The Book Of Fiends

[Messageboard Golem]

Devils, demons, and daemons--these are the ultimate servants of evil. Learn all their foul secrets in the Book of Fiends, the definitive sourcebook on these fell creatures. This tome collects Green Ronin's critically acclaimed Legions of Hell and Armies of the Abyss sourcebooks and combines them with the long-awaited treatment of daemons, Hordes of Gehenna. All the fiends have been updated to the 3.5 rules, and the material on demons and devils has been revised and expanded. Details on the plane of Gehenna, its rulers, and inhabitants are also revealed for the first time. Illustrated by top artists like Sam Wood, Raven Mimura, Dennis Detwiller, Toren Atkinson, and Brian Despain, the Book of Fiends provides profoundly evil foes your players will never forget.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The Book of Fiends updates and expands Green Ronin's Legions of Hell and Armies of the Abyss sourcebooks. It also updates the Unholy Warrior core class and adds Hordes of Gehenna, the neutral evil fiends, to the mix. The book has already had some discussion on our own boards here.

The first section is the update of Armies of the Abyss. This includes a brief background on the Abyss itself. My favorite part of this section is the introduction of the qlippoth, a fiendish race older than the demons who now rule. A few are detailed latter on including Shiggarreb, a powerful qlippoth lord.

Next are updates for the Thaumaturge Class including new domains and spells. This divine using core class is fully detailed, including rules for epic advancement and role playing archetypes. They have a nice summoning list of creatures that they can bind to their will, but suffer various corruption effects that are generated on a table. These range from losing your hair and gaining pointy ears to weeping tears of blood or forked tail.

The section, Those Who Rule, provides information on twenty one demon lords and provides the GM with an endless array of options to set up long term campaign enemies. However, while it's nice to see layer, areas of concern, domains, and favored weapons listed for those clerics or other divine worshippers, it would've been nice to see some stats on these lords as well.

The meat of the first section is the Creatures of the Abyss and includes old web additions like the abyssal dragon template, old standards from the original book like the campaign shattering Armageddon Beast, and from what I understand, some odd 20 new demons as well like the vessel of orcus, an undead construct created from the faces of sinners. In this aspect, all three books, Legions, Hordes, and Armies, do a good job of presenting new creatures with a variety of CR's including several unique individuals native to their plane or at least adopted natives of their planes.

The section on the Hordes of Gehenna is one of the weaker sections not because it doesn't include some background nor because it doesn't include new rulers, one for each of the seven deadly sins, but because it is missing a bit of that player focus. Legions for instance, has Infernal Prestige Classes. Armies has the Thaumaturge. Hordes of Gehenna has monsters.

My personal favorite is probably one I'll never get to use, Shogarr, Consumer of Souls. This CR 30 monster is a tool that heralds the end of a universe. That's good stuff. Other daemons work for various sins. For example,That Which Cannot Be, despite being huge worm like outsiders, are watchers of lust. These creatures watch over mortals who live with and engage their lust, their segmented rings cataloging each sin. To make things more interesting then just being living catalogs of sin though, they actually help those sinners by eating those who would dare come between the sinner of lust and his victims.

One of the more unique aspects of Hordes is the Companions of Malice. These are warriors who serve as mercenaries under Tyrexxus, the Exarch, or master, of Wrath. These creatures can't be hired with gold and require “services, souls, blood, feasts of wicked pleasures, and worse.” There are footmen, lieutenants, captains, and U'ulgar, the Lord Commander of the Companions clocking in at a CR of 25, perfect for those near epic characters who laugh at Dragons. When fighting him, make sure to be well prepared as he weilds Gyvast the Foe Bane, a vorpal falchion that's also a human bane.

The last monstrous compendium, Legions of Hell, covers the different rulers quickly with a paragraph or two, provides devil traits, and then goes straight into the game stats. These are some old friends like Antaia, the Witch Queen, a powerful spellcaster clocking in at a CR of 20, in addition to a few new comers who I can't pick out off as I no longer own the original. The Shadow Angel for instance, looks new to me, but...

