The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun - your experiences?

Twenty-eigth thread of a series on the old classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules. It is interesting to see how everyone's experiences compared and differed.

The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun


Did you Play or DM this adventure (or both, as some did)? What were your experiences? Did you complete it? What were the highlights for your group?

Quasqueton

I owned it but (like many classic adventures) never actually ran it. I remember very little about it except for a certain somewhat weird/melancholy tone.

I loved the lightsaber.

One of my all time favorites. Maybe second only to Keep on the Borderlands. It starts as a simple "save the gnomes from the norkers" adventure. There's a significant wilderness treck to get to the dungeon. Then there is the assault on the norker's lair, which is inevitably a bloodbath (often times for the party). Truly one of the most vicious set-piece encounters of all time. Then the adventure transforms itself into a strange Lovecraftian journey into the underworld. It's that transition that makes this such an awesome adventure. Probably the best dungeon ambiance of all time. The ending, the consequences of the party unearthing lost Tharizdun, is entirely left up to the DM. I like that a lot.

R.A.

My sixth level Ranger bit the dust in this module. Thanks for dredging up the painful memories.

Now I'm going to go call my mommy.

Yes, we ran it and loved it!

It was a sequal to Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and I basically ran it as such. Both had there share of wacky fun, though the tone of Tharizdun was slightly more somber.

It had two main elements, a relatively well organised band of humaniods with some giant leaders, and the "forgotten temple part", with all kinds of oddities. I really liked both. I should note there was also some dungeon filler, which I liked less. It had a good number of Gygaxian touches, including magical fruit that bestow a great boon or kill you outright, with only the smallest hints as to which outcome could be acheived.

A few other things. This is not considered a "true classic", perhaps because it was just relased too late, perhaps because it had a little less to it. It also has a R. Kuntz connection: apperantly he came up with Tharizdun, and may have done something with him in his part of the original Greyhawk game, but the module itself is deffinetily gygax. Finally, and surprisingly given its "sub-classic" status, it seems to have had a big impact on 3rd edition Greyhawk, with Tharizdun much better known then in 1st edition days (he was the forgotten god afterall). So maybe there was something to it.

it was many years into the campaign.

the party had cheezed off the gnomes in S4 the Lost Caverns... and owed them big time...

so as a way of showing good faith they offered to rid the area of some troublesome hobgoblins.

the party was not so dumb as to think the hobgoblins weren't organized. so it came as little to surprise to them about the tactics the temple used after the initial attempt to assault the lair by the party.

it still turned out to be a lot more then they suspected in the end. and the party ended up fleeing the area. both to escape the humanoids. and to not go back to explain to the gnomes of their failure.

One of my favorite modules to read, it has a very intriging backstory and truely makes the perfect 'forgotten temple' for D&D.

I'd still like to know what the book which is 'detailed elsewhere' found in one the the adventure's last rooms was about.

I DMed this one a couple of times for different groups. Both times I ran it, the parties made no attempt to be careful upon approaching the temple and as a result found a well organized defense awaiting them. I know the first time I ran it (with a one day pick-up group), things prettty much ended at that assault. The second time I ran ti for my regular group, I know they completed the adventure, but oddly enough I have no clear recollection of what happened beyond the initial assault.

I bought this years ago with the intention of running it as a sequel to Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Unfortunately, some swine stole it from my shopping bag that very afternoon so I never got to even read it properly, let alone use it. I recently bought the pdf from svgames so I suppose I'll have to inflict it on my new group at some point...