User Blog:
What Should We Play? - Portrait of a Villain

Portrait of a Villain is an offering for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, coming from Nevermet Press, who have provided me with a review copy. It’s a modular showcase full of bits and pieces. All are useable alone, but all are visions of one central character, a villain called The Desire.

The first thing I noticed was refreshing art. It’s not your traditional fantasy faire; it ranges from Renaissance to Victorian, while keeping a fantastic air. The work quickly moves into The Desire’s background, explaining who and why she is. It gives her solid motivations, and enough foundation to give her life in a game past the stat block. She’s adorned with a number of story hooks to draw her into your game. For the most part, they’re very nonstandard, the kind of thing that’ll really spice up a boring campaign.

Her entourage, including nymphs, pimps and prostitutes, all get a deal of attention that differentiates them from stock D&D monsters. The groups are sufficiently versatile to work against many different party types and levels.

Next comes a lightly detailed city, a smattering of a setting ready to be expounded upon. It works well as a plug in to a standing campaign, or the center of a small campaign of its own. While it only gets a few pages, they’re full of life and are a great jumping point.

The encounters offered run the gamut; they’re not typical dungeon crawls. The first is to prevent an assassination attempt at a ball. It’s a complex little challenge to identify and prevent an action. The next is an encounter at a warehouse, with maps, modifiers for terrain and situations, and a nice discussion of tactics. The third puts the players on the defensive, preventing an attack from The Desire. It starts with an extended skill challenge for a card game, and ends with a well-detailed ambush.

The next section offers an organization of women that fight against The Desire. It gets a full treatment and background, more than most material in 4e. This includes a paragon path for the warriors in the sisterhood. They’re well-balanced and serve very specific combat functions against creatures of darkness. Their flavor is catchy and interesting. There are three other organizations that can build upon your campaign, adding to the web of stories surrounding The Desire. They don’t get paragon path treatment, but are solid additions none the less.

Then there’s a small section discussing the magical items The Desire can employ against the party. I’ll just put it out there, they’re very cool. They’re the kind of things I’d want in my games, including a series of venetian-style masks that have insight and perception benefits.

Lastly, there’s a short fiction bit. It’s solid, but nothing to write home about.

I’ll say, this piece is versatile. There’s a lot of material, packed into a short, 57-page packet. The layout is beautiful, and you’ll find something for your game. Most of the material suits the 2nd-11th levels, but could easily be adapted to others. The sheer volume of ideas is impressive, while I wasn’t in love with everything, there are a handful of things that I’ll be porting to my campaign. Also, the PDF is landscape. I cannot stress to RPG publishers enough: Invest in landscape layout for PDFs. It’s super easy to read.

You can pick it up here. It's well worth the 9.95 they're asking. It's a great little supplement, full of compelling ideas. 

And for more on this product, you can check out a plethora of reviews online. 

Gnome Stew

d20 Source

Uncle Bear

The Examiner

And if you don't do d20, there are a number of sources to use The Desire in other game systems. 

Vampire the Masquerade

Deadlands: Reloaded