Thanks for the excellent video! I DMed this back in the 80s when it first came out and this brought back some amusing memories. By the time my party got to the 2nd level they had become so wary there was no way they were going to fall for the pool-of-water trap in the water temple or the werewolves pretending to be angels, despite my best efforts to make them seem convincing. The party's general principle of exploration had become: "Trust nothing and no-one - at any moment we could be hit by a deadly trap." The thief in particular was completely paranoid, constantly checking for traps and urging hostile action against everything encountered. A perfectly reasonable attitude under the circumstances ha ha!
When I ran this for my group in the way-back, they went through about 3-5 characters each, after they ran out of resurrection money. And they skipped almost all of floor two, snuck through floor 3 (the party by then was over half thieves a.k.a. rogues) and broke the module so badly that I ended up giving them a win by turning the whole place into a slow-motion sinkhole as I timed their running exit through the falling stonework. - I bought the boxed set years later, but I can't convince my self to go through the work of converting it to the Rolemaster system we use these days.
I remember runni g it way back. The group changed their philosophy so much from Homlet where they had been very hack and slash to the end of TOEE where the group was now dominated by spellcasters who used protection & detection magic & two thieves. An elven thief skilled in detection & disarming and a halfling scout thief who would check out the way ahead. But our Paladin was probably the MVP! 🏅
Try this: The reason there are so many monsters stacked in here seemingly doing not much is because they are all waiting to hear word from Lareth the Beautiful to return and give the word to attack Hommlett.
The _real_ reason there are so many monsters stacked in here seemingly doing not much is because they all fell asleep listening to page after page after page of box text.
This is fairly standard stuff you do in Nethack. It works 95 -98 % of times so of course. Then the fun is in the permadeath in rare times you end up doing something stupid with it or are just unlucky. Like that one time I did it, random monster stepped on a polymorph trap on the level, turned into an arch lich and teleported right next to naked me...
On my play-through, my character entered the acid monster in the pool to rescue the "Triton" and took huge damage. I got out, but unfortunately the fighter got charmed, grappled me, and threw me back in. My character then ignobly died by being dissolved. *sigh* Good times, good times.
Same. Speaking of which, the Owlbear from the old basic version of Keep on the Borderlands had a hug attack if it hit you with both paws... This seems to be missing from later additions. Anyone know why by any chance? I have tried watching people play through the keep on RUclips but using later editions and it seems this module is almost way too easy now. The Ogre, Minotaur and owlbear are lucky to get an attack in. Back in the day these creatures were terrifying at 1-3rd level.
@@swirvinbirds1971 I re-ran the adventure, a few months ago - and the party [ primarily led by a Paladin ] ran roughshod over the Ogre. I included TWO Ogres, to try to beef things up (1 upper level; the other in the basement). Both got chopped to ribbons.
Please make more of these, been playing since the 1980,s but some of these modules i was not exposed to. Great buying tool for new modules to introduce to my kids. Just finished King’s Festival and they absolutely loved it. Keep them coming!
About the name, Gygax explained that what is "Elemental Evil" has nothing to do (necessarily) with the Classical Elements (Fire, Water, Air, Earth) but "Elemental" as in "Primordial". The Elder Elemental God (not Tharizdun, btw) is named Vilp-akf ’cho Rentaq (according to Gygax) was able to "manifest" part of himself below the Temple (this likely being what attracted Zuggtmoy, Iuz the Old and Lolth to the location).
Those combo books were great. Folks don't realize, you only could buy what was delivered rarely to local shops. I ended up having A1, 2 & 4 for years. This completed my set. Yeah, the connections were hokey, but I did manage a campaign through all of them. It was fun.
I’d be very interested in a retrospective in this style of Keep on the boarderlands, Scourge of the Slavers, and the Spiderqueen. I’d also be interested in Against the Giants.
Great review. I've DMed this module about 4 times over the years. It's definitely the most fun when played with a stealthy group. I can't wait for the next video. I hope you have the time and energy to do the A series and Queen of the Spiders.
"Elemental temples are a cliche due to popularity of franchises like legend of zelda and final fantasy." True. Not hating on those games, love them as well, but true.
11:27 I'm sorry, is this the origin of "Rocks fall, everyone dies"? I can't believe that was printed in a book, this is an amazing thing to see in such a famous work
I realize this is a late reply, but just in case you are sill wondering, the "Rocks fall, everyone dies" trope is from a webcomic called "Something*Positive"
@@BarelySocial Yeah, most people reference that when they say it, but wouldn't be surprised if the writer of that webcomic was in turn inspired by ToEE
Ran this back in the day, it turns into quite a slog by the time you are done. My players wanted to explore every single room, it took quite a few weekends to get through it all.
