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

Fluffity talking about Signs of Elder Evils and stuff, Maybe some subsections for the signs?

Serving the Unspeakable

Megafluff, Fluffity, feats. Some subsections likely.

Malefic Properties

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