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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.
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