An absolutely wonderful supplimental for those interested in the Zhentarim! Has helped me learn a lot about the organisation and build a campaign around them! Fully recommend!

Ed Greenwood has killed it again, this is a great book, I wish official 5e content was this good.

There is a great deal to love about this book. It takes an inventive look at an organization that thousands of players have joined over the last few years and really fleshes it out. It follows a format which should be used for The Order of the Guantlet, The Lords Alliance, The Emerald Enclave, and the Harpers as well.

The Bay Area of Californa had hundreds of Zent players (who formed a local guild before AL decided to mess with the Faction rules...repeatedly) and this would have served as a nice, even if unofficial, guide for that group.

One thing to note for the FR cosmology: Bane has been demoted to a Lord (Demi-God)- so his grasp on the Zhents may not be what it once was. I would suggest that a god(dess) of commerce might pick up the slack...

Great supplement. I immedietly was struck with a variety of inspiration to incorporate into my own game. Even turning one of my big bads into a high ranking member of the Zhentarim.

The detail, the history, the art - this is a fantastic supplement. If you, like me, were tempted by the juicy intrigue of the Zhentarim presence on the Sword Coast during or after runnind Dragon of Icespire Peak or Lost Mine of Phandelver, I heartily recommned this as an indispensible companion to your ongoing adventures!

One of the best suplement book for 5e FR. A mast have, for DM who want to expand Faerun in their campaigns.

Very fleshed out! Lots of great lore, stat blocks, mechanics, and such. For $15, this is an absolute steal! This is perfect for my group.

An absolutely fantastic resource! Want to play a Zhent character? Run a Zhent campaign? Run an evil campaign? Storm Darkhold? Did the entry on the fortress in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide spark your curiosity? Ever wanted to know the truth of the Pereghost? Have trouble keeping track of the Manshoon clones running around the 5e Realms? Player options, lore, magic items and spells, statblocks, inspiration and advice -- Darkhold: Secrets of the Zhentarim has everything and from an absolutely crack team of game designers and Realms experts (including the Realms expert).

Buy it. You will not regret it.

There's some good stuff in here, but overall, I think we're not getting as much as we paid for.

What really killed this product for me was the pointless retcon of Ashemmi. It combined two of the worst aspects of how WotC treats the Realms: a retcon driven by designers not liking established lore, and a squandered opportunity to create an interesting new NPC with a unique backstory, instead of arbitrarily reshaping an existing NPC.

Had this book been priced at $10, it would have been a much better value. There is some good material, but squandered opportunities to create something new and exciting, as well.

This is a long-awaited and wonderful resource for those wishing to shift their compaign to the Heartlands or add in a much more fleshed-out faction in the Black Network. I love it.

Amazing Book, I have a few players in several campaigns who are interested in the Zhentarim so this was perfect. Tons of lore, Magic Items and Spells. That would be worth it if that was it, but then there is my favorite section of the Book, the section on Thieves Cant. Being able to have a full secret conversation with the party still listening and not knowing what is actually being discussed is perfect, that section alone is worth the price.

Darkhold: Secrets of the Zhentarim by Justice Arman, M.T. Black, Anthony Joyce and many others. Format : PDF Acquired 18 August 2020 ; paid $11.95 [20% off via M.T. Black newsletter] Product released/last updated 18 August 2020 Number of pages : 112 Read date 25-27 August 2020

Number of stars 5

This is an excellent supplement full of lore, player and DM advice, new subclasses and a new feat, new magic items and spells, and a plethora of stat blocks for low-, mid-, and high-level Zhentarim and monsters.

The introduction gives an overview of what's in the book's seven chapters, Zhentarim naming conventions and faction overview, along with five things to know about them.

Ch. 1 covers character options with an expansion of the Criminal Contact feature from the Criminal background, new subclasses (Cleric: Strife Domain ; Rogue: Spellthief ; Sorcerer: Beguiler), and the new Skymage feat.

Ch. 2 provides a history of the Zhentarim, which includes good coverage of Manshoon and his many faces; hierarchy; missions and downtime; perks; the chain of command, including overviews of all the leaders; mercenaries for hire; and a system for using Thieves' Cant at your table.

Ch. 3 covers the Sunset Vale region and provides information on all of the region's named villages and towns, etc. Each area has info on population, government, defense, commerce, religion, and factions, as appropriate. Also included for each are adventure ideas.

Ch. 4 provides information on all aspects and locations of Darkhold and its immediate surrounding area.

Ch.5 goes over playing evil characters and playing in and running evil campaigns, with good info on safety tools and on how to keep the group cohesive.

Ch. 6 has new magic items of all rarities and 15 new spells.

Ch. 7 provides more description and stat blocks for all of the Zhentarim leaders including Legendary and Mythic features for several of them. Other residents of Darkhold and surrounds, both NPC and monster, also have descriptions and stat blocks. Finally, there is a page of Zhentarim techniques on how to specialize Zhentarim NPCs in the areas of infiltration, thievery, and enforcement.

This is an excellent supplement with plenty of lore, good character options and advice, useful DM advice, new magic items and spells, and plenty of fully fleshed NPCs of all levels, and monsters.

Highly recommended! An excellent value.

Preview : Full preview available.

Attribution : Content and art attributed, along with bibliographies of D&D books and articles and Dungeon Masters Guild Community Content used for material and inspiration.

TOC : Present and hotlinked.

Formatting : Excellent.

Art : Applicable, well used and a good amount.

Style : Follows WotC D&D House style; consistently.

Editing : Excellent all around. Proofreading much better than most. I only found 6 small issues in 112 pages, all of which have been provided to one of the lead designers.

Number and type of files included : One PDF and a folder with 3 maps: one labeled and one unlabeled map of Darkhold and one regional map of the Sunset Vale.

Value : Excellent

As a fan of Forgotten Realms lore, I am glad that this supplement expands A LOT on what we already know about The Zhentarim. The addition of information about the power players inside the Zhentarim gives more depths and updated details about them. I personally like how the supplement fleshes out The Pereghost!

I have not tried the new sub-classes, feats, and spells yet, but I do believe my players will love what this supplement has in store.

The map is absolutely gorgeous and I would like to take my players into the region one day.

My favorite is of course, the Thieves Cant. I have been using it in several games, and my players have also used it. We're really having fun on figuring out what each other say using the cant!

I am glad that there are suggestions and plot seeds for evil campaigns, because I find evil adventures in DMsGuild are lacking. I would like to see a follow up adventure related to this module that expands on the Zhentarim as well!

All in all, this supplement is A MUST HAVE for those who love Forgotten Realms lore, a fan of the Zhentarim, and those who want to create an evil adventure!

This is an amazing supplement. As a fan of lore, this is stellar. The info on Darkhold and the surrounding area is full of information as basic as population, who is in charge, points of interest etc. Everything about this book rocks!!! Hope to see more products like this released in the future.

I can't tell you how excited I am to see Fzoul Chembryl with stat blocks. Ed I have to add them all to dndcombat.com, hope you don't mind !

Amazing artwork, incredible content, I refuse to read it all until I can get it printed as a book in all its glory.

And of course it is from the #1 official source on the realms, Ed Greenwood, someone who really needs eternal life so we never never forget the realms.