I do know that the 3.5 changes have taken place. For example, when looking at skills for the Infernal Prestige Classes, such as Balan's Jackal, he has Survival instead of Wilderness Lore and Intuit Direciton. The skill changes aren't at 100% though for the Plaguelord has the Class Skill of Pick Pocket, which is now Sleight of Hand. The biggest change to CR I can see has to be Iblis, the Duke of Pride, a fallen solar who is now the highest CR in the book, weighting in at 40.

Other material fills out the book in the appendices. The first one covers some backgrounds on the angelic choirs, even as the second one updates the core unholy warrior class. The third one introduces two overviews of fiendish cities provided by Enkwell Press, Byldgewater in Gehenna and Cacoethes in the Abyss. Ed Bourelle does a great job of illustrating the two but meaty details aren't provided. Those looking for a master CR listing have one, but it doesn't include page listings. Not a big problem as the index does but a few different takes, one by straight CR, another by type (daemon, demon and devil) and page numbers, would've been nice.

Art continues to be good. The work on Gehenna is very well done but the art style is dramatically different in some cases, almost like something out of Talislanta in terms of style and differentness. Sam Wood, Raven Mimura, Denniz Detwiller, Toren Atkinson and Brian Despain all add their considerable talents to make this a visually pleasing book and have my thanks for their efforts. Layout is generally two columns with descriptions pull off in black with white text. One page, 68, had some layout issues where some of the text was lost but Green Ronin already has a replacement PDFpage out.

My biggest disappointments with the book is that too many high ranking fiends aren't written out in game terms out and are presented like the Gods from Book of the Righteous. That's good for deities but poor for demon, daemon and devil lords, especially when other companies, including WotC, have already provided some baselines for us. In addition, the price, while fair for a product of this size, may be a little tough to swallow for someone who has the previous books and only wants the Hordes of Gehenna.

I know, some are asking, well Joe, where would those stats go? How about getting rid of Angelic Choirs and the Fallen? While it's nice to know the different Choirs, I want the lord stats. While I enjoy the minor details in appendix three on two fiendish cities, once again, I find that I'd get more use out of demon lord stats. The full page breaks between books is nice, but not necessary, freeing up more space for those missing stats. In short, I see the room for adding those stats.

The variety in the book does make up for the lack of demon lord stats and there are many creatures in the upper challenge ratings to attack even those epic level characters.
Those looking for a one shop stopping place for all things fiendish have a great resource in the Book of Fiends and will be hard pressed to find a better source of outsider enemies for their campaign.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Talk about missing the forest for the trees! Joe, this is a 5 of 5 book if I ever read one. By any criteria you care to name (inspiration, design, art, editing) this book is top notch. Your litany of nitpicking is just that. Based on Legions of Hell, Armies of the Abyss, and Book of the Righteous, you had no reason to expect stats for fiendish lords in this book, yet you go on and on about it. Look, this isn’t that book. This is a monster book at heart, and the book is very clear about that. Why don’t you judge it on its own merits instead of what’s in your mind’s eye? Also, there is a Gehenna tie-in for players. The Unholy Warriors appendix has a section on using Unholy Warriors that serve the Exarchs of Gehenna. Seriously, if you think this is a 4 of 5 book, you need to take a break from reviewing.

 

[Psion]

vecnajr.

Feel free to point out where you differ from the review, but don't slam the reviewers please. "You need to take a break" is just a bit confrontational.

I think when I get to writing mine, it might be more in tune with what you expect.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Joe,

Could I ask why you saw this product as a 4 rather than a 5?

I'm asking for two reasons:

1. IMO this is one of the best d20 products I have purchased and/or read and I honestly felt it would receive straight 5s from all reviewers (plus your comments seem to indicate you think pretty highly of it).
2. A 4 is a fairly average rating for your reviews (actually, the average is 3.73) so this puts it as just a little above average compared to other products you have reviewed. Also, this puts it on the same level as, say, your review of the Underdark Adventure Guide which to me is quite a flawed product (Psion's review covers the reasons why I think that): is the UAG really the equal of the Book of Fiends?

