Villains and Lairs IV is the last in Jeff C. Stevens’ Villains and Lairs collection, and the largest one as well.

Disclaimer: We were provided with a free digital copy of this product.

Like the first Villains & Lairs, and also parts II and III (which we’ve reviewed as well), this is an anthology of NPCs with mostly villainous leanings, but they can be used in many different roles.

There are a total of 40 entries from 40 different authors, and that, of course, leads to a wide variety in concepts and mechanics. The CR ranges from 1/4 all the way up to 21, though most are under 10, and as the subtitle of “The Dead, Damned and Decaying” would imply, you’ve got lots and lots of undead.

Every NPC has a background section with their story, as well as their current and long-term motives, how you can use them in your session (as an antagonist, of course, but often also as mentors, merchants, or even allies and quest givers), their flaws, and, of course, their statblock. Often they will also have new magic items as well, and 10 of them also have Lairs; their own bases, accompanied by full maps and details of each area. You could easily run them as one-shot adventures; in fact, one of them is presented fully as one rather than an NPC.

Despite the fact that most of the characters are undead (or undead-adjacent), it never feels stale. Even with concepts that are pretty close, they feel completely different; for example, there are 2 undead bards, but they are almost complete opposites – one’s a reanimated skeleton guarding a door in a necromancer’s lair, giving riddles to adventurers and mostly enjoying his time (also not being very aware of his own state), the other used a ritual to prolong his life out of egotistic narcissism, but botched it and now has to kill other bards after a successful show to absorb the crowd’s admiration for them to extend his limited time as a formless apparition. There’s a ton of these fun, interesting characters – a cleric that turned herself into a lich but struggles with her faith and whether she’s doing the right thing, a mindflayer who left the collective to live among the other races, a yugoloth working for a thieves’ guild, and many, many more.

Overall, Villains and Lairs IV: The Dead, Damned and Decaying is a great entry to the series; over 160 pages of excellent writing that will give you tons of ideas for new NPCs that you can use in your campaigns and one-shots, and not just as simple encounters but as active members of your world. And remember that if you want to get the entire series, you can get it at a discount as a bundle.

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