Wednesday, February 28, 2018

DM'S COMMENTARY ON THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL, PT 4.

I was a little surprised that the players decided to retreat out of the temple dungeons and back to the farmyard.  But given that Commander Feldrin went to get reinforcements and they had already used up many of their resources, it made sense for them to pull back now rather than try to hide deeper in the dungeon that is already alerted to their presence.

I took this opportunity to give them some back ground information in the form of a vision fed to the halfling monk Coppyr.  Since Coppry is a Ghostwise halfling from the Forgotten Realms setting, I decided that his mental ability and his other-planar origins, gave the Elder Element Eye (Tharizdun) access to him, so throughout the battle I told the halfling's player that he heard this voice speaking to him in his head.  This connection is what allows the halfling to receive the vision mentioned in my campaign diary, and is meant to give clues to the Elder Elemental Eye's true identity, but also to shine the spotlight on the Zuggtmoy/Iuz alliance and the golden skull artifact.  This will be more significant as they learn what the skull represents.

The fight at the farm was set up on the fly since I didn't know that they would be leaving the temple and returning later, so I had to set up a quick map in Roll20, which was no problem since I have tons of maps purchased and acquired from various sources on the internet.  So I threw together the map as they decided on an attack plan and that fight took us to the end of the session.


I was a little disappointed that this session did not progress them through the dungeon, but it was a necessary break.  I also made it clear to the players that they would not level up until the milestone of clearing out the temple dungeon was met.  So their choice was abandoning this mission for another one (which I gave them plenty of adventure options in a previous session), but they decided that they needed to end the threat of this cult.  Hopefully next week we'll get the dungeon completed and they'll level up to 5th before hitting the individual elemental temples and nodes. 

OLD SKOOL CAMPAIGN DIARY - THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL, PT 4

THE HEROES:


  • Anton Loyalar: Oeridian Paladin of Heironeous
  • Coppyr: Halfing Monk
  • Eli Pendar: Flannish Cleric of Pholtus
  • Tharn: Dwarf barbarian of the Fireforge clan

In tonight's adventure, the heroes continued their fight against the bugbear squad led by the human Commander Feldrin.  The heroes were winning the fight when Feldrin escaped to get reinforcements.  The heroes used this opportunity to leave the temple and to head to the abandoned farm they found as the end of the tunnel.

Upon exiting the tunnel through the well, they decide that the barn may not be a safe place to rest since the occupants of the temple know of the hero's presence, so they decide to head back to Nulb to regroup.  En route an unnatural storm develops, with high winds and rain.  The heroes enter Nulb under the cover of this storm and enter an abandoned building and set up watches.  That evening, they notice a group of humanoids in hooded cloaks entering town from the direction of the temple and note that some are bugbear and hobgoblins.  They see Commander Feldrin as well, and the group begins entering buildings and seem to be searching for the heroes.  But with the bad storm, they soon give up and head back to the temple. 

That night, Coppyr has a strange dream:

You awaken in a strange place filled with cultists from the temple.  None seem to be aware of your presence and all seem to have their attention on two in the center of the structure you are in.  The two are an old, hunched over man and a very tall female.  Upon closer examination, the old man bears a divine mantle and you instantly know him to be Iuz the Old!  The female is not a humanoid at all, but a 12' tall demon of fungus known as Zuggtmoy!  Both are holding on to an item of power shared by both of them; a golden skull with four elemental gems affixed to it; a fire gem, a water gem, an earth gem and an air gem.  The skull seems to have some great significance…

You see the scene move in reverse time, in rapid succession, going back hundreds, if not thousands of years.  You now see the temple as it was long ago, and it is not one dedicated to the four elements as it is today, but one dedicated to the Gods of the Greyhawk Pantheon.  You see dozens of gods represented here; Pholtus, Heironeous, Hextor, Obad Hai, Nerull, and many others.  But one place in the temple stands out, as it seems that it was once dedicated to a god, but all traces of that god have been removed, as if the other gods wished to eradicate its existence from the knowledge of mortals. 

