- Hardcover: 160 pages
- Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (1 Sep 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0786936924
- ISBN-13: 978-0786936922
- Product Dimensions: 27.9 x 21.3 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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- #80 in Books > Fiction > Science Fiction > Gaming > Dungeons & Dragons
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Product Description
Product Description
Everything a player needs to know to play evil or morally ambiguous
characters in the Forgotten Realms setting.
Champions of Ruin™ is a comprehensive guide to playing evil characters in
the Forgotten Realms setting. Many aspects of play are covered: vengeance,
ambition, evil vs. evil, corruption and moral failure, loyalty and betrayal.
The book also discusses types of evil–lawful, chaotic, and neutral–as well as morally ambivalent characters such as anti-heroes and rogues. Elder evils of extreme power are discussed along with tools, feats, spells, evil places and
planar touchstones, and guilds and organizations that evil characters can
join. Two new races are also introduced.
JEFF CROOK has written novels for the Dragonlance® setting, including
Dark Thane, The Rose and the Skull, and Conundrum.
WIL UPCHURCH is a full-time game industry freelancer whose most recent
work with Wizards of the Coast, Inc. includes Star Wars: Ultimate Adversaries™. His articles can be found in Dragon® Magazine, Dungeon®
magazine,and other major gaming magazines.
ERIC L. BOYD is a software developer who has written extensively about the
Forgotten Realms for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. His most recent credits
include Lost Empires of Faerûn™, Faiths & Pantheons™, Races of
Faerûn™, and Serpent Kingdoms™.
characters in the Forgotten Realms setting.
Champions of Ruin™ is a comprehensive guide to playing evil characters in
the Forgotten Realms setting. Many aspects of play are covered: vengeance,
ambition, evil vs. evil, corruption and moral failure, loyalty and betrayal.
The book also discusses types of evil–lawful, chaotic, and neutral–as well as morally ambivalent characters such as anti-heroes and rogues. Elder evils of extreme power are discussed along with tools, feats, spells, evil places and
planar touchstones, and guilds and organizations that evil characters can
join. Two new races are also introduced.
JEFF CROOK has written novels for the Dragonlance® setting, including
Dark Thane, The Rose and the Skull, and Conundrum.
WIL UPCHURCH is a full-time game industry freelancer whose most recent
work with Wizards of the Coast, Inc. includes Star Wars: Ultimate Adversaries™. His articles can be found in Dragon® Magazine, Dungeon®
magazine,and other major gaming magazines.
ERIC L. BOYD is a software developer who has written extensively about the
Forgotten Realms for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. His most recent credits
include Lost Empires of Faerûn™, Faiths & Pantheons™, Races of
Faerûn™, and Serpent Kingdoms™.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Well, when I saw this was coming out I was tempted not to buy it. I thought to myself, "What is this going to say that Lords of Darkness hasn't already said in a fairly definitive way?" Then I thought, "Well, the WotC stuff coming out has been pretty good lately, so give it a whirl." So I bought it. My first thought was the better one.
For any Forgotten Realms aficionado looking for 3E info on "evil", go to Lords of Darkness. OK, it's not 3.5 compliant, but that doesn't really matter as the interesting stuff is the text (evil organisations and so on) not the stats. Champions of Ruin doesn't really bring anything much more to the party that is terribly useful.
The main gimmick with CoR is that it suggests how to run an "evil" campaign: i.e. the PCs are evil and out to get the good guys. This is hardly a purely FR concern: you could run an evil campaign in virtually any gameworld. In a sense, this is my beef with this book: it probably would have been a lot better if they had made it "generic", as opposed to FR specific. Then they could have made it more of a sourcebook for designing evil campaigns, how evil might work in opposition to good and how evil characters could work in concert with each other, plus different orgnisations showing different evil motivations, and so on. Instead, it falls between two stools, and has to add something to the FR universe which has basically already been said by Lords of Darkness.
