By request, I’ve started running a ToEE campaign for my current players. The Party Milrick: a 1st level human fighter Sayervin: a 1st level wood elf ranger Uthor: a 1st level human cleric of St. Cuthbert Jolly Torbuck: a 1/1 halfling (tallfellow) fighter/thief Masric: a 1st level human magic-user Godsday, Coldeven 4th, 579 CY It was just about noon when the party reached the outskirts of Hommlet. After stopping for a moment to survey the scene, they decided to head into the center of the settlement to find an inn. Uthor would continue on to visit the church he spotted on a hilltop on the other side of town. In the center of town the party located an inn, the famous Inn of the Welcome Wench. A stable boy approached to take Jolly’s pony, and the party, except for Uthor, headed inside. About a dozen patrons were scattered around the common room, most appeared to be local farmer types, but some appeared to be merchants and their associates. The party grabbed a table and ordered drinks. After a few minutes had passed, the party was approached by a rather muscular, but tipsy looking farmer named Elmo. Elmo introduced himself, and inquired what brought the party to town. They were quick to state that they were following rumors about the Temple of Elemental Evil, and were on their way to check it out. The farmer inquired about how long they would be in town, and they informed him that they would probably move on tomorrow. The party didn’t really make any attempt to gather information, and they weren’t interested in recruiting, so we’ll move on to the church. The church was dedicated to St. Cuthbert. Uthor was greeted by the cleric Calmert. Uthor introduced himself and explained his reasons for coming to Hommlet. He also asked if the local cleric had information that might help. Calmert suggested that he talk to the head cleric of the church, Terjon, after the Godsday services had ended. Uthor stayed for the services, and then spoke to Terjon. Terjon said that he didn’t know much, just the same rumors that the party had heard. He did inform Uthor that the Temple did have an outpost nearby, a moathouse, now in ruins, located about 2 or 3 miles to the northeast. Terjon offered Uthor a small room to stay in while he was in town, and the cleric accepted. He then headed to the inn to speak to his companions. Back at the inn, Uthor described his meeting with the clerics and informed the party of the nearby moathouse. The party debated exploring the moathouse, or moving on to the Temple. In the end they decided to explore the moathouse. Uthor returned to the church in settled in for the night. The rest of the party made arrangements to stay at the inn’s dorm room, and hung out in the common room mingling for a while. They spotted two likely adventurer types seated at one table, and two loners. The decided to approach one of the loners first. He introduced himself as Furnok of Ferd, and claimed to be a treasure finder. The party guessed ‘thief’. He was interested in joining the party for an equal share. They told him they’d get back to him. Next they spoke to Zert, a heavy-drinking fighter. He informed them that he was just passing through, but if they were planning anything soon, he’d be interested. The party then had a small debate about sharing the loot with anybody else. They decided they would go scout it out before they hired anybody else. The next morning, the headed for the moathouse. It took about four hours of hacking along on an overgrown trail to reach the ruins. The moathouse was located in a sunken, boggy area. When they approached the gate, they noticed movement in a pond next to the road. Emerging from the pond were six hungry-looking giant frogs. The party moved to attack, all except Masric, who hung back in case a spell was called for. Sayervin killed one of the frogs with an arrow before any could move. The rest leaped to attack. Two leaped right over the rushing party and attacked Masric. They hit, and started playing tug-o-war with the magic-user. Masric’s short happy life ended. The next several rounds passed without anybody in the party, except for Jolly, rolling high enough to hit while the frogs slowly whittled them down. After Uthor was also killed by the hopping, croaking frenzy of green death, the rest of the party started hitting, and quickly killed the batrachian beasts. Milrick gutted the frogs, and in the guts of the largest found a gem. The party then limped back to Hommlet. They had no spell casters, and hadn’t impressed anybody enough to get any discount healing. It would take a week to heal naturally. They didn’t want to wait, but didn’t have a choice. They spent the next seven days poking around town and looking for recruits. They sold the gem they found to the local money changer for 90 gold pieces and split it between the three surviving party members. Elmo said he would be interested in joining the party, but when he requested they buy him armor and an axe, they changed their mind. They were introduced to one of the town big wigs, Burne the wizard, who also expressed interest, but when he stated he required a 1/3 of the loot, they decided to look elsewhere. Burne’s associate Rufus was ruled out for his high price as well. Jaroo the druid wasn’t interested, nor where the clerics from the church of St. Cuthbert. In the end, they recruited three members met at the inn, Zert, the fighter they had spoken too previously, Spugnoir a magic-user who agreed to go for an equal share and any scrolls they found, and Jorus, a monk from Verbobonc. To be continued...
