Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations (Dungeons & Dragons Supplement) 
asked by borat on November 25, 2006 1:49 AM
An art-filled sourcebook about aberrations in the D&D world.
Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations takes a comprehensive look at the most bizarre monsters of the D&D world, and the heroes who fight them. It provides detailed information about beholders, mind flayers, aboleths, and other popular aberrations, while also introducing several new aberrations. In addition, this book provides new rules, feats, tactics, spells, and equipment for characters that hunt aberrations. Extensive story and campaign elements and flavor information add interest and dimension to playing or fighting creatures of this type. The book itself features a prestige format, with heavy use of art throughout and a full-painted cover.
Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations takes a comprehensive look at the most bizarre monsters of the D&D world, and the heroes who fight them. It provides detailed information about beholders, mind flayers, aboleths, and other popular aberrations, while also introducing several new aberrations. In addition, this book provides new rules, feats, tactics, spells, and equipment for characters that hunt aberrations. Extensive story and campaign elements and flavor information add interest and dimension to playing or fighting creatures of this type. The book itself features a prestige format, with heavy use of art throughout and a full-painted cover.
Reviews
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Many aberrations in the D&D games if they have not been more or less blatantly taken from Lovecraft and his Cthulu Mythos they were at least inspired by the same. Most of the chapters are devoted to aberrations that have the intelligence and/or drive to make an attempt at world conquerors like Mind Flayers, Aboleth, the Grell, Neogi and a new thing. Next comes a chapter of secondary critters most of which are related to main chapters. A lot of the monsters are revised from 2nd Edition sources, the Illithiad being one of them. In fact when it comes to Mind Flayers a lot of material from this previous book was used. Fans of the old Monstrous Arcana will recognize material presented in a rather condensed form. SpellJammer fans will find interesting tidbits here as well. If you've gone looking for this book you probably already know what kind of information you are looking for. At least some of your questions will be answered in this tome as well as a lot to think upon. Personally I found this book to be an excellant read and treasure trove of a toolbox for Aberrations.
reviewed by davedriver on November 25, 2006 10:05 AM
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This book gives remarkable and useful information on the few species it covers. If an Illithid- or Beholder-centered campaign might inspire you, or creating an encounter or two with them in mind would flavor your campaign, go for it.
The most disappointing thing about the book is that it does not reproduce information for monsters listed in other books, so to fully use the information it provides would involve having not only the Monster Manual and Expanded Psionics Handbook but also the Fiend Folio as well as setting-specific books. Unless you have a pretty complete library, you're going to find a number of monsters mentioned and dealt with that you don't have the details and stats for.
The most disappointing thing about the book is that it does not reproduce information for monsters listed in other books, so to fully use the information it provides would involve having not only the Monster Manual and Expanded Psionics Handbook but also the Fiend Folio as well as setting-specific books. Unless you have a pretty complete library, you're going to find a number of monsters mentioned and dealt with that you don't have the details and stats for.
reviewed by wellness on November 27, 2006 5:04 AM
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While I didn't enjoy this book as much as Libris Mortis, the content was excellent and several feats/spells/classes are very useable. The alienist PrC is perhaps the most interesting, if a bit labor intensive to play. Each monster detail chapter (beholders, grell, flayers, tsochar, aboleth, and little slaver guys that I always forget their name) has an adventure headlining the monster from that chapter, and are average or better in my opinion...great for side treks or one-offs. The book really does have everything you could want from a hardcover creature 'Type' supplement.
I give it a 4 because I think some of the art should have been better, and there are typos and grammatical errors that should never make it to print (but we're used to that). Often the new material (feats/spells) are only applicable to aberrations, so great for speciaization, but not always helpful in a campaign. Another problem is that the material is very specific yet vague at the same time. E.g. they'll say that aboleths have knowledge dating back to the dawn of existance, but then don't go into it, saying that no aboleth would share this info. Dieties get the same tease, e.g. this god is great and powerful but little is known about him...
I give it a 4 because I think some of the art should have been better, and there are typos and grammatical errors that should never make it to print (but we're used to that). Often the new material (feats/spells) are only applicable to aberrations, so great for speciaization, but not always helpful in a campaign. Another problem is that the material is very specific yet vague at the same time. E.g. they'll say that aboleths have knowledge dating back to the dawn of existance, but then don't go into it, saying that no aboleth would share this info. Dieties get the same tease, e.g. this god is great and powerful but little is known about him...
reviewed by drvale on November 27, 2006 9:47 AM
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Overall impression (visual): This book is stunning! At $35 MSRP (but greatly discounted thru Amazon; and you probably won't find it cheaper even on ebay) it seems a bit expensive for a hardback 220-page, glossy-cover book, but the effort and detail in the design is immediately apparent, making this a visually stunning work. The binding is tight and the paper acid-free (so it won't curl, fade, discolor or inexplicable 'thin' over time). The artwork is fabulous, with no real duds throughout the book, and the page design is detailed, and consistent to the end. Unlike the old 1st and 2nd edition books, which were ratherly poorly made, with next to no interior artistic design (mostly white pages with b&w illustrations), and mediocre writing, the 3rd edition works are often coffee-table quality. Lords of Madness is definitely worthy of a spot beside Great Bridges of America or Martha Stewart's Holiday Best (ha ha)!
(Content): Lovecraft meets D&D! If you like Lovecraft, or at least the Lovecraft/Smith mythos, you'll find lots to love about LOM. The book is set up as a kind of sociology text of several abberative races, with Lovecraftian-sounding names and storylines. Here you'll get some interesting history, backstory, even cross-sections of creature physiology; and great for DMs, adventure jumpstarts for each race. The writing is great! Definitely a book for the personal library; LOM can be enjoyed by actual players and readers alike (and I recently read a survey that found more people purchase and read the D&D supplements than actually play D&D...interesting, but if true, this book will satisfy that group!)
(Content): Lovecraft meets D&D! If you like Lovecraft, or at least the Lovecraft/Smith mythos, you'll find lots to love about LOM. The book is set up as a kind of sociology text of several abberative races, with Lovecraftian-sounding names and storylines. Here you'll get some interesting history, backstory, even cross-sections of creature physiology; and great for DMs, adventure jumpstarts for each race. The writing is great! Definitely a book for the personal library; LOM can be enjoyed by actual players and readers alike (and I recently read a survey that found more people purchase and read the D&D supplements than actually play D&D...interesting, but if true, this book will satisfy that group!)
reviewed by literary on November 28, 2006 1:07 PM