Scrolls of Forbidden Lore (3.5e Sourcebook)/Introduction

Untold Evils
The scrolls of forbidden lore put forth terrible foes unlike any other, entities powerful enough to destroy a world, turn back time or stop it, eradicate an entire race, or even unmake a piece of reality completely. Such forces are commonly known as Elder Evils, and their origins, their roots, their very manner of thought, is so antithetical to reality that they either desire its complete and total destruction or are so intent on what they desire that they do not notice when they erase an entire world from the annuls of history. So great is their power that, even if they fail to achieve whatever goal they have set out to do, they can still eradicate entire races and civilizations in their passing.

One thing that must be understood about an Elder Evil, is that it is not simply another powerful beast tethered in a pit at the end of a dungeon. Elder Evils are comparable to gods. An Elder Evil will never be alone, as they are capable of drawing up strange and alien powers to bear, may summon armies to its service, or simply overpower others through sheer size and strength, ranging from as small as a man to a large as a size of a planet. A game with an Elder Evil as its capstone is in an entirely different ballgame, for those are games where the fate of the world is at stake. In fact, it has been known for even a peon of one of these vile entities to be capable of scarring the world beyond repair.

A game with an Elder Evil as its great foe takes on an entirely different tone, and may even bring up emotions that PCs have never shown in the past as they face off against things that truly scare them, and an inevitable demise so far out of their scale of power as to instill hopelessness. Building an entire campaign around an Elder Evil makes for a genuinely terrifying and rousing storyline, as players get a taste of what it might actually be like to experience the end times and think about how they might actually react to such a coming. Even followers of powerful god-like Elder Evils can make for gripping and inspiring side stories and side quests, where the PCs are hanging on the edge of their seat only to rise to new heights of courage or ferocity.

Of course sometimes when a campaign wasn't built around an Elder Evil, and one such being has been selected as the final enemy by the DM, the game world needs to be quickly adjusted and a power of a new scope must come into play. In such cases, the true magnitude of the power that is being brought to bear in the form of the Elder Evil might not be immediately known, and the PCs might not adjust to the concept as easily as they would if the game had been entirely based around the Elder Evil. Fortunately, the scrolls of forbidden lore provide ways to adjust any campaign to the idea of Elder Evils, whether it's a quick plunge or a slow immersion.

Why Bring Such Evil
"With a sickening wet rip, his stomach tore open, releasing a torrent of intestines and tentacles far more massive than even his body should have been able to hold, and there he kneeled wide eyed and speechless, his hands desperately trying to scoop back his own entrails."

A person might wondering why you would want to unleash a evil curse as potent as an Elder Evil upon a world that you have grown to love and sculpted with your own hands, but the truth of the fact is that without a threat with which to measure the brightness of the light, it has no meaning or sense of peril. Why ever seek to bring an Elder Evil into the campaign world? To give the world a reason to be, or have an force to rise up against. An Elder Evil is the greatest of all foes, for they are the opposite of everything that life and reality is.

Not to mention, when the players have grown powerful enough even an army of ten thousand beasts seems like a frail foe. Sooner or later, the characters build up into levels where few can fight them and they might have a very considerable shot at changing the world. When a party hits the point where such power is actually a fact, there are not many foes to fight, and the game might slide into nothing more than being a magical tea party where no excitement occurs, not unless a force truly capable of fighting them comes forth.

There are many further reasons to incorporate an Elder Evil into a world as such things are natural ways to find a conclusion to a story and provide a sense of great accomplishment. They can become the group standing tall as the heroes who saved the entire world against an evil unlike any others. Bringing forth an Elder Evil even allows the world to change, and allows those who walk across it to maybe have to start again seeking to repair the bonds that were unraveled in the passing of such a being.

Reading the Entries
Each further chapter in the Scrolls of Forbidden Knowledge describes and stats out an elder evil, its meaning, goals, and followers, and events that predict its coming, as well as a potential storyline that can be adjusted to a game world, to help guide the reader into using them as they incorporate the power of the Elder Evil into the campaign. A given entry will use the following format.

Background
This section opens with a paragraph of relatively common knowledge, or knowledge that an averagely read scholar would be aware of, that is then followed with a few paragraphs of progressively more obscure knowledge. Learning a piece of this information as represented by a particular paragraph requires a Knowledge check of the appropriate kind. The specific skill and the check DC appears, in parentheses, at the end of each relevant paragraph in the elder evil’s background.

Goals
This section follows the same general format as the Background entry, but the lore entries reveal secret information about the reason for the Elder Evils very existence or its motivations.

The Elder Evil in the Campaign
This section puts forth a potential story arc including the Elder Evil, with increasingly difficult challenges as the story pushes forward, most of the time coming to a climax in a confrontation with the Elder Evil itself. The Encounter Levels of these challenges correlate with the progressively worse signs of the entities coming, as detailed below.

