The Temple of Elemental Evil is a megadungeon. It is 145 pages long from cover to cover. It consists of four installments. This module was written by Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer. It is set in the Wold of Greyhawk. The adventure was published by TSR in 1985.
Long ago a powerful demon was trapped and bound deep in a dungeon far beneath the earth. That demon is working it’s way free again. Two villages stand in close proximity to the ruins of this evil and desolate place. But the ruins are not uninhabited. New forces of evil, and good, have moved into these ruins.
What I like about the Temple of Elemental Evil
In the summer of 1980 I was visiting my grandparents in the Biloxi, Mississpi area when I came across part of this module for the first time. It was at a KB toy store in a nearby mall. Up to this point all I had seen from TSR were the various giant modules and the Tomb of Horrors. I had not yet read any of the others. But I stumbled on T1 Village of Hommlet at this mall in a place I really never expected to find any Dungeons and Dragons stuff. Village of Hommlet was a stand alone product at the time. There was no “Temple of Elemental Evil” yet. None of the other T series installments had yet been published. Nor would they be for five more years. When I first bought this module I did not not what to expect. Or what to do with it. It seemed as if it was just intended to be a starting village for low level adventurers. And that is what I used it for.
At this point I was just starting High School. The Dungeons and Dragons group that I began with in 1979 only lasted until about ’81 or ’82. I started a couple of groups of my own with others from high school. But nothing really consistent was formed. After a few years I was off to college and more or less forgot about D&D for a while. The other installments of the series came out during that time I was not really into the game all that much any more. It was not until after I was done with school that I came back to the game and really began playing regularly again. And then I found this module again along with the additional portions that were not available for me when I first read it.
This is a mega dungeon. It is, more or less, an entire campaign from first to about eighth level. There are two separate villages presented. And one very large set of ruins with dungeons beneath it as well as portals to other planes. There are lots of magical “tricks” in this adventure which are a staple of Gygax adventures. If you have read any of my own adventures then you know how much I love these as well.
With such a large inhabited place a small low level group is not going to storm the place and kill everything in sight and then walk away with all of the loot. Instead they are going to have to make allies. They are going to have to play enemies off of each other. They are going to have to pick their enemies wisely. And they are going to have to use more than just their swords and spells to win the day.
This adventure has a big bad demon meanie and as the adventure progresses it becomes stronger and a little freer than it was when the game begins. Ultimately this demon is the boss of the dungeon but not in a specific sense. The demon does not run things here. It is just the baddest thing in town. There are other factions that vie for control of this place. And those each have their own designs for this demon which, of course, has plans of it’s own.
In addition to different factions in the dungeon there are also many prisoners here. Some can provide useful information. Some can become allies or even party members.
The different elemental planes come into play in this adventure. There are temples to each of these four planes of water, fire, earth and air. In different places in this dungeon there are portals to each of these planes and a little mini version of these planes provided in the form of elemental nodes.
This adventure is very much about Greyhawk. Back in the early 80s I was very interested in Greyhawk. But there was little published about it yet. There was this Greyhawk Folio thing that came out about then. I bought a copy back then. But it was really just a bunch of maps and a very terse description of each of the many lands in that world. It did not really do much for a budding young dungeon master that wanted to run games in that world. This adventure is an entire campaign within that world. Including a pair of demigods who are involved in what is happening in this temple.
Unlike some of the other early TSR adventures this one is not a giveaway fest. One problem that I had with the giant series is that it seems to just hand away magical goodies in every room despite Gygax specific admonitions against doing this in the DMG. But Temple of Elemental Evil does not really do this. Yes. There are magical items to find here. There are, in fact, many of them. But few are overly powerful. Most are really mundane items. Magical weapons with a +1 or +2 bonus. A few potions and scrolls. There is plenty of treasure of course. But much of it would be extremely difficult to extract. If you are playing by the book and are giving experience points on a one gold piece per one experience point basis for treasure extracted it is highly likely that taking treasure will be the backbone of the experience levels obtained here. And that is fine by me. I think that is how it was intended and that is how I run my own games. But killing this is fun too. And there will be plenty of that here.
The villages here are kind of complex. They are more than just a list of places one could visit. Some of the NPCs in those villages are involved in what is happening in the temple. Many of the NPCs are evil. I found that quite interesting when I first read T1 Village of Homlet. Because I had no idea of what was to follow.
What I do not like about the Temple of Elemental Evil
One aspect of this adventure that I don’t especially like is actually a criticism of how many TSR adventures were written. If the author is going to tell us specifically how a room is laid out and what creatures are present in a room then why do they always tell us treasures in terms of random rolling? If we know there are six trolls in a room then why are we told that there is 2-8 pieces of jewelry in a room worth 2000-12000 each? This makes little sense to me. Why not just save the space (and our time) and tell us there are three pieces worth 1000 each or there is a brooch worth 1500, a ring worth 1200 and a necklace worth 2500? Wouldn’t that make more sense?
There are a whole lot of repetitive encounters here. There may be twenty rooms each with gnolls, trolls and bugbears. I realize that this makes for a sense of realism. But is there ever really a sense of realism in a dungeon adventure anyway? A bit of ignoring disbelief is kind of required for both players and dungeon masters in order to make the game work.
And I know this is a minor point. And I have mentioned it before in other reviews. But is it really necessary to tell us the room dimensions for every room in the heading when we have a map that clearly shows us all of the room dimensions? That seems like wasted text to me.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
Absolutely. If you want to start a campaign for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons this module would give you many weeks (months or even years) of play. And it is set in Greyhawk which sets you up for using the giant series or one of the other myriad of TSR products later on.
Would I run the Temple of Elemental Evil with my own players?
If I were starting up again at first level I probably would. This would make it easy for me to run a campaign for quite a long time with minimal effort. There are extensive maps here and a whole lot of things for the adventurers to do. I think that it is a wonderful introduction in the Greyhawk world.
If you enjoyed this article then perhaps you will enjoy these as well:
- Free Dungeon Master Resources
- City Adventures
- Gambling
- Morale
- Turning Undead
- Plague
- Here be dragons!
- Aging
- Tactics
