Spawned from the darkest depths of the Abyss, the howling hordes of demonkind rise up to destroy and devour all of existence, their slavering, fiendish forms built to rend, enslave, and beguile. Whether in their horrid domains of madness in the Outer Rifts, or called forth into the material world by insane spellcasters, demons represent the fundamental immorality of the universe, evolving from sinful souls into entities both wretched and godlike, united under their vile taskmasters toward a single goal: to destroy all that mortal life holds dear.
Lords of Chaos is a 64-page book that includes:
Complete descriptions of more than 40 demon lords and their terrifying realms, including the demon queen Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters.
New rules and special abilities for worshipers of individual demon lords.
Rules for the demoniac prestige class.
A detailed history of the Abyss and the disturbing origins of demons as a race.
New demonic spells and magic items, plus rules for demonic implants and becoming a demon.
Overviews of the different types of demons, plus tricks to aid in their summoning.
Descriptions of the Abyss's other residents, such as writhing soul larvae and the sinister, primordial qlippoth.
Rules for creating new nascent demon lords.
Statistics for four new demons ready to bring the horrors of the cosmos to players’ doorsteps.
Lords of Chaos is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Pathfinder campaign setting, but can easily be used in any fantasy game setting. While Lords of Chaos is a standalone product, it also serves as a companion to Book of the Damned—Volume 1: Princes of Darkness, which details the legions of Hell.
by James Jacobs
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-250-0
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
I love books about any of the planar realms and societies and this book does not disappoint. I have already been inspired by this book several times to create stories and threats in my campaign and I know I will come up with even more from this book as I seem to come up with something every time I read it. I thoroughly enjoy this book and wholeheartedly look forward to Vol. 3.
The second volume of "Books about Evil Outsiders" concerns with demons. An obvious follow-up to the devil book, Lords of Chaos was written by Paizo's resident demon expert.
The book begins with descriptions of major demon lords in Pathfinder Campaign setting, beginning with the demon-goddess Lamashtu and featuring faces both familiar (Orcus, Pazuzu). Each description provides information on the lord him/her/itself, domain, worshippers and a "statblock" with rules on boons and obediences.
Two things need to be made clear here. Several D&D demon lords were not carried over due to IP reasons (Graz'zt, Lloth). However, a few made their way into Golarion, be it due to being based on real world mythology (Pazuzu) or being open content thanks to Tome of Horrors (Orcus, Jubilex). However, majority of demon lords presented here are brand new.
There are no demon lord statblocks due to the obvious reason of Pathfinder not having epic rules for handling them yet, as well as space concerns.
Chapter two provides brief background on every regular demon types, as well as basic information on "nascent" demon lords, the "almost-there" bad guys such as Treerazer.
Chapter three details rules for demon worships, including fulfilling the obedience rituals and gaining demonic boons, and presents a new PrC - demoniac.
Chapter four is the bestiary section, with four new demons to threaten your players with.
Overall, this book stands heads and shoulders above volume 1. The writing is excellent, evocative, balls-to-walls scary at times. James Jacobs "loves" demons, and it shows. You can feel him putting his favorite ideas on paper just like it could be felt with WotCs Fiendish Codex.
Two thumbs up!
Very very disappointing....pick up the Fiendish Codices instead
I was highly disappointed with this book - the 3.5e WotC Fiendish Codices 1-2 are MUCH MUCH BETTER.
The authors of both Volume 1 and 2 made a good effort, with an obvious desire to show off their vast vocabulary or thesaurus skills (some of their word choices were bizarre, I mean seriously, I don't want to pick up a dictionary on every page). I get it - you guys like big words. Exciting details of the realms governed by the Lords were poor to say the least, no maps are provided, and the excerpts from the Book of the Damned uses a font extremely difficult to read.
Volume 1 made no mention of this but Volume 2 states that statistics for the Lords are not needed as they would completely destroy any heroes (other than Epic) that dared to challenge them. This was disappointing and one of the few running complaints I have had with the Pathfinder books as a whole, including stats for the Gods.
The artwork is for the most part very good, the balor especially. If you're looking for Orcus' portrait, don't bother, it's not there. Demogorgon's not listed as a Demon Lord but his name is peculiarly listed at the beginning as a Demon Lord's name.
Playing D&D for ~ 31 years now...I'm hypercritical of course. Paizo/Pathfinder has saved D&D for me. WOTC's 4e was the last straw. With that being said, these two books were my first two disappointments in the Pathfinder texts. The 1e Manual of the Planes about the Infernal Realms was fascinating, I read those sections over and over. I have always wanted to run an Infernal campaign "Paladin in Hell" etc. but these books don't provide enough detail to significantly help this project. The books are short, also disappointing. Many of my personal favorites were not carried over from D&D 3.5e, legal/IP/proprietary reasons most likely, Malcanthet, Graz'zt especially.
This is basically the same review I posted for Volume 2.
I hope in the future these are redesigned, reworked, and re-released using new authors.
This one is just as strong as the first, which I also loved. The best part of this one is really the flavor text. In my game my players are always reluctant to deal with demons or devils and stats often wind up being secondary to straight up roleplay. Being able to introduce new personalities so to speak without having to spend hours writing them myself is great. Another winner from the Paizo folks.
If you have the Wrath of the Righteous campaign, Demons Revisited and Demon Hunter's Handbook, will you get much of this book? I'm wondering because it talks about demonic implants, etc. and I imagine many of these things are in those other books?
Lords of Chaos gives a broader overview of demon-kind, and is the basis for material appearing elsewhere. I would consider this (and the other two in the series, along with Chronicles of the Righteous) an essential for any GM who relies heavily upon demons, devils, and daemons in their game.