I hope one day you take a look at The Pool of Radiance, it's tabletop module counterpart Ruins of Adventure, and the Curse of the Azure Bonds. You cannot easily find a more difference in kind and contrast when it came to looking at older D&D material.
19:54 A box trap blade that cuts through anything, no saving throw? It slices through magical steel armor like butter? I’d dismantle the box and make that blade my primary weapon. 😂
I had to spend a couple minutes figuring out what you blurred out on the cover of ToEE. And then I figured it out. "Oh, duh, old D&D module art. Thus, bewbs. Yeah... Lot of that going around in the old days of D&D."
I somehow ran a campaign through this back in high school and the only thing i remember is it being super fun and epic. The group was a bit higher level which was very much needed to get through the final juggernaut death trap encounter. I would love to re-run this using 2E and a VTT and see if it holds up.
The coloured robes for parties who wish to attempt to 'infiltrate' the various Temples are found in locked chests on Level 1. When I played through, I took on the 26 Brigands and won the combat without losing any Character. Having access to the Temple's 'secret' stairway is VERY useful! 🤗 Great video! Thank you. 🙏 M 🦘🏏😎
TEE was one of the best adventures I ever had the pleasure of running. I ran all three, TEE, Slave Lords and Queen. The group I was with at the time loved the set. Too bad I no longer have the set :(, would love to see them bring them back for 5E … could only dream. *subscribed*
I came on board with The Keep etc. 10th grade. DnD club DM I was. Since the year of 79-80, what a world. Many, many have wandered my low magik, high fantasy horror, grim world. Dragons feel it is alright to visit, but would not want to raise kids there. Thanks for these vids. Memories of running groups of adventuring folk. When someone takes a break, comes back after a few years, they know years of events shall have passed.
I never actually went through this module but it looks cool.We started with Keep on the Border lands,did some side quests,then got into Slave-lords A1-4,Against the Giants G1-3 and Descent into the Depths D1-3.It was then that our grade 12 grad year rolled around and the group split up so we never got to do the Queen of the Demon-web Pits module.A shame looking back now that what we started in grade 6 we never totally completed.I still have the books and dice. I'm really enjoying your content DM It All,newly subbed and liked.Keep them coming please.
Great work. Your channel is definitely top 3 D&D channel. Just a suggestion but if you were able to put the same quality into homebrew modules you’d have something no other channel does.
Baaacckkk in the day here's I ran it: 1) The way I put my campaign together was by taking all the old modules sitting around that I had and 'stitched' their campaign maps together. So it was patchwork map of Hommlet, Barovia, Amber, Restenford, bordered on the south by the coast with the Isle of Dread, to the west by a desert with the Lost City, and to the north by the Barrier Peaks, which have been taken over by Hill Giants at the bottom, Frost Giants at the top, and a Fire Giant in the voclano in the middle and you have to go 'against the giants' if one wanted to go on 'an expidtion to the barrier peaks' to discover the Forbidden City on the other side. OK, so on this side of the peaks, our characters start in Hommlett. When they clear out the Moathouse they discover that these Evil Bandits were taking orders from the Temple of Eleental Evil which is...somewhere in the campaign world, so the characters must adventure forth and find it, and they can decide where to go next Barovia, Restenford, The Hill, or Amber. as they adventure around they discover that agents from the temple have been influencing events all over the place bringing varying curses down upon the likes of Barovia, Amber, and Inverness. Each adventre leads them closer to discovering the location of the Temple until they finally discover it. Turns out the Temple isnt exactly organized. Over the last 100 years the temple has become essentially the Hommlett for monsters, so its kind of liek a town full of monster adventurers who are going to sally forth into the world of men and seek their fortune, and the Caves of Chaos are the monsters version of the Keep on the Borderlands where young duty bound monsters go to defend against the hordes of men, dwarves and elves. However in my case a Cthulh cult (using the stats from the original Dieties and Demigods) is itself trying to take over the Temple from within and then spread its dark reign using Castle Amber, Castle Ravenloft, the Keep on the Borderlands, and a crazy Spaceship as its outer defense perimeters. As with all DM plans we never got through that whole thing, and I actually spread that same campaign out over two entirely different groups of people.
The one thing I dislike about (older) modules is that they seem to be completely UNREALISTIC ... when it comes to FOOD and WATER and the general necessities of SURVIVING. With the amount of (non-elemental, non-undead) monsters inside you would need quite a lot of food supply every day.
I had this module but my friends and I could never get into it. I’m not exactly sure why, I think it had something to do with the sheer illogicality of the rival factions living literally yards from each other. I still have the module now and it seems much better and than I remember. I think 5e Princes of the Apocalypse (iirc) is a sort of remake or re-envisioning of ToEE. It’s similar in many ways but has more of a true elemental focus.
