Disclaimer: I was sent a complementary copy of this product for review purposes.
Presented as ‘new infernal character options’, Vyrelion’s Guide does just that. Inside you’ll find a new sub-class for each of the classes found in the PHB, a selection of feats and spells, and (in a less player option, more DM-driven chapter) a selection of magical items.
To start with, pretty much everything here nails the tone of the supplement. Most of the sub-classes and spells definitely feel like Avernus is the place for them. Some, like the Ranger Scavenger, could be placed in any supplement, but even when the theme is lacking, the mechanics are cool. Want to skin monsters and gain benefits from their hides? Sure, the aforementioned Scavenger can do that for you. Want to open arteries with a medical knowledge surpassed by few others? The Rogue Chirurgeon has you covered. As I said, MOST are appropriately themed, but the others are just so darned stylish.
The feats come in two forms: specialisation and multi-class. The former allow you to double down on your preferred style of gameplay, whether that’s maximising damage output through using Extra Attack during the Ready action, or being able to better haggle and appraise items. So far so good. It’s the multi-class feats which are the draw here though. Each gives you the flavour of being a level 1 character of that class and, if you later take a level in that class, you lose the feat and gain an ASI to the primary ability score instead. Pretty neat!
The spells are arranged alphabetically by level, which took some getting used to over the 4 pages they cover (5 if you include new cantrips) and are extremely flavourful for a trip to the Nine Hells (inhabit corpse vs replenishing prayer, for example), either as a servant of darker powers or a warrior of light, and appear reasonably balanced, although I have had no chance to actually use them at my table, so your mileage may vary on that.
The magic items follow this trend as well, both exquisitely narratively flavoured and seemingly well-balanced.
Onto the negatives now.
This isn’t a guide á la Volo’s or the Sword Coast book. There aren’t pages of lore or world building, so look elsewhere if that is what you wanted. You get one page per sub-class and the other 14 pages are as described above. Each does have accompanying art, most of which is well suited to the page at hand, but as stated, this isn’t a guide in the traditional sense. The narrative accompanying each entry, however, is full of story seeds and ideas.
The other main problem is a lack of bookmarks, although at 30 pages, it isn’t a chore to scroll through manually, and there is a well-designed table of contents to consult for page numbers.
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