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Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations (3.5)

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Unnatural Creatures of Unspeakable Evil
 
Trembling hands have recorded horrifying stories of encounters with aboleths, beholders, mind flayers, and other aberrations. The victims of these alien creatures are quickly overwhelmed by mind-numbing terror - their only comfort is the hope for a quick death.
 
This supplement for the D&D game presents a comprehensive look at some of the most bizarre creatures ever to invade the world of fantasy roleplaying. Along with information about the physiology, psychology, society, and schemes of these strange beings, you’ll find spells, feats, tactics, and tools commonly employed by those who hunt them.
 
Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations also provides new rules, prestige classes, monsters, sample encounters, and fully developed NPCs ready to instill fear in any hero.
 
*****
 
Product History

Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations (2005) is a 3.5 edition sourcebook about everyone's favorite monster type, designed by Richard Baker, James Jacobs, and Steve Winter. This is one case when you can tell a book by the (gorgeous) cover: the demonic mindflayer, tentacles wriggling as it contemplates its cerebellum dinner, perfectly captures the look and feel of this book. It's a gorgeous and eminently useful look at aboleths, beholders, and all of the other aberrations that make adventuring so darn dangerous for fledgling and experienced heroes alike.

The Monstrosities. After a brief chapter exploring "what is an aberration?" and laying out the structure and advice for an aberration-focused campaign, Lords of Madness jumps right into the monsters. One entire chapter is dedicated to each of the major types of aberrations:
  • The Deep Masters: Aboleths
  • The Eye Tyrants: Beholders
  • The Mind Flayers: Illithids
  • The Slave Takers: Neogi 
  • The Eaters: Grell
  • The Wearers of Flesh: Tsochar
Each chapter exhausively examines that monstrous race's anatomy, life, death, monstrous variants, prestige classes, regular classes, feats, unique magic, society, religion, languages, and goals. Each chapter also focuses on an encounter area or sample lair to use in an adventure. Whether that's the neogi wreck of the Mindspider or an illithid sept, beautiful maps and well-designed encounters provide useful adventure hooks.

Wait, the Who? Most longtime D&D fans know the neogi, a slave-taking race of spider-eels originally from Spelljammer. The tsochar are less well known. They are utterly inhuman, shapechanging infiltrators who come from a cold and distant world to our own in order to steal magic. They rarely pass through their world-spanning black gates, and that's a good thing, as they're difficult to detect and utterly revolting to behold. If you're looking for tentacular infiltrators who remind you of crossing a doppelganger with a Lovecraftian elder god, these are a good choice.

New Monsters from the Old World. Want more? The new monster chapter gives us beholderkin, cloakers, elder brains, gas spores, gibbering mouthers, half-farspawn, new illithids, psurlons, pseudonatural creatures, and more. In fact, there are 20 new monsters (or converted old monsters) detailed here. And the art is fantastic throughout.

Fight Back. The "aberration hunter" role is introduced here, with six new prestige classes, new feats, new magic items, and plenty of unique spells. The chapter on aberration hunters also gives the details and descriptions for a number of new secret societies and guilds that band together to fight their mutable, unnatural foes. If your campaign focuses or even leans heavily on aberrations, your players are going to want to read this chapter.

Lords of Madness remains one of the best and most fun books in Wizards' series of prestige monster supplements. The examination of its topic is intelligent and interesting, the monsters and plot hooks are horrifying, and the new rules are well-balanced and make the game more fun. Picking up this book is a no-brainer - especially if you ask an illithid.

About the Creators. Richard Baker is an author and senior designer whose work includes Red Hand of Doom, Complete Arcane, and the novel Condemnation.
 
James Jacobs wrote his first published D&D adventure at the age of 14, and is now Creative Director of Pathfinder.
 
Steve Winter is a game design and editing legend: co-creator of the seminal Marvel Super Heroes game, editor of Star Frontiers, Gangbusters, Top Secret, Oriental Adventures, and many more.

About the Product Historian

History and commentary of this product was written by Kevin Kulp, game designer and admin of the independent D&D fansite ENWorld. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to kevin.kulp@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

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Reviews (1)
Discussions (17)
Customer avatar
Hazy P September 30, 2023 8:49 am UTC
Please make a Hard/Softcover Print on Demand for this and ALL 3.5 books. I will buy every single one of them.
Customer avatar
Mats H June 25, 2023 12:59 pm UTC
Book is going for 100$ second hand, will buy this the second it is offered as hardcover print on demand.
Customer avatar
Bryan R March 30, 2023 1:54 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Print on Demand!
Customer avatar
Can U August 31, 2022 12:51 am UTC
Hardcover premium color pod please
Customer avatar
Madison S August 26, 2022 12:14 am UTC
POD please! I'd love to gift this for Christmas!!
Customer avatar
Johnathan D May 14, 2022 12:12 am UTC
POD please
Customer avatar
Paul H May 12, 2022 5:37 pm UTC
PEEEEEE OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PUHLEEEEEEEEEEEEESE
Customer avatar
brian M March 01, 2022 1:52 am UTC
We need this item to be Print on Demand. Ebay and Amazon prices are insulting.
Customer avatar
Vhayjen . August 27, 2021 8:49 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Wizards of the Coast is not in the business of providing PoD options on out of print items. These will never become PoD; therefore, you are wasting your time in waiting. You must find and purchase any and all out of print items such as these through Amazon, eBay, and etc. That is just the way it is.
Reply
Customer avatar
Paul H May 12, 2022 5:44 pm UTC
"Wizards of the Coast is not in the business of providing PoD options on out of print items" - uhhh bruh you know there's an entire subsection of this site dedicated to pod options of 'out of print' books from TSR/Wizards, right? I mean, that's objectively a fact. They add new stuff all the time. What we have no assurance of is that they ever read these comments sections. That *might* be a waste of time.
Customer avatar
Linda W August 05, 2021 9:43 pm UTC
My kingdom for POD
Customer avatar
Nicholas P July 15, 2021 6:13 pm UTC
POD please
Customer avatar
Jeffrey H June 27, 2021 2:14 pm UTC
I would like to have a POD option as well. Does anyone know how we can push this forward? Do we just continually ask for it? Or do we have to petition WOD (fat chance in hell) for it.
Customer avatar
Paul H April 22, 2021 5:17 pm UTC
Another vote for POD here!
Customer avatar
Can U November 08, 2020 11:47 pm UTC
POD please!
Customer avatar
Stan M September 24, 2020 4:52 pm UTC
This is a great book. I play 5e but still use this book as a reference. Hopefully they will make it POD for those that do not own an original copy.
Customer avatar
Jozsef T July 31, 2020 11:10 am UTC
POD pls
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Product Information
Platinum seller
Pages
224
ISBN
0-7869-3657-6
Publisher Stock #
177410000
File Size:
35.22 MB
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File Last Updated:
February 15, 2019
This title was added to our catalog on September 24, 2013.