Ouch! Two kills in the first encounter including the party magic user.. I take it that one or more of the new recruits are replacement PC's? Or will the players of the deceased have their folks show up later? Great writeup.. Brings home the importance the importance of hiring some meat shields.. er, followers.. when playing 1e. Look forward to more updates! Andy
The party: Milrick: a 1st level human fighter Sayervin: a 1st level wood elf ranger Zert: a human fighter Jolly Torbuck: a 1/1 halfling (tallfellow) fighter/thief Jorus: a 1st level human monk Spugnoir: a human magic-user Earthday, Coldeven 13th Once the party was fully healed, they headed back to the ruins of the Moathouse. The party made it into the ruins without problem and did some searching, and had several encounters with vermin-type monsters: giant spider, giant snake, giant rats. The encounters resulted in some minor loot. In the fight with the rats, Spugnoir and Jorus went down. After the melee, it was determined that Spugnoir was dead, but Jorus was just knocked out. The party headed back to Hommlet. As they trudged along the road, they spotted a warrior mounted on a warhorse ahead of them. The warrior charged the party. Milrick and Zert advanced to meet the attacker while Sayervin fired his bow. At the same time a second figure rushed out of its hiding spot on the side of the trail just behind the party. The party recognized the second attacker as Turuko, an adventuring monk they had talked to at the Inn of the Welcome Wench. They then guessed the mounted warrior was his associate Kobort. Sayervin’s arrows failed to slow the charging warrior, and he crashed into the fighters waiting to meet him. Milrick took some heavy damage, and then he and Zert attacked, both hitting. Sayervin turned to help Jolly take on the monk. Turuko hit Jolly. Jolly missed his attack, but Sayervin scored a hit. The next round Kobort and his mount came down hard again on Milrick, knocking him unconscious. The monk hit Jolly again and knocked him out as well. On the party’s turn, Zert managed to take down Kobort, and Sayervin dropped the monk. Sayervin heaved a sigh of relief, but it was premature. He turned just in time to see Zert sneaking up behind him, weapon drawn. Over the next several rounds, Sayervin missed every attack roll, and Zert hit every time. At the end of the 3rd round, Sayervin was down, and Zert, a spy for the Temple of Elemental Evil, was dispatching the unconscious, and looting their corpses. Later, before moving on, Zert would tell the inn folk that the Moathouse was nothing but an empty ruin, and explain the party’s demise on the monstrous denizens of the bog, and the treachery of Turuko and Kobort.
Temple: 1, Players: 0 The party really didn't play bad, but had a streak of bad luck on attack rolls. They did cheap out and make bad decisions on the hired help though. We've got another party rolling into Hommlet soon. We'll see how it goes.
In the ToEE game I play in, we just finished smashing the Earth Temple and are preparing to go into the 2nd level of the dungeons. We consider this a victory even though it has been about 6 sessions 4-5 hours long each, with many withdrawals. We entered the Earth Temple to get a good look at the Elementals but stayed clear! My Bard (now deceased ) managed to snag the brass box from the stone pillar...
