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All the dudes listed in this book are of the “evil” persuasion, with
most of them being Chaotic, and the rest being Lawful. Each
entry itself is organized in the standard D20 fashion and fits
seamlessly into the D&D gaming system. Many of the more
important entries may even include one or more of the following:
new magic items, new magic spells, listings for using the entry as
a deity, and prestige classes for followers. The write-ups
themselves are well done and are often very detailed, lending
themselves to be a veritable fountain of adventure ideas for the
creative DM. Many times the write-ups even include little historical
notes telling the reader where in the world this bad boy actually
came from. Though these notes do little to enhance the actual
game, they are very nice touches for the historical buffs (like
myself) and those DM’s concerned with making sure the setting is
correct for the monsters in the campaign.
The real strength of the book in my opinion is that it lends itself
well to a DM developing an entire adventure and/or campaign
around a Devil or Demon. For many of the major personalities,
the entry not only lists everything required for the final
confrontation with the party, but also how the followers might be
organized, special abilities and/or creatures that the followers
might employ, activities the followers might be engaged in, and
the list just keeps going on. In my mind, they give you so much
material, that any DM worth a hoot can build a campaign around
nearly any of these entries. To give you an idea of the detail
given on each entry, there is no entry that has less than an entire
page dedicated to it, and there are something like thirteen entries
that span four pages each.
BASICS
The Encyclopedia of Demons & Devils Volume II is a 224 page
hardback book published by Fast Forward Entertainment to be
used as a resource book for fantasy based rpg campaigns. The
cover art and binding are well done and it is the same size as
other Dungeons and Dragons books making it a seamless addition
to any DM’s library. Interior artwork is all black and white ink
drawings. The page quality is not up to the same standard as the
D&D Monster Manuals, so even though there is almost the exact
same number of pages (224 pages in MMI and 223 pages in MMII)
the book appears to be about 50% thicker. The book contains
135 different Demons and Devils, which the authors tell us, are all
derived from actual references from mankind’s history. Many of
the entries for the Demons and Devils even go so far as to tell
which real religion and/or region that the creature is attributed to.
It also contains 16 new Prestige class characters and a variety of
new spells and magic items sprinkled throughout the book, but I
would not list this as a selling point due to the fact that there is no
index or table of contents whatsoever that lists them. The book’s
retail price is $29.99 USD.
BETWEEN THE COVERS
The book is organized much like the Monster Manuals (i.e.
alphabetically), which means that if you happen to know the name
of the Demon or Devil that you want to look up it’s a breeze.
However, if you don’t happen to recall what Tezcatlipoca’s name
is, then you are reduced to paging through the entire book.
Unlike the D&D Monster Manuals, there is no listing by Challenge
ratings (or any listing at all beyond the Alphabetical list of Demons
and Devils). Beyond this minor inconvenience, the book looks to
be a great resource for building fantasy adventures.
As far as challenge ratings go, the book contains a very nice
variety. For every challenge rating from 1 to 26 there is at least
one entry, and then there are even a few as high as 28 and 30.
However, over two-thirds of the entries land in either the 3 to 6
range or the 10 to 16 range. I haven’t yet had the chance to play
test any of these (though I plan to do so very shortly… players
beware), in general it seems the stats look reasonable. I would
also say than in general characters will definitely need magic
weapons to battle most of these “hell raisers”, so a party may
have to be well established before running into something from
this book (not counting the followers and such). For instance one
of the smaller creatures (called a Ghaddar) has a Damage
reduction of 28/+3 and only has a challenge rating of 3! I’m not
sure about you, but in my dungeon, a third level party will be
lucky indeed to have a +2 weapon much less a +3 weapon.
VALUE
I think that this book is made for DMs looking for creative ideas to
build campaigns/adventures around. Though it could be used
simply to stock dungeons (as most people use the D&D Monster
Manuals to do), I don’t think that is what it was intended for, nor
will you reap the full benefits from what the book has to offer.
Just comparing it to D&D Monster Manuals, there are 135 entries
verses over 500 and over 250 respectively. So if it’s pure volume
of monsters you are looking for, this might not be the book you
are after. Looking at it the other way, this book spends on
average over a page and a half describing its monsters, where the
Monster Manuals spend an average of less than ½ and less than 1
page per entry respectively. So if you’re into building a whole
scenario around a primary bad guy, this is definitely up your alley.
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