Legions of Hell is the first in Green Ronin Publishing’s Book of Fiends line of d20 supplementary products meant for use with
Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. This 64 page soft-cover book focuses upon the denizens of Hell: devils, fallen celestials and their servitors. This supplement includes three new prestige classes, a handful of new unique magic items and a new template that transforms celestials into fallen celestials. This book also presents a generic version of the Judeo-Christian cosmology (as it relates to the book’s content), which reminded me of very old
Dragon Magazine articles on the same subject that meshes seamlessly with the default D&D cosmology.
The book opens with a primer on the culture, notable figures, society and goals of Hell and its denizens. It also reminds the reader what the common qualities of all devils of the Baatezu kind possess, and it suggests to the reader some ways of customizing the devils in this book—unique and representative entries alike—so that they fit the Game Master’s needs. It’s a brief two pages, but that’s enough for this sort of thing.
The bulk of the book’s content deals with a variety of heretofore-unseen monsters and unique NPCs that reside in the Nine Hells. The Challenge Ratings for these creatures range from less than CR 1 to CR 20 , with the latter trending towards the unique NPCs and former towards the creature entries, but they tend to cluster around CR 4-8 and 10-16. Entries outside these points are few, but I don’t find this to be a flaw in the book; it’s a matter of taste and usefulness more than anything else, and I find the approach in this book to be quite acceptable on both points.
The new devils presented as common monsters are interesting creations. Some are tragic, pitiable creatures such as the Akop, Darksphinx, Herlekin and Knocker. Others creatures are obvious extensions of Hell’s logic, such as the Hellwarden, Ashmede, Enforcer of Dis, Oubliette and Whiptail. The rest are deliberate creatures of a particular potentate of Hell: Bonedreg (servitors of Leviathan), Gladiatrix, Pain Mistress, Painshrieker, Striega (all servitors of Hadriel) and Magugon (servitor of Belial) for example. For those that want to flesh out Hell beyond what Wizards of the Coast published in the Manual of the Planes, the (upcoming, as of this writing) Fiend Folio and both Monster Manuals you’ll be pleased with these new denizens of Hell.
Hell is nothing without its rulers and power brokers, and some of them are here. Most notable is Iblis, a Solar that destroyed the race that preceded Man for its sins, that fell from Heaven long ago for defying the will of Heaven: to serve and protect Man. He’s the most powerful NPC in the book at CR 24. Bune—a fallen Trumpet Archon—is the second most powerful at CR 20. (Naamah, a fallen Astral Deva, comes in CR 16.) After that we get to some native devils of Hell: Balan the Hunter (CR 13) is a vassal of Belial; Nergel, the Fetid Prince and vassal of Beelzebub (CR 18), Malgrim, Duke of Unlife (CR 17) and vassal of Baal; Nekket, daughter of Set (CR 16) and her brother Kroptep (CR 15); Lel, Marquise of the Night and vassal of Lilith (CR 12) and Dagon, Warden of the Stygian Depths (CR 17) are amongst the NPCs present in this book. All of them are worthy mastermind villains in their own right, and many work just as well as the lientenants of greater villains (such as the Nine Lords of Hell or such evil gods as Set), but none present in this volume scream “Make me your Big Bag Evil Git!” like Duchess Hadriel, a male-hating female devil with ambitions of sovereignty and Jalie Squarefoot, the pit fiend-turned-lich.
(Note: The latter of the two did get that recognition; Jalie is the primary antagonist of Green Ronin Publishing’s Hell in Freeport adventure module.)
That’s a lot of awesome villains for Game Masters to consider. Some of these NPCs come with unique or variant magical items, such as Nekket’s staff and Iblis’s falchion, which make for serious booty for the PCs to claim or serious MacGuffins for the Game Master to work with when creating adventures. I got plenty of adventures and campaign ideas going just from reading these entries, and I dig that in a monster book.
The appendices include three prestige classes that represent the elite mortal minions of Balan, Jalie and Nergel. The Balan’s Jackal prestige class represents those mortals called to join Balan’s pack of wild beasts; the class represents the character’s degeneration into a creature befitting his patron’s portfolio. Jackals have to resist permanent ability drains upon their mental scores a handful of times over their progression, but they’ll usually be able to resist these attacks due to their massive Fortitude Saving Throw bonuses. The Mountebank and Plaguelord classes follow a similar theme in attacking disfavored abilities over the character’s progression, with similar chances of avoiding the damage due to tying the checks against a character’s strongest Saving Throw. All three classes change the character’s type away from Humanoid to something else—Monstrous Humanoid, Outsider and Vermin respectively—as part of the character’s initiation into the class. All of them involve some sort of obedience to their master’s will, either as independent agents (default use as NPCs) or as minions in the master’s entourage (an uncommon occurrence, in practical game-play). These classes work well with similar content from such products as Wizards’ The Book of Vile Darkness and Alderac’s Evil, so the usefulness of these classes goes beyond Green Ronin’s products.
The other crunchy bit in these appendices is the Fallen Celestial template, which allows a Game Master to make just those sorts of characters in an easy-to-employ format. (The entries for Iblis, Naamah and Bune are all examples of this template in action.) A sample is there for the reader’s benefit, and the template does state that the CR of the templated creature may need adjustment if the fallen celestial gains a significant number of powers. Game Masters that are so inclined may want to toss all other infernal creatures out and use this template to create all of the devils, demons, etc. that he needs for his campaign; this thought occurred to me right away, and I’m hardly the most knowledgeable about Abrahamic mythology.
The final appendix is another cosmological/mythological primer, this time on Heaven; as with Hell, this is in a form that meshes seamlessly with the default D&D cosmology, so Heaven has seven layers and is also called “The Seven Heavens”. It goes into the choirs of the celestials, the events that lead to the fall from grace of the above-mentioned NPCs and it provides a table describing the notable participants of those tragedies: names, lords and dispositions. As with the primer on Hell up front, this appendix provides enough information for a Game Master to chuck the non-Abrahamic elements of default D&D game-play if he wishes and play the game more-or-less as a Judeo-Christian cosmology. It ain’t my faith, but it is something I truly dig about this book and I’ve recommended it to my Christian friends on this basis.
Which brings me to my conclusion: get the book. There’s something for everyone here, from new monsters and NPCs to kill to the building blocks of an entire campaign focused upon the machinations of one or more of these potent Lords of Hell. Mix and match with other books— The Book of Vile Darkness, Armies of the Abyss, Manual of the Planes—or use it on its own. I am certain that you’ll find it useful for your gaming needs, one way or the other. Check it out today and see what you've missed.
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