Champions of Ruin (Forgotten Realms) [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.

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.

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.

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