My 4E Greyhawk campaign, which I’ve been running since 4E first came out in 2008, is moving towards its final stages. The characters are mostly 24th level, and the story we’re now running should end the campaign. Although the campaign is normally played fortnightly, there have been breaks in it due to illness and the other things that afflict long-running campaigns. Three of the six players were there at the start, we’ve added three others as others have dropped out. 

As I grabbed material for yesterday’s session, I picked up Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil by Monte Cook, a large adventure that first came out during the 3E era (back in 2001!) It had not been my original intention to use the adventure, but I wanted a reference for the layout of the ruined Temple, as I’d been moving things in that direction. 

One of the fascinating things about the cosmology of 4E is how it’s rehabilitated Return in my eyes. When designing it, Monte Cook combined two separate deities of Gygax’s adventures into one: the Elder Elemental God and Tharizdun – often referring to them as the Elder Elemental Eye. The basic problem with this for me was that Gygax never intended the two to be the same; Tharizdun is the imprisoned embodiment of all evil, whilst the Elder Elemental God is a once-powerful god that has been forgotten. Of course, it’s slightly understandable why confusion may have occurred as Gygax does use certain tropes when he describes their temples which makes them appear similar… 

However, the 4E cosmology manages to integrate Tharizdun much better into the core world, making him the source of the Abyss – which is at the corrupted heart of the Elemental Chaos – and thus allowing him to be identified much more with Elemental Evil, and from there making the story of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil a lot more understandable in that context. I adore the 4E cosmology, and have adopted it wholeheartedly for my Greyhawk game rather than the old Great Wheel system, and expect to continue using it into the future no matter what version of D&D I use. 

Throughout the campaign, the group have occasionally run up against elemental priests of Tharizdun, although the group weren’t aware of their true allegiances. A few months ago, I adapted The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun to the campaign – using it as the portal to the realm of Acererak, who instead of using the power of the dead god Nerull for his own purposes (Nerull not being dead in my game), and also used it as an introduction to the concept of this forgotten, imprisoned god. After Acererak was dealt with (we’ve finally finished the 4E adventure, Tomb of Horrors), and with Adam returning to the game, I was able to send them into Castle Greyhawk where Tharizdun cultists had recovered some dangerous and powerful items from one of Zagyg’s vaults. The group chased them to Verbobonc, and it’s at that point we started yesterday’s session. 

Greg joined the game this session, and he made up a quite basic human fighter (slayer) character, who he decided was the state’s executioner. I took him aside and let him know the initial adventure set-up: A great blue dragon that had laired near Verbobonc had recently gone berserk; his previous adventuring party were slain when they tried to kill it, and it had fled south to near Hommlet (which is still part of the county of Verbobonc). He was needing to find new heroes to help slay this beast. 

I also took Adam aside and told him – as his bard would know – about the history of the Temple of Elemental Evil and it’s two previous failed uprisings. Within the history of my Greyhawk campaigns, the second attempt had been stopped by the party of my original player character, Meliander, now living in Ulek (and he’d met one of Adam’s previous PCs, so Adam was familiar with some of this history). 

I was extremely gratified to see that Adam and Greg really got into the spirit of it all and really began role-playing through the meeting of their characters and the arrival in Verbobonc. Martin and Josh participated, but it very much was the Adam and Greg show; it was helped along by NPCs who properly recognised the players as Very Important People and people (a) they should aid and (b) they should definitely not annoy! I had a copy of the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer with me, and its information was very useful for me as I fleshed out Verbobonc; the campaign is set about 15 years after the LGG date, so I just adjusted as I desired. 

Thus, the group were put up in the best inn, and saw the Viscount and his advisor, the venerable Bishop. (He’s described as old in the LGG, but as I’ve never used him before I didn’t see the need to make up a new character). His voice took on tones of Deckard Cain as I filled in some backstory for the PCs, and the group learnt that the cultists had been seen in the area and, more importantly, Adam’s old character, Archibald, had also been here. 

Archibald needs a little explanation: when we started this 4E campaign, Adam played a tiefling warlock. In a fight with a priest of Iuz, he betrayed the party and tried to kill Rich’s paladin. Since then, I’ve played him as an NPC who is somewhat friendly with the group (except for Rich) and tends to be a rival for whatever they’re looking for. He was the chief villain during my running of Logan Bonner’s Lost City adventure, for instance. He’s a great character to use, and it is fully my plan to make him the ultimate villain (or penultimate one, depending on how the game goes) of the campaign. Adam’s current character has been royally messed about by Archibald, which allowed Adam to inform the Viscount that this trusted warlock was indeed nothing of the sort! 

With the blessing of St Cuthbert bestowed upon them (a +1 to saves versus a lot of nasty effects), the group travelled to Hommlet on Adam’s Phantom Steeds, one of the more used rituals in our campaign. There they visited Rufus and Burne, now quite elderly, and were directed to the Moathouse where the dragon had made its lair. 

The group were able to ascertain that the dragon had indeed been ensorcelled and forced to this location (its earlier frenzy near Verbobonc had been a result of its trying to resist the ensorcellment) and soon launched an attack. At this stage, I was cribbing from the Return adventure, although I’d changed the specifics of the dragon’s involvement (in the original, it had attacked the cultists – this time around, they’d summoned it). The dragon was also just a small one befitting 4th level characters. This was an elder blue dragon in my version, and the resulting combat was brilliantly epic. 

I occasionally get frustrated by the length of 4E’s combats, but this one was meant to be a major encounter and it fulfilled that admirably; Greg’s slayer took massive damage as he inflicted it back on the dragon, and it moved around and shrugged off a number of controlling tactics from Adam and Martin’s PCs. The group were extremely grateful to have Adam’s healing abilities. Well, Greg and Josh were (Martin mainly stayed out of the line of fire). The stats were from the Monster Vault, and when it finally fell the group really felt they’d earned the victory. 

Investigation of the moathouse allowed the group to see signs of cultist activity – especially the remnants of the ritual to summon the dragon, which had involved human sacrifice. They also found the secret passages leading down into the dungeons. There they confronted the first of the elemental cultists – a fire priests flanked by burning skeletons. This combat ran a lot shorter than the first, and with its successful conclusion, the group found what the cultist had been studying: a group of items mostly related to Tharizdun. Martin instantly recognised the torch and its incense (they’d used similar items in the Forgotten Temple) and the scroll giving instructions to enter the Black Cyst was promptly destroyed by the group. 

At this point, we’d reached the end of our time – we’d spent some time welcoming Greg to the group, an hour in the initial role-playing encounters (fantastic!), another hour or so fighting the dragon, and the remainder of the time had been in the initial exploration of the moathouse. I was extremely happy with how the session had gone. 

I’d also used far more of the Return adventure than I’d originally intended, but the moathouse (in particular) is wonderfully suited to my purposes. All I needed to do was replace the original 3E low-level threats with 4E high-level threats – the priestess of the original adventure got replaced by a Fire Giant Priest of Imix – although scaled down in size, the abilities fit – and the regular skeletons got replaced by Blazing Skeletons (scaled up from 4th to 24th level!) I’m extremely in debt to Wizards Adventure Tools, which allow me to reskin monsters very easily. The dragon was a Elder Blue Dragon, scaled up to level 25 (from level 20). It really doesn’t take long to prepare 4E games, for which I’m very grateful. 

Next week we return to Martin’s Deadlands Noir campaign, which I’m really enjoying, and the week after it will be continuing with Return. I’m not sure how I’ll deal with the megadungeon that follows – I’ll probably use it, but slimmed down greatly (and with a lot of minions). We’ll see how it goes!