You then are sent reeling back to your own time and you see one final image flash before you before awakening, and that is the image of an ever-swirling spiral…

Coppyr awakens and tells the others of his strange vision.  The others don't know what to make of it, other than Zuggtmoy was the demon that Anton's brother helped fight at the Battle of Emridy Meadows and it took the combined might of the Knights of the Hart and the Alliance of Good's priestly and arcane casters to push back the demon into the temple and to place her in stasis within.  The wards upon the temple are as much to keep her in as it is to keep others out.  Neither Anton nor Eli knew anything about the significance of the skull or the spiral symbol.

The heroes decide on a plan to reenter the temple and head towards the abandoned farm.  They find the farmyard around the entry well, guarded by a dozen hobgoblins and an ogre.  They take the guards by surprise, attacking them with ranged weapons initially, then with melee weapons.  The hobgoblins focus on the heroes while the ogre stands guard at the well, but as the battle starts to go badly for the hobgoblins, they motion to the others to go into the well and warn the temple.  A hobgoblin goes in, but is followed by an invisible Coppyr, who takes him out.  Another hobgoblin goes in and is also stopped by the halfling.  The ogre, tired of sitting by while the hobgoblins have all the fun, enters the fray, but is beaten down by the heroes.  With the guards to the entry well defeated, the heroes prepare to re-enter the tunnel leading to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

End of session.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

DM'S COMMENTARY ON THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL PT 3.

The players complained to me, again, about when this adventure will get easy, joking that we seem to still be playing Shadow of the Demon Lord.  My response to them was, "You realize that the original adventure was written by Gary Gygax, right?"  This pretty much shut down the complaint, but the gripe came from the fact that in short time they had been in the temple dungeons, they'd had fought a couple of goblins, a water elemental, 4 shadows, and evaded a search party that ended up finding them and starting another fight.  Their resources are somewhat depleted, but they hadn't adventured long enough to be able to take another long rest and get any benefit from it.  So they pressed on (mostly prompted by the pompous knight) but the fights weren't getting any easier. 

This is EXACTLY what I wanted to have happen!  I wanted them to be aware of the fact that this vast complex was alive, aware of their presence, and actively searching for them.  There would be little to no rest for them as long as they stayed in the dungeons.  I gave them an out in the last session by showing them an abandoned farmhouse not far from the temple where they could potentially retreat to, but they haven't even thought about retreating yet.  Hopefully, they will remember this before they exhaust all of their resources and get too deep into the complex to get back out.

To reiterate what I mentioned in another commentary, this isn't the same layout as the one presented in the ToEE module.  Instead, I took a map from Roll20 (made by the excellent map maker Gabriel Pickard) and took interesting rooms from the original module to populate this map.  I compressed dungeon levels 1 and 4 into one level, essentially, and separated the elemental temples into separate sections of the dungeons (also using excellent elemental temple maps by the same Gabriel Pickard).  So, to be fair to the players, there are not a lot of unoccupied places the characters can hide in and rest like there were in the original module.  I wanted to keep this adventure lean and fast-paced, so I cut out a lot of fat in the process of consolidating it.  To compensate, the heroes will find some potions that will help to refresh them somewhat, providing they defeat Commander Feldrin and his bugbears.  Feldrin has a key to the vault where the temple's treasures are stored, and inside the heroes will find potions and scrolls to help them along.  I plan to try out a Potion of Mana to aid the priest in restoring some spell slots since the heroes can't take a long rest for many hours yet.  I've never used this kind of spell slot restoring device in a 5e game, so I'm going to control it carefully to ensure it doesn't break the game.  I'm going to say that Potions of Mana are extremely rare and hoarded by casters everywhere, so they can't go buy them like they can other types of potions. We'll see how that goes.

So far I'm happy with how things have gone in my revision of the ToEE.  I'm not done populating the elemental temples yet, and had a close call when the heroes wanted to try going into the water temple, so I deterred them by having two water elemental myrmidon standing guard at the entrance, which bought me some time.  For the elemental temples I plan on stealing liberally from not only the original module, but also from the 5E Princes of the Apocalypse adventure.  In fact the temple priests and their servants are all going to be drawn from that resource.  However, I really want the heroes to finish the main dungeon before they go into the elemental dungeons because that is the milestone I have set for them to level to 5th level, but also they will meet NPCs that will give them information they need to figure out what is going on in this place and put a stop to it.  Currently the PCs just think there's a bad cult here summoning elementals for a war.  They have no idea that the banished god Tharizdun is trying to get back into this multiverse through the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye and, unless they destroy the golden orb and the demon Zuggtmoy, who has the seed to Tharizdun within her, the God will be born back into this reality and will signal the beginning of the end!