Godsday, Coldeven 18th, 575 CY The Party: Dunstin: a 1st level human ranger Langston: a 1st level cleric (of St. Cuthbert) The pair adventurers traveled to Hommlet, drawn by ruins of a resurgent Temple of Elemental Evil. They headed straight for the center of town looking for an inn. Once they had settled into the Inn of the Welcome Wench, they started mingling and asking questions. Several locals told them they didn’t know anything about the Temple proper, but the lone survivor from a party that had explored the ruins of a nearby Temple outpost had reported that it was just an abandoned wreck. They decided to explore it anyways, and went rdcruiting. They tried Jaroo the druid, and the clerics at the church of St. Cuthbert, but none were interested. Next they went to look for Burne, on Elmo’s (met at the inn earlier) suggestion. After bristling at his rate, a third of the loot, they agreed, but declined Rufus’s (Burne’s fighter associate) servies. Later that evening, they met Furnok of Ferd, a ‘treasure finder’ at the inn and enlisted him too. The next morning they headed to the ruins. They made it to the ruins without incident and entered the main structure. Off the entry chamber they discovered a narrow flight of steps down, and descended to the dungeons. They stopped at the bottom step and peered around cautiously. Dunstin spotted two blobs of green slime on the ceiling just beyond the stairs. He then discreetly firebombed them with flasks of burning oil. Into the chamber at the bottom of the steps. There was a large pile of debris and rubbish against the west wall. A quick search revealed the pile concealed two locked doors. Furnok picked the first lock, and inside they found a cache of supplies, weapons and provisions, and crates of black cloaks bearing a cryptic symbol, an inverted Y encased within a downward pointing triangle. Furnok could not pick the lock on the other door, and just before Dunstin tried bashing the door open, Burne produced a small device that he tapped against the lock, which immediately popped it. Inside were more weapons and armor. Dunstin donned one of the cloaks, and the party moved on. They ignored a pillared hallway running south, and instead opted to investigate the only other option available, a door. The door seemed stuck, but Dunstin forced it open. Beyond was a filthy room, heaped with rubbish of all sorts. While searching, a wandering monster produced a rather appropriate result, giant rats. A dozen or so began emerging from hiding within the garbage. The rats were dispatched easily enough, but right after the last rat was killed, a door to the east flew open, and a large humanoid, an ogre walked in and snarled, “What’s all the noise in here?” To be continued…
The ogre didn’t move to attack immediately, but the party did not hesitate. Dunston and Langston rushed the ogre. Both players hit for good damage. The ogre swung and miss. The next round, both players hit again. The ogre swung at Langston, and initially I thought it was a hit, and the damage roll was max, which would have killed the cleric outright, but it turned out I had the AC off by one, which was enough to save him. Dunston took his second attack and killed the ogre. The party searched the room, and the ogre’s bedding. The gained some minor loot in a chest they found. Besides the door the party entered, there was another door, securely barred. The party opened it and found several prisoners. Two human merchants and a badly beaten gnome, all pleading to be released, the merchants promising large rewards. Initially the party was going to continue exploring the dungeons with the freed captives, but then decided to head back to Hommlet. Once the party reached Hommlet, the freed gnome gave Dunston a plain iron ring, and explained that the ring would act as a sign to gnomes in the area that the bearer is a friend. Langston went to the church and gave the clerics there the details of what the party had discovered. Even though the encounter with the ogre went well for the party, it scared Dunston enough to convince Langston that they needed to hire Burne’s associate Rufus. Rufus agreed and the made arrangements to return to the ruins in the morning. Earthday, Coldeven 20th , 579 CY The party made it back to the dungeons, and decided to explore the long pillared hallway they had discovered earlier. A row of doors lined the west side of the corridor, and an archway could be seen in the middle of the eastern wall. The party could hear shuffling sounds at the end of the hallway, and two shadowy figures stepped out from behind the last pillar. Dunston and Rufus advanced to investigate. The figures were obviously corpses, and their slow, shambling gait indicated that they were zombies. The fighters advanced to attack. The rest of the party had only advanced a small distance down the corridor. The northernmost door (the one closest to the rest of the party) in the corridor flew open, and two more zombies emerged right next to Langston. Rufus and Dunston engaged the original two zombies while Langston, Furnok, and Burne battled the two new corpses. Langston failed his turn attempt, but both zombies hit him, and he dropped to the floor. Over the next four rounds, two more zombies entered the melee, emerging from the western doors in pairs. The party dispatched the walking the rest of the zombies, taking serious damage in the process. When they checked on Langston, he was dead. They peered