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.