Unrighteous Villains (PFRPG)

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For every great hero, you need a great villain, and this product contains monsters. Complete monsters. I don’t mean just the fact that they are not human, although certainly many of them are the fiendish spawn of the deepest pits of the lower planes. I mean ALL of them are completely rotten, vile, awful, vicious, conniving, underhanded, perverse, depraved, double-dealing, backstabbing, lying, cheating rat-bastard scum. These villains want to destroy every noble thought and impulse your heroes ever had, to pollute the springs of righteousness that bring hope and joy, leaving nothing but desolate wells of wickedness in their wake. They are the stuff of nightmares, borne from the fervid imaginings of Todd Stewart, Nicolas Logue, Clinton J. Boomer, and Alistair Rigg, and rendered in disturbing detail by our amazing artists.

Within this product you will find villains are borne out of perverted passion and odious obsession like Ser Meridrand Pallisard, a paladin fallen far below the pale for sake of shame, despair, gluttony, and lust, to the quiet whisperings of Malcaedix the shadow demon, clinging to the shadow of innocents and their innocence. Some are capricious, like Lilevyrrin the gun-fighting succubus seductress and Koyo-Shojaxus, a faux-ascetic babau wanderer-cum-master of the martial arts. Still others are devious and calculating, including the glabrezu summoner Mons'Verix calling down false angels that mock the heavens, The Bound Horror plotting its return to greater power, or the tragic possession of the mythic coloxus Dasnikynlin turning individual lives or entire families into its private playgrounds, like the corrupted inquisitor Count Ulus VonKaval. As fodder for simple encounters, they offer challenges from CR 9 to 16, but more importantly each provides a story and motivation that provides a foundation for entire adventures and arcs that can span a campaign. Every one presents a different face of chaos and evil, but each offers a wealth of possibilities to enrich a game where the corrupting draw of the nether realms threatens to pull every hero into the figurative (if not literal) abyss.

Ideally suited as a supplement for the "Righteous Crusade" Adventure Path, Unrighteous Villains is a terrific resource for any campaign where demons and their influence goes beyond simple violence and descends into true horror and vileness. Pick up this 32-page supplement today and Make Your Game Legendary!

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An Endzeitgeist.com review

5/5

This pdf clocks in at 32 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page how-to-use, 1 page ToC (including CR/MR), 1 page SRD, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 24 pages of raw content, so let's take a look, shall we?

Now while this book is intended to provide additional adversaries to the Wrath of the Righteous AP, it should be noted that more so than many other Adventure-path-plug-ins, this book and the villains herein do in no way need this connection and can easily be introduced into non-AP contexts - especially due to not making that heavy use of the Mythic Adventures-rules, meaning that even non-mythic campaigns get their due with this pdf.

So what kind of adversaries do we get herein? Well, the first would be the Unique Quasit-bound demon sorceror Terracg p nmvczy. No. Not a Typo. I didn't fall asleep at the keyboard. In a cool twist, this creature's name is also written in a strange , glyph-like font that makes identifying its proper name hard. Now the catch is - this creature is the fragment of a greater demon and is usually encountered as something saved from demons - becoming a kind of foul-mouthed sidekick for its mortal masters, one with a keen intellect...and one that is nigh impossible to get rid of. BRILLIANT. The additional hooks provided further cement this creature as something I will gift my PCs with...

Koyo-Shojaxus is a more straightforward adversary - at CR 13, the babau martial artist 7 makes for a deadly adversary and a vile variant of the wandering martial artist-trope. Neat! The CR 13 succubus gunslinger (mysterious stranger) Lilevyrrin gives new meaning to the moniker of femme fatale by pairing both deadly prowess and her succubus heritage's "needful things"-style manipulation-capabilities into a glorious package of mayhem. And that's before her Glabrezu lover/mortal enemy enters the fray...

Malcaedix, the shadow demon rogue, takes one of the most powerful creatures for its CR and amps it up to CR 10, adds a new feat for better possession and makes for a strange creature - unlike many demons, she is subtle. She actually cares for her hosts and does her best to eliminate threats to her host...which may include any and all people said person cared about or even those that mildly offended the creature. As a kind of dark guardian angel, she also doesn't deal well with rejection, meaning you'll better be able to fend her off if you question all the good things that happen to you... Awesome and the potential for actual deep, psychological conflict and moral questions as well as roleplaying is vast here.

Ser Meridrand Palisard, the disgustingly fat human antipaladin/low templar with an implanted demonic graft for a stomach makes for a truly vile and disgusting cannibalistic foe, who further adds to this imagery with his equipment -a disgusting, bloated individual, a fallen champion and deadly to boot at CR 15, this erstwhile paragon is a great adversary for a "Through a mirror, darkly"-type situation, when the PCs realize how fragile the sanctity of their alignment truly is and how easily they, too, can fall into the clutches of the Abyss and its servants.

Mons' Verix, the CR 16 Glabrezu-summoner also has a very cool twist - his eidolon looks like an angel. With this tool of deceit, the creature may fool even the most stalwart of heroes and lead them on the first steps of the downward spiral of temptation if played properly - a cool idea indeed and with all the magic capabilities of the creature, one supplemented by the proper magical oomph! As a minor complaint, the final page of his entry is half empty - more story could have easily fitted in there.

