Book of Vile Darkness (sourcebook)

Greyhawk Source

Book of Vile Darkness
Edition:	Third edition
Author(s):	Monte Cook
Editor(s):	David Noonan, Penny Williams
Cover Artist(s):	Henry Higginbotham
Interior Artist(s):	Daren Bader, Thomas Baxa, Matt Cavotta, Brian Despain, Jeff Easley, Scott Fischer, Lars Grant-West, Quinton Hoover, Jeremy Jarvis, Raven Mimura, Vinod Rams, Wayne Reynolds, David Roach, Richard Sardinha, Brian Snoddy, Arnie Swekel, Anthony Waters
Publisher:	Wizards of the Coast
First Published:	October 1, 2002
Pages:	192
ISBN:	0-7869-2650-3
Class:	Officially published source

'Book of Vile Darkness' is the name of two Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks: the first released in 2002 for third edition, and an updated release in 2011 for fourth edition.

Third edition

Blurb

"Only the most indomitable minds dare to look upon the malevolent thoughts and forbidden secrets bound herein. This corrupt tome is filled with deplorable wisdom, malignant ideas, and descriptions of creatures, rites, and practices most foul. Evil permeates every word and image inscribed within."
—Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead

This sourcebook for the Dungeons & Dragons game is intended for mature audiences and provides a Dungeon Master with unflinching access to subject matter that will broaden any campaign. Included is a detailed look at the nature of evil and the complex challenge of confronting the many dilemmas found within its deepest shadows. Along with wicked spells, wondrous items, and artifacts, the Book of Vile Darkness also provides descriptions and statistics for a host of abominable monsters, archdevils, and demon princes to pit againt the noblest of heroes."

Publishing history

From DMgsGuild.com, by gaming historian, Shannen Appecline:

"The Book of Vile Darkness (2002) by Monte Cook takes its name from the similarly named 1st edition AD&D magic item, whose entry in the DMG began as follows: "This work of ineffable evil is meat and drink to clerics of that alignment." This d20 supplement spins off from that original description with a tome containing archfiends, demonic possession, torture, poisons, drug use, sacrifice, corrupt spells, vile feats, prestige classes, and a plethora of new spells and magic items. It is labeled "For Mature Audiences Only," and was marketed to adult gamers who wanted villainous fodder for bad guys or evil campaigns. While not everyone will find the player-focused material essential, as an antagonist cookbook it's nearly unmatched.

Contention and Controversy. Not everyone liked the idea of an official D&D supplement being focused on depravity and evil. Dragon #300 included a letter from author and Dragonlance co-creator Tracy Hickman, who described the material as "cheap, trashy and demeaning." He stated, "Every dark fear that mothers and clergy across America have about D&D is now, suddenly, true." It's an understandable concern; D&D has traditionally been marketed towards kids, and a book for mature audiences was seen by some as an attempt to be unnecessarily edgy.

The question, I think, would be whether the material within was glorified and intended primarily for shock value, or whether it was an integral improvement to a serious, adult D&D campaign. The gaming community as a whole agreed that it was the latter (which is no real surprise, considering the author), and the controversy largely disappeared after publication. Since then, the book has been described as one of the best 3e supplements published by WotC.

More Darkness, Less Vile. Defining the nature of evil turns out to be more fun than you might think. The book does so, along with a discussion of vile races and gods, malign sites, curses, and the best methods creating really memorable, realistic, despicable villains. The supplement explores what drives villains to such extremes, since many such villains are convinced that they're actually the good guy. Fetishes, obsessions, and aberrant psychology can explain some of it, but of course we're operating in a D&D world where evil is a real and palpable thing. The intersection of these two approaches is fascinating.

While it touches on topics that you would not normally expect to find in your D&D books, like necrophilia and demonic possession, the bulk of Vile Darkness is focused on playable and useful game concepts that tie into the overall theme. "Vile" feats, for instance, are granted by dark powers and give bonuses for performing actions that others would consider reprehensible; the bonuses are minimal but flavorful, and they accompany the expected selection of new general and metamagic feats. Other feats allow fiends to apply metamagic to spell-like abilities, brand a target as the thrall of evil entities, or give advantages for willingly deforming one's self... useful for power, but not so good for your social life.

The prestige classes are delightfully imaginative. The "vermin lord," in particular, is bound to get your players' attention; other prestige classes include the tumor-ridden "cancer mage"; disciples of the various arch-devils; thralls of the various demon lords; demonologists, lifedrinkers, and mortal hunters. There are 18 prestige classes in all.

The equipment chapter focuses on execution devices, torture equipment, poison, and drugs. The rules for adding traps to armor or weapons is both delightful and very wrong; use these and your players may (deservedly) throw dice at you.

The bulk of the interesting material is in the "Magic" chapter, however, where some truly evil and extremely inventive spells can be found. Some spells can be cast only by outsiders, and most also have a unique cost. A spell may inflict ability damage or only be castable by someone suffering from a certain poison or disease. This goes a long way toward making the spells tremendously useful for NPCs, while limiting the number of PCs who will use them.

Lords of Evil. Please welcome back to the main stage, for the enjoyment of 3e D&D players, the demon lords and arch-devils! It had been a long time since we saw them outlined, and here they're well detailed. Accompanying them are other vile monsters such as new demons and the eye of fear and flame. The only thing I would like to have seen more of is a discussion about the challenges of running an evil campaign. This topic is dealt with in the appendix, which I don't think gives enough room to what can be a tricky procedure to get right."

