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Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: The Temple of Elemental Evil
The Village of Hommlet thrives again. Years ago, this quaint village nearly fell prey to a great, neighboring evil. The nearby Temple of Elemental Evil, a grand edifice of wickedness, was defeated after a great battle and thrown into ruin forever…or was it?
Bandits have started to ride the roads again, and there are other ominous signs afoot. It is whispered that the demonic evil at the heart of the Temple was not truly conquered but merely imprisoned. Even now, agents of evil, malevolent beasts, and far worse creatures are conspiring to return the Temple to power and enslave the surrounding lands. Hommlet and the neighboring ruins may hold clues, but not everyone is to be trusted. Surely danger lies hidden in this idyllic region.
Sharpen your swords and axes. Purchase your iron rations and tinderboxes. And don’t forget at least one 10-foot pole. Great adventure awaits those that dare confront the Temple of Elemental Evil!
This book collection is an homage to the origins of an adventure that began decades ago with T1: The Village of Hommlet and T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil. Herein you will find high-quality scans from multiple printings of the original first edition adventure modules, plus commentary by gaming legends. Full fifth edition conversions of both adventure books are included, as well as brand new adventure material that adds new wilderness encounters, expands the Village of Nulb, fully details the evil Elemental Nodes, and provides fifth edition updates of many original magic items, monsters, and spells.
This is a fully playable mega-dungeon and mini-campaign—many hours of classic-style adventure await you! Designed to take characters from level 1 to level 7.
Bandits have started to ride the roads again, and there are other ominous signs afoot. It is whispered that the demonic evil at the heart of the Temple was not truly conquered but merely imprisoned. Even now, agents of evil, malevolent beasts, and far worse creatures are conspiring to return the Temple to power and enslave the surrounding lands. Hommlet and the neighboring ruins may hold clues, but not everyone is to be trusted. Surely danger lies hidden in this idyllic region.
Sharpen your swords and axes. Purchase your iron rations and tinderboxes. And don’t forget at least one 10-foot pole. Great adventure awaits those that dare confront the Temple of Elemental Evil!
This book collection is an homage to the origins of an adventure that began decades ago with T1: The Village of Hommlet and T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil. Herein you will find high-quality scans from multiple printings of the original first edition adventure modules, plus commentary by gaming legends. Full fifth edition conversions of both adventure books are included, as well as brand new adventure material that adds new wilderness encounters, expands the Village of Nulb, fully details the evil Elemental Nodes, and provides fifth edition updates of many original magic items, monsters, and spells.
This is a fully playable mega-dungeon and mini-campaign—many hours of classic-style adventure await you! Designed to take characters from level 1 to level 7.
732 pages, Hardcover
Published September 10, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 28, 2025
The adventure has a lot of good things, but it's very problematic. The update adds a lot of content, but it doesn't solve the problems that the original adventure had. Really a lost opportunity. SPOILERS COMING UP.
The Village of Hommlet from the original Gygax module is a great sandbox village. The DM, as usual, has to give most of the NPCs a personality. The new edition adds good encounters between Hommlet and the first dungeon, the Moathouse. The village of Nulb has been fleshed out a little more. The temple has a lot of good areas and a lot of problems, which I'll point out, but it's a nice dungeon crawl. This new edition also maps out the nodes with keyed encounters.
The biggest problem with the original, which the OAR does nothing to fix, is that it needs a simple outline of the factions and which monsters and NPCs are a part of each faction. If I have to flip through the book while playing to find out who someone is loyal to, the session falls apart. I will have to reread the entire 700 pages and write a cheat sheet for myself if these factions are going to interact. And there are 7 factions! Plus the good characters. And how about an outline that tells you where all the important artifacts are so you don't have to search through 2 books to make sure PCs had a reasonable chance of finding them?
The other big problems that aren't fixed in this box set are 1. How exactly do you defeat Zuggtmoy? Do you need to use Goldenskull and the 4 gems? Good paladins and clerics won't touch it, so I guess your rogue can help you defeat her. But possessing it allows Zug and Iuz to dominate you and turn you into a thrall. Ok. 2. The solution is hidden (vaguely) inside a poem that the players might find. Or they might not, so you might have to give it to them in a dream. 3. Why did Zug make an item that would help defeat her and then hide pieces of it in elemental nodes? I guess I have to come up with that part, unless it's buried somewhere in the dozens of pages of Greyhawk lore that I don't need. 4. The gems are hard to find. The original book left it up to the DM to map out the nodes and hide the gems there. The new book hides them in crazy places, like in a grotto hidden behind a rock shelf that you can only get to if you dive 10 feet deep and find an underwater cave entrance that leads to the grotto, and then you have to search a body that is under 3 feet of water and has the orb in his clenched fist. (I think there are 10 of these hidden rooms underwater behind rock walls that no one would find unless they search underwater around the edges of the entire roughly 3 million square foot water node! And that's only possible if they manage to guess that eating purple algae that is found on a rock in the middle of the ocean not only makes you violently sick, but it also allows you to breathe underwater. If I eat something that makes me sick, the first thing I do after throwing up is to put my face in deep water to see whether I can breathe it.) 5. In order to solve the adventure, you have to guess from a slightly unclear poem that the Orb must be destroyed. In order to do that, you have to guess that you must submit it - in the proper order of course - to 50 mph wind, the strike of a solid granite maul, a flame that is 1000 degrees F, and water colder than 32 degrees but not frozen. The new author, Chris Doyle, tells us in a sidebar that we can handwave the entire thing and just let the players make a DC 20 Int check to know how to destroy it, which the DM will probably have to tell them to do.
