Necromancer's Legacy - The Dark Art of Visceromancy

[HellHound]

Written by: Kenny Lewis & M. Jason Parent
Pages: 6


Vile Kurosh held the massive and bloodied bone over his head for a moment, muttering dark invocations to even darker deities, and then began to grow. As his form lurched and shifted into something much larger, the bone snapped, showering his golden hair with viscera and marrow. As the bones fell away from his hands, he looked down upon the field of battle, a being twice his normal height.

Visceromancy has been called the magic of the flesh. This little known art is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. Those who practice it must be skilled with their hands as well as their minds. Visceromancy allows an individual to mend torn flesh, reattach lost limbs, and to tap into the latent power of a creature’s organs.

Most visceromancers are outcasts living on the fringe of society practicing their art in secret. They are commonly known as butchers and their art outlawed in most kingdoms.

Many such spellcasters have discovered the need to keep thieves and similar lowlifes on their payroll. They need these degenerates to help them with the local law enforcement as well as to help acquire fresh bodies.

Explore this dark art in this 6-page mini-PDF expansion to the classic award-nominated book of necromantic magics. This booklet explores two aspects of the art of visceromancy - the art of using the organs of one's foes to manifest unusual magical abilities or to enhance existing spells.

 

[Crothian]

Necromancers Legacy Dark Arts of Visceromancy

This one is not for the squeamish. It is not as disgustingly graphic as it could be, however it still deals with the removal of organs and using them for magical ability. There are some that will not appreciate the fine art and creativeness of such a product so I will start to a warning to those people. Now for the sick and disgusting people like myself we will enjoy and probably disgust a few players along the way with using this book. There have been some books for other games that deal with this sort of topic but this is the first time in d20 that I have read something on this. I guess Dragons by AEG has something sort of close as it has dragon parts that can be used for making magical items, but that is a lot more tame then this book. I would actually like to se3 this expanded on and given more detail. There is good potential in this small book.

Necromancers Legacy: Dark Arts of Visceromancy is a title almost longer then the book. The PDF is only eight pages one of which is the Cover and one that is the license. However, for a small book it is nicely layed out and has book marks. They could have book marked each organ listing to make them a little easier to find but with the size of the PDF it should not be hard to locate what one needs. There is very little art in the book and there are page borders that might eat a bit of ink when printed but again the smallness of the book works for it.

This book is a follow up to Necromancers Legacy, possible the best book of necromancers and the like I have read. It is highly creative and one of the books players dread seeing their DM use. This book deals with surgery, healing through medicine, reattaching limbs, but mostly about taking people’s organs and using them for one’s own power.

The book starts with the surgery skill. It can be used to reattach limbs, mend wounds, and possible save someone who just failed a massive damage save. Then it goes into the feat of Visceromantic Magic. This is the process of removing some ones organs and using them for different things. There are many organs listed along with what purpose they have to someone removing them. Each has a listed DC for the surgery skill to successfully remove the organ. Blood can be used to ward of cold weather, eyes can be used to gain different types of vision along with seeing the last thing the person saw before they died, a face can be used for looking exactly like a person though ones body does not change, and skin can be removed to gain a natural armor bonus. There are other organs described like the brain, bones, gills, heart, liver, and many others. Each has its own abilities that can be gained and all have a pretty limited duration. At first glance some might seem little powerful but the duration is really hard to get around as many are only going to last so many rounds.

Visceromantic Metamagics is the other feat here. It is a more advanced version of Visceromantic Magic. It allows the organs to be used as components in spells. The same list of organs is provided here but with different effects. Blood causes spells to use the fire descriptor and be slightly heightened in spell level, the brain empowers mind effecting spells, the lungs extend any breathing type spell, the stomach gives a spell the acid descriptor as well as being enlarged, and there are plenty other organs listed here. I really like the organs being used like power components in this way.

This is a really nice book that can add a level of disgust and gross out factor to the game. It also gives a character a really good reason to harvest certain organs from their victims and it is always fun to have the players wondering what the bad guy is exactly doing with all those lymph nodes.