The presence of competing elemental temples can be explained by a few factors. First, while the temples hate one another and wish to dominate, they're still nominally allies against their enemies outside the Temple of Elemental Evil. They have more in common with each other than they do with those outside. They've likely formed loose agreements to work together, all while secretly plotting betrayal. In a time when the forces of elemental evil already suffered great losses to the forces of good, they need all the help they can get. Moreover, factions within the temple may seek to win over converts from the others, to bolster its own ranks. So outright killing the other temples is counterproductive. Second, the temples are hardly invincible. Attacking another temple outright would invariably cost them resources and manpower, things they can't afford to lose. Or at the very least they're enough of cowards to not risk it when they don't need to. This is why the temples prefer to engage in covert attacks and skullduggery, to weaken their rivals while taking minimal casualties themselves. Third, there aren't just two temples, but four. Regardless of whether any given temple could "take" another temple, it's much harder to take two or three at a time. If one temple fights another and wins, they may be so weakened that one or both remaining temples may launch an attack. Waiting in the wings to destroy whoever wins when they're at their most vulnerable. This doesn't even get into the fact that the temples may have a common understanding that if one temple attacks another, all other temples will gang up on the aggressor. Simply as a mechanism for preventing any one temple from getting too powerful. After all, if one temple was ballsy enough to pull off a direct assault, that temple must be enough of a threat that the other temples would be fools to ignore. Fourth, the Greater Temple Faction exists, and often serves as a neutral party in temple politics. A faction that's fairly powerful in its own right. They keep out of the conflicts, for now, but their neutrality is conditional on everything being "chill". Plus, their motives are mysterious and their capabilities unknown. No temple wants to risk dragging them into a battle (much less on the other side). All of this combines to form a dubious equilibrium. What makes the PCs special is that they're a new element that doesn't exist within any temple's hierarchy. Ergo, they tilt things in the favor of a specific temple, allowing them to topple their rivals for good. Or at least that's the plan. Groups like the trolls serve a similar function, as they're actively courted by all the temples.
I bought the 4 game module involving Temple of Elemental Evil back in the 80s and played it but the game is so long its hard to get people to finish it. I even played the mmo DDO and everyone wants to run it with their highest level charecters and still never finish it.
I know I'm way late to the channel, but I want to give my 2 cents. I'm predisposed to NOT LIKE D&D channels, because it's too much one dude sitting in front of the camera talking. And those that do a history of D&D put up such content straight from the wiki with not enough research and too much speculation. This is a fantastic. I really want to see a deep-dive into Scourge and Queen in the future.
I know that the 5e princes of the apocalypse module also deals with 'elemental evil', but I'm not sure it actually constitues a sequel to ToEE as it has rather different mainsprings. ToEE's 'elemental evil' is never properly defined, and, if being by Gygax, I always had the impression that it was some sort of colossal red herring, like the 'elemental Eye' cult found in G3 and D3 and the Gord the Rogue novels, where the 'cult' (adopted by the Eilservs Drow as they brok from Lolth) is actually a cover for ill defined evil forces (I've heard named Iuz, various demon lords, or even Tharizdun). On the other hand, PotA relies on what Gygax did not use, the Princes of Elemental Evil from the Fiend Folio, and thus actually relies on evil elementals for its mainspring.
Wait a minute chapter one is the boathouse. Also I didn't know there was a homlet module. I managed to get my hands on the PDF temple of Elemental evil. I also got a word file that helped me convert me it to 3.5
Will you cover the board game versions of D&D (main game against the lich Necratim, and the expansions Eternal Winter with Skraethor the ice dragon and Forbidden Forest with the druids Elwick and Orwick)? It's the most dumbed-down version of D&D you can get, but it was great to get a bunch of figurines and maps at once. Plus, representing spells, items, and monsters as cards (kind of like in Magic: The Gathering) made these things much easier to grasp for the players.
Super Dungeon. When this came out our DM didn't like it or find it playable. We never played it. I like the idea of elemental evil and often have element based puzzles or monsters in my dungeons /adventures, I was always a little ticked that Nulb wasn't included in the Village of Hommlet module. I do like the lost temple of Tharizdun and I think prefer that final big bad to what is to be found in the Temple of Elemental Evil. I think I'd have to rework this to bring a group through, probably bringing in more elemental evil factors and ending with an elder god of some sort who has a temple at the Caves of Chaos and is one of the competing factions with Loth in the Against the Giants and Against the Drow Modules.
could you make a vid on how you would improve and run this adventure. Like how would you use theme the elemental theme differently or what would you do to emphasize it.
Posted a request earlier, was hoping for a response. In ToEE, while in Homlett, do they still fact off against the cleric like they do in T1, did not see that mentioned and looking to run ToEE but was not sure on that part or can I put the cleric into that section so it is more inline with T1 before going to the Temple?
