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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IronWolf" data-source="post: 2008258" data-attributes="member: 21076">Warning: this review contains large, huge spoilers. Absolutely don't read on if you have any intention at all of playing in this adventure and enjoying the experience. This is your last warning.Back in 1979 when I bought my first AD&D Player's Handbook, I saw a couple of slim modules on the shelves. Figuring it'd be a good idea to pick up a pre-made adventure (I'd found the map from the adventure in my D&D boxed set, B1 - In Search of the Unknown, useful), I was happy to note that one of them was listed as "Introductory to Novice level". So I took home T1 - The Village of Hommlet as well. My players enjoyed eating at the Inn of the Welcome Wench, crossing swords with Zert, discovering that Elmo was not quite the simpleton he seemed, and eventually sending Lareth the Beautiful to the fate he so richly deserved. We couldn't wait for the promised sequel, Dungeon Module T2, The Temple of Elemental Evil.But wait we did. And wait. And wait. Eventually, I made up my own Temple, and we moved on - but I always kept track of mentions in Q1 (Queen of the Demonweb Pits) and in Dragon magazine, which always hinted that the Temple would be out soon. It would be 1985 before T1-4 was released in all its glory. Sadly, it suffered somewhat from "Phantom Menace" syndrome - so many people had looked forward to it for so long that it was almost guaranteed to be disappointing. So I've always felt like that there was something missing from my very first AD&D adventure.Now, twenty two years (yeesh - that long?!) after picking up that first module... we have Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. And I finally have my closure. For anybody who thinks this review is already too long, here's the final verdict on this review: this is the best published adventure I have ever laid eyes on. If it plays even half as well as it reads, it'll be fantastic. Go buy it right now.Components:For your $29.95 ($45.95 for us Canadians), you get a 190 page softcover book and a 16 page full colour map book (which is glued inside the back cover, easily removable). 154 pages are the adventure itself; the remainder is appendices. In the first appendix, you get new magic items (up to and including artifacts), new monsters, and a new template (half-elemental). Appendix 2 gives you details on the worship of Tharizdun, the ultimate villain of the piece - look I told you there were spoilers, OK? - which includes a prestige class (the Doomdreamer) and two new clerical domains (Madness and Force). You'll be happy to know that every cleric of Tharizdun is insane, and they even have an Insanity Score (equal to half their level) to prove it. That's an interesting mechanic - clerics add their Insanity Score to their Wisdom for spell-related purposes, and subtract it from their Wisdom for all other purposes. So high level Clerics often have lots of spells, but aren't sufficiently in touch with reality to notice pesky adventurers sneaking around.Appendix three is monster and NPC stats for each segment of the adventure. Appendix four is a pair of handouts that will help the PCs puzzle out what's going on.Commentary on the Plot:The inclusion of Tharizdun as the ultimate bad guy might be a point of contention for some Greyhawk gurus. In T1, the source of the Elemental Evil was never really spelled out; all we knew was that Lareth the Beautiful, the clerical bad guy in the moathouse, was beloved of Lolth. In the G and D series, much of the conflict was eventually traced to a schism in the Drow religious community, when a powerful segment turned from the worship of Lolth to the worship of the "Elder Elemental God", a deity who didn't seem to have a lot of elemental powers but did have a fondness for tentacles, darkness, and unnameable evil. We didn't even know if the Elder Elemental God was related to the Temple of Elemental Evil in any way, but heck - it seemed likely. In T1-4, it was revealed that the Elemental Evil was actually set up by the demoness Zuggtmoy, essentially because elemental evil was sexier than the fungi Zuggtmoy ruled over. Iuz and Lolth got involved once they found about it, leading to intense rivalries within the Temple. This of course meant that if the Temple was related to the Drow's Elder Elemental God (as many DMs assumed), Lolth had been involved in setting up her own rival religion, which lead directly her being killed or chased off her own plane (in Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Hmm.Of course, there were also the Princes of Elemental Evil showcased in one of the 1st edition monster books - just the name suggested they should be involved with the Temple. Just to throw another module into the mix, the Greyhawk adventure that presented something most similar to the Elder Elemental God was actually WG4 - Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. So, how to put this all together?Monte Cook's solution is to say that Zuggtmoy - and