on how much such a service in and of itself might cost.
Chapter tow moves onto demons. Revisited and revised or introduced for the first time we have the following; armanite, bar-lgura, broodswarm, bulezau, chasme, dybbuk, ekolid, goristro, guecubu, lilitu, mane, molydeus, nabassu, rutterkin, sibriex and yochlol. Also included are two new subtypes, loumara and obyrith with the tanar’ri still being the most common and reprinted here for ease of use. The loumara, in addition to a wide set of immunities (acid, electricity, and fire), not only have cold resistance, but are incorporeal and can possess creatures and objects. The obyrith don’t have immunity to quite so many things, but do have resistances and fast healing in addition to appearing so freakish that they cause madness.
Monsters are described by name, physical description, game statistics, strategy and tactics, sample encounter, ecology, society, and typical treasure along with a section on lore for each creature from DC 15 to DC 44. These additional tools allow the GM to get the most bang for his buck and quickly insert the monsters into his campaign as appropriate.
My favorite is probably the molydeus. It’s a creature I recall from the old Planescape books that was described as something even a balor would fear. With it’s dancing battle axe of vorpal and it’s numerous innate powers, while it’s not necessarily something a balor would fear, it’s CR 19 insures that all but epic levels characters will respect this demon enforcer’s authority. It was also nice to see manes and rutterkin again as those are perfect minors for lower level adventures.
One of the things I liked least about the book is it’s take on demon lords. The book has deliberately weakened the demon lords to make them possible to fight at the end of the normal progression of the campaign. This means that a standard group of four twentieth level characters should be able to take Dagon or Pazuzu or even older favorites like Orcus.
A strange thing since the other official source of these demon lords statistics, Dragon magazine, is going a different route and will continue to go that route of more powerful demon lords, nor that many people thought that the demon lords as they first appeared in the Book of Vile Darkness were underpowered to begin with.
I can understand the reasoning. There’s a difference between being awed by how powerful a creature is an actually using it, but in the end, for me, it just doesn’t make sense and it’s not a change I like, and it’s not a direction I like. Why have epic rules in the core book, Dungeon Master’s Guide, if they’re not going to be supported? It also goes against the fact that the standard demons and devils were upgraded in the transition to 3.5. So the lesser are upgraded and the princes are downgraded?
Another problem with this approach is that it makes the demon lords very similar in power levels all about. In the “good old days” (god I’m old!) there were noticeable differences between the demon lords and it showed in their game stats. Now there’s very little difference in the power spread.
I know, someone will point out the quarter page on improving the demon lords and go, “See, they are supporting your campaign”, but that’s weak at best. Thankfully, it is true that it’s easier to augment a creature than depower it so I’ll be taking that advice or simply using a third part resource like Tome of Horrors when I need a demon lord to actually you know, be more powerful than a balor.
For those still looking for a weaker version, there is going to be a web update on the Wizards website that provides aspects of the demon lords that should be useful for lower powered campaigns.
Demon lords covered are as follows; Baphomet (CR 20), Dagon (CR 22), Demogorgon (CR 23), Fraz-Urb’luu (CR 21), Graz’zt (CR 22), Jubilex (CR 19), Kostchtchie (CR 21), Malcanthet (CR 21), Obox-ob (CR 22), Orcus (CR 22), Pale Night (CR21), Pazuzu (CR 22), Yeenoghu (CR 20), and Zuggtmoy (CR 21).
Demons start off with name, then an italic description of the creature. Game stats are presented in the new style. Lore for each creature is included which ranges from knowledge checks DC 20 to DC 35. Strategy and tactics covers basic combat formulas and each section ends with servants, enemies, and goals. Each entry is rather short and those seeking further information should check for the Dragon magazine articles featuring each demon.
Afterwards, we move onto chapter four, Trafficking With Demons. It’s a section for players and game masters and points out appropriate PrCs as well as introducing new feats and spells. One of the first character roles mentioned is Demon Hunter. Those more interested in such information should hunt down Goodman Game’s Demon Hunter’s Handbook.
Other roles include demon master, demon summoner or demon worshipper. Because, you know if you didn’t put the word demon in front of it in a book about demons, people would become confused. Those former roles are generally better for an evil or ‘vile’ campaign.
While the book doesn’t include any new PrCs, it does not which ones are appropriate and what source they come from. It covers recent books like the Fiendbinder from Tome of Magic as well as older books like the Book of Vile Darkness for the Thrall. It’s a short section and well, a fairly obvious one. There’s no “Wow!” factor in reading that one role a player might take is a demon hunter, especially when it mentions a demon hunting PrC like the Knight of the Chalice as from it’s very background, it’s an obvious choice. It’s a good cross-promotion bit for those who may not have those books but for those who do, merely a reminder.
Some of the feats include abyssal heritor feats and vile feats. The former are not necessarily evil, but do reflect the chaotic nature of the Abyss and are a result of the mingling of the Abyss and Prime planes mingling. The latter on the other hand, are only available to character who are evil and intelligence and often come with their own costs and are granted by higher powers such as a demon lord.
Many of the heritor feats grow in power if you have more than heritor feat. For example, Claws of the Beast inflicts an extra +1 profane bonus to damage that inclurases by 1 for every two heritor feats you have. The vile feats range from knowing Dark Speech, which effects listeners depending on their alignment and level, to a ‘sacrifice’ feat, Evil Brand, that in and of itself is actually less useful than a normal feat, but is necessary to chain up to higher feats. Evil Brand provides a +2 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against evil creatures, a similar bonus to other +2 to two skill feats with a limit. But because of that you can gain Demonic Conduit that increases the DC’s of your spells against lawful and good targets. Useful but still limited. Good for those casters who want to showcase their ‘evil’ nature.
Spells are arranged by class and in alphabetical order. For sorcerers and wizards, they also include division by school. Domains are also included as follows; corruption, demonic, entropy, fury, ooze, and temptation.
Spells vary in utility and level from enhancing your senses such as the 7th level Fiendish Clarity that grants you darkvision and allows you to see in margical darkness and see invisible and detect good, to the 3rd level blackguard spell, demon wings where you can fly at your land speed.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