Was this super module mean to be played as T1 originally and then continue on....so if you are running this, you do not need to run the original T1 module, Village of Hommlett. Do they fact the 5th level cleric in the super module?
That is why you do NOT read all that Exposition. When it is long. Print it out. Hand it to the players to read. Take a break as a GM or take care of GM duties you need to work on, so this eats up game time, OR you can in fact post this prior to the game. Let players read it and expect them to do so. Modern players, at least many of them, then would treat players who don't read it as somehow bad or wrong headed players, then give them passive aggressive crap, or outright aggression, since they might eat up a little game time asking questions about what was in the couple pages of expository that they didn't read or fully read. Yup, modern gamers, especially those who love the X Card, love to do stuff like that, or ban that player in a self-justified moment of triumph as they have the real power, not the other player they ban. As such, they are the true real oppressor. That is modern Current Year gaming today.
I ran the 3.0 version of the module "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" for almost one full year. We played once a week and I had about 5-8 players per week. We would play-4-5 hours at a time. I had a kill count of well over 35 pc's. I've got stories. I got the moniker of "Bruce the Butcher". Even though half way through the campaign I was rolling all my dice in the open!!!!
I'm guessing some of the screens are from Temple of Elemental Evil by Wizards of the Coast though im not sure how you got them as the game was shipped broken and never fixed making it impossible to get in the temple.
7:41 "Elmo isn't drunk! Elmo's a little monster!"
I'm so sorry. I couldn't resist.
Thanks for the excellent video! I DMed this back in the 80s when it first came out and this brought back some amusing memories. By the time my party got to the 2nd level they had become so wary there was no way they were going to fall for the pool-of-water trap in the water temple or the werewolves pretending to be angels, despite my best efforts to make them seem convincing.
The party's general principle of exploration had become: "Trust nothing and no-one - at any moment we could be hit by a deadly trap." The thief in particular was completely paranoid, constantly checking for traps and urging hostile action against everything encountered. A perfectly reasonable attitude under the circumstances ha ha!
When I ran this for my group in the way-back, they went through about 3-5 characters each, after they ran out of resurrection money. And they skipped almost all of floor two, snuck through floor 3 (the party by then was over half thieves a.k.a. rogues) and broke the module so badly that I ended up giving them a win by turning the whole place into a slow-motion sinkhole as I timed their running exit through the falling stonework. - I bought the boxed set years later, but I can't convince my self to go through the work of converting it to the Rolemaster system we use these days.
I remember runni g it way back. The group changed their philosophy so much from Homlet where they had been very hack and slash to the end of TOEE where the group was now dominated by spellcasters who used protection & detection magic & two thieves. An elven thief skilled in detection & disarming and a halfling scout thief who would check out the way ahead. But our Paladin was probably the MVP! 🏅
Sounds like your group went mad which is suitable in place as twisted and evil as the Temple.
Try this: The reason there are so many monsters stacked in here seemingly doing not much is because they are all waiting to hear word from Lareth the Beautiful to return and give the word to attack Hommlett.
The _real_ reason there are so many monsters stacked in here seemingly doing not much is because they all fell asleep listening to page after page after page of box text.
Man that angel room is total schmuck bait. “Yeah just take off all your clothes and weapons in this highly dangerous temple”
The Temple isn't highly dangerous...
It's drunkenly dangerous.
Ja, I've known women like that...
I don't see a problem there ;)
This is fairly standard stuff you do in Nethack. It works 95 -98 % of times so of course.
Then the fun is in the permadeath in rare times you end up doing something stupid with it or are just unlucky.
Like that one time I did it, random monster stepped on a polymorph trap on the level, turned into an arch lich and teleported right next to naked me...
@@jhutt8002 Good god😨
"Much fewer played the Temple of Elemental Evil"
Yeah, because the 23 level 4 fighters killed their level 1 party last time.
Look at the bright side: at least they werent Tucker's Kobolds. That would be REALLY SCARY!
On my play-through, my character entered the acid monster in the pool to rescue the "Triton" and took huge damage. I got out, but unfortunately the fighter got charmed, grappled me, and threw me back in. My character then ignobly died by being dissolved. *sigh* Good times, good times.
My first module as a player was The Keep on the Borderlands.
Same. Speaking of which, the Owlbear from the old basic version of Keep on the Borderlands had a hug attack if it hit you with both paws... This seems to be missing from later additions. Anyone know why by any chance?
I have tried watching people play through the keep on RUclips but using later editions and it seems this module is almost way too easy now. The Ogre, Minotaur and owlbear are lucky to get an attack in. Back in the day these creatures were terrifying at 1-3rd level.