Anyway, I enjoyed your review (informative as always); just hoping you might explain a little more about your methodology.

Cheers
D

 

[JoeGKushner]

Part of the problem with a 5 star rating is that there are products that have the same number of stars but aren't equal.

Let's look at the product from a couple of prospectives.

1. I play 3.0 and hate 3.5. The book is useless to me.

2. I play 3.5 but already own two of the books and don't want to pay for an update which (like everything to this person) should be free on the web!

3. I don't like demons or devils and only want the daemons. Green Ronin screwed us by not selling the book sepately.

4. Green Ronin wasted space with the Unholy Warrior Update since they should (the free guy again) update it on their web page like they did the Shaman and Witch's Handbook.

5. Green Ronin statted several powerful fiends but copped out of the 'lords' of the fiends.

6. A book of fiends? Why bother? Tome of Horrors covered all the lords and 'kwel' demons anyway.

7. What's up with these Daemons? Why do they not match standard ones from my childhood memories?

Almost none of those are my issues but they are all concerns. If there were some leeway in the review scale, there would be much different review gradings from me. The Underdark Adventurer's Guide for instance, would probably get a 3.5/3.25 while the Book of Fiends would get a 4.5, 4.75. I sometimes fall on the scale of higher and lower depending on how much use I get out of the book and to be honest, while I've used the Armies of the Abyss and Legions of Hell, I haven't used them to a great deal. Like several monster books (Monsternomicon), a great deal of it will rely on a deliberate effort of the GM to incorporate the material.

I respect anyone who voices their opinion. I respect those that voice their opinions through a review even more. Even though some disagreed with me about The Deep, mainly in rules very little mention of the setting and it's tie in to Bluffside.

 

[Psion]

The Book of Fiends

The Book of Fiends is a creature sourcebook for d20 Fantasy by Green Ronin Publishing. It compiles, expands, and updates (to 3.5) material from three previous Green Ronin books (Armies of the Abyss, Legions of Hell, and parts of the Unholy Warrior's Handbook) and introduces material from a planned volume that did not make it out before the publication of D&D 3.5: Hordes of Gehenna. Green Ronin took the opportunity to update their previous books at the same time they introduced their latest volume.

The book credits Aaron Loeb, Erik Mona, Chris Pramas, and Robert J. Schwalb as authors.

A First Look

The Book of Fiends is a 224 page hardcover book priced at $34.95.

The cover is adorned by a nicely done picture by Michael Sutfin depicting a woman wielding some sort of double weapon standing before a huge demonic being with an a flaming eye floating in the cusp of its crown-like head.

The interior is black and white. Interior artists include Julain Allen, Toren "MacBin" Atkinson, Tim Baxa, Drew Baker, Brom, Brian Despan, Chris Keefe, Raven Mimura, Sam Wood, Mike Vilardi, Kevin Crossley, James Ryman, Dennis Detwiller, and Kent Burles. Much of the art herein is recycled from the previous books that went into this one, but there is a slug of great new art as well, both for new creatures and replacing some art from previous books. In particular, I have been impressed with Burles and Ryman's work since they became part of the stable of artists used by Green Ronin, and they continue that trend here. Allen is not one I am familiar with, but his fresh new talent combines nicely with that of Ryman and Atkinson to paint a picture of disturbingly inhuman fiends in the Hordes of Gehenna section.

A Deeper Look

The Book of Fiends is arranged into three volumes plus appendices. Each of the "volumes" deals with one sort of fiendish creature, and each corresponds to either the existing or proposed volume dealing with the creature (i.e., Armies of the Abyss, Hordes of Gehenna, and Legions of Hell. Each of the volumes is further broken down into chapters which vary in subject between volumes.

Though large amounts of both Armies of the Abyss and Legions of Hell are repeated here, they are both updated to 3.5 edition rules and are expanded with new creatures and refined. It is not my intent to replicate the entirety of my reviews of those two products here, rather focusing on changes and new material. For more information on these two volumes, see my original reviews of the individual 3.0 products.

