I suppose it depends on the definition of Capital C&E "Cruel & Evil Magic". BoVD was a great book for what it was, but much of it was so dark it was almost unusable on a PC without a situation like the
one time I
used mindrape on a pc due to going so far past nail biting terror into c ttrpg war crimes. Strife is something I have not yet used at all with fatigue still kinda nibbling around the edges with it as a GM & in both cases it's because I want the players to recognize them as things that are on the table without needing some kind of dual key ICBM launch warning. It probably doesn't matter much if the spells are limited to strife specifically, strife & fatigue, or strife fatigue & whatever one off evil mwhahaha that sprouts up around a spell so much as if most of them fall into the levelup demilich style
"ohgodohgodohgod I can see that getting used easily" end of the scale where players can see them getting used by a random badguy in a random filler adventure instead of just by THE BBEG after months of buildup.
I don't really feel comfortable, myself, writing things like -that- into the world as a -designer-. I more mean like Cruel and Evil from the Narrator's position.
Hitting someone with 3d6 damage means they need a little healing. Stealing 3 Hit Dice from the Berserker, though, means a lot more "Real Harm" over the course of the rest of the adventuring day, since that's 3d12+9 or whatever hit points, they just don't harm you -right now-. Instead it limits your future potential.
Getting levels of Strife really sucks while you're fighting as it limits your options... but it -also- screws you up in various social encounters that happen after the fighting has ended. Same thing with Fatigue or spells that otherwise limit your ability to use mental and physical attributes well.
I'm not looking for Edgy evil or Pure darkness. Not something to chase players away from the table with or require consent sheets to cast.
The "Ugliest" one of the bunch is the 8th level spell "
Corrupt" which is this:
Twisting and writhing words roll out of you, hateful speech of the most ancient tongue, words unknown even to you as this spell takes effect and is unleashed in a voice not your own corrupts your target to the core of their being. What you touch with this spell hears your call of horror.
And in addition to applying multiple levels of strife to your target, does this to you:
Casting this spell marks you by otherworldly forces, and are treated as though you have the Evil alignment trait in addition to any other alignment traits you may possess until someone casts the Atonement spell upon you.
'Cause all of them are written as curses, essentially. The sort of thing a Night Hag might spit at someone before the hag gets beheaded.
I also particularly like that it's a -spell- with the same level of roleplay opportunity increase as playing the Warlock or Cleric class, where there's now otherworldly entities paying attention to you...
Might write a spell which is explicitly "Apply the Doomed condition to target creature" as the ultimate Cruel spell. That character -will- die, but not yet.
Disintegrate and
Power Word Kill are cool and all, but -doomed- on command? OOF. Especially when used by the Narrator -against- the Party. Fire that off as a parting shot when the party is escaping the BBEG's castle and give one of the party members a few moments to dramatically say goodbye before they're killed?
Yes, please.
You have my blessing, and if I see it in GPG, I will point at it and say, "Hah! It was a good idea!"