Iuz, and Lolth - all of whom thought they were duping worshippers with the "Elemental Evil" story, were in fact being duped themselves. The Elemental Evil they tapped into was actually a conduit to Tharizdun, an insanely evil and powerful deity trapped by the actions of all the other gods. So Tharizdun had been using the three demons to spread his own twisted cult. His worshippers (all completely insane) seek to release him, and releasing him means the End Of The World. Tharizdun was also behind the Drow breakaway religion, and the Princes of Elemental Evil all serve him - they are in fact the keys to breaking him out of his prison.This is the threat that rears its head in RttToEE, and it would be a Good Thing if the PCs stopped this from happening. Tharizdun and his cult are great villains because they have absolutely no redeeming features; if they win, the world ends. Vecna and Iuz, who merely want to enslave everyone under their rule, end up looking like good guys by comparison. I'm not real familiar with current Forgotten Realms cosmology, but I assume it's Tharizdun's presence that has prompted discussions about whether this adventure could be converted to FR. My thinking: Tharizdun is essentially Cthulhu minus the licensing fees. Any campaign that doesn't have a little Cthulhu-like flavour already can only be improved by the addition of ancient world-eating horror with no redeeming qualities. If there's not already an ancient evil deity kicking around the Realms who could serve, there shouldn't be a problem with adding one - Tharizdun's worship is supposed to be highly secret anyway, and I imagine the great majority of those going through this adventure will be running into him for the first time, even in Greyhawk. So FR folks, go ahead and buy this puppy if you want to run it - a little elbow grease and some name changes, and you should be scaring the bejeezus out your players in no time. Just don't tell Elminster about it, or he'll want to be Chosen of Tharizdun, too.The Adventure Itself:The adventure is broadly split up into three parts. It's set 15 years after the destruction of the Temple; Hommlet has grown up into a small town, Nulb is a deserted ruin, the Temple dungeons have collapsed. Once a hotbed of adventure, now it's considered a relatively peaceful area - but strange things are stirring in the old moathouse, where the adventure started so long ago. For anyone familiar with the original incarnation of Hommlet, many of the NPCs are still around - Elmo, Y'dey, Terjon, Rufus, Burne, Jaroo, etc. - although often somewhat different than you'll remember. They've had fifteen years to change, after all. The map provided is nice, but not especially filled out; lots of room for DMs to place their own NPCs in the area. The moathouse is the main adventuring area in this part. It's a heck of a nostalgia trip - the map is largely unchanged, but a couple of areas have been excavated to reveal sites important to Tharizdun. The PCs might also poke around the Temple grounds (inhabited by some hobgoblins, but the dungeons have collapsed) and the haunted ruins of Nulb, where they may run into a surprise from the past. Eventually, they'll figure out that something bad is going on, that it's related to the Temple in some way, but to figure out what they need to travel some ways west into the Lortmils.Part two is the major portion of the adventure, when the PCs will be poking around the Temple of All Consumption near the Hamlet of Rastor. This is the massive dungeon that has caused so much discussion as to whether this adventure is just a big dungeon crawl. If you started at 4th level, your PCs will likely be in the neighbourhood of 6th level when they start this section. They'll be somewhere between 12th and 14th by the time they leave. As a DM (players did stop reading way up there, right?), you'll need to be intimately familiar with this place in order to do it justice. This isn't just a few hundred encounters to blast through; the dungeon has an ebb and flow to it, the inhabitants play politics and compete with each other. Some of them may see the PCs as useful tools - or even allies. Monte Cook has done a good job indicating what the inhabitants will do when they come under attack, and getting the DM into the right mindset - this is a highly dynamic dungeon, and no two trips should be the same.The Temple of All Consumption is actually in three parts; the Crater Ridge mines (where the PCs will spend most of their time), the Outer Fane (a much smaller area where some very tough villains await, accessible only once you've found the appropriate keys), and the Inner Fane (where the leaders of the cult live). At some point during their exploration/destruction of this Temple, the group will find out that Tharizdun is up to no good back at the Temple of Elemental Evil, which means it's time for...Part three, where the group returns to the Temple of Elemental Evil (see, the adventure's name does make sense ;-). Tharizdun's cult has a plan to free their dark deity, and it all hinges on opening the Elemental Nodes (small