The book has the following chapters: an intro on "what is evil?" (i.e. what motivates evil characters to be evil); a races section with two new races (the krinth, a sort of darkness creature bred by the shades, and the extaminar, a "half-yuan ti" with much more limited powers; both are ECL +0, and neither especially compelling) and a monster level progression for the draegloth; a "tools of evil" section with new feats, spells and magic items; prestige classes; evil organisations (this is either something of a rehash from Lords of Darkness, or covers some rather obscure organisations you can either take or leave); evil places (shrines, nodes [the new favorite, along with touchstone sites, to pad out books] and the like); sample evil NPCs (not un-fun, though hardly amazing); and "champions of evil" (some epic level evil nasties).
A few words on the above. The tools of evil section isn't bad. Some of the feats are quite good (including some new vile feats, and initiate feats for some deities not covered in the Players Guide to Faerun). Also, some of the new spells are fun, and it gives some epic level spells too. The prestige classes are hardly core, tying in with some pretty obscure organisations and not really adding much that others couldn't (like the Justice of Weald and Woe, a very long title for an elven bow expert that works for the elven supremacists of the Eldreth Veluuthra and could easily be ignored in favour of the arcane archer). And the epic level champions of evil are a fun read (some are pretty gross, like the Elf Eater) but how many of us actually run epic level adventures?
Overall, the book seems to lack a coherent message about what it is actually trying to do. Frankly, it has its moments. But if you own Lords of Darkness, you don't need this. And if you don't own Lords of Darkness, buy that instead of this.
It's a shame. I thought WotC had given up putting out sloppy knock-off cash-ins like this. Well, I was wrong.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Evil has always been more fun...
29 Nov 2007
Format:Hardcover
Some of the best AD&D campaigns I've run or played in have been 'evil' in nature and as a long time fan of the Forgotten Realms I was looking forward to reading this book. While I wasn't impressed by the content, neither was I disappointed.
After the introduction, where you are treated to a brief examination of the nature of evil (it's pretty simplistic, but sets the tone well), the book breaks down into seven chapters:
1: Races
2: Tools of Evil
3: Prestige Classes
4: Evil Organisations
5: Evil Places
6: Encounters with Evil
7: Champions of Evil
Chapter one details three evil races: Draegloth, Extaminaar and Krinth. Nothing too flash here. Personally I thought the Krinth were a silly idea and the Extaminaar only slightly less so. Draegloth were kinda cool. I'm not quite sure why the designers decided to use relatively new creatures for this section when you have 3 monster manuals (at the time of this book's publishing) literally packed with hundreds of evil creatures that could have fitted the bill nicely.
Chapter two examines the tools of evil (i.e. magic items, spells and feats). Some of the spells are interesting, but most are obviously reworked from existing spells. The best part about this chapter are the magic items - some very cool toys for evil boys (or girls) are contained here. The feats are...well feats. The game is sooo loaded with feats I really didn't think that additional evil specific feats were necessary.
Chapter three covers the new prestige classes, which with the exception of the Vengence Knight are all good classes and depending on the nature of the campaign all should find a role. My personal favourite (in concept if not game mechanics) was the Thayan Gladiator with the Nightmask Deathbringer running a close second. The Shade Hunter PC was bland and without inspiration (as a side note - the art accompanying the Vengenance Knight was awful). The remaining two - Black Blood Cultist & Justice of Weald & Woe - would be good for solo games, but I can't see them meshing well in a group setting.
Chapter four covers evil organisations and its inclusion is a complete mystery to me. There are several refernces in this book to another book called Lords of Darkness (another FR source book) - which covers in full detail the evil organisations of Faerūn! This chapter is merely a repeat of the information found in Lords of Darkness and a complete waste of space. The twenty pages devoted to this chapter could have been used for any number of other subjects, its not even like the material in CoR is updated from LoD - really disappointing (This alone caused me to downgrade the rating from 4 to 3 stars).
Chapter five examines evil places and delves into the concept of Evil Nodes, which were first covered in the Underdark Sourcebook. I haven't read the Underdark book, but being a fan of the old TSR 'Birthright' campaign world the concept of magical nodes is not new and something that I incorporate in all my campaigns - which I suspect is a default setting for most GM's. Anyway, the rules presented for determining these evil nodes are clear and easy to follow. The chapter then concludes with several evil locations and adventure seeds.