@@swirvinbirds1971 I re-ran the adventure, a few months ago - and the party [ primarily led by a Paladin ] ran roughshod over the Ogre. I included TWO Ogres, to try to beef things up (1 upper level; the other in the basement). Both got chopped to ribbons.
B2 was the module that came in my boxed set that first got me playing D&D in 1979. It has a permanent home in my nostalgia.
@@MonkeyJedi99 I literally can remember the picture of the fighter shooting the Kobold with an arrow!
Mine was the isle of dread
*The ring will magically disappear if they ever use its powers to abuse Unicorns*
Why do I feel like that part of the enchantment was added latter?
Please make more of these, been playing since the 1980,s but some of these modules i was not exposed to. Great buying tool for new modules to introduce to my kids. Just finished King’s Festival and they absolutely loved it. Keep them coming!
About the name, Gygax explained that what is "Elemental Evil" has nothing to do (necessarily) with the Classical Elements (Fire, Water, Air, Earth) but "Elemental" as in "Primordial". The Elder Elemental God (not Tharizdun, btw) is named Vilp-akf ’cho Rentaq (according to Gygax) was able to "manifest" part of himself below the Temple (this likely being what attracted Zuggtmoy, Iuz the Old and Lolth to the location).
If someone has to explain it outside of the story itself, then it doesn't make sense.
Those combo books were great. Folks don't realize, you only could buy what was delivered rarely to local shops. I ended up having A1, 2 & 4 for years. This completed my set.
Yeah, the connections were hokey, but I did manage a campaign through all of them. It was fun.
I’d be very interested in a retrospective in this style of Keep on the boarderlands, Scourge of the Slavers, and the Spiderqueen. I’d also be interested in Against the Giants.
Go to dragonsfoot
Planet Eris
OSE and Mork Borg
Great review. I've DMed this module about 4 times over the years. It's definitely the most fun when played with a stealthy group. I can't wait for the next video. I hope you have the time and energy to do the A series and Queen of the Spiders.
Thank you so much for this channel. A great part of my childhood revisited!
the detailed descriptions are just the icing on the cake.
"Elemental temples are a cliche due to popularity of franchises like legend of zelda and final fantasy." True. Not hating on those games, love them as well, but true.
Wow! That set up at minute 10:50! I need to change my shorts! 🤣
11:27 I'm sorry, is this the origin of "Rocks fall, everyone dies"? I can't believe that was printed in a book, this is an amazing thing to see in such a famous work
I realize this is a late reply, but just in case you are sill wondering, the "Rocks fall, everyone dies" trope is from a webcomic called "Something*Positive"
@@BarelySocial Yeah, most people reference that when they say it, but wouldn't be surprised if the writer of that webcomic was in turn inspired by ToEE
Tomb of Horrors, 10 years earlier. One of the *entrances* was a "rocks fall" trap.
Take a sip every time anything in a Gygax dungeon is an illusion.
Ran this back in the day, it turns into quite a slog by the time you are done. My players wanted to explore every single room, it took quite a few weekends to get through it all.
My eyes light up whenever i see you in my subscription tab
This is a fantastic RUclips channel and is criminally undersubscribed. Keep up the good work!
I hope one day you take a look at The Pool of Radiance, it's tabletop module counterpart Ruins of Adventure, and the Curse of the Azure Bonds. You cannot easily find a more difference in kind and contrast when it came to looking at older D&D material.
I love this series. Thank you for making them!
Another great retrospective video! Well done!!!
this is very well produced, congrats
19:54 A box trap blade that cuts through anything, no saving throw? It slices through magical steel armor like butter? I’d dismantle the box and make that blade my primary weapon. 😂
Totally cool vid. You breathe new life into ToEE. Thank you!
Yeah, just discovered this channel and watching already the fifth video.
Desert of Desolation would be a good one if your interested.
I had to spend a couple minutes figuring out what you blurred out on the cover of ToEE. And then I figured it out. "Oh, duh, old D&D module art. Thus, bewbs. Yeah... Lot of that going around in the old days of D&D."
Mathonwy to bad it isn’t in current days of D&D
@@thomastakesatollforthedark2231 Are you twelve?
I miss the old fantasy art. It was more evocative of the setting. A lot of women and men not wearing much. Not necessarily nude, although it happened.
Nice work. the "Underdark" campaign was my favorite to run
We have Veins of the Earth now for the OSR
I first read about this in Dragon Magazine in an article about Zuggtmoy, Demon Queen of Fungi.
I did like the manual you got with the game box though. Love using the Circle of Eight Mod pack.
I somehow ran a campaign through this back in high school and the only thing i remember is it being super fun and epic. The group was a bit higher level which was very much needed to get through the final juggernaut death trap encounter. I would love to re-run this using 2E and a VTT and see if it holds up.
