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About the reviewer: I’ve been into role playing games since 1994 and collected a large variety of systems and campaigns. I like drama and smooth action scenes in my games. I’m not bothered by rules heavy systems as long as the contents are fine because most of the time I only use them much as they please me and not bog my game. I earn my living as an illustrator and animator. Lastly, I’m not a native English speaker.
What is it about?
Faces of Evil is a quite unique product among other AD&D books. Obviously it’s about fiends (these days more popularly called demons, devils etc. again). It does not give you stats to hack at, nope not a single one. Whole book has only one statistic chart and that is for the single spell included. So there are no mechanics. There are no items to loot and definitely it’s not focused on plot hooks. This book is purely on role playing the fiends. How do they think and why do they think, how do they socialize, breed, eat, what’s their view of existence and some deeper, psychological stuff (Or in short, as the back cover says: Everything you wanted to know about fiends – but were afraid to ask). Sadly it's out of print and it's price have skyrocketed since then but it's available in PDF format.
Who is it for?
Anybody who’s tired of “Humans in funny suits” syndrome. This can be applied to any setting, any rules system. Though d20 people be forewarned: there is a stark contrast between the swashbuckling looking ultroloth in the manual of the planes and the ones featured in this book. The book makes you understand and perhaps actually feel that a true fiend is worth much more than its threat rating. If you really want or care to give character and breath to the fiends in your game and act it out, regardless of the rules system, this book is for you.
How does it look?
96 pages, soft cover. There are pretty illustrations though they are not great. But their contents are meaningful so they are actually better than they look (Combined with the layout, that’s why I gave a 4 instead of 3). The textual content is laid out clearly and it’s easy to find stuff you’re looking for. There is no index but frankly, it would be a waste of space for this book. And the information is so juicy that I could have opted for fewer illustrations for more text.
About the substance:
The book is divided into six chapters. In the introduction part, you get the generic stuff common to all fiends like issues of plane of origin, immortality, gender, true names, The Blood War etc. The other chapters are divided between Baatezu, Tana’ri, Yugoloths, Gehrelets and others (Namely, bodaks, hordlings, imps and quasits, larvae, night hags, shadow fiends and tieflings).
All these chapters are roughly divided into origin of the species, social and ranking systems, bodily forms and functions (fiend physiology 101, how do they rest and even dreams, sustenance, gender), dealing with mortals, language, culture and society. The thing is, all of these are well thought out and well written. I’ve read many other such books but no other book’s quality of substance got near to this one, it tries to show how to act, think and feel like a fiend. Another nice touch is that the book is presented as an actual book published in Sigil, so there are various and many contributors to the book, including but not limited to an half-orc from the Prime, a cranky bariaur, a lupinal and even a blue salad… All of the contributors’ characters show through their respective parts and this spicy addition helps the book along being an “acting aid”. Also included in the book are some important or key characters and one detailed location and it’s map per major “race” though there are no stats, instead detailed personality descriptions and role playing hints, but I wouldn’t care if somebody wants stats for a lord of the nine anyway… really…
Conclusion
This is a book for any serious role player who prefers acting things out than roll a dice (nothing wrong with THAT though). The book would be more useful to DMs but if used accordingly, it could even lead a meaningful and rich campaign of fiend characters. If you’re looking for ANY kind of mechanics information, look somewhere else.
