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After reading a recommendation on the rpg.net forums, I ordered this “Third Party d20 Modern” sourcebook and started reading it immediately. First of all, it is not a pure d20 Modern product, as it is designated a supplement for “the 3.5 Edition Game” and includes fear rules from OGL Horror. Its own entries are product identity, apart from the adventure (see below).
I have to admit that I haven’t checked the monster’s stats as I am more a story/ setting based GM. Anyway, it is probably not so important, as the games based on this book will be less about mopping up monsters than about presenting mind-rending horrors which you want to run away from. As large parts of the creature entries are made up of in character texts and descriptions for the GM anyway, the ideas can be inserted easily into any horror campaign.
Speaking of horror, the binding came apart when I first opened this newly ordered book and the corners have become roundish within a week.
But back to the main part of the book. After a weird and slightly superfluous opening letter about someone seeing through “the veil” of reality and a page of opening remarks we get to the meat and bones of unremitting horror: the 23 creatures or groups of creatures. All entries begin with either a short story, a fable or urban legend, or a text in the form of psychiatrist reports, email exchanges or magazine articles. Especially these latter reports are quite useful as they can be used as handouts for stories involving the particular creature. All entries are an excellent and bone chilling read, although in my opinion some ideas are a bit to sick for gaming, especially those involving (child-) abuse. Morbid curiosity will make you continue read this book.
What follows is a short more factual description of the creature, a very useful overview of how the creature’s victims would look like (autopsy!), and the usual d20 stat block and special rules. The black and white illustrations by Dave Allsop are brilliant and some make me want to stay away from the book when it gets dark.
The book’s back cover states that “new times demand new nightmares”. Many creatures are therefore impersonations of present day horror (isolation, drug abuse, snuff movies, AIDS, child abuse, homelessness) and have more in common with Clive Barker’s Hellraiser than with medieval Demons or cthuloid creatures from outer dimensions, although we also get some otherworldly horrors and a few undead creatures. There are also some pop culture references, especially the mock rock music video article in the “Organ Grinder” entry which probably normal music listeners cannot relate to (and which makes the book a bit too much a child of its time). With “Strap Throat” we also get a clear reference to the movie The Ring/ Ringu. The Power Level of the creatures ranges from CR 3 to undefeatable, and in general creatures seem rather strong compared to humans without special powers or defenses, but that works fine with the horror genre so it isn’t really comparable with D&D and the like.
We also get 15 artifacts, all of which are connected to one of the creatures above. Many of the entries include a collection of ideas for the artifact’s current location, which give some quite good adventure hooks in itself. Once again, the sick-o-meter overflows merrily…
What follows is a five page essay on running horror campaigns, including a description of player archetypes, some thoughts on magic and weapons, and what kind of campaigns can be run with the presented creatures. This is a very useful article and is recommended for anyone who wants to run a modern horror game.
The Book of Unremitting Horror closes with “The Final Case”, a 13 page long detective style adventure for 3rd -5th level characters in present day London. I don’t really want to give anything away here but the story is rather good and well written and surprisingly not swimming in sickness like the rest of the book. Instead we even get a mature take on homosexuality. In fact the only negative point of The Final Case could be that the creature in the adventure is so much in the background that this could almost be run as a non-horror one shot.
Summarizing, the high quality of the text and art as well as the usefulness of the entries made me want to give a 5/5 for this product. The overstepping of too many boundaries is a bit problematic though and has to be taken into consideration thereby lessening the final score by a point.
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