Creatures in both Armies of the Abyss and Legions of Hell volume see a number of changes to match changes in mechanics between editions, such as the new DR rules and new creature construction guidelines. Another major change is the fact that many formal names, such as Tanar'ri and Baatezu, did not appear in the final SRD, so they are likewise negated from the new versions here. This is not a big issue for Legions of Hell since most devils were Baatezu in the original; a direct correspondence was sufficient. However, Armies of the Abyss introduced a new race of demons, of the Qlippoth subrace. In this case, demon became a placeholder for Tanar'ri and Qlippoth became just "other chaotic evil outsiders native to the abyss." Though Green Ronin has little control over WotC's decision not to place the terms in the open domain, those less familiar with what is going on could be confused with the issue.

By way of general update changes of the creatures to 3.5 rules, the creatures see the expected and necessary changes such as updates to newer DR conventions, new skill point methods, and so forth. Unlike the demons and devils in the 3.5 edition MM, the fiends here don't see an alteration of their power level (probably due to the fact that the original books were designed with an even CR spread and did not need such an adjustment as the MM fiends did) or gutting of their spell like abilities (the reason that the MM did this is beyond me.)

The first four chapters form Volume I: Armies of the Abyss. This includes an introductory chapter, a chapter covering the thaumaturge class, a chapter with demon princes (with only background, no combat stats), and the creatures themselves. For more details on these, see my Armies of the Abyss reviews.

The original thaumaturge was basically a cleric with inferior combat abilities and random "corruptions" every few levels, which made it seem a little weak compared to a PC class of the same level. Green Ronin shored up the class a bit in this iteration without changing it too deeply. The thaumaturge now can summon abyssal creatures as a quickened spell like ability once per day per four levels, which gives them a little more punch. The corruptions have also been expanded, and there is now a chance of better or multiple chances, but there is still about a 40% chance that a given corruption will be a hindrance vice a benefit.

Though this section is largely a update of the Armies of the Abyss book, there is no shortage of new creatures. The abyssal dragon template, which was formerly relegated to a template, appears here in print. In addition, we see a number of new abyssal creatures:
-Chernobue: Another Qlippoth, the chernobue has a fearsome venom that causes lots of permanent ability damage and leaves the victim disfigured.
-Cresil the Impure: A demon lord, Cresil is a bloated and noisome the presides over a trash heap on his own layer. Though no prince stats are presented in this book, Cresil, who is CR 23, should challenge some fairly stout parties.
-Daeobelinus: These fairly weak goblin-like creatures are fast and expert craftsmen. Sometimes they offer their aid to mortals, but demand a steep price...
-Irecundia: These collossal and powerful demons are unfortunately not unique. However, they only form part of the Armies of the Abyss when the need is desperate, since they tend to devastate both sides of a battle.

Other than these there are 7 additional demons, a demon lord, a construct, an ooze, an undead, and a magical beast associated with the Abyss.


The second volume included in the Book of Fiends is all new: Hordes of Gehenna. As the Yugoloths (Neutral Evil fiends that were called daemons in AD&D 1st edition) were never made open content by WotC, Green Ronin was left to create their NE fiends from scratch. They reverted back to using the title daemon for these creautres.

Deamons are based around the concept of the "seven sins". Each deamon is primarily concerned with or has abilities related to one of the classic seven deadly sins: wrath, envy, lust, sloth, gluttony, greed, and pride. Gehenna, the plane said to be held by Deamons (and having superficial differences from the same named plane in WotC's Manual of the Planes), is said to be divided into seven realms corresponding to these sins.

Daemons as depicted here are more interested in mortal affairs than other types of fiends. They watch the mortals, record their sins, and sometimes tempt them into them and punish them accordingly. This becomes an underlying theme for the entire section, explaining both the motivations of the daemons, and their abilities.

Daemons are cleft into seven categories like the seven deadly sins. They also are divided into roles within these categories: exarch, watchers, whisperers, mercenaries, and servitors. Exarchs are the arch-fiends of the demons, corresponding to demon-lords and arch-devils. Much as is the case for these powerful demons and devils, exarchs receive no game statistics.