The coloured robes for parties who wish to attempt to 'infiltrate' the various Temples are found in locked chests on Level 1.
When I played through, I took on the 26 Brigands and won the combat without losing any Character. Having access to the Temple's 'secret' stairway is VERY useful! 🤗
Great video! Thank you. 🙏
M 🦘🏏😎
TEE was one of the best adventures I ever had the pleasure of running. I ran all three, TEE, Slave Lords and Queen. The group I was with at the time loved the set. Too bad I no longer have the set :(, would love to see them bring them back for 5E … could only dream. *subscribed*
I know you may not see this, or already know, but Goodman Games updated tee to 5th edition
@@dwi2921 I got it from Goodman Games back in March 2022 along with DCC. Tyvm for the reply incase I didn't know that it was redone
I came on board with The Keep etc. 10th grade. DnD club DM I was.
Since the year of 79-80, what a world. Many, many have wandered my low magik, high fantasy horror, grim world.
Dragons feel it is alright to visit, but would not want to raise kids there.
Thanks for these vids. Memories of running groups of adventuring folk.
When someone takes a break, comes back after a few years, they know years of events shall have passed.
I never actually went through this module but it looks cool.We started with Keep on the Border lands,did some side quests,then got into Slave-lords A1-4,Against the Giants G1-3 and Descent into the Depths D1-3.It was then that our grade 12 grad year rolled around and the group split up so we never got to do the Queen of the Demon-web Pits module.A shame looking back now that what we started in grade 6 we never totally completed.I still have the books and dice.
I'm really enjoying your content DM It All,newly subbed and liked.Keep them coming please.
Great work. Your channel is definitely top 3 D&D channel.
Just a suggestion but if you were able to put the same quality into homebrew modules you’d have something no other channel does.
Awesome video! I can't wait to watch part 2!
I’ve played TOEE on PC for a long time so it’ll be fun to look for differences.
20:09 Ahem-it’s pronounced “BRAY-zhers,” boys… 😉
Thanks for the reminder! Looks like my subconscious was getting the best of me when I recorded that day
Dobu_GM 😆 No problem. Just remember that if a brassiere starts spewing smoke when you touch it, you’re in for a world of trouble… 😂
You found a bra. a BRA!
I dare you to try and remove a troll's brassiere!
I was half listening, but when I heard mention of smoking brassieres I went “wait, what?” and had to go back.
No description of a room or building can be so thorough that a PC won’t ask a question about what isn’t covered.
I have the same keyboard as Frank Metzer!! Thanks for the awesome video
Baaacckkk in the day here's I ran it: 1) The way I put my campaign together was by taking all the old modules sitting around that I had and 'stitched' their campaign maps together. So it was patchwork map of Hommlet, Barovia, Amber, Restenford, bordered on the south by the coast with the Isle of Dread, to the west by a desert with the Lost City, and to the north by the Barrier Peaks, which have been taken over by Hill Giants at the bottom, Frost Giants at the top, and a Fire Giant in the voclano in the middle and you have to go 'against the giants' if one wanted to go on 'an expidtion to the barrier peaks' to discover the Forbidden City on the other side. OK, so on this side of the peaks, our characters start in Hommlett. When they clear out the Moathouse they discover that these Evil Bandits were taking orders from the Temple of Eleental Evil which is...somewhere in the campaign world, so the characters must adventure forth and find it, and they can decide where to go next Barovia, Restenford, The Hill, or Amber. as they adventure around they discover that agents from the temple have been influencing events all over the place bringing varying curses down upon the likes of Barovia, Amber, and Inverness. Each adventre leads them closer to discovering the location of the Temple until they finally discover it. Turns out the Temple isnt exactly organized. Over the last 100 years the temple has become essentially the Hommlett for monsters, so its kind of liek a town full of monster adventurers who are going to sally forth into the world of men and seek their fortune, and the Caves of Chaos are the monsters version of the Keep on the Borderlands where young duty bound monsters go to defend against the hordes of men, dwarves and elves. However in my case a Cthulh cult (using the stats from the original Dieties and Demigods) is itself trying to take over the Temple from within and then spread its dark reign using Castle Amber, Castle Ravenloft, the Keep on the Borderlands, and a crazy Spaceship as its outer defense perimeters. As with all DM plans we never got through that whole thing, and I actually spread that same campaign out over two entirely different groups of people.
Love these videos and this entire channel. Though I did get a chuckle from the narrator pronouncing "braziers" like "brassieres".
I just picked up a copy of the original book for ToEE......can't wait to run the party through it
The one thing I dislike about (older) modules is that they seem to be completely UNREALISTIC ... when it comes to FOOD and WATER and the general necessities of SURVIVING. With the amount of (non-elemental, non-undead) monsters inside you would need quite a lot of food supply every day.
