Demonology: The Dark Road
Mongoose's first set of d20 books were the Slayer's Guides, adding details to some classical D&D creatures like Hobgoblins and Gnolls. Demonology: The Dark Road is the first in a new series of books from Mongoose entitled the Encyclopedia Arcane. The books in the Encyclopedia Arcane series will focus on different methods of arcane magic for use with the d20 system. In addition to Demonology, follow-up books will detail Necromancy and "Wild Spellcraft."
Demonology: The Dark Road details (as you might guess) game mechanics for players wishing to pursue the binding of creatures from the planes of evil to do the bidding of their arcane spellcasting characters. Departing with the convention of the D&D / d20 game, Demonology: The Dark Road refers to all evil outsiders generically as demons, not just the chaotic ones.
A First Look
Demonology: The Dark Road is a 64-page softcover book. The cover depicts a man calling forth some sort of beaked demonic creature (probably a Vrock Tanar'ri) against a backdrop of a lab with a pentagram.
The interior of the book is black and white. Decent artwork - primarily of demons - decorates the book. A variety of artists contributed to the book, yet the most eye-pleasing to me is the work of Eric Lofgren, whose artwork you may recognize from FFG's Traps & Treachery.
As with the Slayers Guides, I feel that the use of space is not good. The space between paragraphs and white space is not as glaring, but there is the same large line spacing and font size. Additionally, the price per page is a little high in my estimation. Compare it to other recent books of similar printing format. Demonology: The Dark Road is 64 pages at a price of $13.99. Necromancer Games' Rappan Athuk 2 is 64 pages at the price of $11.95, and has a higher text density.
A Deeper Look
Demonology: The Dark Road is divided into a large number of small sections instead of a few chapters. More generally, the book is divided into broad sections including introductory material, the prestige classes, game mechanics for the summoning and binding of evil outsiders, supplemental mechanics (such as feats and magic items), and some afterthoughts including advice for GMs, details on how some races use demonology, and specifics on what materials are required to summon the standard evil outsiders described in the MM and SRD.
The basis of the book is the prestige classes. Three prestige classes in the book can use the its methods for demon summoning. The demonologist is pretty much the most basic practitioner of demonology. Beyond access to the use of the demonology rules, the demonologist gains abilities allowing it to exercise greater control over the creatures called and to call more of them.
There are two more specialized demonology prestige classes. They too can use the demonology rules, but they receive other abilities instead of improvements in calling demons. The binder receives the ability to bind fiends into objects and create a special class of magic items. The possessed voluntarily allows a fiend to co-occupy his or her body and in the process gain some of the fiend's abilities.
The classes may prove a little powerful for many campaigns. Though using the demonology abilities entails some risk, the prestige classes still receive a considerable array of abilities in addition to more skills than a wizard or sorcerer and full spellcasting advancement.
Unlike in AEG's Evil, the demonology rules in Demonology: The Dark Road do not simply ignore the already existing means of dealing with outsiders. The demonology rules are presented, however, as an alternative to the existing rules, a "more risky" method with riskier rewards. Demonologists are not assumed to automatically be collaborating with fiends, but instead are merely engaging in a risky form of magic. This perspective perhaps makes the book more accessible for non-evil (but foolhardy) PCs.
The book presents a straightforward mechanic for dealing with fiends. There are basically two steps: summoning the fiend and controlling the fiend. Both of these tasks require a roll. A standard d20 roll is used, with modifiers according to the character's demonology class level and a number of other factors.
The difficulty of these checks depends on the CR of the summoned fiend. Summoning requires a roll with a DC of 10 the fiend's CR. Controlling the fiend is a bit more difficult, requiring 10 plus double the fiend's CR. As you might imagine, the fiend who is summoned but not controlled tends to be a significant problem for the demonologist.
The author intentionally places control in the GM's hands by requiring that a demonologist character acquire texts detailing the demons and rituals before attempting to summon a given type of outsider. While fundamentally wise, the possibility still exists that a campaign could get out of hand if the GM makes a bad call.
There are two sections on magic items. One is general magic items that are of interest to demonologists; the other gives details for items created by the binder prestige class binding fiends to objects. Some misunderstandings of the rules shine through here. For example, with regard to demonic wands and staves, the author states that they can be recharged as normal magical wands and staves. The D&D 3e / d20 System, however, provides no standard method for recharging items.
The demonology feats are primarily targeted at members of the book's prestige classes. They allow characters to do things such as speed up the summoning rituals, issue more complex commands, and bring fiends under their permanent control.
The remainder of the book is more details, rhetoric, and ideas. Though some of the additional material is interesting, much of it seems like material from which only a few GMs will get much value. For example, the section on other races is likely to be overridden by the specifics of a GM's campaign, if any of the creatures are even used at all.
Throughout the book are a number of fiction sidebars detailing the exploits of some demonologists. They are generally better written and more interesting than the similar sidebars that appeared in the Slayer's Guides.
Summary
The book provides an interesting and mechanically solid alternative method to the standard d20 summoning rules. A GM who adopts these rules should find that they create a lot of interesting possibilities, but they are bound to add a measure of randomness and chaos to a campaign in the hands of PCs.
The book sacrifices breadth for depth. As such, it will be most useful in a campaign chiefly concerned with demonology. It may be a little narrow to justify the purpose of buying it in a campaign with a broader focus, especially considering the text density and cost of the book.
-Alan D. Kohler
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