Disclaimer II: The majority of this review is opinion; your actual enjoyment of this product should vary accordingly.

The Book of Vile Darkness is a Dungeons & Dragons accessory that deals with evil for a Dungeon Master to bring to his or her game. Contained in the book are details about demon lords, archdevils and the various nefarious creatures to inhabit the Lower Planes. The book talks about the nature of evil, but steps beyond any real attempt at making itself a mature book by sidestepping topics and leaving vague hints.

I don't think Wizards of the Coast wanted a mature book on evil, but wanted to present the idea that they were going to target the more mature side of the D&D consumer base-the ones clamoring for the return of the devils and demons in the game's Second Edition, those who have had more encounters with the jolly old Orcus than most newbies play first-level wizards, etc... These guys (and gals, to be fair) salivated for this new book, hoping to scare the hell out the wet-whelps with utter vileness. Except, Wizards balked at the idea of going to far with the concept.

Thus, the Book of Vile Darkness was undercut to make it more a marketing ploy than an actual book about evil that could scare the hell out of the reader. Is the book mature? Yes, and no. Mature enough that some of the concepts might send a few players tittering away at the mention of necrophilia and other topics, but then, the History channel can cover those topics, as well as Discovery, without the delve into the juvenile mindset. Maybe the standards of evil were skewed with White Wolf's Sabbat books (for their Vampire: the Masquerade line), my friends keep saying how this book should have been more like those Sabbat books instead of the weak product they recieved.

The Book of Vile Darkness is setup much like a D&D book, with the standard side borders and artists running throughout the book. (Though, only some of the pictures may be considered 'vile' enough to rate higher than a PG-13 movie.) The book introduces us to new races, feats, prestige classes, and some monsters and more magic, that should be handled with care, or so it says. The races, offshoots of human and halfling, strike me more as an un-drow drow presentation-nothing really in the races themselves, other then their panache for "being evil," makes them any different then a DM's non-drow race being evil. Filler, to shorten the diatribe.

The feats section introduces a new feat type, the vile feat, which grants powers for being, well, evil. These feats, granted by "dark powers" and the like, grant NPCs (since that's what this book is designed for) neat things for doing Evil's bidding... like a NPC granted a +1 bonus against mind-control because his sexual relations include the dead and undead see the character as one of their own ("lichloved," p. 49). The feats seem like extensions of the design ideal, make a package that could be dark and twisted, but only slight. Certain feats should be listed as bonus feats for roleplaying actions, should a NPC get marked by a demon over the course of an adventure ("evil brand"). The section also introduces more general and metamagic feats as well, but the selling point of the feats section is the new vile feats, which add minimal bonuses to evil characters.

The prestige classes seem built on the idea that evil needs demons and devils to gain power, as opposed to evil finding allied strengths in the fiends. Most of the new prestige classes has the evil character jumping through hoops to gain levels, like an Orcus follower ("Thrall of Orcus", p. 71) needing one of the previously talked about feats (which needs a prerequisite feat to boot). Also most of the prestige classes requires the sacrifice to a demon of an intelligent being, tying the evil characters (and the thrust of the book) to the fiends.

Not counting the numerous pages detailing the demon lords and archdevils, the Book of Vile Darkness covers s few new monsters keyed for the lower planes. Six "new" demons (I'm sure that most of them appeared before and in this book they are just updated), two devils, the eye of fear and flame, a new insect-reptilian creature that started off as an evil attempt at cloning demons, some templates and a few others. The monster section is more typical D&D entries; nothing is truly tied to the surrounding work.

The magic section covers new, vile spells, magic items and artifacts. This section, too, is like the game line standard, except the tying of certain precursors to spell use (like having taken drugs, or a dark component-a demon's heart, etc.). The magic items presented here tie slightly to the evil discussions that occur earlier in the book, but fail to do more than say things like "Blackguard's Blade: Made of black iron and covered in evil symbols engraved in the blade, this +2 longsword adds +10 damage to the wielder's smite good ability."

Overall, the Book of Vile Darkness fails to really show evil any kind of leeway, nothing presented in this book is truly inventive and seems to be a standard darkly played with. Most of the time while reading this work, I was expecting a "Woo, I'm eevil" character to appear. The evil here is more cartoon than anything else. I had my expectations deflated while reading this work, it's not to say that it's a bad book, it's more Dungeons & Dragons than Call of Cthulhu for evil. Not bad, but definitely not vile.