It’s fun sometimes to play the grand knight in shining armor, the man who will lay down his life with honor to save someone in distress or right a wrong. To stand tall and proud against insurmountable odds. But sometimes, it’s even more fun to sneak in the shadow and stab a bad guy in the back with a poison tipped dagger. To call on the shadows and the darkness itself to power your arcane energy. To have noble intentions even if your methods are a bit… shady. The anti-hero.

So it’s in that vein, that desire to both be a hero and with something to hide that Wizards of the Coast has brought us “Heroes of Shadow” a new book of player options for those of us looking to have a character with a little more edge. It’s the book to use if you want your character to draw their power from somewhere dark. Use the darkness to fight the darkness, like is says on the back of the book. There are new classes. races, player hooks, feats, paragon and epic choices. There are even a few new equipment options. All focusing on shadow magic.

And pretty much all awesome.

The main meat of the book is in the new classes/races choices presented. We have a few new of each to choose from, all with a darker more sinister vibe to them. On the class side we have the Assassin (Essentials build), A fully fleshed out Vampire class, a new build for Paladins called Blackguard and a new Warlock build they’re calling Binder. There’s also a group of powers for Clerics that use death as their power source, in addition to a few new things thrown in for Wizards, like Nethermancy and Necromancy schools.

On the race side we have the Shade, which are humans that have sold their souls for dark abilities (akin to the Tieflings backstory), the Vryloka which are an aristocratic type race that seems to be paired with the Vampire class, and a new setup for the Revenant. The book also addresses how the other races that are already in the game would relate to the new shadow abilities. So you’re by no means limited to these new races if you’d like to explore these new options.

And speaking of options! There are a good chunk of paragon paths and epic destinies that don’t have a bunch of very specific prerequisites, meaning that most established characters can choose to dabble in the shadow when choosing their paths. For instance the Dark Watcher paragon path only requires you to be a good or lawful character, while a Ravenkin only needs to be arcane and trained in religion to qualify. It means that even if you’ve been working on leveling up a regular character, they can take on a darker destiny than you originally planned if you want them to turn to the dark side.

It wasn’t long into the book where I found myself asking who exactly the content was for. The text on the back of the book says it’s meant as the next step after the two essentials books, but with it being hardback it doesn’t look like it should be. Not to mention the fact that it doesn’t say “Essentials” on the cover. So if this content good for essentials players or just the regular 4E folks?

Ironically I think the answer is yes on both counts. The new classes definitely skew towards the essentials style of power progression, but the new wizard and warlock builds rely more on the old format. Combining the two in the same book I think just goes to show how similar they really are. Though I wish they were just a little clearer on who this book is really intended for.

One of the things I liked most about Heroes of Shadow is all the ways it can enhance roleplaying opportunities in my weekly games. Running good and evil characters together is never a good idea, but here now we have some ways to clearly define characters as “good” yet still give a hard edge to them that could make group interaction a lot of fun. Sure the group could just gloss over the motivation of the character part, and that would be totally fine. But I think it gives you a comfortable setup to explore some of the roleplaying without fear. We’re still all here for the good of the world (or whatever) it’s just that I need to drink the blood of our victims in order to stay in tip-top.

Some people have complained about the ability to really customize your character in 4th edition and that it takes roleplaying a little too out of the mix. I don’t believe it myself but I’ve certainly read the complaints over Twitter. I kind of feel like Heroes of Shadow may be a step in the direction of silencing those critics, as it offers you a wealth of options that more than anything give you some fun and interesting role play potential. I’d like to see a situation where one of these anti-heroes joins up with a party, what motivations they would have for working together and how they could all get along.

If you’re looking to try out some new classes and races, this book is a must buy. Same goes for if you’d like to take your character to the dark side but still keep them a hero. The content is spread over a far amount of territory (though all dealing with shadow, death, necrotic, etc) so if you’re looking for knight in shining armor stuff, then you should probably pass. Though I’m guessing you could’ve figured that out from the title of the book. For everyone else, this is a fantastic addition to the shelf and a much welcome return to hardcover book publishing.

Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow was published by Wizards of the Coast in 2011. You can buy it at Amazon, or your Friendly Local Game Store.