When can a not-so-good game be great? When you get to take on the roles of the bad guys! And if you can work for the forces of evil in a world as rich and detailed as the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, so much the better! Champions of Ruin offers a path to a different Faerûn -- one in which your character can further the agenda of an evil organization such as the Night Masks, the Zhentarim, the priests of Shar, or any other nefarious group that upholds the virtues of evil. Below are ten specific reasons why you'll want to add Champions of Ruin to your gaming library.

10. Join the Bad Guys: Face it -- every once in a while, you just want to lay a good smackdown on a Harper, or take a few swings at a certain surface-dwelling drow ranger. Here's your chance.

9. Philosophical Differences: Playing an evil character is far more complicated than simply writing CE on your character sheet and killing every creature in sight. Champions of Ruin offers ways to describe the kind of evil your character embodies and possible explanations for how he came to have that point of view. Did he stumble onto the path? Was he seduced to the dark side? Or is he just plain mean? A dozen different options are available, complete with motivations and details on how each fits into Faerûn.

8. Evil Races: Drow is the first race that most people would consider for an evil PC, but some players might view that choice as too obvious. Luckily, a few new races -- such as the extaminaar (snake-blooded humans from Hlondeth), or the krinth (the half-demon slaves of the shades) -- can also fill the bill. You might also want to play a draegloth -- and who wouldn't, especially since you can play one from 1st level using the monster class provided?

7. Evil Ways:Champions of Ruin provides more than forty new feats to help evil PCs accomplish their goals. Choose from metamagic feats, initiate feats, and even some truly vile feats.

6. Bad Mojo: Any evil PC can find lots of dastardly uses for the new spells and magic items introduced in this book.

5. Sign up: Want to enlist in the Zhentarim, become a monk of the Dark Moon, or follow the Unworthy of Ilsensine? Champions of Ruin describes what it's like to work for some of the most notorious organizations in Faerûn. Even a character who intends to become an evil overlord has to begin somewhere, and this information is invaluable for starting your future villain on the right path.

4. More Evil Than Evil: Most evil characters like to hunt down and kill others, and two of the new prestige classes in Champions of Ruin -- the justice of weald and woe and the vengeance knight -- are experts at doing just that. The book also offers details on the organizations of these and other prestige classes, as well as notes on how they can fit into a Forgotten Realms campaign.

3. Playing an Evil Campaign: Evil campaigns aren't for everyone. Champions of Ruin devotes an entire section to discussing the ramifications of running such a game and how to make it more fun for everyone involved. And the information is not Faerûn-specific -- players who run (or wish to run) evil PCs in any campaign world will find it incredibly useful.

2. Not Evil? Not a Problem: Even if you play in a "good" Forgotten Realms campaign, you may still find a significant amount of the material in this book useful. Characters who aren't evil can still use many of the game mechanics presented, including some feats, spells, and even a prestige class or two. You can also use the discussion of evil characters' motivations to define your PC's goodness, or to illustrate how close to evil she treads.

1. Realms-y Goodness:Champions of Ruin builds on numerous organizations with which you may already be familiar, and it also introduces some evil forces you may not have considered. This detail and flavor can add a great deal to your knowledge of Faerûn, regardless of whether or not you want to play an evil PC. (But you know you want to.)