The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun is the first adventure module of the “WG” (World of Greyhawk) series. Unusually, it has the code of WG4! Others have discovered that the original bearers of WG1 though WG3 were Village of Hommlet, Temple of Elemental Evil , and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Tharizdun is a companion adventure to Tsojcanth. Its map shows the mountains to the east of those in the earlier adventure. Gnome Vale appears on both maps, and its denizens hire the group to deal with a group of humanoids that raid the Vale.

The adventure is for a group that has been going through the Tsojcanth adventure, but it’s a little easier. The adventure text suggests a group of 4-8 PCs of levels 10-12. (The cover suggests levels 5-10).

The Empty Wilderness

The wilderness map design for Tharizdun is quite different than that of Tsojcanth. The earlier adventure almost has a line method of rendering the wilderness, while this uses a more traditional hex map. Unfortunately, the wilderness of this adventure is one of its low points: the hex-map is very hard to read, not very attractive, and is full of nothing. When I recently ran the adventure, the group quickly became lost amongst a lot of mountain paths that appeared the same, with a very low chance of having a random encounter. Only five of the twenty-two vales have an encounter in them!

I tried running this with the players mapping the hexes (as in the Isle of Dread). The experience was not good. I confused the players trying to describe the mountain passes. The lack of encounters meant we were spending a lot of time without getting to the fun.

Waves of Humanoids

Things look up once the adventurers get to the stronghold, as they immediately face a battle royale against gnolls, norkers, trolls, ogres, and giants as they protect their lair!

I find this a very entertaining battle. Gygax constructed it carefully, so that the players would face several waves of reinforcements. Any surviving humanoids would then hide down in the dungeon levels until they got a chance to escape or to wreak their revenge on the party.

Unusually, once this battle is completed, you’ve finished most of the adventure’s combat. What is left is exploration of an evocative setting. At the point that the adventure was written, no-one knew who Tharizdun was ; this is the first mention of the imprisoned god. There are a few minor monster lairs in the lower levels of the temple, but the players will mostly be exploring a strange, deserted temple.

The Forgotten Temple

This portion of the adventure could be deadly dull if the group doesn’t “get” the setting; they must discover the secret chambers in the upper level to progress further. Very little is spelt out for the players; they really need the DM to communicate the atmosphere of the place and to play up the great age of the temple: this a place that has been lost to the knowledge of today’s sages.

Things pick up on the lower level of the temple, where various statues of the aspects of Tharizdun tantalise the players. The final locations of the Undertemple and Black Cyst are tremendously evocative and possibly deadly if the players are reckless. Most evocative of all is the image of the trapped Tharizdun himself, which foreshadowed further appearances that would never happen quite as planned.

The adventure makes a lot of use of monsters from the recently published Fiend Folio, and introduces two new monsters itself: the Annis, a type of hag, and the Boggart, the immature form of a will-o-wisp. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Boggart is more dangerous than the full mature will-o-wisp; regardless, they are both good additions to the canon.

After the new monster-fest of Tsojcanth, the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun feels remarkably sparse as an adventure. Unlike most of Gygax’s adventures, this is an adventure that emphasises the setting over more mundane dangers. I very much enjoy the feel of this adventure, but it can get wearing for a group exploring empty room after empty room. It might be realistic, but realism is not always fun. Skipping past the exploration of the abandoned rooms and heading straight to the more interesting parts of the temple may be what your group needs to maintain their interest.

The Chained God

The adventure only briefly describes the dread deity Tharizdun only briefly described in this adventure, but the description is evocative, as is the telling of the last days of his cult.

While the description is more for the DM’s eyes than the players, I find it of a sort to inspire much play. Tharizdun is described as a deity of such power and evil that the other gods banded together to imprison it, for otherwise all creation was in danger!

Tharizdun’s name would soon appear in the World of Greyhawk boxed set with an alignment of “Evil”; not Neutral Evil, not Lawful or Chaotic Evil, just Evil. The concept of a god transcending the normal use of the word so that all gods, regardless of their position on the moral compass, had banded together to imprison it is a fantastic one, and one that later designers would occasionally use.

Gygax himself used Tharizdun as the ultimate foe in his Gord the Rogue novels. This plotline begins in the second book, Artifact of Evil, and proceeds until the final book, Dance of Demons. If you can find a copy, Artifact of Evil is worth reading for more information about the deity; his depiction in Dance of Demons is, alas, disappointing. (I don’t think any of the Gord books are that well written, but some have entertaining ideas).

In later products, Gygax’s two deities of Tharizdun and the Elder Elemental God (from the Giant/Drow series) were merged, despite the two not being particularly similar in concept. It is more understandable when you look at how much was written about the EEG, and then examine the trappings of both temples, which have many similar points of description. This is the Tharizdun or Elder Elemental Eye found in Monte Cook’s Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and, recently, Princes of the Apocalypse, but I prefer a version closer to that found in this adventure.

Closing Thoughts

Physically, the adventure looks quite primitive in terms of layout. The art seems somewhat messy but is suitably unearthly and disturbing; it helps make the adventure stand out from its peers.

The greatest tragedy of The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun is that Gary Gygax did not develop it further. Although only 1982, the first age of adventure modules was coming to an end. A new designer was coming to TSR, and that designer was to have a major effect on how adventures were written. That designer? Tracy Hickman. His first design was the classic Pharaoh, which I will cover in my next review.

As for the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun? It’s a fascinating adventure, with themes that have resonated, even if the adventure’s action does not hit the heights of other works.