demi-planes created back when the Temple was operational) and summoning the Princes of Elemental Evil. Our Heroes, of course, have to stop them. Fortunately, the bad guys have only opened one of the nodes so far. Unfortunately, this means there's a CR 17 Prince of Elemental Evil stomping around, who needs to be stopped. Fortunately, there's at least one alternate method of upsetting Tharizdun's evil plans that doesn't involve fighting Imix (Prince of Fire) mano-a-flamo. Unfortunately, regardless of which plan the PCs follow, they're going to have to go head to head with Tharizdun's most powerful clerics.Artwork:The cover shown next to this review isn't actually the cover WOTC used. For whatever reason, they went with a reasonably generic humanoid (probably a shaman) looming in a large doorway. If it has any special significance to the adventure, it went over my head, but it's a nice enough picture.Interior artwork is all line drawings, with the standards about normal for WOTC's products. Nothing struck me as exceptional, nothing struck me as laughable - generally a solid job. Four iconic characters are featured in about half of the drawings (Krusk, Hennet, Lidda, and Jozan).The maps are very nicely drawn, and graphically they're the high point of this adventure.Problems, Nitpicking, etc.This is an extraordinarily long adventure, and quite a bit more complex than your average dungeon crawl. There's a few things that aren't done quite as well as they could've been:- The introductory text recommends against having the adventurers’ place of origin be Hommlet. I don't really see why they couldn't; the town is pretty sketchy, and with a little work would make a fine place to start off new 1st level characters with an eye towards tackling Return once they gain a few levels. Stick a couple of low level adventures - maybe Crucible of Freya and Forge of Fury - in the Kron Hills, and you've got a 1st through 14th (or higher) campaign ready to go.- Much spleen has been vented over the central dungeon, the Temple of All Consumption. Much of this comes from looking at those 300ish rooms as if they were a standard dungeon bash. If the DM treats this like a standard dungeon bash, s/he isn't using anywhere near the full potential of the setting. The more work the DM puts into making the Crater Ridge mines come alive, the more reward you'll get out of it. The dungeon is active, reasonably consistent, and fun - it can be approached from any of a number of different playstyles. I don't think you can ask for any more out of a dungeon.- There are a few typos in the text, but fewer than most books of this size and nothing that makes it too hard to figure out.- The map book is very nice, but it could easily have been doubled in size. Grognards would no doubt prefer a more detailed Hommlet map (half a dozen or so similar to the original T1 map would be nice). My main beef is the Crater Ridge maps - a lot of features aren't shown on the maps. Some traps are shown, some aren't, and I'm not sure why those were omitted. Some rooms are fairly complex topographically, with ledges, overhangs, deep pools leading to underwater caves, etc. - and generally these details are in the textual description, with nothing on the map to indicate there's a special feature. - There's an appendix that contains some of the creature descriptions, and all of the named creatures - whenever the stats are different from the Monster Manual, there's an entry in the Appendix. But all the critters that are normal examples of their species just have references to the MM; this is somewhat annoying, since you have to look in two places for the stats. This is probably due to space considerations, so I'll let it slide.- For a secret cult and an imprisoned deity, Tharizdun and his priests aren't very stealthy. Most likely, by the end of the adventure as written, the cat will be out of the bag and many people (not just the PCs) will know that Tharizdun is a real threat. What changes I do make to this adventure will probably be making the bad guys a little subtler, so that Tharizdun remains a secret threat to menace my campaign.- Of all the threads and references this adventure draws together from classic old modules... they left out my favourite. The weird temple of the escaped orc slaves under G1 - Steading of the Hill Giant Chief looks fairly Tharizdunian, but isn't referenced here. Sorry, now I'm being pedantic.- Just on a personal note... Monte, what you did to Thrommel was mean. As penance, I want a third edition version of Fragarach before the end of the year ;-).Hmm, is it possible there's anything I didn't cover? Oh, probably. In summary, this adventure kicks butt and takes names. Price tag's hefty, but I think anybody that enjoys old-school adventures will more than get their money's worth out of this book. Run it as it is or pillage it for ideas - either way you won't be disappointed. To repeat what I said way up there - this is the best adventure I've ever read, and I recommend it unreservedly.</blockquote>

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