I had this module but my friends and I could never get into it. I’m not exactly sure why, I think it had something to do with the sheer illogicality of the rival factions living literally yards from each other. I still have the module now and it seems much better and than I remember.
I think 5e Princes of the Apocalypse (iirc) is a sort of remake or re-envisioning of ToEE. It’s similar in many ways but has more of a true elemental focus.
The presence of competing elemental temples can be explained by a few factors.
First, while the temples hate one another and wish to dominate, they're still nominally allies against their enemies outside the Temple of Elemental Evil. They have more in common with each other than they do with those outside. They've likely formed loose agreements to work together, all while secretly plotting betrayal. In a time when the forces of elemental evil already suffered great losses to the forces of good, they need all the help they can get. Moreover, factions within the temple may seek to win over converts from the others, to bolster its own ranks. So outright killing the other temples is counterproductive.
Second, the temples are hardly invincible. Attacking another temple outright would invariably cost them resources and manpower, things they can't afford to lose. Or at the very least they're enough of cowards to not risk it when they don't need to. This is why the temples prefer to engage in covert attacks and skullduggery, to weaken their rivals while taking minimal casualties themselves.
Third, there aren't just two temples, but four. Regardless of whether any given temple could "take" another temple, it's much harder to take two or three at a time. If one temple fights another and wins, they may be so weakened that one or both remaining temples may launch an attack. Waiting in the wings to destroy whoever wins when they're at their most vulnerable. This doesn't even get into the fact that the temples may have a common understanding that if one temple attacks another, all other temples will gang up on the aggressor. Simply as a mechanism for preventing any one temple from getting too powerful. After all, if one temple was ballsy enough to pull off a direct assault, that temple must be enough of a threat that the other temples would be fools to ignore.
Fourth, the Greater Temple Faction exists, and often serves as a neutral party in temple politics. A faction that's fairly powerful in its own right. They keep out of the conflicts, for now, but their neutrality is conditional on everything being "chill". Plus, their motives are mysterious and their capabilities unknown. No temple wants to risk dragging them into a battle (much less on the other side).
All of this combines to form a dubious equilibrium. What makes the PCs special is that they're a new element that doesn't exist within any temple's hierarchy. Ergo, they tilt things in the favor of a specific temple, allowing them to topple their rivals for good. Or at least that's the plan. Groups like the trolls serve a similar function, as they're actively courted by all the temples.
I bought the 4 game module involving Temple of Elemental Evil back in the 80s and played it but the game is so long its hard to get people to finish it. I even played the mmo DDO and everyone wants to run it with their highest level charecters and still never finish it.
Great review
id love to see you do one of these indepth discussions on the throne of bloodstone
I see you're using the modded version "Circle of Eight" of the ToEE videogame, with more locations added to the original map. 😊
I always thought the troll chieftain not having a bias against the fire temple was kind of a silly oversight/missed opportunity. lol
That first village seemed vaguely familiar to a description of Mos Eisley from Tatooine :P
I know I'm way late to the channel, but I want to give my 2 cents. I'm predisposed to NOT LIKE D&D channels, because it's too much one dude sitting in front of the camera talking. And those that do a history of D&D put up such content straight from the wiki with not enough research and too much speculation. This is a fantastic. I really want to see a deep-dive into Scourge and Queen in the future.
I know that the 5e princes of the apocalypse module also deals with 'elemental evil', but I'm not sure it actually constitues a sequel to ToEE as it has rather different mainsprings. ToEE's 'elemental evil' is never properly defined, and, if being by Gygax, I always had the impression that it was some sort of colossal red herring, like the 'elemental Eye' cult found in G3 and D3 and the Gord the Rogue novels, where the 'cult' (adopted by the Eilservs Drow as they brok from Lolth) is actually a cover for ill defined evil forces (I've heard named Iuz, various demon lords, or even Tharizdun). On the other hand, PotA relies on what Gygax did not use, the Princes of Elemental Evil from the Fiend Folio, and thus actually relies on evil elementals for its mainspring.
Loved the original, still have it!
If halloween special isn't Ravenloft I'm suing.
I think we should protest!
It's Halloween so I'm replying to remind you.
Brassieres??? (20:15) lol Don't disturb the brassieres!!! There be consequences if ya do. ;) Braze-iers, methinks... (braziers).
Wait a minute chapter one is the boathouse.
Also I didn't know there was a homlet module. I managed to get my hands on the PDF temple of Elemental evil. I also got a word file that helped me convert me it to 3.5
Awesome!
This sounds like a job for the Avatar!
Our mage has jumped into a pool of acid . Some cursed trident.