through the archway to the east into an old torture chamber and searched behind the doors to the west, five 10’ square cells. Searching the cells revealed nothing (except for Furnok, who pocketed a 500 gp gem he discovered hidden behind a loose stone, his little secret). The party headed back to Hommlet. Dunston was pretty beat up, and couldn’t get any free healing in town, so he needed to take some days off to rest. Before he was healed, a party sent by St. Cuthbert’s temple in Verbobonc arrived. They had received information about the events transpiring in Hommlet and the Moathouse, and decided it deserved some attention. A cleric named Thurgen offered his services to the party, and they accepted, and the clerics in Hommlet were told to assist the party. Freeday, Coldeven 28th, 579 CY The party: The Party: Dunston: a 1st level human ranger Thurgen: a 1st level cleric (of St. Cuthbert) Plus the NPCs Rufus, a human fighter Burne, a human magic-user Furnok of Ferd, a human ‘treasure finder’ Back to the dungeons. The party proceeded to the torture chamber. A search revealed that it wasn’t as abandoned as the initial once over indicated, there were signs that the area had been in use recently, but nothing useful was discovered. There was nowhere else to explore in the dungeons. They decided to check for secret doors again before giving up. They didn’t find any, but in the process a wandering monsters roll resulted in “Thumping (the lizard of area 17 out hunting, or some other passing critter)”, so they ran upstairs to investigate. Several minor encounters occurred, a giant lizard (after the fight they cut it open and discovered a shied in his guts), a giant tick, and a small band of brigands that had made camp in the ruins. Again some minor loot was gained, but nothing else. They went back to the dungeons to finish checking for secret doors. They had finished their check without finding anything. The last room they checked was the ogre’s room. They were getting ready to head back to Hommlet when another wandering monster roll resulted in “A distant rattling (could be anything)”, so they decided to search the room again, and this time they did find a secret door on the east wall. They were disappointed, though, when the area behind the secret door was just a 10’ square area with a narrow flight of stairs leading up to a secret door that accessed the room where the brigands had been encountered. They went back down the stairs and searched the 10’ square area at the bottom and found another secret door. Behind this secret door was another flight of stairs leading down to a passage. They followed the passage until it split, south or east, they chose south. It lead to a 50’ by 30’ area with three doors on the opposite wall. They opened the middle door, and there was just a wall behind it, but they heard a clang back from they way they had came, so they ran back to investigate/flee. The passage was now blocked just past the split in the passage. They shrugged and returned to the area with the three doors. This time they tried the easternmost door, and a passage south was beyond. They proceeded. After 20’ the passage split, a side passage lead off to the southeast, and they took it. After 60 or 70 feet they came to another door. Behind the door was a passage leading east and a door north. They through the door open. On the other side of the door was a human in armor and wearing black garb displaying the symbol they had discovered earlier; he was barring a passage north. They attacked. The guard started making weird hooting noises. The party cut him down in a round or so, and then immediately came under crossbow fire from further up the passage. They charged up the passage until the met the next guard, dispatched him, and then went further north to meet the next guard. Here the passage opened to a 30’ x 20’ chamber. Several more guards bottled them up at the entrance. The party was making progress pushing into the room when reinforcements arrived. The reinforcements didn’t seem like a real threat, but they did manage to keep the party from progressing too far into the room. It was obvious the guards were overmatched, and they began howling, which brought more reinforcements, including two plate armored figures. Rufus and Dunston continued to fight the guards. One of the plate armored figures began casting a spell. Thurgen decided to hurl a flask of oil at him. He needed a 20 to hit, rolled the die, and it came up ‘20’. I couldn’t believe it. Probably the roll that saved the party. The party pushed further into the room, and now Burne had a line of sight on the leaders. Lareth, the plate armored cleric tried to cast a few more spells, but Burne kept interrupting them with his wand of magic-missiles. Enraged, Lareth rushed to melee. He bashed Dunston with his staff of striking, using a triple charge, dropping him with a single hit. The players exchanged fearful, uncertain glances. Furnok disappeared. The players screamed, “come back you coward”. The battle raged on. Suddenly, Lareth yelled in rage in pain. Furnok had reappeared, and his sword was sticking out of Lareth’s back. One hit later, Lareth was down, and a few rounds afterwards, all of his troops were slain also. They checked Dunston, he was still alive, so they patched him up. The party proceeded to search the area. To be continued…
Wow, once they got some good NPC assistance, they really made short work of Lareth and his merry band!