Description
Here follow physical information on the elder evil and it's appearance, including how it may appear to the naked eye, or how it comes to the world.

Sign
Here the game effects of the Elder Evil's sign are described and stated out, with degrees of power ranging from faint to overwhelming.

Encounter Information
Each entry has information including the statistic block for the Elder Evil, many of the Elder Evil's strongest followers, tactics, and even maps. There are also a few encounters described throughout this section. In these encounter descriptions, statistics for the Elder Evil or their major minions usually don’t appear in full; it would be a good idea to separate out the relevant information for quick use and reference.

Signs of the End
At any point in a campaign, an Elder Evil or some of it's followers might already be active and influencing the progression of the world towards their ends, even if it might not seem to be, and so their plans might be well within their completion before even the first sighting of the doom at hand even becomes apparent. Markings of such a coming doom, when they do make themselves known, are known as signs: the corporeal, mystical, or mental impact that the elder evil exudes from it's sheer presence. A sign represents an aspect of the Evil’s very existence and nature, and it changes the entire campaign setting. Sometimes a sign appears not because of the entity itself (which might prefer to remain a secret), but as a warning from others forces, who cannot intervene directly with the Elder Evil for one reason or another.

Introducing Signs
A sign, once it has started to change the world, can sometimes be just as dangerous as the presence of the Elder Evil itself, or even more so. In fact, most signs are so powerful, that, even after the Elder Evil has passed, they can have a lingering effect on the world, and scar it for all time. Keep in mind, signs have virtually worldwide effects, and handling them within the context of the game can be rather imposing. The sample timelines in the chapters of this book suggest potential ways to raise the power of a particular sign gradually over time. When the sign reaches the overwhelming stage—signaling the coming of the great Evil that bears that sign—the level of the players should be about high enough to resist all but the worst effects of the sign. When describing a sign’s influence, bring up information in flavorful narratives on how it affects the world itself. (Refer to the sign descriptions themselves for inspiration.)

Identifying Signs
To an average being of any race, the manifestation of a sign is perplexing, frightening, or even magnificent, for sure, but most of the time lacking any real importance. Only scholars who have delved into the deepest knowledge, or travelers who have experienced the particular sign in the past, have any remote chance to notices its true implications.

To identify a sign as the prediction of a coming Evil that it is, a character must succeed on a Knowledge check. The Knowledge skill necessary is the same as the Knowledge skill stated in the Background and Goals sections of the Elder Evil’s entry; if more than one skill is listed, the player may select one and make a check with it. The check DC depends on the sign’s intensity, as listed in the table below. The effects of a sign tend to become steadily more apparent, its meaning becoming more clear with each passing day. A faint sign might simply be a little unnerving, but a sign that has achieved overwhelming status is virtually impossible to ignore.

If this check is a success, a character is aware that the sign is an omen of a great evil coming. If the check succeeds by 5 or more, the character can recognize the strength of the sign, and succeeding by 10 or more reveals all the implications of its effect (which would include the identity of the Elder Evil).

Example Signs
Signs Signs Signs Fluffity fluff insertion.

Serving the Unspeakable
"I can guarantee that you will scream out your innermost secrets just to make it stop."

Everything that most Elder Evils are is purely antithetical to life as it is known to us, and so, for a being of this life to follow an Elder Evil, is for that being to oppose all that is real, regardless of good or evil. Because of this, such followers are virtually impossible to come across, as to do this requires severe desperation or dementia. In all cases, in the end, all that a follower of an Elder Evil will find as a result of their devotion, is death. Then again, for those who have lost their minds, or everything else in the world that matters to them, the coming of their death might be just what they want.

Any intelligent creature can align itself with and follow an Elder Evil if the creature knows of the Elder Evil. Doing so grants the creature a bonus vile feat, plus an extra bonus vile feat for every five character levels or Hit Dice. Elder evils do not themselves grant spells.

Feats
A feat with the [Vile] tag can only be taken by a creature of an evil alignment, unless granted as a bonus feat. The abilities granted by feats with the [Vile] tag are Extraordinary abilities unless otherwise stated.

A feat with the [Fighter] tag can be selected as a fighter bonus feat. This designation does not restrict characters of other classes from selecting these feats, assuming that they meet any prerequisites. The abilities granted by feats with the [Fighter] tag are Extraordinary abilities unless otherwise stated.

A feat with the [Metamagic] tag allows a spellcaster to modify the way a spell is cast or the effect a spell has after it is successfully cast. Full information on feats with the [Metamagic] tag can be found here.

Items
Blister Juice:

Gorgon Blood:

Scathe Bile:

Malefic Properties
Malefic Properties of brand new fashion style, and Fluffity fluffity fluffity.