Other roles are watchers (who watch and record the sins of mortals), whisperers (who tempt mortals into sins), mercenaries (warriors in the wars between Hell and the Abyss), and servitors (powerful servants of the exarchs, often unique). Most of the daemons are actually that – deamon type outsiders. There are also undead and template-created creatures, who also fall into the above roles. Finally, there are some independent daemons who do not fall into the above classification.

The creepy concepts and the outstanding artwork combine to bring the creatures home with a very alien feel. The sin and immortal punishment aspect is really played up for horrifying effect. As an example, consider the languishing, a creature that serves as the watcher of sloth. The appearence of the creature is creepy enough – an eerie picture by Ryman depicts a someone humanoid spined creature that has spider legs in the place of a jaw. The languishing waits for mortals who cannot rise out of their mourning and selfloathing. They decapitate them, doing so without slaying the sinner. They consume the jaws of the mourners, which become the source of a supernatural mourning wail used by the languishing as a weapon.

The Legions of Hell volume is also an updated/revised version of the original. Much like the Armies of the Abyss volume, there are many new creatures introduced herein (see my review of Legions of Hell for a more detailed look at the creatures that appeared in the original). New creatures include one new infernal noble, five new devils, two new magical beasts, and one new template. This last one is actually not diabolical at all, but a wanderer in hell doing pennance that receives some measure of protection from devils.

As with the original volume, this volume features three prestige classes which are servants of various infernal nobles herein: Balan's Jackals (followers of the infernal huntsman Balan), Mountebank (devious spellcaster in service of Jalie Squarefoot) and Plaguelords (servant of the fetid prince Nergal). Balan's Jackal is made a bit more appealing, and the abilities are better distributed through its advancement. The Mountebank could still probably use a level less of spellcasting advancement to make up for its abilities. As an additional update feature, each of the classes has epic advancements.

Although Legions of Hell does not receive as much additional material as Armies, I don't think it needs it as much; the original seemed to use its space better and the creatures therein were loaded with campaign ideas.

There are three appendices. The first is a three page treatise on angelic hosts, including a selection of fallen celestials in hell; this originally appeared in Legions of Hell.

The second is the unholy warrior class. This class originally appeared in the Unholy Warrior's Handbook, but is updated to 3.5. Much like many 3.5 classes, the class is less front loaded, and the domain abilities are spread over the first three levels instead of the first two. For those not familiar, the unholy warrior represents sanctified warriors dedicated to evil powers, and follows the pattern of the holy warrior from Book of the Righteous. Each holy/unholy warrior has access to two domains that grant class abilities (not spell access like cleric domains), plus receive a gift of darkness special ability starting at 6th level related to the character's patron.

Though this serves as a nice update for the class itself, there is more to be had in the Unholy Warrior's Handbook, such as prestige classes, feats, and more details on unholy warrior orders.

The third appendix contains an overview of two infernal cities, one in the Abyss, and one in Gehenna. (A city in hell was featured in the Green Ronin adventure Hell in Freeport.)

Conclusions

Book of Fiends both updates and improves the material from the prior volumes and stirs it together with a great new addition, Hordes of Gehenna, which is a worthy peer of the fantastic Legions of Hell. If you are interested in plots dealing with infernal powers and the lackeys of such powers, you could not ask for a more complete book.

Overall Grade: A

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[The Sigil]

The Book of Fiends
Green Ronin
224 pages, hardback, black and white interior
$34.95

For an explanation of the scoring given below, please visit http://www.cooleys.org/ogc/scoring.asp

Executive Summary: The Book of Fiends is at once a collection and an expansion book; it is an exhaustive look at creatures and classes from the "lower planes" and includes the 3.5e updates of "Armies of the Abyss" (CE demons) and "Legions of Hell" (LE devils), as well as adding a new section that covers the Neutral Evil daemons ("Hordes of Gehenna"). It is mostly a creature book, though new domains, base classes, and prestige classes are covered, as well as some rudimentary planar cosmolgy/history lessons.

