Most believe the lich-god Vecna authored the Book of Vile Darkness. He recorded in its pages every diseased idea, every unhinged thought, and every example of blackest magic he came across or devised. Vecna covered every vile topic he could, making the book a gruesome catalog of all mortal wrongs.
Book Of Vile Darkness 5e Dmg
Other practitioners of evil have held the book and added their own input to its catalog of vile knowledge. Their additions are clear, for the writers of later works stitched whatever they were writing into the tome or, in some cases, made notations and additions to existing text. There are places where pages are missing, torn. or covered so completely with ink, blood, and scratches that the original text can't be divined.
Nature can't abide the book's presence. Ordinary plants wither in its presence, animals are unwilling to approach it, and the book gradually destroys whatever it touches. Even stone cracks and turns to powder if the book rests on it long enough.
A creature attuned to the book must spend 80 hours reading and studying it to digest its contents and reap its benefits. The creature can then freely modify the book's contents, provided that those modifications advance evil and expand the lore already contained within.
The Book of Vile Darkness remains with you only as long as you strive to work evil in the world. If you fail to perform at least one evil act within the span of 10 days, or if you willingly perform a good act, the book disappears. If you die while attuned to the book, an entity of great evil claims your soul. You can't be restored to life by any means while your soul remains imprisoned.
Adjusted Ability Scores. After you spend the requisite amount of time reading and studying the book, one ability score of your choice increases by 2, to a maximum of 24. Another ability score of your choice decreases by 2, to a minimum of 3. The book can't adjust your ability scores again.
Mark of Darkness. After you spend the requisite amount of time reading and studying the book, you acquire a physical disfigurement as a hideous sign of your devotion to vile darkness. An evil rune might appear on your face, your eyes might become glossy black, or horns might sprout from your forehead. Or you might become wizened and hideous, lose all facial features, gain a forked tongue, or some other feature the DM chooses. The mark of darkness grants you advantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks made to interact with evil creatures and Charisma (Intimidation) checks made to interact with non-evil creatures.
Command Evil. While you are attuned to the book and holding it, you can use an action to cast the Dominate Monster spell on an evil target (save DC 18). You can't use this property again until the next dawn.
Destroying the Book. The Book of Vile Darkness allows pages to be torn from it, but any evil lore contained on those pages finds its way back into the book eventually, usually when a new author adds pages to the tome.
A creature attuned to the book for one hundred years can unearth a phrase hidden in the original text that, when translated to Celestial and spoken aloud, destroys both the speaker and the book in a blinding flash of radiance. However, as long as evil exists in the multiverse, the book reforms 1d10 x 100 years later.
The book could be edited by the owner and the owners of a book did so without regard to uniformity of the material or the look of the book. Therefore, the books looked ugly, they had pages made from different materials, and they had different writing styles. A major reason why these books were so hard to read and navigate through was its non-uniformity. Therefore, it took a long time to read through the book.[5]
Reading the entire Book of Vile Darkness took about seven days[2] or, to be more precise, eighty hours.[1] Upon completion, an evil divine spellcaster, such as a cleric, gained enough insight that it allowed him or her to grow in power and become more insightful into matters in general.[2] Reading the book strengthened one aspect of the user at the cost of another aspect. It also disfigured the user so that he or she became more intimidating to non-evil people, while becoming more respected by evil people. In fact, the reader could use a dominate monster effect on a evil person.[6]
To neutral people, the book was dangerous. Reading it physically harmed them and their personality changing it to that of an evil person. If they also happened to be a divine spellcaster, the book sapped their essence away but conferred no benefits.[2]
To good people, even touching the book was dangerous. Looking into it brought them the hostile attention of a fiend, who attacked them on the night they looked into the book, though this happened only four in five times. If a good divine spellcaster tried to read the book, the person died or at the least went permanently insane, like under an insanity spell, and the book drained his or her essence without conferring any benefits.[2]