Anyway, great fun so far!  I love taking adventures like this and making them mine.

OLD SKOOL CAMPAIGN DIARY - THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL, PT 3

THE HEROES:
  • Anton Loyalar: Oeridian Paladin of Heironeous
  • Coppyr: Halfing Monk
  • Eli Pendar: Flannish Cleric of Pholtus
  • Tharn: Dwarf barbarian of the Fireforge clan

Picking up where we left off, our heroes engage in battle with the water elemental that Eli inadvertently summoned.  In a surprise move, the water elemental engulfs Tharn and holds him fast for several moments.  Eli and Coppyr fight the elemental and Anton manages to pull Tharn out of the creature, only to then become engulfed with Tharn.  But the heroes disperse enough of the monster's watery mass to disrupt its hold on this plane and the elemental returns to its native plane. 

The heroes move on from that room, looking for a place to catch their breath.  The find a hall that leads to the Temple of Water, but by pass that and enter a hall that leads to a room of black stone.  With no apparent threats in this room, the heroes attempt to get some rest, but before they can get a good rest in, they are attacked by two undead creatures known as shadows, whose hatred of life and hunger for the life force of the living draws them to the heroes.  Eli manages to force back the shadows using the power of his faith, but two more shadows hiding in the room emerge and attack.  The heroes fight the creatures and destroy them and attempt to rest again when voices outside of the door they came in are heard and an apparent search is underway for the heroes.  The voice in charge orders the water temple searched and says that it's not necessary to search the Black Room for the shadows will handle anyone going in there. 

The voices go away and the heroes can now relax for a bit.  While resting, Anton attempts to force open the only other door in the room, which is a strong, iron door that is locked.  He is unable to force the door open. 

Upon finishing their rest, the heroes depart and return to the sacrificial temple, but hear two ogres outside of the entrance.  They explore the other exit of the room, but find another locked door with strange scraping sounds coming from the other side.   The group backtracks and tries to come up with a plan to lure the ogres in the room, but the dumb brutes don't fall for Coppyr's attempts at opening the door and piquing their curiosity. 

The heroes then hear the other door open and voices and footfalls heading in their direction.  They try to hide in the sacrificial temple as the bugbear search party returns, led by a human in studded leather armor.  The human, Commander Feldrin, tells the bugbears that the intruders must have gone into the Black Room and they had better not have gotten into the vault or someone named "Hedrack" would be very angry.  At that point, Anton accidentally hits the pillar he hides behind with his shield, giving away his position. Commander Feldrin orders the bugbears to attack!

Session ends in mid-combat.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

OLD SKOOL CAMPAIGN INTERLUDE - ELSEWHERE, IN THE TEMPLE...

Commander Hedrack relaxes in his bedchambers, the two young slave women that he had spent the morning with were sleeping, or unconscious; he wasn't sure which and really didn't care.  They served their purpose.  He rises from bed and prepares to pour himself a glass of wine when   someone knocks on his door.

"Come" he said, as the wine pours into the glass.

The door opens and Commander Feldrin enters.  "Sorry to disturb you, my lord, but we have a problem."

"What is it now, Feldrin?  Are the priests going at it again?"  Hedrack takes a sip and realizes his robes are open.  He doesn't bother closing them.  The commander averts his eyes, concentrating on looking at Hedrack's head.  He darts a quick glance over at the bed where the two girls lay and he secretly hopes that Hedrack doesn't have the red headed one sacrificed.  She had caught his eye a few days ago when his troops brought in the latest catch.  He still hoped to get sloppy seconds.

"The mercenary Zert says that the group that he had encountered outside of Hommlet have found their way here.  They're up in the tower and it's not looking good for the guards.  It's only a matter of time before they find the hatch and the tunnel and make their way into these dungeons."

Hedrack takes another sip then something dawns on him.  "Wait, aren't these the ones that we sent the assassin to take care of?"

"Yes sir" replied Feldrin.

"I assume that means that he failed then."  The tone in Hedrack's voice was that of annoyance. 