To be fair, I think Doyle wanted to stay true to the original Gygax/Mentzer adventure as much as possible, when it actually needs a rewrite. But he could easily have included a couple of NPC/faction outlines to make the DMs job way easier. I believe that he knows a DM has to do these things, so I have no idea why he didn't assist. My 4 stars is based on the quality of the content of all the keyed areas, which is mostly really good. It is also fairly sandboxy throughout, which is always good.
The Village of Hommlet from the original Gygax module is a great sandbox village. The DM, as usual, has to give most of the NPCs a personality. The new edition adds good encounters between Hommlet and the first dungeon, the Moathouse. The village of Nulb has been fleshed out a little more. The temple has a lot of good areas and a lot of problems, which I'll point out, but it's a nice dungeon crawl. This new edition also maps out the nodes with keyed encounters.
The biggest problem with the original, which the OAR does nothing to fix, is that it needs a simple outline of the factions and which monsters and NPCs are a part of each faction. If I have to flip through the book while playing to find out who someone is loyal to, the session falls apart. I will have to reread the entire 700 pages and write a cheat sheet for myself if these factions are going to interact. And there are 7 factions! Plus the good characters. And how about an outline that tells you where all the important artifacts are so you don't have to search through 2 books to make sure PCs had a reasonable chance of finding them?
The other big problems that aren't fixed in this box set are 1. How exactly do you defeat Zuggtmoy? Do you need to use Goldenskull and the 4 gems? Good paladins and clerics won't touch it, so I guess your rogue can help you defeat her. But possessing it allows Zug and Iuz to dominate you and turn you into a thrall. Ok. 2. The solution is hidden (vaguely) inside a poem that the players might find. Or they might not, so you might have to give it to them in a dream. 3. Why did Zug make an item that would help defeat her and then hide pieces of it in elemental nodes? I guess I have to come up with that part, unless it's buried somewhere in the dozens of pages of Greyhawk lore that I don't need. 4. The gems are hard to find. The original book left it up to the DM to map out the nodes and hide the gems there. The new book hides them in crazy places, like in a grotto hidden behind a rock shelf that you can only get to if you dive 10 feet deep and find an underwater cave entrance that leads to the grotto, and then you have to search a body that is under 3 feet of water and has the orb in his clenched fist. (I think there are 10 of these hidden rooms underwater behind rock walls that no one would find unless they search underwater around the edges of the entire roughly 3 million square foot water node! And that's only possible if they manage to guess that eating purple algae that is found on a rock in the middle of the ocean not only makes you violently sick, but it also allows you to breathe underwater. If I eat something that makes me sick, the first thing I do after throwing up is to put my face in deep water to see whether I can breathe it.) 5. In order to solve the adventure, you have to guess from a slightly unclear poem that the Orb must be destroyed. In order to do that, you have to guess that you must submit it - in the proper order of course - to 50 mph wind, the strike of a solid granite maul, a flame that is 1000 degrees F, and water colder than 32 degrees but not frozen. The new author, Chris Doyle, tells us in a sidebar that we can handwave the entire thing and just let the players make a DC 20 Int check to know how to destroy it, which the DM will probably have to tell them to do.
To be fair, I think Doyle wanted to stay true to the original Gygax/Mentzer adventure as much as possible, when it actually needs a rewrite. But he could easily have included a couple of NPC/faction outlines to make the DMs job way easier. I believe that he knows a DM has to do these things, so I have no idea why he didn't assist. My 4 stars is based on the quality of the content of all the keyed areas, which is mostly really good. It is also fairly sandboxy throughout, which is always good.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2026
I read both the original T1 Village of Hommlet and the super module T1-4 both recently and several years ago where I began running it for my younger kids perhaps eight years ago now, using AD&D rules. I eventually sold my battered copy, and now have purchased the Goodman Games 5e update which comes as a hefty double hardback. It’s the first GG product I’ve bought and was keen to see how they tackled a complex and sizeable adventure.
I wasn’t disappointed. The tome begins with lots of historical information, from a TSR , Mentzer, and author perspective. I enjoyed this tremendously, as a historical note, as a nostalgia for the era note, and as an immersion in how others played the original game in the 80s.
