The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun - your experiences?

[VorpalBunny]

I've it read it through repeatedly and love it, but never got a chance to run or play Forgotten Temple or its sister module Lost Caverns. I've been toying around with converting both to 3.5, but with the release of TLG's Castles and Crusades, I think that may be the way to go.

 

[EricNoah]

Ah, the norkers. Yes. It's all coming back to me now...

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I used this module as a base of operations in the final showdown of a ten year long campaign. I pretty much gutted the contents (using the module's creatures as backstory; creatures that used to live there) and replaced them with the villains in my game, while keeping the same basic defensive strategy. I also changed Tharizdun to a homegrown god of similar style and power. The PC's never found the area beneath the temple, but they were on a timetable to get through the place and out the other side (though they could have avoided a lot of defenses by going under them...)

 

[DMScott]

It's been a very long time since I played it, but as I recall we ran into it as a side-quest during S4. We approached the place kinda non-chalantly and got caught up in an epic meatgrinder of a battle that took all night to play out. From a player's perspective, it was notable mostly for that massive fight. At the end of it, we were left with a basically empty dungeon complex at something like 5 in the morning... I don't think we found much of the secret Tharizdun stuff, but I think we can be forgiven for missing it . I think one unlucky PC died three times during the battle.

Some months later when I was DMing I bought it and read through it, and I vaguely remember being surprised at some of the stuff we missed. Wasn't there some permanent stat-gain magic in there somewhere? In AD&D, that sort of thing wasn't very common. Overall, it was a fun module and a nice example of a dungeon with an organized, intelligent defence, but maybe harder to just chuck into a campaign than most adventures - in order to get to all the secret areas, a group really needs to have some idea of the Tharizdun rituals that show up in a couple of places. Or a much higher tolerance for trial and error than most of my groups have.

 

[maggot]

I remember this one well. The party was resting with the gnomes during S4 and needed help with some clay golem damage. The DM put a 17th level scroll of healing with the gnomes to solve the problem (I don't think it was originally there). The gnomes were not going to turn over the scroll for free, so we were off to hunt some norkers.

We got totally hosed at the temple. Several characters were down to single digits and we all loved that our party was rich in fireballing magic-users (as they were called in the day). I think we had an elf fighter/magic-user, a dual class cleric/magic-users, and a pure magic-user.

We fell back from our initial asualt and took a week to heal up. Yes, a week. We were pretty badly damaged and cleric light. In addition, a few new characters we rolled up. including a dwarven thief.

When made our second assualt during another session, the DM had taken all the appropriate monsters from under the temple plus a bunch of recruits from the mountain giant and turned the first room of the temple into a blood bath. We barely won that one and had to retreat again. The new dwarven thief was not so lucky, now replaced with a gnome cleric/illusionist.

Third time was a charm against the humanoids and we finally broke into the lower temple. There we found a bunch of stuff we didn't know what to do with as well as a horrible shadow demon that possessed our cleric and then our ranger. Most of the party died in the confusion, including the gnome cleric/illusionist.

The few survivors limped back to the gnomes. Another week or so went by, and the party boosted its ranks with a few more gnomes (ie, new PCs). This time we killed the shadow demon, retrieved the bodies of those we wanted to raise from the dead, and called it good and proceeded back to the caverns of S4.

A very good time. We missed a lot of the stuff in the temple because we were too busy dying, but I think the ranger got a 19 Con out of the deal (great for 1e). Of course he then died and was raised, so he ended up at even, and he was the one healed of the golem damage. The rest of us ended up universally worse off. Worst side-trek ever (from the characters point of view).

The entire party would retire shortly after finishing S4, due mainly to too much character turn over started by the Forgotten Temple.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

I ran this one many years ago after running Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (like most did) and it went poorly. I don't remember much of it, but remember hating the way it played. The underground stuff was cool and pretty well done, but the lboodbath upstairs was hell. Overall, I think the upper level kind of nullified the enjoyment of the lower level for me (as DM). I guess I will go on record and be the only one here who didn't like this one very much.

DM

 

[David Howery]

ah yes, a 1E classic. I ran through this one as a player. Our group was massively munchkin in those days, and the big fight at the temple started off badly at first, but once my ranger and his paladin buddy got close enough, everything died quick, even the giant (those +1/level ranger bonuses vs. humanoids were so cool). We bulled our way through the temple, killed everything, found everything... not sure whatever happened to the lightsaber.. I think the mage ended up with it...

 

[ivocaliban]

Considering I'm in the midst of playing a modified Greyhawk in which Tharizdun returns, I should probably know more about this one. Unfortunately, I didn't start gaming until 1991 (Rules Cyclopedia, anyone?) when I was 14. I live in an area far from any gaming stores and this was before internet sales (at least for me). All my gaming materials back then came from Waldenbooks, so it was very hard to find anything older than a couple of years. Does it provide any important information about Tharizdun and his followers that one couldn't find elsewhere?

 

[DMScott]

Does it provide any important information about Tharizdun and his followers that one couldn't find elsewhere?

I'm going strictly by my creaky old memory, but I don't think so. IIRC, the bad guys don't really know about Tharizdun, so you don't get any intel from them. The ritual magic items of his clergy are used to get into various secret areas in his temple, but Monte Cook used that as a source for Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil so you probably have that info from a more recent source.

 

[johnsemlak]

I'm going strictly by my creaky old memory, but I don't think so. IIRC, the bad guys don't really know about Tharizdun, so you don't get any intel from them. The ritual magic items of his clergy are used to get into various secret areas in his temple, but Monte Cook used that as a source for Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil so you probably have that info from a more recent source.

The module mainly includes a brief history of the temple itself, [spoiler follows] how it attracted Tharizdun's followers, how Tharizdun was defeated and imprisoned (possibly under the temple; the module is vague about that); how the temple's clerics continued to worship him afterwards, and found the 'sphere' below the temple which they believed to by Tharizdun's prison, and how the clerics developed rituals which attempted to free their god, and finally how the god's followers gradually abandoned the temple until there was only one priest left.