Now so far, we've had next to no possession - so what about a demon-possessed inquisitor/assassin build with the erstwhile witch hunter Count Ulus VonKaval? It should be noted that the count is the one character herein who does not get an awesome, original piece of full color artwork, but that does not detract from this example how pride vo make even the mightiest fall.

Finally, at CR 15/MR 6, Dasnikynlin, the mythic coluxus demon with the awesome artwork, its mesmerizing drone, charisma damage AND bleed-damage causing bite, death attack and vicious mythic spell-like abilities makes for a powerful final entry, though one that could have used a unique story-expansion herein. EDIT: I've been made aware that this is the demon that is supposed to be the possessor of Ulus VonKaval and yeah, that works. However, I still would have loved a full-blown ecology-level detailed write-up like the ones in the Mythis Monster-series. Oh well!

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no significant glitches herein. Layout adheres to Legendary Games fiery, slightly orange-tinted standard for Wrath of the Righteous-plug-ins and the pdf comes with bookmarks for your convenience. The artworks deserve special mentioning here, for almost all adversaries receive their own, glorious full-color pieces, sometimes even on a full-page spread.

Alistair Rigg, Todd Stewart, Clinton J. Boomer and Nicholas Logue - notice something - yeah, these guys have in common that they know how to WRITE. I don't mean "write a supplement", but really WRITE. Evoke moods, atmospheres and multi-layered characters. It's easy to delve into the "wants to destroy everything due to being EVUUUL"-trope with demons and the adversaries herein almost universally manage to avoid this, instead being round, nasty individuals that make sense in a twisted way, providing roleplaying opportunities aplenty, not just within the context of Wrath of the Righteous.

In fact, the writing is so good that you really, really want to use these villains - almost immediately. This miniature rogue's gallery definitely provides some of the most depraved adversaries I've seen in a while - and that is meant as a compliment. But that wouldn't be enough if their statblocks were bland or boring. They aren't. While not all statblocks reach the level of complexity I tend to enjoy in NPC-builds, a couple of them do and that, coupled with the awesome writing, is enough for me. Add to that the slight touches - like aforementioned glyphs, like demonic trysts gone wrong, the evocative adventure hooks - and we have a grand collection of villains, well worth 5 stars + seal of approval - legendary indeed!

Endzeitgeist out.



I'm intrigued -- anything with Nicholas Logue as a writer always gets my attention, and the writeup makes these guys sound pretty interesting. That said, the price point seems a little high. Rubbing my chin over this one.

Does anyone have more information? How many writeups are there, and what did you think of them?

Doug M.


Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

I'm intrigued -- anything with Nicholas Logue as a writer always gets my attention, and the writeup makes these guys sound pretty interesting. That said, the price point seems a little high. Rubbing my chin over this one.

Does anyone have more information? How many writeups are there, and what did you think of them?

8 writeups for a total of 24 pages of gaming content. I've read 4 of the 8 writeups so far, and I can see myself using all of them in a Wrath of the Righteous campaign. Stat block, fluff, and adventure hooks for all but one of the entries. I was a bit disappointed that the mythic coloxus demon didn't have any fluff, especially since half of the second page was blank.


It's a 32 page book, right? What happened to the other 8 pages? Or is that 32 including covers and inside covers?

Doug M.


The 32 pages includes covers, credits, a page describing the book's contents and what the adventure path plug-ins are, table of contents, OGL, and ads. The rest is actual game content and artwork.

Contributor

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Trust me when I say that it's full of sweet, sweet depraved awesome.

Boomer, Logue, and me. You could probably find those three names listed in ancient, suppressed apocalyptic apocrypha. :D


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I mentioned earlier how the last entry in the book, a mythic coloxus, has no fluff written for it. This is incorrect. The last two entries in the book - the coloxus and a possessed inquisitor share a page of fluff, including adventure hooks. And what sweet fluff it is!

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Heine Stick wrote:
Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

I'm intrigued -- anything with Nicholas Logue as a writer always gets my attention, and the writeup makes these guys sound pretty interesting. That said, the price point seems a little high. Rubbing my chin over this one.

Does anyone have more information? How many writeups are there, and what did you think of them?

8 writeups for a total of 24 pages of gaming content. I've read 4 of the 8 writeups so far, and I can see myself using all of them in a Wrath of the Righteous campaign. Stat block, fluff, and adventure hooks for all but one of the entries. I was a bit disappointed that the mythic coloxus demon didn't have any fluff, especially since half of the second page was blank.

Yes, the coloxus demon is really part and parcel of the Count VonKaval villain; the monster behind the man who has become himself a monster. Their story and history are combined in one awful mess.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Jason Nelson wrote:
Yes, the coloxus demon is really part and parcel of the Count VonKaval villain; the monster behind the man who has become himself a monster. Their story and history are combined in one awful mess.

Yeah, I realized my mistake as soon as I started reading the fluff that came after Count VonKaval's stat block. Boomer hit a home run with this one. :)

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Now if only someone could post a review... :)


Reviewed first on Endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop.

Cheers!

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Thanks for the great review, Endy. Shouted out and excerpted on our site and cross-linked back to yours!


Thank you so much for the linkage, Jason!

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Happy to be of service!

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