Chapter six is the smallest chapter and details very briefly some considerations that need to be taken into account when planning an evil game - especially how 'evil' you want to go. The chapeter then looks at some notable evil NPC's, giving full game stats and limited histories - there are a couple of really interesting ones such as Damien Krale and Daren Timbide, but the others are all a bit ho-hum.
Finally there is chapter seven: Champions of Evil - which seems to be a rehash of the previous chapter! Granted that the chapter seven baddies are really bad! The first is 32nd Level! Which is kind of silly. If I'm going to have someone that powerful in one of my campaigns, then I don't bother putting stats to him/her (especially since this particular baddie takes nearly two pages to cover all his stats!); then there's Dendar the Night Serpernt with his 1,193 HP! Why bother?
I can see it now - Thom the Unspeakably Violent (a powerful barbarian in one of my campaigns launches a series of furious attacks and inflicts his maximum damage of 88 HP. Cool. Only 1,105 to go. Like I said, silly.
But I digress. On the positive side, chapter seven does explain how these powerful baddies can be used in particular campaigns and what there agenda's and machinations are (reinforcing my point that there was no need to stat them out).
In conclusion, a useful book that is an excellent resource for a GM thinking about his first evil game or campaign and even the most jaded, cynical GM (much like me) will find the odd gem within it's pages.
Enjoy.
After the introduction, where you are treated to a brief examination of the nature of evil (it's pretty simplistic, but sets the tone well), the book breaks down into seven chapters:
1: Races
2: Tools of Evil
3: Prestige Classes
4: Evil Organisations
5: Evil Places
6: Encounters with Evil
7: Champions of Evil
Chapter one details three evil races: Draegloth, Extaminaar and Krinth. Nothing too flash here. Personally I thought the Krinth were a silly idea and the Extaminaar only slightly less so. Draegloth were kinda cool. I'm not quite sure why the designers decided to use relatively new creatures for this section when you have 3 monster manuals (at the time of this book's publishing) literally packed with hundreds of evil creatures that could have fitted the bill nicely.
Chapter two examines the tools of evil (i.e. magic items, spells and feats). Some of the spells are interesting, but most are obviously reworked from existing spells. The best part about this chapter are the magic items - some very cool toys for evil boys (or girls) are contained here. The feats are...well feats. The game is sooo loaded with feats I really didn't think that additional evil specific feats were necessary.
Chapter three covers the new prestige classes, which with the exception of the Vengence Knight are all good classes and depending on the nature of the campaign all should find a role. My personal favourite (in concept if not game mechanics) was the Thayan Gladiator with the Nightmask Deathbringer running a close second. The Shade Hunter PC was bland and without inspiration (as a side note - the art accompanying the Vengenance Knight was awful). The remaining two - Black Blood Cultist & Justice of Weald & Woe - would be good for solo games, but I can't see them meshing well in a group setting.
Chapter four covers evil organisations and its inclusion is a complete mystery to me. There are several refernces in this book to another book called Lords of Darkness (another FR source book) - which covers in full detail the evil organisations of Faerūn! This chapter is merely a repeat of the information found in Lords of Darkness and a complete waste of space. The twenty pages devoted to this chapter could have been used for any number of other subjects, its not even like the material in CoR is updated from LoD - really disappointing (This alone caused me to downgrade the rating from 4 to 3 stars).
Chapter five examines evil places and delves into the concept of Evil Nodes, which were first covered in the Underdark Sourcebook. I haven't read the Underdark book, but being a fan of the old TSR 'Birthright' campaign world the concept of magical nodes is not new and something that I incorporate in all my campaigns - which I suspect is a default setting for most GM's. Anyway, the rules presented for determining these evil nodes are clear and easy to follow. The chapter then concludes with several evil locations and adventure seeds.
