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The Book of Vile Darkness (DMG, p. 222) is an artifact with numerous properties, one of which is listed as "Dark Speech":

While you carry the Book of Vile Darkness and are attuned to it, you can use an action to recite words from its pages in a foul language known as Dark Speech. Each time you do so, you take 1d12 psychic damage, and each non-evil creature within 15 feet of you takes 3d6 psychic damage.

How does this Dark Speech interact with spells such as Magic Mouth or Programmed Illusion?

It seems to be the words themselves dealing the damage, so would having Magic Mouth speak these words still deal damage? Would you take the damage yourself upon hearing it?

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Numerous requirements mean magic mouths and programmed illusions cannot use the Book of Vile Darkness

The book of Vile Darkness requires attunement and benefits only the attuned

The "Attunement" section of the Dungeon Master's Guide (starts on page 136) states:

[...] Without becoming attuned to an item that requires attunement, a creature gains only its nonmagical benefits, unless its description states otherwise. [...]

Because the Book of Vile Darkness requires attunement and doesn't state that the Dark Speech can be used without attunement, attunement is required to use Dark Speech in the first place. Neither a magic mouth nor a programmed illusion would be attuned to the Book and so they could not benefit from its properties.

Furthermore, Dark Speech requires you (the attuned) both to be carrying the Book and to use an action

Dark Speech states:

[...] While you carry the Book of Vile Darkness and are attuned to it, you can use an action to recite words from its pages in a foul language known as Dark Speech. Each time you do so, you take 1d12 psychic damage, and each non-evil creature within 15 feet of you takes 3d6 psychic damage. [...]

This requires many things:

  1. You carry the Book
  2. You are attuned to it
  3. You (the attuned) use an action

The damage simply does not occur unless all of these are satisfied. This is because the damage only happens "each time you do so [use the action granted by the Book]" A magic mouth or programmed illusion cannot satisfy any of these conditions, let alone all three (they cannot carry the Book, nor attune to it, nor can they use the action that Dark Speech requires). Therefore, they cannot use Dark Speech.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ This seems to be saying that magic mouth can't use the book (I think), but I am not sure that is what the question implies or asks. It also isn't clear why it matters that magic mouth can't use the book, because the caster of magic mouth would likely be the one attuned to the book. \$\endgroup\$
    – SeriousBri
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 20:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ @SeriousBri Because the Book explicitly dictates how it can be used for Dark Speech. You can only ever use Dark Speech when using the book. Or for an alternative route: Only the attuned can benefit from any of its properties, so the magic mouth certainly can't. Put another way still: Dark Speech requires an action, simply speaking Dark Words doesn't actually do anything without also taking that specific action. A magic mouth cannot take this action \$\endgroup\$
    – Exempt-Medic
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 20:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ I get what the answer is saying, but it is odd to even suspect that is how anyone would expect this to work. When I read this I think "of course magic mouth can't use an object, what has that got to do with anything". The most likely expectation is that the caster uses the book to program magic mouth to use Dark Speech, you might want to specifically add that the caster can't do it either. I think you have explained why the edge case doesn't work, but not why the main case doesn't. \$\endgroup\$
    – SeriousBri
    Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 20:33
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The damage from Dark Speech only occurs when you use your action as described.

Book of Vile Darkness says:

you can use an action to recite words from its pages in a foul language known as Dark Speech. Each time you do so, you take 1d12 psychic damage, and each non-evil creature within 15 feet of you takes 3d6 psychic damage.

I have bolded the two crucial phrases here. "Each time you do so" is referring directly to the action described in the previous sentence. The damage only occurs if you used your action to recite the words, since the damage only occurs "each time you do so", meaning when you use your action to recite the words.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ You must use your action to use Dark Speech this way. When you are casting Magic Mouth, if you use the Book of Vile Darkness to use Dark Speech, you are interrupting your casting to do so, and you abandon your Magic Mouth spell. In the case of Programmed Illusion, that spell takes an action as well, so since you can't take two simultaneous actions, you can't encode the Dark Speech into that one either. You might use Quickened Spell to do both in the same turn, but even so, you can only do the Action and the Bonus Action sequentially, not one as part of the other, so even then, no. \$\endgroup\$
    – MarkTO
    Commented Feb 24, 2022 at 17:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ @MarkTO magic mouth's message can be delivered over as long as 10 minutes, so I don't think Dark Speech requiring an action will have any effect on that \$\endgroup\$
    – Exempt-Medic
    Commented Feb 24, 2022 at 20:31

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