So, I originally bought the book because I'm not a very good DM.  Let me rephrase that:  I'm not a good DM because in D&D I'm very stingy with magic items, mainly because I tend to ignore them in my games.  I began running a Ravenloft game.  My players kept bitching at me about the lack of magic items so as a joke I bought the Book of Vile Darkness and used magic items only from within.

The campaign ran its semester, the characters destroyed anything that registered with "detect magic" and I never touched the book again...I never read anything in it but the magic items.

Fast forward to two days ago...I've been running a Casltes and Crusades game set in a gritty setting based on the 30 Years' War and I wanted to spice the game up.  I'm trying to make the game very "shades of grey" and in doing so grabbed some of my WW Raveloft (Champions of Darkness specifically) stuff and my Book of Vile Darkness, which I finally read.

A lot of folks elswhere have said that the book was not dark or evil enough, but I disagree, there's some really disturbing shit in there, if you think for a moment.  I mean, the subject matter doesn't batter you over the head with evil or disturbing stuff, but after some reflection, the stuff in that book is more than mildly disturbing...at least to me.

Anyone else got love for this here book?  Or any cool experiences that I can use for inspiration/blatantly rip off?

That book has some wonderful illustrations...
Dude munching on his own hand?
Genius!

I haven't read it in... geeze, over a year, at least. But I still remember that mage who kept the circle of kids chained to him (to keep enemies from throwing area effect spells at him, IIRC). Twisted but brilliant.

Never really had much chance to put it to use, though. I might reread it one of these days, just to see if I can swipe any ideas from it.

I like that one spell where you blow up the other guy's eyeballs.

edit: And that spell where you eat the guy to look like him.  Although I think that was originally a Call of Cthulhu spell.

Magic nipple clamps, anyone?

Quote from: YamoMagic nipple clamps, anyone?

Please!

Quote from: LostSoulI like that one spell where you blow up the other guy's eyeballs.

edit: And that spell where you eat the guy to look like him.  Although I think that was originally a Call of Cthulhu spell.

Or the one where you rip the other guys own hands off, and then beat the living snot out of him with them. That spell rocks.

Part of the book is useful. The rest fills me with murderous rage.

BoVD is one of the biggest "could have been a great one" in history.

Quote from: YamoMagic nipple clamps, anyone?

Of Exquisite Pain?!

Quote from: joewolzA lot of folks elswhere have said that the book was not dark or evil enough, but I disagree, there's some really disturbing shit in there, if you think for a moment.  I mean, the subject matter doesn't batter you over the head with evil or disturbing stuff, but after some reflection, the stuff in that book is more than mildly disturbing...at least to me.

Anyone else got love for this here book?  Or any cool experiences that I can use for inspiration/blatantly rip off?

There's some disturbing stuff in there. But some of the disturbing stuff in there is pretty corny. Like the "baby shield armor." Sheesh, people.

I like a lot of the book and use it with fair regularity. Mostly spells and monsters. Some of the prestige classes are pretty cool (I still think the ur-priest is utter crap, conceptually and mechanically. NOT IN MY GAME.)

The possession rules were cool, but I prefer the update they did to them in the Fiend Folio.

The sacrifice and soul rules were interesting, but didn't QUITE represent the topic in a way I found satisfying, and further, were abusable (the latter doesn't bother me that much, as I consider this an NPC book... I don't care if some munchkin having a wet dream could make kobolds into gods with it.)

The execution and torture rules were stupid. I opined at one point that it didn't seem like Monte could write such mechanically bent rules. Monte saw my post and responded something to the tune of "you noticed that, eh?" Obviously, after the manuscript was turned in, some rather less competant designers added some drek to the book.

So yeah. I think it has some weak spots. I use the spells, feats, some classes, creatures, templates, and corruption rules (though I think that the Heroes of Horror take on corruption that came later are better/more satisfying, so I'll be using those instead.) It's good ammo for evil feeling stuff for your villainous NPCs.

The evil priest in my campaign is a big fan of the 'Clutch of Orcus' spell.

Thats the one where you paralyze a bad guy and he takes damage, and it continues every round unless he keeps making saving throws. Then if the guy dies while Clutch of Orcus is still in play, his smoking heart materializes in your PC's hand.

So far we've had not one, but *two* confirmed clutch kills.

Quote from: JongWKBoVD is one of the biggest "could have been a great one" in history.

How so?  I've seen a lot of this type of comment, but no one ever explains it.

I bought it, but rarely use anything out of it. I just needed 3.5 stats for the Demon Princes in case any of the PCs were stupid enough to summon  one. Which happened, of course. And where can I get 3.5 stats for Tiamat & Bahamut? As popular as they are, it seems like you'd trip over excess stats for them, but no.