Chapter six is the smallest chapter and details very briefly some considerations that need to be taken into account when planning an evil game - especially how 'evil' you want to go. The chapeter then looks at some notable evil NPC's, giving full game stats and limited histories - there are a couple of really interesting ones such as Damien Krale and Daren Timbide, but the others are all a bit ho-hum.
Finally there is chapter seven: Champions of Evil - which seems to be a rehash of the previous chapter! Granted that the chapter seven baddies are really bad! The first is 32nd Level! Which is kind of silly. If I'm going to have someone that powerful in one of my campaigns, then I don't bother putting stats to him/her (especially since this particular baddie takes nearly two pages to cover all his stats!); then there's Dendar the Night Serpernt with his 1,193 HP! Why bother?
I can see it now - Thom the Unspeakably Violent (a powerful barbarian in one of my campaigns launches a series of furious attacks and inflicts his maximum damage of 88 HP. Cool. Only 1,105 to go. Like I said, silly.
But I digress. On the positive side, chapter seven does explain how these powerful baddies can be used in particular campaigns and what there agenda's and machinations are (reinforcing my point that there was no need to stat them out).
In conclusion, a useful book that is an excellent resource for a GM thinking about his first evil game or campaign and even the most jaded, cynical GM (much like me) will find the odd gem within it's pages.
Enjoy.
16 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Evil on Faerun just got smarter, meaner and stronger
31 May 2005
Format:Hardcover
Champions of Ruin is Wizard's newest book in the Forgotten Realms product line. The contents of the book can be combined perfectly with the info found in Lords of Darkness, and the book is also the - dark - twin of Champions of Valor, a sourcebook Wizard's will publish at the end of this year.
The book is nicely edited, and - as usual with Forgotten Realms products - beautifully illustrated.
The book has the usual chapters (like new races, magic, feats, prestige classes and magic items for evil), and also describes evil organisations, places and NPCs (both "normal" level, and epic NPCs). It also includes ideas for using the contents of the book in an evil campaign, or simply in a normal campaign.
The book adresses mostly the Dungeon Master, but players will also find interesting things within. Most probably a player will not want to buy the book for him/herself, especially as knowing the contents of the product too well may ruin the excitement of the game.
The book is nicely edited, and - as usual with Forgotten Realms products - beautifully illustrated.
The book has the usual chapters (like new races, magic, feats, prestige classes and magic items for evil), and also describes evil organisations, places and NPCs (both "normal" level, and epic NPCs). It also includes ideas for using the contents of the book in an evil campaign, or simply in a normal campaign.
The book adresses mostly the Dungeon Master, but players will also find interesting things within. Most probably a player will not want to buy the book for him/herself, especially as knowing the contents of the product too well may ruin the excitement of the game.
9 of 16 people found the following review helpful
JUST SAY EVIL!
23 Jun 2005
Format:Hardcover
Champions of Ruin is the newest sourcebook for Forgotten realms. A 160 page book detailing everything you ever wanted to know about playing an evil PC. The book introduces new races, spells, feats, and magic items. The new races are nothing to write home about, with the best being probably the Drow/Demon halfbreed called the Draegloth. Myself, I'm a little sick of Drow...Curse Salvatore for making them so popular and romantic!
The feat section is pretty nice with several new and interesting feats for evil characters tapping fighters, clerics and spellcasters with some interesting feats. There are also over 30 new spells in the book. of course the main thing that players are probably interested in is the new prestige classes. The book has some great new prestige classes that detail how to create the class, it's various features, and advice on playing these characters. Other chapters cover things such as evil places such as temples, shrines, etc...There's a chapter on various evil NPCs as well.
The art is pretty good throughout and I think the book is a welcome addition to DMs and players.
The feat section is pretty nice with several new and interesting feats for evil characters tapping fighters, clerics and spellcasters with some interesting feats. There are also over 30 new spells in the book. of course the main thing that players are probably interested in is the new prestige classes. The book has some great new prestige classes that detail how to create the class, it's various features, and advice on playing these characters. Other chapters cover things such as evil places such as temples, shrines, etc...There's a chapter on various evil NPCs as well.
The art is pretty good throughout and I think the book is a welcome addition to DMs and players.
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