"Yes sir.  I sent some people after him to reclaim the sum he collected from us for the job.  They'll ensure that he is not a loose end."  Feldrin shifted uneasily as one of the girls fell of the bed and hit her head on the black tile floor.  She didn't wake up.  At least it wasn't the red-head.

Hedrack sips his wine, then after a moment passes with no further information from Feldrin, he puts his glass down and faces the man.  "Well, what else do you have to tell me Feldrin.  Can't you see I'm in the middle of my morning workout?"

"I'm sorry sir, but this group is apparently well armed and they have a Knight of the Hart and a Pholtus priest in their number.  If the assassin couldn't take even one of them out, then they are also very resourceful."

Hedrack stands and faces Feldrin, robe wide open.  "You are concerned that this group can disrupt our operation here, is that it?"

Feldrin turns his head to look at the wall.  "Yes sir. As I said, they seem to be…"

"Yes, I heard you Commander" interrupts Hedrack.  "I'm not interested in this group of tomb robbers.  Deal with them.  I have bigger concerns weighing upon me.  If this isn't a matter about the priests, the summonings of the elementals into our army, or a change in the status of the wards imprisoning the Lady Zuggtmoy, then I don't care.  Understood?"

Feldrin looks at Hedrack again and the priest smiles as the fear that should have been there all along creeps into the Commander's eyes.  "Y…yes sir.  I just thought…"

"You are not here to think, Feldrin, you are here to keep prying eyes away from this place so that we can finish our work and begin the task of making the nations of Veluna and Furyondy pay for their interruption of Lord Iuz's plans!  If you can't handle the job, I’m sure I can add another name to the list of sacrifices to be made today!  Do I make myself clear, Commander?"

"Perfectly clear sir.  My apologies for the interruption.  I will head up to the tower myself with the bugbear and handle it."  He turns to leave, when Hedrack responds and he stops.

"Do not fail Lord Iuz, Feldrin.  You know what happens to those that do…"

The Commander turns his head slightly, then continues walking out and shuts the door behind him. 

Hedrack scowls and opens his wardrobe and begins dressing.  He was hoping to get another round in with the ladies, but this news has bothered the priest more than he let on with Feldrin.  If this is the same group that reportedly took out Lareth in the moathouse, then they are, indeed, a problem.  But Commander Feldrin is a capable warrior and the bugbear always enjoy an unfair fight.  

Hedrack finishes dressing, summons a guard to take the ladies back to their cells and goes into the adjoining chamber to make his report to Lord Iuz.  He is somewhat nervous, as his report is a few days overdue and this latest news of interlopers is not something that he needs at the moment.  They are already behind schedule because of the constant bickering of the elemental priests.  The army of elementals should be at least twice as large as it is.  But at least he has some good news to share with his lord.

The shrine room to Iuz the Old lights magically as Hedrack enters.  He kneels before the altar and concentrates, praying to his god.  A moment later he hears the familiar voice whispering in his mind.  

"HEDRACK, MY CHILD.  WHAT NEWS FROM THE TEMPLE?"

Hedrack looks up and sees the visage of Iuz, a disembodied head floating above the altar.  He has taken on his "old man" countenance, which he does when he is at peace, which is fortunate for Hedrack.  "My Lord Iuz the Almighty and Righteous Ruler of the Flanaess!  Skull King!  Lord of Bones!  He Who Walks Between Worlds!  Your faithful servant Hedrack seeks Your guidance and wisdom."

"SPEAK, VOICE OF IUZ."

Hedrack rises and clears his throat.  "My Lord, plans proceed more slowly than anticipated.  There has been bickering between the elemental temples and the priests are constantly attempting to betray each other.  It is only by your power, invested through me, Your humble servant, Your Voice, that has kept them from betraying the truce and prevented all out war between the temples.  But production has suffered.  My deepest apologies my Lord."

"THIS WAS ANTICIPATED, MY CHILD.  I FORESAW THE DIFFICULTIES YOU WOULD ENCOUNTER AND I HAVE TAKEN STEPS TO VEER EYES AWAY FROM YOU TO BUY YOU TIME.  CONTINUE YOUR WORK WITH THE PRIESTS.  NOW, WHAT NEWS OF YOUR OTHER DUTY?  HAVE YOU MADE CONTACT WITH HER?"

