Braunstein AAR: Lanosh

Braunstein AAR: Lanosh

It's time. I bit the bullet and ran my first Braunstein, and I would like to tell you how I organized it, how it went, what went well, and what could've gone better.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells IV

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells IV

There is no end in sight - the spell chapter of this book is huge.

Drug Resistance temporarily prevents the subject from getting addicted to drugs.

Ectoplasmic Enhancement is a buff that makes a ghost or a very similar creature more difficult to injure.

Evil Weather is a divine spell that creates vile weather effects that I wrote up in a very old post of mine.

Extract Drug lets the caster create drugs from mundane materials.

Eyes of the Zombie is a very cool possession spell.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells III

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells III

Darklight almost broke me. The phrasing in the original source is incredibly confusing, and despite the simple-looking build, it took me a long while to arrive to it. Yeah, this is a 60-point spell while the original is a 1st-level spell, but effectively this is a limited Invisibility Sphere that also negates darkness penalties in an area. Also, it can be cast on both creatures and objects, and takes only one second. What a weird spell.

Death Grimace is a rather flavorful spell that is merely a perk in GURPS.

Demon Wings is a divine spell that gives the caster demonic wings.

Demonflesh is a rather boring divine buff, but one that various demon lord cultist would appreciate.

Despoil is another divine spell that makes a huge area of land barren.

Devil's Tail is another divine spell that grants the caster a spiked tail. Again, good stuff for all those hostile cultists, not so much for your typical player characters.

Devil's Tongue gives the caster another "arm."

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells II

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells II

Call Dretch Horde summons 3d dretches in exchange for a soul.

Call Lemure Horde does the same, but with lemures.

Call Nightmare uses a soul to summon a nightmare.

Charnel Fire completely destroys a corpse. I had to come up with a new modifier because building this ability by RAW results in a point cost so high that the spell just isn't worth it. I have no shame.

Clutch of Orcus is a very cool divine spell that incapacitates or maybe even kills the target.

Consume Likeness lets you shapeshift into a creature by eating a portion of its flesh.

Crushing Fist of Spite feels like something Bigby came up with when other wizards laughed at his invented spells.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells I

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells I

The Book of Vile Darkness (for D&D 3.0) is a rather infamous book. I recall writing a review of it a year ago or so, pointing out its shortcomings and praising certain parts. But that aside, let's focus on the chapter with spells. The book has a surprising amount of pretty damn cool spells (and some of them aren't vile at all). However, I will say that the author was quite lazy here. There are many spells that are simply duplicates of innate abilities of fiends (for example, Dance of Ruin is based on the vrock's ability, Dancing Chain is based on the kyton's ability, etc.) Some spells wouldn't be out of place in any other book if you ignore material components, such as a heart of a dwarven child, or a bone of a small child that still lives. These components feel like something tacked on just to make the spell edgy.

    Also, the book introduces a whole bunch of new "components" for spells. There are some spells that are limited to demons, devils, fiends, or undead. There are also spells that require the caster to be suffering from a specific disease, which sounds really hard to pull off (especially when 99% of GMs ignore disease rules). Spells that can be cast only under the influence of a specific drug are easier. There are also spells that require the caster to be in a specific evil location - also fine. Certain spells require a captured soul as a component - nothing against this. Finally, there are "Corrupt" spells that deal ability score damage to the caster. In GURPS, you could represent that with the Corrupting, -20% limitation, but I'm not a big fan of that. Instead, I will use a massively extended Backlash, even though that won't be RAW.

    Now to the spells themselves:

    Absorb Mind is an interesting spell. If one were to translate it 1-to-1 from the original source (like I initially did), one would arrive at a more expensive and limited form of Speak with Dead. Thus, I had to step away and make it work slightly differently. I didn't want to skip this spell, because the fluff is cool.

    Addiction is a vile spell with a catch - the caster must be drugged too. Addiction can be either a physical or mental disadvantage, so by RAW, you can only use Mind Control to impose addictions to drugs with a psychological dependency. I decided to ignore this fact as a special feature.

    Angry Ache is a simple pain debuff.

    Befoul poisons water in a large area.