A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Villains of the Week 1: Suffer, the Drow Evoker

Villains of the Week 1: Suffer, the Drow Evoker is a role playing game supplement published by Art of War Games. The supplement is available as a PDF from RPGNow for $0.50. It lacks bookmarks, but these really aren’t required for its length. The PDF is three pages long, of which one is the cover. The sole illustration is the one of the cover of a drow, presumably Suffer.

This is a short supplement that describes a single NPC, the titular Suffer, who can be used as a villain for players to encounter. The first page of text describes Suffer’s background, his motivations, why the party would meet him (he wants them to do a job for him), how he will fight and what he will do if defeated. Suffer was exiled from his drown home to the surface world, and wishes to get back and overthrow the family matriarch, which will require magic and mercenaries to accomplish.

The second page (and a bit of the first) give Suffer’s stats; his characteristics, skills, equipment, racial abilities, magic items and spells.

Unfortunately, as is quite common with supplements published by Art of War Games, the text can neither be copied nor searched. This may not be a long supplement, but these would still be useful. There are a couple of mistakes in the text, but nothing major.

The supplement is stated as being D&D 5E compatible, but it lacks an Open Game License (and there’s a spell referenced which is probably Product Identity, not Open Game Content) and it isn’t truly clear that it is designed for 5E. However, with a bit of tweaking, Suffer should probably be compatible with Pathfinder, D&D 3.x and OSR games. The supplement could have been clearer as to the intended target system.

Villains of the Week 1: Suffer, the Drow Evoker does have a few faults, but Suffer’s background, motivations, behaviour and actions in combat are all nicely detailed, and at only $0.50 this is a cheap, fairly well detailed NPC for players to encounter, so click here to get it.