Legions of Hell
Legions of Hell is the latest d20 offering by Chris Pramas under the Green Ronin Publishing banner. Pramas also wrote the Origins Award-winning adventure Death in Freeport for Green Ronin and the AD&D 2nd-edition Guide to Hell for WotC.
Legions of Hell (LoH) is essentially a new d20 monsters sourcebook detailing many new inhabitants of the nether realm that the D&D game calls Hell, or Baator. Some additional material is included, in the form of a brief outline of hell, prestige classes for followers of various servants of devils, and some material on celestials (with a primary focus on those celestials who have fallen away from the service of good and now participate in the hierarchy of hell).
A First Look
LoH is a modest-sized booklet at 64 pages and is staple bound. The cover art by Brom depicts some form of devil with a head resembling an animal skull. The cover is not nearly as attractive as the one that adorned the Guide to Hell (also by Brom).
The interior is black and white, with illustrations for each creature ranging from middling to excellent. I especially liked the illustrations by Sam Wood and Raven Mimura. Mimura's illustrations had a very crisp look to them, and his illustrations of some of the baatezu (devil) nobles are especially nice. Sam Wood's illustrations of some of the devils look somewhat Gigeresque and appropriately creepy looking.
The text density is average and the margins are narrow. The whitespace is abundant, but those who deplored the cramped layout of the 3e Monster Manual will appreciate the much more spacious layout in LoH.
A Deeper Look
The book starts off with a brief introductory section that outlines the 9 layers or circles of Hell, the ruler of each layer, the nature of infernal politics, the role of devils in the prime, a recap of the common baatezu abilities, and some thoughts on adapting the devils for your own use.
As mentioned, the bulk of this book is devoted to devils or other servants of Hell. In all, the book offers 41 new creatures, not counting tidbits such as the mount of the master of the infernal hunt.
The main section includes both non-unique creatures, such as rank-and-file servants and agents of Hell, and a number of unique fallen celestials and baatezu nobles. All told, the creatures in the book run the gamut of challenge ratings from ½ for the lowly knocker, to 24 for the fallen solar, Iblis.
Each monster description includes both campaign and rules information, as well as some good ideas for adventures and campaigns. Many of the unique creatures' plots and aspirations are described, and some of the unique creatures have specific followers. One of my favorites is the duchess of domination, Hadriel, a creepy looking, spine covered female figure. Hadriel has plots and aspirations in the lands of mortals underway to help advance her station in Hell, and many of the creatures described elsewhere in the book are her servants: the gladiatrix (flail-wielding female gladiatorial devils), the darksphinx (half-fiend sphinx bodyguards), strigae (ghastly winged spies), painmistresses (strange baatezu with huge claws whose purpose is to inflict pain), and painshriekers (hideously deformed aberrations that emit a powerful shriek).
Other favorites of mine in the book are the faceless (faceless fiendish assassins and masters of the blade), ashmede (hideous winged enforcers of the laws of hell), chamagons (magic-suppressing saboteurs), keres (female baateze elite soldiers that somewhat resemble Andariel from Diablo II), and Furcas (the baatezu Duke of Rhetoric).
Note that none of the rulers of the nine circles of Hell receives stats in the book; in interviews elsewhere, Chris Pramas has said that such powerful creatures are best reserved until such a time as WotC comes out with their epic-level campaigns book.
The first appendix details three prestige classes that represent servants of specific devil nobles detailed in the book, and a sample NPC for each one:
- Balan's jackals follow Balan, who is depicted as a sort of Herne-type master-of-the-hunt figure. They gain abilities representing their bestial aspects, such as greater rage and wild shape.
- Montebanks are servants of Jalie, an undead fiend-lich. Montebanks gain a fiendish servant and powers that deal with cleverness and betrayal in addition to continued spell advancement.
- Plaguelords are servants of Nergal, a fiend noble associated with pestilence. Plaguelords become vermin and gain powers associated with disease and rotting.
The second appendix introduces the Fallen template, which is applied to celestials to create a "fallen celestial" cast out of the upper planes. They are prevented from entering the upper planes or holy places, but their powers are twisted toward evil and they gain an impressive power to tempt and ensnare the souls of mortals.
The third appendix outlines the hierarchy of celestials in the Seven Heavens, called angelic choirs. It also touches on the history of fallen angels and outlines a number of such creatures that now serve in the infernal hierarchy.
The book finishes up with a listing of monsters by CR, a bibliography, the obligatory d20 license, and an ad for more Green Ronin products.
Summary and Conclusions
The material should be useful whether or not you play with a specific incarnation of Hell (e.g., if you use the 1e Dragon magazine version, Planescape, Guide to Hell, your own, or even the Diablo II version of Hell). The book seems to provide a lot of material without trying to provide too strict a definition of what is there in Hell.
The creatures--especially the unique ones--come with some ideas that could easily be expanded upon to augment or create campaigns or adventures. The nature of the writeups gives the book a definite feel that it by no means serves as the last word on devils, leaving GMs plenty of room for building on what is presented. I like that in supplement. To me, a supplement that provides a starting point and a variety of useful material is far better than one that circumscribes and leaves nothing to the imagination.
The material describing the celestials and their relationship to Hell shows a definite Judeo-Christian and Milton Paradise Lost influence. Depending on the tastes and campaign style, that may be good or bad. It does have a familiar feel to it, but it may be difficult to reconcile that feel with other campaign assumptions if you use the more traditional Greek and Nordic style pantheon of deities common to D&D campaigns.
The book feels as if it has just the right size and price point. At $15, the book falls pleasantly short of what many d20 vendors are expecting for supplements these days. At 64 pages and over 40 creatures, you get a good variety of foes for your players without the redundancy of ideas and/or the chance that large swaths of it would go unused (as might be the case in a larger book).
I also appreciated that the creatures in the book cover a wide variety of challenge ratings. That in and of itself should vastly increase the opportunities for fiendish GMs to inflict a few devils on their hapless players.
The use of rules and consistency is fairly solid throughout the book, but a few issues raised my eyebrows. For example, the chamagon continually radiates an anti-magic shell, yet the description states that their lord teleports them into battle: just how they are supposed to do this is beyond me. Another example is that a few creatures such as the ashmede and the faceless seemed like powerful enough outsiders that they should receive some form of damage reduction, but they have none.
Overall, though, the book should be a useful resource for GMs who appreciate devils as villains, either in standard games or in exotic settings such as Planescape. I don't know about my esteemed reader, but devils were a classic villain in the early days of my campaign. LoH has definitely whetted my appetite for the devils to have a comeback tour!
Given the production qualities, ideas, and ready to use game content, I give the Legions of Hell 4 out of 5 pitchforks for substance and style.
-Alan D. Kohler
editing by Mike Johnstone
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