Next we have good quality reprints of both T1 (which I reviewed previously) and T1-4. It was great reading the old school adventure and its ambitious scope, visualising in my head the challenge it would provide recommended levels of play. It didn’t have the harshness of some old school adventures but was still pretty rough in places. The plot was good but confusing in places ( where does Lolth come into it other than in T1??) and changeable terms for the Orb and vague details of the gems and nodes didn’t help. It was a great setting, but seemed to need a lot of work to craft that into a story. Which, to be fair, we all did in the day, adapting published modules to our own flavour and ideas.
The update is excellent. Designed for levels 1 to 7, it faithfully updates the original, adds new monsters where needed and fully statted NPCs, and crucially advise on balancing the encounters of each level to modern games. The most development has gone into Nulb and encounters near it, designed to nudge the PCs up towards level 3 for the Temple itself, and to the nodes which I’d run for level 6 myself. The nodes are really good, and the authors have evidently enjoyed thus opportunity to let creativity flow within the prior constraints. It becomes clearer about the Orb and the Gems as a tool to defeat the Temple, and also potentially Zuggtmoy. The demoness has always seemed an odd fit here. She is trapped and won’t be released unless the four doors are sundered in some way (very unlikely in the original and fairly unlikely in the update). Yet she is a key aspect of the module and barring idiocy, there’s only two ways she really comes into it: either the temple cult leadership want her freed (and the big bosses seem more inclined to Iuz) or the PCs decide to enter her prison and slay her material form (which would be a cool battle and secondary conclusion). I’m certain with a little work the Zuggtmoy plot line could be done as an epic finale, and cooler than scrapping with high level cultists sniping spells through a kelp curtain.
Any grumbles? Beyond the aforementioned, which is a legacy of the original, the faithful style of adaptation does highlight some differences between the 1st and 5th editions. The bountiful treasure herein is a product of the OG mechanic of GP=XP, and has been rationalised in places. The plethora of magic items might need curtailing for an ongoing campaign, notably the artefacts tucked away in the lower levels. The faithful update of magic armour leaves the 5e versions with comical ACs that are even worse than one of my current player’s artificer-wizard. I mean who wants +3 plate and +3 shields kicking around their campaigns?
They are minor grumbles. This is an admirable achievement and a great book to own, and one I’m tempted to run if I can convince my players that 50+ sessions of being in a dungeon will be a worthwhile venture.
I wasn’t disappointed. The tome begins with lots of historical information, from a TSR , Mentzer, and author perspective. I enjoyed this tremendously, as a historical note, as a nostalgia for the era note, and as an immersion in how others played the original game in the 80s.
Next we have good quality reprints of both T1 (which I reviewed previously) and T1-4. It was great reading the old school adventure and its ambitious scope, visualising in my head the challenge it would provide recommended levels of play. It didn’t have the harshness of some old school adventures but was still pretty rough in places. The plot was good but confusing in places ( where does Lolth come into it other than in T1??) and changeable terms for the Orb and vague details of the gems and nodes didn’t help. It was a great setting, but seemed to need a lot of work to craft that into a story. Which, to be fair, we all did in the day, adapting published modules to our own flavour and ideas.
The update is excellent. Designed for levels 1 to 7, it faithfully updates the original, adds new monsters where needed and fully statted NPCs, and crucially advise on balancing the encounters of each level to modern games. The most development has gone into Nulb and encounters near it, designed to nudge the PCs up towards level 3 for the Temple itself, and to the nodes which I’d run for level 6 myself. The nodes are really good, and the authors have evidently enjoyed thus opportunity to let creativity flow within the prior constraints. It becomes clearer about the Orb and the Gems as a tool to defeat the Temple, and also potentially Zuggtmoy. The demoness has always seemed an odd fit here. She is trapped and won’t be released unless the four doors are sundered in some way (very unlikely in the original and fairly unlikely in the update). Yet she is a key aspect of the module and barring idiocy, there’s only two ways she really comes into it: either the temple cult leadership want her freed (and the big bosses seem more inclined to Iuz) or the PCs decide to enter her prison and slay her material form (which would be a cool battle and secondary conclusion). I’m certain with a little work the Zuggtmoy plot line could be done as an epic finale, and cooler than scrapping with high level cultists sniping spells through a kelp curtain.
Any grumbles? Beyond the aforementioned, which is a legacy of the original, the faithful style of adaptation does highlight some differences between the 1st and 5th editions. The bountiful treasure herein is a product of the OG mechanic of GP=XP, and has been rationalised in places. The plethora of magic items might need curtailing for an ongoing campaign, notably the artefacts tucked away in the lower levels. The faithful update of magic armour leaves the 5e versions with comical ACs that are even worse than one of my current player’s artificer-wizard. I mean who wants +3 plate and +3 shields kicking around their campaigns?
They are minor grumbles. This is an admirable achievement and a great book to own, and one I’m tempted to run if I can convince my players that 50+ sessions of being in a dungeon will be a worthwhile venture.
January 24, 2023
This is awesome. Totally enjoying rereading the original adventure and seeing the Goodman Games update. Sweet beejeezuz this adventure is fantastic to read but running it must take years of prep time.
November 10, 2022
Bang up job on including the original works and turning it into a 5e masterpiece. Excellent price too.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews