In the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, there’s a place known as the Temple of Elemental Evil. Although it was originally situated on the World of Greyhawk, I’m sure it’s appeared on many self-created worlds over the years. In its most recent incarnation, a new Temple of Elemental Evil was built in the north-east of Faerun, in the Forgotten Realms.
Here’s a very quick summary of the major adventures released around the concept:
- The Village of Hommlet (1979, AD&D)
- The Temple of Elemental Evil (1985, AD&D)
- Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (2002, D&D 3E)
- Princes of the Apocalypse (2015, D&D 5E)
The core storyline has rather changed over the years. The original story is key to the backstory of Greyhawk: the demoness Tsuggtmoy, wishing to gain more power for herself, fooled a bunch of humans (and others) into worshipping “elemental evil”, reasoning that it was far more attractive than just getting people to worship her beloved fungi. Having four cults (one for each of the classical elements) would increase the interest, with a secret core knowing their true sponsor.
When he saw this, the evil demigod Iuz, who rules one of the nearby nations in the World of Greyhawk, offered an alliance, which Tsuggtmoy accepted. Unfortunately, the nations of good realised that the Horde of Elemental Evil was rising, and managed to defeat it in the Battle of the Emridy Fields. Tsuggtmoy got imprisoned in the Temple, but Iuz escaped and went on to other things, only slightly supporting the survivors.
For survivors there were, and eventually they tried to rebuild the Temple, which is the point at which The Village of Hommlet and The Temple of Elemental Evil take place. Tsuggtmoy trapped, Iuz absent, and the adventurers exploring the theoretically ruined Temple for treasures, which actually has a lot of cultists within!
Along the way, the idea got corrupted a bit, with the Elder Elemental God (not appearing in this adventure) being merged with Tharizdun (also not appearing in this adventure) to become the true force behind Elemental Evil (take that, Tsuggtmoy and Iuz!) And so it goes in both Return and Princes. Tharizdun is trapped, he wants to be freed, and these cultists who think they’re using evil elements are actually working for his freedom!
I love the ideas behind the adventures. Unfortunately, when you get down to it, each of the adventures isn’t really that great. Village of Hommlet is likely the best, with a town of farmers turning out to be hiding a number of dangerous elemental cultists! However, there’s a lot of irrelevant details to get through. (Look for the 4E revision of the adventure; that’s the best take I’ve seen on Hommlet). The three actual “Temple” adventures all devolve into massive dungeon crawls, no matter how much effort was spent trying to distinguish the cultists from each other and providing interesting encounters. The original Temple rather lacks a lot of elemental features.
Look, I love dungeons as much as the next DM, but it’s hard running a story-driven campaign entirely in a dungeon. Dungeons tend to support a different flow of adventure, and the really big ones want to be reactive and to have new forces coming in.
Which is to say, the DM needs to do a lot more work! I think you could definitely have fun with any of the adventures – but you need to go beyond what’s just written on the page. Make them living dungeons, adding new forces to replace those destroyed, or wiping out one cult as its opposing cult take advantage of the disruption caused by the adventurers.
To be fair, the adventures do nod in that direction, but the DM needs a lot more ingenuity to go beyond the bare descriptions and make it something special.
The adventures I’ve enjoyed the most featuring Elemental Evil have been those produced by the D&D Adventurers League. This sequence of fourteen adventures, split into Tier 1 & 2 adventures, tell tales of Melvaunt, a trading town on the Moonsea, as it deals with a lot of elemental cultists running around, causing trouble. Some rather enjoyable adventures are found there – I’m very fond of Eye of the Tempest and The Howling Void. This series worked a lot better at concealing the true nature of the cultists than Princes did, in my opinion.
One thing I find frustrating is the way that Tharizdun has been placed into the story. Instead of Elemental Evil being about Tsuggtmoy and her deception in the service of gaining more power and spreading evil, instead you get this Cthulhu-ish deity of Ultimate Evil whose release would likely doom the world. It changes the story significantly, and the change doesn’t mesh that cleanly. Tsuggtmoy thinking “elemental evil is a concept humans will like more than evil fungi” is something understandable. Elemental Evil as a front for Tharizdun? Not as much. There are definitely good things about that take on it, but I prefer to keep Tharizdun separate.
