Book of Vile Darkness: This is a work of ineffable evil—meat and drink to priests of that alignment. To fully consume the contents requires one week of study, but once this has been accomplished, the evil priest gains one point of Wisdom and enough experience points to place him halfway into the next level of experience.

Priests neither good nor evil who read the book either lose 30,000-120,000 experience points or become evil without benefit from the book; there is a 50% chance for either. Good priests perusing the pages of the unspeakable book of vile darkness will have to successfully save vs. poison or die; and if they do not die they must successfully save vs. spell or become permanently insane. In the latter event, even if the save is successful, the priest loses 250,000 experience points, less 10,000 for each point of Wisdom he has.

Other characters of good alignment suffer 5d6 points of damage from handling the tome, and if they look inside, there is an 80% chance a night hag will attack the character that night. Nonevil neutral characters suffer 5d4 points of damage from handling the book, and reading its pages causes them to succeed on a save vs. poison or become evil, immediately seeking out an evil priest to confirm their new alignment (see Book of Exalted Deeds for other details).

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