Book of Vile Darkness

The contents of this foul manuscript of ineffable wickedness are the meat and drink of those in evil’s thrall. No mortal was meant to know the secrets it contains, knowledge so horrid that to even glimpse the scrawled pages invites madness.
Most believe the book was transcribed from Asmodeus' dark magic, carved into the walls of his castle in the deepest layer of the Seven Hells hell, Superbia. The book was made in the early days of bookmaking with peculiar elements such as metal and stones. The ornate cover for the book also featured an obscure illustration of The outer planes.
Through time, those who have held have added their own input to its catalog of vile knowledge. Their additions are clear, for the writers of later works stitched whatever they were writing into the tome or, in some cases, made notations and additions to existing text. There are places where pages are missing, torn, or covered so completely with ink, blood, and scratches that the original text can’t be guessed.
Nature can’t abide the book’s presence. Ordinary plants wither in its presence, animals are unwilling to approach it, and the book gradually destroys whatever it touches. Even stone cracks and turns to powder if the book rests on it long enough.
A creature attuned to the book must spend 80 hours reading and studying it to digest its contents and reap its benefits. The creature can then freely modify the book’s contents, provided that those modifications advance evil and expand the lore already contained within.
Whenever a non-evil creature attunes to the Book of Vile Darkness, that creature must make a DC 17 Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the creature’s alignment changes to evil.

Destroying the Book

As the book is only a transcript of Asmodeus dark magic, it can never be fully destroyed until Asmodeus' castle is also destroyed. the book can be torn, burnt and destroyed, but a new one will always appear sooner or later as long as Asmodeus' castle stand.

Vile Lore

The Book of Vile Darkness contains infinite knowledge. While most of the time, its pages are blank, there have been certain occasions when the reader had immediate access to its content. When the pages are blank they can be read when they enter in contact with the reader, the dark book reads the readers and adapts to them showing them the information they look for, featuring instructions to make their desires come true, written in the language the reader would fully understand.
The Book of Vile Darkness touches on every evil in the cosmos. A character can use the lore the book contains to unearth terrible secrets no mortal should know. Among the contents a character might find are the following, plus whatever else you choose:
Vile Apotheosis. The book hold a ritual that allows a character to become a lich or death knight.
True Names. The true names of all fiends except Asmodeus is in the book.
Dark Magic. Several spells of horrific evil of the DM’s design and choosing could be in the book. Spells could impose dreadful curses, disfigure others, require human sacrifice, afflict creatures with crippling pain, spread vile plagues, and so on.
The secondary ability of the book is to corrupt the reader's mind and create a dangerous obsession over the Book of Vile Darkness. A person who has used the Book of Vile Darkness for a long time may not want others to even touch it. Even a brief skim through the book can corrupt the reader's mind.

Item type

Book / Document