RiP
I LOVED the Troika pc game - despite its bugs.
Will you cover the board game versions of D&D (main game against the lich Necratim, and the expansions Eternal Winter with Skraethor the ice dragon and Forbidden Forest with the druids Elwick and Orwick)? It's the most dumbed-down version of D&D you can get, but it was great to get a bunch of figurines and maps at once. Plus, representing spells, items, and monsters as cards (kind of like in Magic: The Gathering) made these things much easier to grasp for the players.
I miss all the big bubble texts to read out to the players
Are you all done creating videos? I love them so much!
ahhh the burzum module!
Super Dungeon. When this came out our DM didn't like it or find it playable. We never played it. I like the idea of elemental evil and often have element based puzzles or monsters in my dungeons /adventures, I was always a little ticked that Nulb wasn't included in the Village of Hommlet module.
I do like the lost temple of Tharizdun and I think prefer that final big bad to what is to be found in the Temple of Elemental Evil.
I think I'd have to rework this to bring a group through, probably bringing in more elemental evil factors and ending with an elder god of some sort who has a temple at the Caves of Chaos and is one of the competing factions with Loth in the Against the Giants and Against the Drow Modules.
Loving this channel! Where did you get that Nulb map artwork? *SUBSCRIBED*
My god, when you referred to the BRAY-zee-urs as brah-ZEERS/tit-slings, I sprayed coke zero out my nose.
If you are still making these videos, Castle Amber would be great!
Where did you get these high res images of the Temple maps from the PC game? I must know!
I played the computer game of ToEE, that used 3.5 rules. Buggy game but it was ok. Alot of the Hommlet stuff with the Moathouse and all was part of it
Good series. How about some programs on the game scenarios put out by Judges Guild?
could you make a vid on how you would improve and run this adventure. Like how would you use theme the elemental theme differently or what would you do to emphasize it.
One of my favourite modules. Not the favourite though, that prize goes to White Plume Mountain.
Posted a request earlier, was hoping for a response. In ToEE, while in Homlett, do they still fact off against the cleric like they do in T1, did not see that mentioned and looking to run ToEE but was not sure on that part or can I put the cleric into that section so it is more inline with T1 before going to the Temple?
You should do City of the spider queen. It's a 3rd ed forgotten realms module.
Was this super module mean to be played as T1 originally and then continue on....so if you are running this, you do not need to run the original T1 module, Village of Hommlett. Do they fact the 5th level cleric in the super module?
That is why you do NOT read all that Exposition. When it is long. Print it out. Hand it to the players to read. Take a break as a GM or take care of GM duties you need to work on, so this eats up game time, OR you can in fact post this prior to the game. Let players read it and expect them to do so. Modern players, at least many of them, then would treat players who don't read it as somehow bad or wrong headed players, then give them passive aggressive crap, or outright aggression, since they might eat up a little game time asking questions about what was in the couple pages of expository that they didn't read or fully read. Yup, modern gamers, especially those who love the X Card, love to do stuff like that, or ban that player in a self-justified moment of triumph as they have the real power, not the other player they ban. As such, they are the true real oppressor. That is modern Current Year gaming today.
great
I got killed by a giant centipede in the boathouse.
ToEE was released in 1985, Oct or Nov.
I heard many were angry at the reveal.
Earth, Fire, Air, Water ... but what about the element of Surprise?
Nice walkthrough but for future reference I suggest you check out the pronunciation of brazier and brassiere, made me laugh though.
I ran the 3.0 version of the module "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" for almost one full year. We played once a week and I had about 5-8 players per week. We would play-4-5 hours at a time. I had a kill count of well over 35 pc's. I've got stories. I got the moniker of "Bruce the Butcher". Even though half way through the campaign I was rolling all my dice in the open!!!!
Brassieres? Lol, it's pronounced "BRAY-zhurs".
yep
Braziers = bray-zyurs, not bra-zeers (Brassieres). Great video, thanks!
I want to somehow run this as a 5e adventure, is it possible?
Goodman Games have released a 5e update!
Donald Sutherland alert 1:16
so this is the original and not the 5e remake?
No x in the word escape btw
I’ll play the pc version.
It's available on gog for around $2-3. Just got it tonight, need to restart it as I lost about half my party in the intro.
@@MonkeyJedi99 Yea I already got. I meant that I would rather play the pc version vs the regular paper pencil version.
Bray-zhyer... Brazier.
I thought this was about the PC game TOEE.
I'm guessing some of the screens are from Temple of Elemental Evil by Wizards of the Coast though im not sure how you got them as the game was shipped broken and never fixed making it impossible to get in the temple.
Fantastic video, is there a fifth edition conversion of this module ?
Princes of the Apocalypse. It's called out in the first 5 minutes of the video.