The next time I run an Elemental Evil plotline in my campaign, I’m likely to return to the Tsuggtmoy story, and think more about exactly what the cultists want. Demons are about destruction and power – so destroying town, and setting up little puppet rulers in each so they serve the cult? That sounds good.
From there, you can have the characters tracking them back to a rebuilt Temple of Elemental Evil, and dealing with the power of the upper eschelon of cultists. Do I need to have too much? Probably not – but you provide complications with Iuz turning up to see what’s going on.
I think it’s quite important to define the goals of the cultists, and do so by using goals that affect the world around. If cultists blow up a village with a devastation orb and then enslave the survivors (including friends of the players?) Ooh, that gives motivation! Just “we’re in this dungeon, we don’t leave, and we study evil!” doesn’t work for me.
There’s one part of Elemental Evil that isn’t part of the original conception, but has proved quite popular: The Princes of Elemental Evil.
Interestingly, they weren’t conceived of by Gygax at all. They’re the creation of Lewis Pulsipher (a noted game designer) and first appeared in the Fiend Folio in 1981. Although you’ll find them appearing in the later Temples, the original temple is about the cultists using the power of the elements for evil ends rather than the elements being evil in of themselves!
There are also five original princes – one for each of Fire (Imix), Earth (Ogremoch), Water (Olhydra), Air (Yan-C-Bin) and… Cold (Cryonax)?
I can imagine a Temple somewhere that is more devoted to these princes, and with much more committed (and feuding) cultists. In fact, would they even be in the same location? Probably not – but four groups of elemental cultists serving the princes would likely give some good adventures. (It’s an idea that meshes well with the DDAL adventures, in fact).
However, for myself, I like Tsuggtmoy and Iuz so much more… so they’re likely to appear!
(Tsuggtmoy = Zuggtmoy, of course. She was spelt that way in the 1983 World of Greyhawk setting, and I’ve kept it ever since; I just prefer it for some reason!)
Thanks for the kind mention of Howling Void! When I wrote that I did my typical amount of over-research. I reread every single Elemental Evil source, and a lot of just elemental ones as well. There was not much for me to use, to be honest. I am not a huge fan of Return (though I greatly like parts of it, I find the whole does not work well even though it is theoretically a more modern take on ToEE). I am actually a huge fan of Homlett and ToEE, in part because I have played and run it so many times that I have seen it work in many different ways. It is hugely influential for me. But, the elemental nodes are very lackluster. And, like most adventures, there is very little actual lore. In many ways, Howling Void was me writing what I wish the air node had been like, plus the overall AL adventure idea (which comes from Princes) of these Devastation Orbs being powered up.
Back to ToEE, I’ve run it many times and each time it has felt like a classic. It is near unique in how much time is devoted to the slow and persistent reveal of information. I love the feeling of history lost, of danger building, and then finally learning what is taking place just at the level of the cult of elemental evil. The Zuggtomoy, Iuz, and Lolth angles are interesting, but I agree that they aren’t developed as strongly as they should be. I’ve never had a major problem with the dungeon not reacting. When I try to have dungeon respond too logically to PC raids, it ends up being a longer, more arduous, and less rewarding experience than the players usually want. I find that just a few minor touches (an ambush set by the fire temple, or an alliance offered by the air temple) is enough to satisfy the players with the _idea_ that the temple is responding. Beyond that, they want to clear bad stuff and be able to easily leave and return to the temple after each rest.
I do wish there was more about Tharizdun, but he seems to be deliberately something you should never encounter. He’s like a plot power source, always too far in the background to actually be faced. It’s like Lolth in the Giant series… you just aren’t going to meet her until the very end. Tharizdun is literally the end of all Greyhawk ends.
I think there were too many factions. Allegedly Iuz and Zuggmtoy were directing the 4 elemental cults, but there is no tie to Iuz or Zuggmatoy in Hommlet, the Moathouse, or the 100+ rooms of the first 2 levels of the dungeon. There could have been letter between an agent and a cleric, or a small idol or shrine somewhere, but nothing. The Moathouse has a cleric of Lolth, but then Lolth is not mentioned anywhere else in the dungeon. Though I enjoyed the elemental planes and orb of power, the theme of who was involved and why needed to be reinforced, I have not seen the 5e version so can not comment.