Re-writing the Temple of Elemental Evil

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I've posted this elsewhere, but I can't seem to find the post here. So, here we go...

I've always loved the idea of the Temple of Elemental Evil. The execution? Not quite as much. I never cared for the idea of Iuz, Lloth and Zuggtmoy running the temple, seeing as how it was called the Temple of ELEMENTAL Evil. I always pictured the Princes of Elemental Evil (Olhydra, Imix, Cryonax, Ogremoch, and Yan-C-Bin) being the forces behind it. I mean, they call them the Princes of ELEMENTAL Evil for a reason, right?

So I decided it will focus on actual "elemental" evil, as the temple will have nodes dedicated to the various Princes of Elemental Evil (Imix, Cryonax, Olhyrda, Ogremoch and Yan-C-Bin) and their priests. The idea would be to have each Prince of Elemental Evil attempting to open a gate connecting its respective Elemental Plane with the Prime Material Plane in an attempt to flood the Prime Material Plane with elemental energy and thereby eradicate the Prime Material Plane, thus expanding the various Elemental Planes.

The trick is, the Elder Elemental God is the one organizing this "elemental evil" and is the only one who realizes that in reality, if that goal is achieved, the entire universe will collapse. When the Prime Material Plane is destroyed the Elemental Planes will flood one another and the entire physical structure of the universe collapses. With all (or at least most) living beings dying in the process, the various deities will lose their power (the power of their worshipers) and the Elder Elemental God will be able to re-create the universe in his own chaotic image.

That's the rough draft, at least.

So now and then, when I'm not working in Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels or my home campaign, I put some work into this. After I finish Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels, I may just have to focus on this for a bit, because it's always inspired me. What do you all think of the idea?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Here is the actual write up...


Temple of Elemental Evil

In the beginning, there was a single god known as the Greater (or Elder) Elemental God. It had no name, and existed in a state of one-ness. Eventually it dissociated itself, forming the various Elemental Planes and Energy Planes. Over time, the Elemental Planes and Energy Planes, where they touched, formed the many Para-Elemental and Quasi-Elemental Planes. All these in turn coalesced to form the Prime Material Plane, their energies being bound to the Prime Material Plane via the spontaneous creation of the Ethereal Plane.

At this time, the major Pantheons of the Greater Gods existed solely in the Astral Plane. They were at this point beings of pure thought and energy. They had no ethos or areas of interest as yet, as there was no physical universe in which to interfere. Once the Prime Material Plane came into existence, the Pantheons of Greater Gods connected their Astral Plane to the Prime Material Plane, created countless life forms and formalized amongst themselves certain values or moral/ethics that would later correspond to the alignments of the Outer Planes. The process of creation gave the Pantheons of Greater Gods more power, as their followers created belief/energy on which the Greater Gods fed.

The Elder Elemental God, being utterly mad and beyond alignment, desired to have power over all the planes – the Inner, Outer, Astral, Ethereal, and Prime Material Planes. Seeing the Pantheons of Greater Gods as usurpers, the Elder Elemental God went to war with the other gods. Many gods perished in that universe-shaking war. In the end, unable to destroy the Elder Elemental God, the Pantheons of Greater Gods expended a large amount of their life energy to contain it, locking it in a hidden demi-plane at the heart/nexus of the Elemental Planes. However, its power could not be totally contained. The Elder Elemental God was still able to project power into the Prime Material Plane (and other planes) to some extent. Due to the obscene, insane nature (by mortal standards) of the Elder Elemental God, it had few worshippers. It did, however, manage to generate enough followers to keep its influence felt across countless worlds.

Over long millennia, the Elder Elemental God has plotted to escape its prison. In recent times, it came up with a plan. By reaching out to the most powerful inhabitants of the various Elemental Planes, it hopes to manifest the means of escaping imprisonment. The Elder Elemental God has ordered its followers to build a great temple dedicated to elemental evil. It has recruited the Princes of Elemental Evil (Cryonax, Imix, Ogremoch, Olhydra, and Yan-C-Bin - see FF & PS: MC III) to create powerful gates to the various Elemental Planes. The Elder Elemental God wants the Princes to create these gates so that they can flood the Prime Material Plane with pure elemental forces. The Elder Elemental God has assured the Elemental Princes that this will destroy the Prime Material Plane and extend the realms of the various Elemental Planes, giving the Princes ever more power.

Unbeknownst to the Princes, the Elder Elemental God is lying – opening those gates will not only destroy the Prime Material Plane, it will also cause the various Elemental Planes to merge with one another, causing the entire universe to collapse into chaos and be destroyed while freeing the Elder Elemental God. The death of all followers of the Pantheon of Greater Gods will weaken those gods enough that the Elder Elemental God will be able to destroy them. Then it will re-create the universe in its own mad image.

The Temple of Elemental Evil has been erected at the foot of the [insert name of your desired mountain range in your game) Mountains just north of the Great Kingdom of [insert the kingdom of your choice], in a remote area. The temple is run by crazed priests of the Elder Elemental God. Various dungeon levels are linked to the Elemental Planes and appropriate monsters appear in each gate/area along with priests of the various Elemental Planes. Powerful humanoid guards work for the priests of the Elder Elemental God to protect the temple itself.

[McDeath]

Yeah I always wondered about the setup with Iuz and Lilith and Zug. It’s been a while since I read it and I always float between two areas in modules: Monsters/placement and maps. I can’t recall which module had maps that annoyed me more TOEE or WGR1. (Looks digitally...)

Ah WGR1 has terrible maps.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I never liked the maps for the dungeon levels in ToEE. They just look - I don't know - weird? Senseless?

Same for the Undermountain II maps. A cavern that just happens to be shaped like a scaladar?

[McDeath]

Yeah, you’d have to have a real hard on to shape that cavern like that and then, wouldn’t you just make it constructed chambers with precision rather than an ugly cavern that’s scaladar-like.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

It was so contrived. It read like something a third grader would write. Well, except for the part about the insane, lesbian druidess prowling around Undermountain.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

When I feel burned out on writing rooms for RoUIII, I tend to drift back to work on the new Temple of Elemental Evil. I really like writing that and it inspires me. I was always disappointed by the lack of "elemental" focus in the original. It had the elemental nodes, yes, but it just felt too much like any other dungeon. When I'm done with my version of ToEE, I'll release that too, as a PDF. Probably won't happen until after ROUIII though because I need to really wrap that up.

Just got an email from Govi, our expert cartographer, and I'll be chatting with him this week on map updates.

Right now, just 20 rooms left to go. It seems like a little and yet a lot at the same time. Chipping away every chance I get! I'm getting anxious to wrap up the rooms (which in itself makes it harder to write), because I want to get to the details of the Adventures Booklet. I'm really excited about that part. Still, closer and closer we come!