Yes. But they got lucky too when Pat (Thurgen) rolled the 20 with the flaming oil. It spoiled a hold person spell that would have probably resulted in a TPK if it would have been cast.
The initial search of the bodies turned up some minor coinage on the scale and chain armed troops. The three chain armored guards also wore gold neckchains, worth about 50 gp each. The plate armored fighter had 29 gems on him, each worth 100 gp, and wore a jeweled chain worth 1,500 gp. The cleric carried nine pps and a black opal worth 1,000 gps. There were three additional rooms in the complex. The room to the north was a barracks. An adjunct area served as a storage area, and a stable for two light warhorses. The cleric’s chamber was a real trove, and the party gained almost 20,000 gps in loot. The party detected magic on the items they acquired; the shield found in the lizards stomach, some arrows the brigands had, and the cleric’s plate mail, staff, and a phylactery he was wearing all radiated magic. The party packed the loot up, and led the horses to the passage east they had found just before the last combat had started. As they suspected, it lead to a hidden entrance to the dungeon complex outside of the ruins. From there they headed back to Hommlet. Dunston and Thurgen spent the next week resting and enjoying the Growfest festivities in Hommlet. During this period, they divided up the loot. Burne and Rufus took 50% of the monetary gain off the top, but the rest of the party members still gained over 4,000 gps each. The plate mail was given to Dunston. Rufus took the shield and the arrows, Burne took the staff, and Thurgen got the phylactery. The clerics at the church examined the device, and based on the parchment held within determined that it was a phylactery of action, a device worn around the arm that functioned the same way a ring of free action would. The week after Growfest was spent training. It was revealed to the party now that Elmo was actually a ranger, much more capable than the persona he put on, and he agreed to train Dunston, and Thurgen trained with the clerics at the church.
Oh yeah. In my game, Lareth and his lieutenant slew our entire party. When our next party came through, Lareth had animated all the dead guardsmen and PC's as zombies then fled. We tracked him to the dungeons below a ruined monastery (DM add on, obviously) and he soundly whooped our party again. This time though, he had a MU and a couple of fighters with him. He managed to elude death yet again and fled, never to be seen again, so far... We fell victim to hold person and a stinking cloud from the MU, followed up with a few blows of the staff of striking. Ugh.
I've never had PCs take Rufus or Burne into the moathouse (they were never willing to meet their prices), and it looks like that makes a huge difference in play!
I played it twice and never even considered paying Skip, errr Rufus that is or Ernie, err I mean Burne to go with me. I started Otis in Homm;et, but I was very young and don't remember much (I had an early bedtime and Mom was punctual). Melf explored the Temple as a 3/3 or 4/4 with a 1/1halfling fighter/thief NPC, Biff. It got a little hairy toward the end and Lareth did escape. Someone should run that at Gary Con II...
Huh! Were Rufus and Burne regular PC's that Skip and Ernie played, or were they just sitting in and running the NPC's when you played it? Didn't realize that Rufus and Burne were anything other than some random NPC's created for the module. Cool.. Andy
I just ran Dwellers on the Forbidden City at Marscon. I plan on bringing some good classics and running as many as I can as pick-up games. You will have a reserved seat for anything I run! I will be happy to run T1-4 or any part that people would prefer!
Anyone know where I can pick up a decent copy for a reasonable price? I've got a copy but I can't seem to find it (and for me that's pretty crazy). I'd love to see someone run this at GaryCon as I've never played all the way through it. The one time we almost played through it the DM decided to go a bit "batty" and somehow left my character in the past. (He was trying to run The Temple alongside the Third Edition Return to the Temple.)
I doubt there is sufficient time to run the whole thing, but I will bring it and run parts of it. Perhaps I will lay out some specific goals and run it tournament style. Anyone have thoughts on this idea?