Adaptability 8
Most campaigns probably have some amount of "outsider" activity in them, and the Book of Fiends provides you with evil outsiders in droves - from every alignment and for every power level (from CR 1 to 20+). Of course, in a game where outsiders are rare or non-existent, a book full of outsider isn't that helpful, which is the only reason I could find for knocking down the adaptability score.

Balance 9
Green Ronin has always been excellent at providing well-thought-out and balanced material, and this is no exception. There are no glaring errors in the creature stat blocks, and the domains offered seem balanced. I have some slight reservations about the Thaumaturgist class presented here (a class based on worship of/pacts with a dark power), but they are minor.

Clarity 10
With excellent, if a bit "dark" and "horrorpunkish" art, there is little difficulty understanding what the creatures presented here look like. The background section (that includes history as well as cosmology for each race) does a good job of setting up the various creatures and their place in the fiendish societies, and each creature's entry makes clear its purpose and motivations. The special abilities of the creatures are well-defined and nicely spelled out, making them easy to adjudicate as well.

Focus 9
Along with exceptional clarity is a pretty good sense of focus. This work is all about evil - specifically evil outsiders and the planes they inhabit. The history and cosmology of the planes is appreciated, and the book's "monsterbook" focus is fairly tight - in fact, I especially loved the treatment of the daemons and the way two or three daemons were assigned to each of the "seven deadly sins" - including some twists on the classic themes of the sins that took me by surprise. I understand why the prestige classes and base class were included (to capture the feel of humans that choose to deal with and serve the fiends), but feel that such an inclusion just didn't quite sit right with me; I felt the focus was towards creatures native to the lower planes, and adding in a little section on creatures native to and living on the prime material was a slight - SLIGHT - blur of the focus. Others might disagree with this assessment.

Granularity 9
Monster books usually have pretty good granularity - you can just pick up one monster and drop it into your campaign. This book is no exception. Prestige classes, et al, are also easily lifted "whole cloth" though in the case of the thaumaturgist, you also have to lift (or rename) the powers he worships, which knocks the granularity score down because the assumed cosmology may require some slight tweaking to integrate into a campaign, thus precluding a perfect score here.

OGC 8
Names and stat blocks and combat descriptions of creatures (but not physical descriptions), prestige/base classes and their associated abilities are all OGC. It's a pretty generous designation, and allows for easy re-use of the creatures; it's not "all OGC" but it's certainly more than enough to be easily useful with few headaches.

Originality 9
Demons, Devils, Daemons, et al are not exactly the most original of concepts in and of themselves. Green Ronin's take on them, however, is. As I mentioned before, I think the favorite part of the book (for me) was seeing the "seven deadly sins" transformed into creatures representing them. The cosmological note that all prime material creatures cast "shadows" onto Gehenna (home plane of the daemons) and that the daemons both tempt primes with the sin to which they are associated and do the book-keeping that tracks of all of the sins committed - perhaps at having made some sort of deal with the celestials - was a beautiful touch... the daemons know all the dirt on you because they are the ones "with you" all the time (and they're not afraid to use that to remind you of how awful you are, mister all-too-righteous paladin)!

Presentation 10
Hardcover, with lots of clear illustrations, the presentation in this one is very nice. It would have been nice to have color, of course, but the B&W is effective and does not detract from the book in the slightest. The layout is clean and things don't get in the way of each other.

Price To Content 5
This was a hard one to adjudicate because quite a bit of the book is simply reprinted material and anyone who owns Armies of the Abyss and Legions of Hell is not going to be happy to pay again for the same material (albeit updated to 3.5e). It probably rates a 2/10 for those folks, because it's very expensive given the amount of new monsters and new material. It's probably an 8 or 9 of 10 to those who DON'T own those books, however. There's a ton of material here - enough to basically run and populate the entirety of the lower planes - so those who don't already have AotA and LoH can't complain. I split the difference and gave it a 5.

Wow 8
I was wowed by AotA and LoH when they first came out, so it's not exactly fair to knock this for not "wowing me" with those parts again. After all, it's hard to "wow" on the second time around. The daemons, however, did "wow" me (as noted by my commentary above); I was constantly thinking, "nice twist" or "I could use this" or "cool." There was nothing that I absolutely had to throw in my campaign right away, though, so it can't get a 10. I think an 8 is fair.

