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Publication:The Temple of Elemental Evil

[  The Temple of Elemental Evil]
The temple of elemental evil cover.jpg
System: Dungeons and Dragons 1e
Levels: 1 – 8 
Author: Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer 
Publisher: TSR 
Publication Date: 1985 
Format: Paperback 
Page Count: 128
 
Product Blurb
A sinister force, long thought destroyed, stirs from the black hole that spawned it. Like an ebony darkness it prowls the land and safety is but an illusion, for it watches from every shadow and ponders possibilities.

What began years ago, with the introduction of the players to the quiet village of Hommlet and the amazing lands of Greyhawk, at last is complete. Here is the long-awaited campaign adventure, featuring the ruins of the Temple of Elemental Evil, where a great evil broods and grows beneath its blasted stones. This is your chance to drive it back and scatter its force again.

This product includes the village of Hommlet, the filthy shire of Nulb, and reveals the ruins of the Temple of Elemental Evil and the labyrinths that lie beneath, a warren of darkness. And beyond these ruins, even more is revealed.

For the first time, this product provides a complete campaign adventure, which will take beginning characters from 1st all the way to 8th level and possibly beyond! Hours of adventuring await you!

This text is quoted from promotion material. Text and images are copyrighted by the original publisher.

Plot SummaryEdit

In the module T1 The Village of Hommlet, the player characters must defeat the raiders in a nearby fort, and thereafter Hommlet can be used as a base for the party's subsequent adventures. The adventure begins in the eponymous village of Hommlet, situated near the site of a past battle against evil forces operating from the Temple. The adventurers travel through Hommlet and are drawn into a web of conspiracy and deception.

The module is recommended for first-level characters, who begin the adventure "weary, weak, and practically void of money". They travel to a town that is supposed to be a great place to earn fortunes, defeat enemy creatures, but also to lose one's life. While the town initially appears warm and hospitable, the characters soon learn that many of its inhabitants are powerful spies for minions of evil.

The T1 adventure stands alone, but also forms the first part of T1–4. In The Temple of Elemental Evil, the characters start off at low level, and after establishing themselves in Hommlet, they gradually work their way through the immense dungeons beneath the Temple, thereby gaining experience. T1 culminates in a ruined moathouse where agents secretly plan to re-enter the Temple and free the demoness Zuggtmoy, imprisoned therein. The Village of Hommlet module has been described as a beginner's scenario, which starts in the village, and leads to a nearby dungeon, while The Temple of Elemental Evil continues the adventure. In the next section, T2, the adventurers move on to the nearby village of Nulb to confront several nefarious opponents, including agents from the Temple. Based on the outcome of these encounters, the player characters can then enter the Temple itself to interact with its many denizens and test their mettle against Zuggtmoy herself.


Publication HistoryEdit

The adventure module The Village of Hommlet was a 24-page booklet designed by Gary Gygax, and published by TSR in 1979. The original printing featured an outer folder and a two-color cover; the book was reprinted in 1981 with a color cover. The Temple of Elemental Evil was originally intended to bear the module code T2 and serve as a true sequel to The Village of Hommlet. Gygax began writing T2 soon after the publication of T1, but often stopped to work on other products, such as The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (Gygax 1981). The T2 version was never completed, and no module bearing the codes T3 or T4 was ever independently published. Instead, the material for the sequel was combined in 1985 with the original T1 storyline and published as an integrated adventure bearing the module code T1-4.

The original printings of T1 featured monochrome cover art by David A. Trampier, who also contributed interior art along with David C. Sutherland III. The 1981 and subsequent printings of T1 featured a new color cover painting by Jeff Dee surrounded by a lime green border. The expanded T1-4 book from 1985 features cover art by Keith Parkinson and interior art by Jeff Butler, Clyde Caldwell, Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, Parkinson, and Trampier.

T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil was written by Gary Gygax with Frank Mentzer, and published by TSR in 1985, incorporating T1 The Village of Hommlet. The module was a 128-page book with a 16-page map booklet, and featured a cover by Keith Parkinson and interior illustrations by Jeff Butler, Clyde Caldwell, Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, and Dave Trampier. The module includes descriptions of two towns, the Temple itself, and four large dungeon levels.

Although initially written as a stand-alone series, T1-4 was made to dovetail into A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords when these two campaigns were revised in 1986 as supermodules. The combined campaign then culminates with the GDQ series, incorporating modules G1-G3 Against the Giants; D1-D3, which introduced D&D fans to drow elves for the first time; and finally Q1, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, in which the heroes fight against the spider demon Lolth herself. These last adventures were also combined and republished as a supermodule bearing the code GDQ1-7, Queen of the Spiders.

In 2001, Wizards of the Coast published a novel by Thomas M. Reid also bearing the title The Temple of Elemental Evil.

Wizards of the Coast also published a sequel to the T1-4 adventure in 2001, the 3rd Edition module Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Wizards of the Coast published a remake of The Village of Hommlet adventure for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition and released it through the RPGA.[citation needed]

The original TSR product code for module T1 (bluetone and full color cover) is 9026.



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