Temple of Elemental Evil (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/AD&D Supermodule T1-4)

The first time through this adventure our group did the 'bugout boogie' from the dungeon. It is like the evil of Cthulhu, from H. P. Lovecraft.It was all we could do to save our characters from death! The town of Homllet is bad enough, then the temple is creepy but seems harmless enough. We are thinking, "Let's kill some monsters and bag some loot, make this temple our hideout...", then you are suddenly hit so hard and quickly that you're ready to drop!" The enemy is diabolical and ruthless. Gygax and fellow creators of the Greyhawk setting really outdid themselves in this one. They did the actual play-testing and refined it before it ever hit the shelves. If you're a DM, get it and you're a player, buy it and give it to your DM. You can always run it yourself someday, whether or not your character survives!

Before adventure boxed sets became the norm, in the days when the average scenario module ran between 24 and 32 pages, this was the first "super-module." Originally promised as module T2 in 1979's The Village of Hommlet (T1) (which is included in a slightly modified form herein), this is a monstrous sequel which far exceeded my teen-aged over-hyped expectations, even after waiting five years for it's publication and another two before I actually laid eyes, much less mitts, on a copy. The action is set in the vicinity of the titular village, in the original D & D world Greyhawk, where the originators of the FRPG genre played their own characters in scenes which became the legends of the published works. In this case, the story takes place roughly a decade after author Gygax led his friends through the Battle of Emridy Meadows, the first routing of the Hoard of Elemental Evil which is referred to in countless later publications, and forms a central part of the lore of this campaign setting. There is a great amount of material here, and yet there is also plenty of room for the creative DM to expand. Those who have other Greyhawk material can use this as either a launching point or a continuation of their own existing campaign, thrusting their own players into the center of historical and, later in the series, literally world-changing events. It should be noted, however, that this is not a simple hack-and-slash dungeon crawl. While there is plenty of dungeon to keep fans of that style happy, there's also a near requirement for actual (gasp!) role playing, in that appropriately leveled characters (1st thru 8th) will find a frontal assault perfectly useless. Interaction with NPCs without swords in hand will be absolutely essential to anything remotely approaching success - and even veteran player Robert J Kuntz, the first to successfully complete another classic (Tomb of Horrors (S1)) in Gary's home game, did not fare so well in this case. In fact, his final blunder is well documented in products that take place later in the setting's history. In short, out of all the paperback Greyhawk modules ever released by TSR without a box, this was hands down my all-time favorite. Just make sure the DM has read the whole thing before starting. Yes, the whole thing; trust me, there's information toward the end you'll want to have before you begin.