book of vile darkness help?

[Mystic Muse]

I want to have some FUN with this in my campaign. anybody know of a good way to do so?

[hamishspence]

Is it a "players are good, monsters are evil" campaign, or one of the various forms of Evil campaign?

BoVD can be used to give the party's various adversaries some interestng flavour.

Evil parties might still be fighting Vile enemies on an "enemy of my enemy" principle- if you are playing "heroic evil guys" a la Elric, as the back of the book suggests.

[Mystic Muse]

goodguys VS. big evil bad demon lords and evil gods.


do yourself a favor. when it comes to my campaign and a question seems to be popping up it's usually best to not ask. unless you REALLY want to know. although I think you posted in the thread where I explained it anyway.

[hamishspence]

Sounds interesting. Dragon magazine (and the free online ones between end of print run and beginning of 4th ed run) had a lot of useful Vile content- the Demonomicon of Iggwilv articles.

As does Champions of Ruin- while a Faerun sourcebook, much of its content works well in any setting.

Dungeon 150 had 3.5 stats for Orcus (powerful version rather than aspect version)

Which parts of the book do you think are most important to the campaign- PRCs, demon stats, possession rules, sacrifice rules, diseases, poisons, etc?

once you know what parts you're using, you can figure out what changes need to be made to them.

[Mystic Muse]

haven't read the whole thing although I plan to.

I meant implementing the actual book itself into the campaign. it talks about how the book of vile darkness was made by several beings over the centuries and it's so evil it shames hell itself.:smallbiggrin::smallamused:

that's more what I was thinking. although tomorrow I'll read it more and post more details. going to bed in about half an hour.

[hamishspence]

i've just gotten up- different time zone.

the book itself- there is a bit of history in the sourcebook on how the original was made (put together over a long period of time by many authors, including Vecna as a mortal), the facts that there are many copies, often inferior, and the fact that, unlike the BoED, it doesn't disappear- the evil guys keep it around, though even they do not keep reading it casually.

as a minor artifact, its easily destroyable, unlke major ones.

You could imagine an evil organization passing the book around, getting the more exotic and dangerous spells from it, and the player's having to "hunt down the Book" a bit like in Eisenhorn series, with the Necroteuch.

[BlueWizard]

Make sure to use vile damage. It will give the players pause when they are getting damage. They won't be able to shrug it off with a simple healing spell.

I like the monsters, and I use this book quite often in building bad guys.
The spells are cool, but make sure to use the components. Somethings require drug-use, or other things that might not be appropriate for some players.
My games are rated for adults and are deadly, so it fits great into my games.

[Mystic Muse]

Make sure to use vile damage. It will give the players pause when they are getting damage. They won't be able to shrug it off with a simple healing spell.

I like the monsters, and I use this book quite often in building bad guys.
The spells are cool, but make sure to use the components. Somethings require drug-use, or other things that might not be appropriate for some players.
My games are rated for adults and are deadly, so it fits great into my games.

mind explaining vile damage real quick?

[BlueWizard]

It is in addition to normal damage, and can only be healed in consecrated areas.

There is a section in the book describing it in more detail.

[Mystic Muse]

okay thanks.

time for bed now.




ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[BlueWizard]

Judging by the avatar, those might be some dark and VILE dreams. :smallbiggrin: