#The Temple of Elemental Evil

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The Temple of Elemental Evil' - Keith Parkinson (1985)

[oathartist]

Dungeons and Dragons

Oath

2019 - 2020

[badragonplays]

DragonFinds has gotten a few new dnd titles. Today I found the AD&D Reincarnated Temple of Elemental Evil and the classic Role Aids Dragons adventures.

[vintagerpg]

Supermodule week! The format — a perfect bound softcover, often with a folder in the back containing a large foldout map or a booklet of maps — was introduced with Lankhmar, but was frequently used by TSR from the mid-‘80s to the early ‘90s, particularly in reprinting older adventure material. As much as I love the Lankhmar book, I begrudgingly acknowledge that The Temple of Elemental Evil (1985) is probably the real star publication using the format.

Temple was supposed to be a couple of more traditional modules by Gary Gygax, starting with T1: The Village of Hommlet (1979), but he never got around to finishing the writing. Aside of Hommlet and some notes, the rest of this book is Frank Mentzer’s work. It’s OK! I like Hommlet a lot — a starter module with a seemingly friendly town (like the village in Jennell Jaquays’ Dark Tower, this is a facade) where 1st level characters can square off with a memorable villain (Lareth the Beautiful) in a ruined moathouse. They then move along to the seedy town of Nulb, where more agents of the Temple are gathering, before proceeding into the Temple itself. I like Nulb too. I’m a little mixed on the Temple.

It’s a megadungeon (though one on the smallish side), and I generally like those, but Temple doesn’t make sense to me, really. I mean, dungeons never do, but Temple particularly so, as it is both a staging ground for the forces of evil and a prison built by the forces of good. I also think “Elemental Evil” is a silly concept, but I do like the big twist at the end, the fact that the big bad is the demon queen of fungus, of all things. I also like that Zuggtmoy looks like a weird ET knock-off. I think the problem for me is that the towns are dynamic and full of potential, but the encounters in the temple feel very samey. It’s fine, its just no Barrier Peaks, you know? Nice Parkinson cover, though.

[gilgalahad]

Amazing T1-4 map from Reddit user Valistrata

[aspenwitch]

I joined a dnd campaign to guest play as a devil that will be a very bad influence on the party

[y-rhywbeth2]

Thinking about Bane, and Pelor having a paladin by the same name, I remembered Ed Greenwood's comment that Mielikki and Ehlonna (Oerthly goddess of nature) meet for friendly tea or something occasionally.

So yes, despite my lack of knowledge on the setting to know if this makes any sense, I chose to believe Pelor is getting hate mail from Bane, who doesn't like his name being associated with a fucking good aligned paladin with a sainthood. The gods of Oerth would like to remind him that He Doesn't Even Go Here. (We Already Have Hextor, Thanks.) 'Ao, please strip him of divine power again so we don't have to put up with this.'

[pantmonger]

The Temple of Elemental Evil set is finished.

Every mini from the boardgame done!

I honestly painted the first couple of minis from this set in 2017. Wow I let that sit. :P

[chaosgenasi]

the cult of the dark heart and this town might just be essentially from the same broken thing, (hishari), but it could also be really fun if there are or were multiple "elemental chaos/primordial" cults to fully mirror that "darker ashari path"

[rpgchoices]

Useless rpgs recs. Rpgs with romance... but I actually tell you my opinion on the romance. PART 3/6

️‍🌈 = you can romance a same sex character

Dragon's Dogma️‍🌈: Not played yet, but I did see that the romance is very minimal

Pendula Swing️‍🌈: There are five choices of romance, I played two of them. You can chat with the romance interests and go visit them in their location, then you can organize at date at the cinema and invite them home. If you want you can permanently keep them there and basically stay together. Amount of content: 3/5

Black Geyser️‍🌈: There is minimal romance, I flirted with Isla and romanced Hamlin, what I got was one scene of extra dialogue where you kind of "lock down" the romance, but there is no mention of it in the ending. Amount of content: 1/5

80 Days️‍🌈: There should be three or two romance options, you play as a man. This is a narrative game and the romance options are encounters that you can have in particular locations. The content is limited to that location as the game is about the journey. Amount of content: 2/5

Bound by Flame: Not played yet

Cyberpunk 2077️‍🌈: Not played yet

Waylanders️‍🌈: Not played yet

Temple of Elemental Evil️‍🌈: Not played yet

Knight Bewitched️‍🌈: The whole game is a romance between the two main characters, you can only have queer romance here as both characters are women (a witch and a knight). Amount of content: 4/5

previous parts: PART 1 - PART 2 - full list - full list of same sex romances with gender/names

[shaneplays]

The sequel to 1979's T1 The Village of Hommlet, T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil released a mere 6 years later from TSR in 1985. Dungeon magazine declared it the 4th greatest D&D module in 2004. Here's the first and second level of the nefarious temple itself… it's elementary, on Map Monday aka Dungeon Day!!

[joecrow]

Trying to get back to the writing thing, so I’m working on the whole #dungeon23 thing. Writing up the Black Fane, the Temple of Elemental Evil hack that I’m running right now. I’ve gotten the crew past Hommlet for the first time ever (I’ve run Hommlet like five different times over the decades) and got them into Nulb, where they’re doing kind of a Fistful of Dollars trip with Wat and Captain Tolub. That should keep them busy for a few more sessions.

The original Temple of Elemental Evil is an interesting idea, but a terrible execution. The whole “fake god” thing with Iuz and Zuggtmoy is dumb as hell, and the dungeon design is packed full of Old School Screwjob bullshit. So I’m just taking the idea of the Elder Elemental Eye and mashing some Tharizdun vibes into it, and ripping some ideas from Princes of the Apocalypse as well.

Keeping the whole “feuding elemental sub-temples” aspect, but adding a bunch of anti-cosmic nihilism to the cult as a whole. The Fane itself is a giant submerged upside down pyramid made of solid obsidian, all weird angles and subtly “off” proportions, that got pulled to the surface by the Voidseer, a mad prophet that contacted the Eye and persuaded it that the time was right to start the whole “reuniting the emanations of the Unmaker” project. Then the Voidseer got capped and his armies got tooled, and the Eye was bound within the Fane. Now the remnants of the cult are trying to restart the whole thing from what’s left of the Voidseer’s notes, looking for a way to break the bindings and find the lost Key that will let them contact the Eye.

But because they’re working from a nutball’s rantings and whatever fragmentary knowledge they remember from the first iteration of the Fane, they’re still kind of winging it. The outer elemental cults are feuding over who gets to run the missionary outreach and minion recruitment projects, and the inner cult is spending most of their time poking at the four Seals and searching the rubble inside the Fane for the Key. Some of the outer cults are starting the whole “wreck the world” stuff early, trying to start famines and other disasters to weaken the neighboring realms, and that’s clued the folks that’re paying attention that the cult is back in business. Hence the crew getting hired to look into things.

So, I’ll probably be putting up periodic bits from that whole project here, just to help me think on the page.

[allthoughts-headgay]

just played an adventure in the temple of elemental evil board game and i did an awesome turn

action 1: move adjacent to an enemy

action 2: use an item that lets me attack with 2 damage, killing the enemy

got the treasure card, which gives me 2 additional actions

action 3: attack a different enemy with my longbow, killing it

action 4: move and explore a new tile, it has an encounter and traps but no monsters, the encounter only has an effect if there are monsters in play, i just killed all the monsters

[kingtrash-fox]

A STORY FROM DND

So to set the scene my group is doing the Temple of Elemental Evil and my half elf character Valon and my friends cat folk character Mo got turned to stone by a Gorgon. Good news there’s a cure bad news it requires a pain in the neck process for a Aquamarine and a look through the Earth elemental domain.

During this search they had Polymorphed me into a Stone Mouse for easy carry and I was wondering if there was some way I could interact with the party in character. More good news there was BUT I had to by our Warlocks familiar is they essentially put my mind into a Owl Familiar. Then someone had the bright idea to Polymorph me into an Imp so I could use its invisibility to search around without being seen.

By some godly ability it worked and I had aquired a New magic +1 shield a Ring of Ball Lightning, a scroll of Lesser restoration. And the Location of a Singular Aquamarine by some Stone creatures with eyes and Tentacles that only ate rocks. They offered to help after we gave em an enchanted Axe and they pointed us to the fire elemental gem and gave us 2 aquamarine. After beating the monsters and getting the gem plus a Paralysis wand we were sent to the fire elemental’s domain and our dm informed us that the most likely way to get the Antidote was a Alchemist…which the player that was wasn’t there that day so at the moment all the work we did was for nothing

[vintagerpg]

D&D continued to return to the locations of classic adventures after the advent of 3E. Slavers came next, but I don’t have that one (and am not gonna, I don’t enjoy the Slave Lords modules enough to want to revisit them). Then came Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (2001).

If you recall from last year’s post on the original Temple of Elemental Evil, I don’t love it, basically. I like Hommlet and Nulb and the moathouse, but the temple itself, the elemental nodes, its function as both a prison for and hub of evil, it just doesn’t come together. So I should hate this, right? Nope! Monte Cook had a real talent for fiddling about with D&D as a body of canon lore and making things work. This book is no exception. Aside of the fact that it could stand to have 15-20% less combat encounters, I’d say it is pretty superior to the original in most ways!

Hommlet is still there, and the moat house. Lareth, too (though he is no longer bee-you-tee-ful). Nulb’s a ruin. So’s the temple, though there isn’t much there at the start. Instead, the second chapter leads to the Temple of All-Consumption and the cult of Tharizdun (thus tying things firmly to S4 and WG4). Only then does it become apparent what needs to be done to prevent the end of the world at the an excavation in the original Temple of Elemental Evil. It’s a good read and I expect it’s a good time to play through.

Brom’s on the cover. David Roach does good work inside — I believe this is one of the last D&D adventures with black and white interiors and honestly, that’s a tragedy.

And that’s it for returns, aside of the cyclical return to Castle Ravenloft. And, I guess, the bulk of the 5E campaign books. They’re always returning to familiar pastures.

[paishowhitelotus]

Rewatched book 1 after watching the live action and here is a list of everything that wasn’t in the live action that I think should have been :

Sokkas war paint

Saying the words “hair loopies”

Barely seeing the boomerang

Katara being able to calm down aang during the avatar state

The comet

Importance of mastering all 4 elements

Sokka dressing in kyoshi warrior clothing and learning the strength of women (removing and growing from his sexist beliefs)

Zukos honor /destiny (think it’s mentioned once?)

Mouthfoaming guy

Aang water bending

Roku manifesting and telling jeong jeong to teach aang firebending

Aang trying fire bending too soon and burning katara which leads to him being hesitant on learning firebending in book 3

Katara finding out about her healing abilities

Aang being selfish by keeping location of Sokka and kataras father from them

Aangs crush on katara

Aang doing everything he Can to heal his friends in the swamp

"Miyuki, did you get in trouble with Fire Nation again?”

Rokus dragon

Aang dealing with the guilt of leaving the southern air temple and all his people getting killed and not accepting his role as avatar

Sokkas intuition for recognizing Jets deceit

Sokka being a natural inventor (it’s barely even touched in the live action) Sokka is smart and creative

Katara’s dedication to learning water bending by stealing the scroll

Katara’s jealousy of aang being able to bend and learn faster than her

Kataras fierce determination and her take no shit personality

The cruelty of the fire nation by imprisoning earth benders into work camps (this is just one example)

Katara’s selflessness and bravery by getting herself imprisoned in the war camp and saving all the prisoners shows how much empathy Katara feels for people and always wanting to help those who can’t help themselves

Showing how master jeong jeong and others left the fire nations army because of its cruelty (fire nation people can be good and recognize the evil in their own ranks)

How aang feels upset about the disrespect and condition of the northern air temple/legacy of his people but accepts it in the end knowing they need this temple as their home

Using the fallen war balloon to create a fleet of airships in the final battle with Ozai

Appa being a badass and also fighting to protect aang multiple times

Iroh and his white lotus tile (this is important foreshadowing for later seasons)

The healer in the northern water tribe recognizing the betrothal necklace and realizing it belonged to her friend and kataras grandmother, kanna, who was engaged to master pakku of the northern tribe but left to live in the South Pole

Katara confronting pakku and telling him “I’ll be outside if you’re man enough to fight me” ( the challenge is off screen in live action, dumb choice tbh just glad we got to see the physical fight at least)

Pakku finding the betrothal necklace and talking about kanna and katara saying her gran left because “she wouldn’t let your stupid tribes customs control her life” which in turn makes pakku reconsider and start teaching katara waterbending

Pakku complementing kataras skill saying she’s has advanced faster than any other student he has trained (this shows how great and powerful of a water bender she truly is)

How strong the water benders are at night especially during the full moon

How the moon was the first water bender

Zuko kidnapping aangs body while he is in the spirit world

“You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun”

Not showing emotion to koh cause he’ll steal your face

Zuko talking to unconscious aang telling him how everything always came easy to his sister, she’s a firebending prodigy. Ozai telling Zuko that azula was “born lucky while Zuko was lucky to be born” (another instance of ozai’s cruelty as a father)

Talking about how iroh has been to the Spirit world

Zuko trying to challenge katara during a FULL MOON” “Here for a rematch?” “Trust me Zuko it’s not going to be much of a match” and then her kicking his ass in 5 seconds

Aang showing compassion to Zuko by saving him again despite Zuko kidnapping his body

Iroh staying with katara Sokka and yue after the moon spirit is killed (this shows his heart)

Yues body disappearing and her spirit kissing Sokka and her saying “I’ll always be with you”

The ocean spirit grabbing zhao and dragging him into the sea

Pakku wanting to help rebuild the southern water tribe

Pakku Calling her Master katara and saying she’ll train aang from now on

Azula appearing at the end and Ozai sending her on a task because Zuko is a failure and iroh is a traitor