Demonology
- The Dark Road
 A
d20 Supplement for the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons game
Written by Matthew Sprange
Editor:
Alexander Fennell
Cover Art: Anne Stokes
Illustrations: Anne Stokes, Chris Quilliams, Nathan Webb, Anthea
Dilly, Eric Lofgren, Rick Hershey and Scott Purdy
Additional text: Teresa Capsey and Mike Major
64 pages, soft cover, b/w illustrations throughout
ISBN 1-903980-03-8
SRP £8.99
Mongoose Publishing
MGP1001
This is the
first book in the 'Encyclpaedia Arcana' series from the Mongeese
factory, aimed at exploring 'alternative' magic in the d20 game
setting. A pretty standard set of ideas revolving around demonology
is augmented in this publication with several character class
variants, new spells, new skills, new magic items, Demonic entities
and monsters, and best of all, great ideas for actually playing
the 'Demonologist' character classes themselves! It makes the
Demonologist FUN!
Although a
little long winded at times, the descriptions of what Demonology
actually is (in game terms, this isnt real, you know....) allow
players and GMs to develop sound characters and NPCs with feasible
backgrounds and logical reasons for their actions.
The book
helps you to develop fully rounded characters who can become more
powerful in a balanced way as they gain experience. The ideas
behind the character classes seem sound (though we have not tested
them in play) and, unlike so many previous attempts at this type
of thing, have plenty of balancing factors curbing excessive powerfulness.
You may be able to control Demons and summon the Hordes of Hell,
but are you quite sure your incantation was word perfect? Quite
sure the binding went to plan? And how would you know if you made
a mistake anyway? Clever, these Demons, most likely they will
try to use YOU for their evil plots, and you wouldn't know much
about it until the whips and chains of eternal torment rend the
flesh from your bones in some Hellish dungeon, way, way below!
There is a
section entitled 'Help for the Games Master' which contains some
very useful tips and guidance, especially for the novice GM. It
stresses the important points that playing Demonologists should
be dangerous, mysterious, balanced, but also fun. It helps you
to integrate the class into your campaign with ideas and guidance
for development of characters. It considers the effects of alignment
on the class (and of the class on alignment!!), the importance
of research and study (and how to fit that into your games), how
to provide players with just the right amount of information to
enable them to use the class abilities of summoning binding and
instruction and a few helpful paragraphs on the more powerful
aspects of Demonology (well, lets be fair, your players are going
to TRY to summon something big, bad and baleful at SOME stage,
aren't they?).
There is a
sizeable section describing the requirements for summoning and
controlling specific types of Demon and some information of the
usefulness of each type of demon (they are not just useful for
scaring the living daylights out of your enemy and eating their
still warm internal organs you know!). This section could do with
expansion though, with details of the demons 'Achillies Heel'
for example, or how they will react to summoning. I suppose a
good read of the Monster Manual entires and the Manual of the
Planes would give you some ideas on these points.
The final
verdict, without playing the characters ourselves? Well written,
nicely illustrated, informative, inspirational, and pretty much
complete*
*
within the bounds allowed by the d20 open gaming license
8/10 - so
BUY
ME NOW!
Andy Warner
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