The owner of this book was given additional knowledge about arcane, historical, and religious matters.[7] He or she became generally more knowledgeable on evil matters. For example, the user learned the Dark Speech.[1]
The book was intelligent. It could deliberately hide its more dangerous content to make it appear less dangerous or malicious. It could also make its intentions discernible for the reader by moving words on its pages around. If it was satisfied with the user, it conferred additional abilities like one usable for ranged attack or increased usefulness as an implement, granting additional knowledge, and the ability to induce fear into others. If the book was not satisfied with the wielder, it could not only downgrade its abilities but actually hinder the user. If it lost all hope in the user, it killed them and destroyed their soul and disappeared until the next person found a way to find it. If the book was pleased with the user, the book gave them full access to its contents.[7]
The books' most fearsome ability was that they were easy to edit. Every time a Book of Vile Darkness fell into the hands of someone, that someone took out old pages and added new pages, changing the content according to the current owner's priorities.[5]
The first content of the Book of Vile Darkness was penned on Oerth by a Vasharan spellcaster millennia before the 14th century DR. At that time, it was only one single scroll with that spellcaster's ideas in it. Later, the scroll fell into the hands of a priestess of Nerull, a god worshiped on Oerth, who tripled the content by adding her knowledge into it. This trend continued and various evil clerics of different faiths came into possession of the scroll, added their knowledge to it, and the scroll fell into the hands of a different owner. At some point in history, it fell into the hands of Vecna, who did not just add his knowledge but transcribed the scrolls into a bound book, the Book of Vile Darkness. The book fell into the hands of worshipers of Erythnul who made a number of copies of it. Only six perfect copies existed; the rest were in some way imperfect. Baalzebul was also rumored to have owned one and to have made his edits in that copy.[4]
Combining the Lore: I've taken all the lore and information from various editions and crammed it into my version of the book. I took a few liberties, attributing certain ideas written in various sourcebooks to Vecna. Let's look at my Book of Vile Darkness, then we'll go through each product and see how we got here.
This book contains three adventures for characters lvl 7-12. The first one is The Temple of Amnissos.The heroes live in a land that is on the brink of war. The ruler is hoping to find magic that will aid him. He has located a few items:
AD&D 2nd Edition Trading Cards - Thuba's Book of Vile DarknessThere are a few cards detailing an Al Qadim NPC named Thuba Mleen. He was a psionicist who wore yellow robes. He acquired the Book of Vile Darkness from a priest who visited him and tried to usurp his throne. Thuba enjoyed having prisoners read from the book so he could learn more bout it.So.. the prisoners probably lost XP and went mad.
"Once a mind has absorbed the knowledge in this book, the attached soul is so polluted that there is no recourse other than to turn evil.""Powerful fiends watch over the book, because where it goes, evil power grows."Dark Chant: "The dark chant is not a spell, but a number of particularly foul necromantic words and phrases strung together into a litany of evil power." If at least 2 undead speak the chant together, undead within 100 feet are empowered and protected against turning by clerics.Dark Speech: This is the secret language of the evil gods.. "...so foul and so potent that even demons and devils refrain from its use, lest it consume them."The safest way to use Dark Speech is through spells found later in this supplement."To actually communicate by means of the Dark Speech - that is, for a knowledgeable speaker to convey some information to a knowledgeable listener - the speaker must take great care, or both listener and speaker will be harmed. There are no words in the Dark Speech for good concepts such as kindness, mercy, and purity. However, evil characters can speak of misery, anguish, hate, and betrayal with an accuracy impossible in any other tongue."It has no written form.There are four ways that a speaker can use the Dark Speech:
This book includes an adventure where the heroes actually get onto Atropus (which is a 700-mile-diameter moonlet) to try to figure out how to get it away from their world. On the Atropus are various undead creaatures, angels of Atropus ("angels of decay"), an atropal, and an aspect of Atropus itself.
Corruption Points: Using the book gives you (and an ally within 25 feet of you) a corruption point.When a character's corruption point total equals their highest ability modifier, the character's alignment shifts one step closer to chaotic evil.Effects: 2ff7e9595c
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