Reception and influence

Greyhawk Source

The Book of Vile Darkness
Cover of the fourth edition version of The Book of Vile Darkness, art by .
Type:	Sourcebook
Edition:	Fourth edition
Author(s):	Robert J. Schwalb
Editor(s):	Tanis O’Connor (lead), Dawn J. Geluso, M. Alexander Jurkat
Cover Artist(s):	Wanye Reynolds and Wayne England
Interior Artist(s):	Tom Baxa, Zoltan Boros, Anna Christenson, Eric Deschamps, Steve Ellis, Wayne England, Colin Fix, Ralph Horsley, Tomasz Jedruszek, Todd Lockwood, Christopher Moeller, Chris Seaman, Brian Snoddy, Skan Srisuwan, John Stanko, Chris Stevens, Gabor Szikszai, UDON, Eva Widermann, Sam Wood, Kieran Yanner, James Zhang Cartography:Mike Schley
Publisher:	Wizards of the Coast
First Published:	December 27, 2011
Pages:	128
ISBN:	978-0-7869-5868-9
Class:	Officially published source

Fourth edition

Book of Vile Darkness (4e) is a 128-page sourcebook for fourth edition released in 2011.

Official synopsis

"This roleplaying game product is intended for Dungeon Masters looking to broaden their campaigns to include dark subject matter and truly evil threats. It features a detailed look at the nature of evil and the complex challenge of confronting the many dilemmas found within the deepest shadows.

It includes:

• A 32-page facsimile of the Book of Vile Darkness, filled with malignant secrets and musings that can inspire adventures or entire campaigns
• A 96-page game supplement that provides Dungeon Masters with sample roleplaying encounters, adventure hooks, skill challenges, rituals, and lore for some of the most despicable creatures to infest any campaign world, new character options for players who like to flirt with evil"

Publishing history

From DMgsGuild.com, by gaming historian, Shannen Appecline:

"Book of Vile Darkness (2011), by Robert J. Schwalb, is a book for GMs and players about playing evil characters. It was released in December 2011.

Near the End of 4e. Book of Vile Darkness was the final book released for D&D in 2011, and so lay very near to the end of the 4e line. After the cancellation of the short-lived Essentials series (2010), production in 2011 had been historically light (with just 8 books) and very scattered. Book of Vile Darkness was an example of this: a one-off book without much connection to the rest of the line. Unfortunately, 2012 would continue this trend: only four scattered books were released following Book of Vile Darkness and after that the 4e line (2008-2012) sputtered to a halt.

An Unusual Format. Book of Vile Darkness was a rather unique production. It was sold as a sleeve that contained a 96-page GM's book, a 32-page player's book, and a map. Many fans applauded the division of the player and GM content into two different books, but unfortunately it was too late in the 4e design cycle for Wizards to follow up on the idea.

Another Book of Vile Darkness. This was the second published Book of Vile Darkness. The first (2001) was an early release for D&D 3e (2000). It was a "mature audiences only" book full of rules for being evil — plus stats for demons and devils, who were just coming back into favor after the bowdlerized era of TSR AD&D 2e (1989-1997). However, some folks found the 3e Book of Vile Darkness — which included drug use, ritual sacrifice, and torture — to be a bit over the top.

The 4e Book of Vile Darkness (2011) is a bit different. It's still about playing evil characters, but it focuses more on running campaigns and on supporting those campaigns. Its mechanics include evil monster and character themes rather than rules for evil stuff that players could do. There's also very little detail on demons and devils in the new book, because they'd been fully integrated back into D&D by the mid '00s and had already been featured in the Demonomicon (2010) for 4e.

Though the two books shared the same basic themes, this new Book of Vile Darkness was definitely not a new edition of the 3e book of the same name

The Movie Connection. Wizards of the Coast had a good reason for producing a new Book of Vile Darkness: a movie was then in production called Dungeons & Dragons 3: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012). To underline the connection, Wizards' Book of Vile Darkness ends with an adventure called "The Vile Tome" which includes elements from the movie like the "dread mage Nhagruul" and the "wicked mind flayer Shathrax" — and, of course, a quest for the eponymous artifact."

Development

The book was written by Jeremy Crawford, Tanis O'Connor, Stephen Schubert and Robert J. Schwalb. Art was provided by Tom Baxa, Zoltan Boros, Anna Christenson and Eric Deschamps.

Release

Book of Vile Darkness (4e) was released by Wizards of the Coast in for $x.xxUSD.

On April 14, 2015, it was re-released in digital format, on DriveThruRPG and Dungeon Masters Guild for $8.99.

Reception and influence

Critical reception

In 2023, Book of Vile Darkness (4e) reached the rank of Electrum seller on DriveThruRPG.

See also

• Book of Vile Darkness

External links

• Book of Vile Darkness (4e) on DriveThruRPG
• Book of Vile Darkness (4e) on Dungeon Masters Guild

References

Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index

The Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index (EGI) is based on previous work of Jason Zavoda through '08, continued by numerous other fans. The EGI article has a list of sources, product names, abbreviations, and a link to the full, downloadable index.

Topic	Type	Description	Product	Page/Card/Image
Book of Vile Darkness	Item	Artifact,	Dungeon Masters Guide 1st Edition	122, 139
Book of Vile Darkness	Item	Artifact,	Dungeon Masters Guide (Revised), AD&D 2e (Premium Edition)	185, 216
Book of Vile Darkness	Item	Artifact,	Dungeon Master's Guide, D&D 3.5e	277, 278
Book of Vile Darkness	Item	Artifact,	Dungeon Master's Guide, D&D 5e	222-224
Book of Vile Darkness	Item	Artifact,	Dragon magazine #348	20
Book of Vile Darkness	Item	Artifact,	Encyclopedia Magica - Volume I	192
Book of Vile Darkness	Item	Artifact,	I2 Tomb of the Lizard King	23
Book of Vile Darkness	Item	Artifact,	Monster Manual 1, D&D 5e	73