Hedrack breathes a sigh of relief and regains his confidence.  "Yes, Lord Iuz.  Contact has been made and she is aware of our attempts to free her.  The Golden Orb has successfully breached the damnable defenses placed there by the Alliance, but the connection is weak.  Still, she knows that my Lord still seeks to free her and that has given her renewed strength."

"EXCELLENT.  SHE IS OUR ONLY LINK TO THE ELDER EYE, HOWEVER SHE IS ALSO THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS CHANNELED THE ELDER EYE'S POWER.  WE KNOW NOT WHAT EFFECT THAT HAS HAD UPON HER WHILE SHE SLUMBERED.  NOR DO WE KNOW IF THAT CONNECTION CONTINUES.  IF SHE CAN BRING FORTH THE ELDER EYE FROM HIS REALM TO COMMAND THE ARMY OF ELEMENTALS, THEN WE WILL BE UNSTOPPABLE!"

"Yes, Lord, it will be glorious!"

"HEED ME, HEDRACK.  THE ORB IS A POWERFUL ARTIFACT CRAFTED BY MYSELF AND THE LADY ZUGGTMOY AND MISTRESS LOLTH.  USE SPARINGLY AND WITH CARE.  WHEN NOT IN USE, REMOVE THE ELEMENTAL GEMS AND HIDE THEM IN THEIR ELEMENTAL NODES SO THAT THEY MAY RECHARGE THEIR POWER.  GUARD THE ORB WITH YOUR LIFE, FOR IT IS THE LADY ZUGGTMOY'S WEAKNESS.  SHOULD THESE INTERLOPERS THAT SEEK TO DISRUPT MY PLANS GAIN POSSESSION OF IT, THE LADY ZUGGTMOY COULD BE IN PERIL.  YES, I KNOW OF YOUR TROUBLES, HEDRACK MY SON.  YOUR MIND AND SOUL IS OPEN TO ME.  THE KNIGHT, THE PRIEST, THE OFFWORLDER MONK, AND THE OUTCAST DWARF ARE UNWITTING AGENTS OF LAW, WHOSE FORCES CONTINUE TO MOVE AGAINST THE ALLIANCE I BUILT WITH THE LADY ZUGGTMOY AND MISTRESS LOLTH.  BUT I WILL NOT BE SO EASILY TWARTED!"

Hedrack's nervousness returns as Iuz's rage grows, his countenance changes from that of an old man to that of a monstrous demon!

"GO NOW AND FIND THE AGENTS OF LAW, HEDRACK!  USE ALL OF THE FORCES IN YOUR COMMAND, FOR THEY MUST NOT GAIN THE GOLDEN ORB!"

Hedrack bows in reverence and says, "As you command, Lord Iuz." 

The priest goes back to his  chambers, dons his armor and weapons and summons the wizard Falrinth and Redhand, the monk.

OLD SKOOL CAMPAIGN - THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL, PT 2

THE HEROES:
  • Anton Loyalar: Oeridian Paladin of Heironeous
  • Coppyr: Halfing Monk
  • Eli Pendar: Flannish Cleric of Pholtus
  • Tharn: Dwarf barbarian of the Fireforge clan

The battle continues upon the wall and the roof of the tower.  The heroes defeat the remainder of the guards outside the tower and while Tharn and Anton attempt to enter through the front door, Coppyr goes in through a hatch in the roof.  Eli manacles the unconscious guard that Anton had knocked out and then goes down the ladder to follow his companions.

Within the tower, several more human guards, led by a half orc verteran, seem ready for the heroes and fire crossbows as soon as the doors open, but few hit their marks.  Tharn and Anton enter and take on the guards while Eli comes in from behind and blasts them with Pholtus' holy power.  They find the mercenary Zert within the tower, who also engages them in combat, but when the fight starts to go against the guards, Zert turns tail and runs through a door, away from the fight. 

The heroes beat all of the guards and the half orc is the last to drop.  They search the place and find the belongings of the guards and the veteran, and apparently some of the items they've acquired from their raids.  The heroes collect the sizable sum of treasure and find a secret hatch in the floor that leads down into a tunnel; presumably the way that Zert escaped.  When they investigate, they find the tunnel leads both away from and further towards the temple.  They take the tunnel away from the temple and find that it ends in the nearby woods in a well by an abandoned farmhouse and barn. 