THE FINAL WORD:
If you don't have AotA and/or LoH and you run a campaign with any evil outsider activity at all, run - do not walk - and get this book. If you do have AotA and/or LoH, you might want to peruse it to see if it's worth the cost... either that or buy it and try to hock your AotA and LoH copies. In my opinion, it's a great buy... as I mentioned, this can be your comprehensive sourcebook to the lower planes and you really don't need much else. If devils, demons, daemons, evil, and so on are not your cup of tea, but you like monsters, you might consider picking it up and raiding it for ideas anyway - maybe convert the monsters herein to magical beasts or something. Any DM with an interest in the outer planes really should get a copy of this book.

TOTAL: 85 (B) -- Four stars

 

[GameWyrd]

The Book of Fiends is typically Green Ronin quality. It's professional, has a nice layout, small and crisp font and its packed full of fiends. Flicking through the book lets you peak into a deliciously awful Abyss.

I remember poking fun at the Fiend Folio (the first d20 edition) because it was nothing more than a Monster Manual III trying to avoid the III and capture the glory of the original Fiend Folio. I also remember reader comments that I was making too much of an issue about the book's name. It wasn't really about the name though, it was about the lack of Fiendish atmosphere and yet more monsters instead. I always prefer the theatrics and politics of roleplaying over the mechanics, combat and spells but for some reason I always go for bestiary books. I really do think you can conjure up atmospheric details for a fantasy setting by finding out about the creatures that live in it. A bestiary full of low powered and largely nocturnal monsters and animals has the makings for a gothic setting. A bestiary full of titans, hydra and satyrs is suitable for a Hellenic game and one full of dragons, kobolds and umber hulks is most likely Dungeons and Dragons. The Book of Fiends really is full of fiends; it is entirely suitable for a "plane war" game, dark fantasy, high fantasy, even horror and perhaps even occult. That makes the difference for me. This isn't a book of monsters; it's a book of demons and devils.

There is a catch - there is a flipside. I cannot imagine spending long hours constructing a wonderfully atmospheric game, working up to chilling encounters with demons to then slur the unique climax with something so un-unique as an arch-enemy taken from a mass produced book. I suppose it's a bit like a chef toiling over the creation of wonderful pastry only then to stuff the pie with cheap meat from the supermarket. I just wouldn't do it.

Yup! There's a flipside to the flipside. Your players can read The Book of Fiends. Your players can discover just how formidable some of these Fiends are how insidious and sinister even the weaker Fiends are. Any encounter with a Book of Fiends fiend could well enjoy a hefty dose of pre-charged "oh naughty word!" That's always good fun.

The Book of Fiends is a mix of new and freshly dusted down old products. Green Ronin's already published Legions of Hell and Armies of the Abyss. Those two classics are for D&D 3.0 and we're now in the hands of 3.5. Green Ronin planned a third book too; Hordes of Gehanna. The Book of Fiends is the 3.5 edition of Legions of Hell, Armies of the Abyss and is the premier of the Hordes of Gehanna. It's very handy having everything together in the 224-paged hardback. The tie-in with other Green Ronin books gets better still. The Book of Fiends is written to fit nicely into the mythos presented in the Book of the Righteous, the Avatar's Handbook and the Unholy Warrior's Handbook.

Chapter One, Into the Abyss, is important. We quickly run through the cosmology here. When the Lords of Good created the celestials the shadowy qlippoth came into being as a coincidence. The qlippoth created those creatures which would become the demons. The armies of Good all but finished off the qlippoth, leaving their ruined cities in the upper layers of the Abyss but let many of the demonic creations escape into the lower layers. Souls enter the Abyss and have to deal with The Howling Threshold - what a great name - and some are destroyed forever, eaten by hungry demons, but a few become powerful entities too.