They backtrack towards the temple and the earthen tunnel leads to an area of worked stone that has a concealed door.  Voices were heard beyond the stone door and when they open it to peek out, they see goblins and hobgoblins in the area.  Anton enters the hall and draws the two closest goblins towards the group, where they do away with them easily.  With luck they find that they did not draw the attentions of the goblins and hobgoblins further down the hall, so the group sneak out of the tunnel and towards the nearest door. 

Within they find a temple dedicated to the four elements: Fire, Water, Earth and Air and the Elder Elemental Eye.  The see two sacrificial altars, fresh with blood stains from a recent sacrifice.  They search the room but Eli inadvertently steps on one of the elemental glyphs and summons a huge water elemental!


End of session.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

DM's COMMENTARY: TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL PT 1

I've just started the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure and I'm making pretty sweeping changes to the original module.  One reason is that one of my players ran it back in the day.  But the main reason is that the adventure is a bit of a slog and, story-wise, a bit of a mess.  After reading through it a couple of times, I still don't really know what the purpose of the elemental cult is, why Iuz and Lolth have an interest in it or why the minor demon lord Zuggtmoy is involved.  So I had to develop a storyline that makes sense to me so that I can run a coherent adventure.  My storyline is as follows:

Over a dozen years ago, the Temple of Elemental Evil rose in power, attracting followers and growing a massive army of demi-humans.  The power behind the temple was believed to be an entity known only as the Elder Elemental Eye, but the actual masterminds was an alliance between the demigod Iuz, the demon queen of spiders Lolth, and the minor demon lord Zuggtmoy, who approached the other two with the plan to contact this entity she had discovered known only as the Elder Elemental Eye, who promised her and her allies immeasurable power if they could summon it into the material world.  And so the three worked to spread the word of the power the temple had to offer its followers, attracting many who were directionless or that desired such power. 

The plan was to secretly grow the power of the temple as the nature of the Elder Elemental Eye was researched, but Zuggtmoy was contacted directly by the Elder Elemental Eye and granted a fraction of its power, making her vastly more powerful.  Drunk with power, she double-crossed her partners and ordered the forces of the temple to begin sacking settlements in the surrounding area. 

Over a short time, this force threatened the stability of the region and caught the attentions of the neighboring nations, who formed an alliance to confront the threat posed to Furyondy, Veluna, Celene and others.  The Knights of the Hart led the forces of the alliance against the initial confrontation with the forces of Elemental Evil.  The conflict became known as the Battle of Emridy Meadows, for where it took place.  It was a bloody confrontation and the forces of the temple outnumbered those of the alliance 3:1.  But the righteous knights emboldened the alliance and overcame the odds, defeating the forces of Elemental Evil, driving them back to the Temple of All Consumption.  There, the final battle took place.  The temple's forces were led by Zuggtmoy herself, and the temple's last stand was costly to both sides.  The Knights of the Hart, along with a cabal of powerful arcanists, managed to drive the power mad Zuggtmoy back into the temple and seal her in using powerful magicks. 

The Temple of Elemental Evil was defeated and it's (known) leader was trapped within for all eternity.   Or so everyone believed…

Unbeknownst to the alliance, the servants of Iuz and Lolth secretly continued to work to discover the secrets of the Elder Elemental Eye.  Over the last dozen years since the battle, they worked to build a tunnel into the dungeons below the temple where the separate elemental temples were found.  Iuz and Lolth were intrigued by the power bestowed upon Zuggtmoy and they wanted to tap into that as well.  Within the dungeons they found the temples still active and having successfully formed elemental nodes in which to bridge the gap from the Elder Elemental Eye's realm and the material world.  But Iuz and Lolth were hesitant to open the gateway until they knew what the Elemental Eye was, exactly, for their attempts to research it's nature and intent failed and the followers of the Eye were nearly mindless drones that offered no insight.  Iuz sent his trusted servant Hedrack to the temple to try and commune with Zuggtmoy and learn from her what the Eye was and how to tap into its power as she had.