In chapter two, Those Who Serve, contains the Thaumaturge class. This is a summoning class and comes complete with new Thaumaturgic feats. There are 10 new domains too and included in here are some with lateral connections to the Abyss. There's the Eloquence domain, the Prophecy domain and even the Pleasure Domain. Evil GMs could have fun with the idea that these sorts of topics are of interest to the Abyss or that they might even by Abyssal. New domains mean new spells. For the Pleasure Domain there's the Phantasmal Lover where if the target succumbs to the tempting whispers of the magical apparition the target will be incapacitated for 10 minutes of "erotic activity" but will also be cured of all diseases, blindness, deafness, hit point damage and temporary ability damage. Guess what the Phantasmal Orgy spell does.

The rather terrible demon princes are detailed in Those Who Rule, chapter three. Full credit to Green Ronin here - they don't give these unbelievably powerful creatures stats. Stats would be pointless. The Book of the Righteous didn't stat deities either. That said you will find demons with CR of 20 and much higher later on in this book. It's slightly annoying that not every prince is accompanied by an illustration though the illustrations we do have are fantastic.

By this stage of the book the decorative margin is labelled "Volume 1: Armies of the Abyss". Volume 1 also contains chapter four, Creatures of the Abyss, and begins with rules for creating Abyssal Dragons. Okay, I said the CR does peak over 20 but there are also lower powered fiends in the book - that's an important goal of the product. The Book of Fiends (and the smaller books which comprise it) sought to bring these evocative foes to campaigns of any level. Daeobelinus are creatures which help lazy mortals avoid some sort of annoying hardship, like the loss of reputation, and are a CR 1 encounter. The Challenge Rating is nice as is the effort to include a role in the war for souls for them. In fact, throughout this collection there are plenty of touches like this. There are generic demons like the mandragoras and there are individuals in this section too. Malohin is the exiled demon prince of murder - less powerful than he has been but not a push over either!

Volume 2 is the Hordes of Gehenna. This section of the book kicks off with the chapter titled Descent into the Seven-Circle Realm and looks at the cosmology of Gehenna. The seven circles; wrath, envy, lust, sloth, gluttony, greed and pride are homes to a horde of fiends. These fiends have titles like Whispers of Sloth, Mercenaries of Wrath, Watcher of Envy as well as their proper names. It is easy to tell at a glance what the fiend's status in the realm is. This foul collection makes up chapter six.

Volume 3 is the reprieve of Legions of Hell. It's the same format as before; an introduction to the creatures here so powerful that they don't need stats (not that you couldn't drum them up elsewhere) and an introductory glance at the geography of the realm. Then we move onto the collection of fiends, devils in this case. Once again there is the good mix between generic creatures and specific devils. Also tucked in the volume 3, in chapter nine, we find the Infernal Prestige Classes.

Since the Book of Fiends is designed to be a great companion to The Book of the Righteous it's nice to see a large appendix devoted to quickly summarising the three choirs of Angelic orders. Know thy enemy and all that. The next appendix takes a look at the Unholy Warrior class and includes the bunch of new domains introduced by the Unholy Warrior book. Another appendix details the town of Byldgewater and the weird city of Cacoethes as locations in the Abyss. If you want an appendix which lists all these horrors by Challenge Rating (that's ½ to 40!) and this is certainly handy. There's even a bibliography and, of course, a thorough index.

The Book of Fiends is one of these really good but specialised roleplaying supplements. It's great quality but I'm not convinced I'll use it that often. On my first run through of the supplement I was loath to give it any more than B (6/10) - it's good but limited in use, therefore limited in value. I always go through books twice and on the second time through I was still struck by just how thorough the book is, at just how much is packed into here, at the writing, at the illustrations and at how it all ties nicely together. Whereas I accept that no one really needs The Book of Fiends I think it would be an injustice to mark it with anything other than an A grade (7/10). On the GameWyrd scale it easily scores the 5/10 starting point for professionally delivering what was promised to the readers. It scores another for the sheer quality and the more elusive second upgrade because of just how effectively atmospheric it is.

* This The Book of Fiends review was first published at GameWyrd.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

A very informative review. Thank you. Since I refuse to buy into WOTC's System 3.$ money machine, I'm glad to know that I need the original books to play that, but 3.$ games need this book.