As the campaign begins, Hedrack has made headway into contacting Zuggtmoy through the powerful magic imprisoning her inside the temple by using an enchanted throne that has a connection to the temple structure above through the use of a mysterious golden orb found in the dungeons.  Lolth's servant Lareth was charged with funding the operation by using bandits and raiders over a wide area to rob travelers and send the funds to the temple.  Lareth gets careless and lets his bandits operate a little to close to his base of operations in the moat house near the village of Hommlet.  This attracts the attentions of the heroes, who then investigate the moat house, discover Lareth's operation and shut it down.  In the process, the learn of Lareth's connection to the former Temple of Elemental Evil and decide to go investigate it next.

That is how I changed the backstory to make sense to me.  I have changed the actual adventure by consolidating the dungeon levels somewhat.  I now have one dungeon level, which is smaller than any of the ones in the module,  where Hedrack stays and does his work.  I also have 4 smaller elemental dungeons where the cultists do their communing and where the connections to the elemental nodes are found.  The cultists are following the directions from the Elder Elemental Eye and summoning an army of elementals and with plans to summon an elemental prince from each elemental plane to lead the army.  I'm arming the elemental priests with the elemental weapons from the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure.  Once summoned elemental princes will open the portal to the Elder Elemental Eye's realm and bring it forth into the material world to conquer.

My plan is to have the heroes learn about Hedrack's mission, the plans of the elemental priests, and that they have to close the elemental nodes in order to stop the summoning of the elementals and to prevent the elemental princes of evil from coming through.  To stop the heroes, Hedrack will lead them to Zuggtmoy for the final battle.  Once they confront her, they learn the secret of the Elder Elemental Eye (it's really Tharizdun) and learn that there are other efforts underway to free the Chained God, which may lead them to the adventures Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun.


That's the plan and we'll see how badly my players derail it.

OLD SKOOL CAMPAIGN DIARY - THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL PT1

THE HEROES:
  • Anton Loyalar: Oeridian Paladin of Heironeous
  • Coppyr: Halfing Monk
  • Eli Pendar: Flannish Cleric of Pholtus
  • Tharn: Dwarf barbarian of the Fireforge clan
Our heroes approach the infamous Temple of Elemental Evil, or as the locals call it, the Temple of All Consumption.  They see that there has been some recent foot traffic on the path leading to and into the compound and some weak attempts to hide the tracks. 

The entire complex is surrounded by the ruins of a wall that towers some 30 feet and is overgrown with vegetation.  The temple itself seems devoid of such growth.

The temple grounds are entered and movement is detected on the west side.  Upon investigating, the heroes spot dozens of earth elementals milling about.  They check out the east side of the temple and it has dozens of fire elementals.  As they watch, more elementals appear, as if being summoned by some unseen force.  The elementals do not seem to notice the heroes. 

Upon attempting to approach the temple's front doors, which are huge bronze doors that have been secured with a massive chain and have been engraved with glowing runes, the heroes find themselves immediately repulsed by the runes and the powerful antipathy magic they contain.  The legends of the temple and the magical protections placed upon it to prevent entrance or escape, seem to be true.

Unable to enter the temple, the heroes look around for other ways in and spot tracks leading around the eastern edge of the wall.  They follow them and eventually spot water and air elementals at the back of the grounds.  They also spot a tower that has been cleared of the wild overgrowth and movement around the tower.  The heroes try to get a closer look by climbing the wall.  While on the wall, the heroes spot a unit of bugbear patrolling the exterior of the wall. After they pass, the heroes find they must climb down the wall and then back up to get around a ruined tower in their path.  They succeed, but the clumsy Anton alerts the guards on the wall close to the occupied tower and a battle breaks out.

The heroes fight on the wall as the various temple guards, all bearing the flaming eye symbol of the temple, fight with crossbows and melee weapons.  The heroes manage to kill the guards on the wall, but the ones on the ground alert the occupants of the tower and an ettin steps out and enters the combat.  Climbing the wall, the ettin engages the heroes directly as other guards appear on the top of the tower and begin firing crossbows down at the heroes. 

Coppyr uses his ring of invisibility to great effect, knocking guards off the walls and to their deaths.  Eli keeps the party's injuries under control as Tharn and Anton fight off the guards and ettin.


Session ends mid-combat and will continue next week.