In the days of yore, TSR packaged up a series of modules to make one big compilation - a "supermodule" if you will. In an effort to make the whole more than just the sum of its parts, materials were added to the already published modules and the idea was that the entirety of these modules could make one huge campaign. The modules in question were: T1-4, A1-4, and GDQ 1-7 - known as "The Temple of Elemental Evil", "Scourge of the Slavelords", and "Queen of the Spiders".
I finally got a copy of the Scourge of the Slavelords - I already owned the other two. So in the spirit of being a reviewer and a completist, I want to go through each of these supermodules and see what was added, taken away, and whether they succeeded in making the first adventure path of D&D.
Starting off with the first one, T1-4, it is hardly fair to critique. Out of the alleged four modules it is based on, only one, T1 The Village of Hommlet, was ever separately published. So in essence, three quarters of the supermodule is new material.
But I will press on in my usual review style. This was published in 1985, and its format set the standard for the other supermodules TSR would produce. It was a 128-page book with a 16-page map insert. Almost all of the art in this book is new, there really was not much in T1 anyway.
I will go into the pros and cons of this in another post.
The first unofficial adventure path could be WG1-WG6. But these were not supermodules. WG1 was renamed T1 and was released in 1979. WG2 was renamed T1-4. WG3 was renamed S4. WG6 was released in 1985. These would cover levels 1-18+.
T1-4 covers levels 1-8.
A1-4 covers levels 7-11.
GDQ1-7 was released in 1986. It covers levels 8-14.
Interestingly, the A series has an A0 for "Danger at Darkshelf Quarry" from 2015 for levels 1-3 (nevermind what the front cover says) and what I'll call A0.5 for "Lowdown in Highport" from Dungeon Magazine - #221 from 2013 for levels 3-5. So those bits aren't in either the original modules or in the supermodule.
Again, this is hardly a genuine review of the supermodule format, because in this case, the supermodule is all we have of ToEE. Because that, this supermodule is a must have for the Greyhawk fan.
There is a lot of lore packed into the adventure, but some of it is obscure. There did not seem to be any canonical follow on with some details. The dungeon of the temple is huge, making it an early example of a megadungeon (though in number of levels it is not really that deep - but the levels do sprawl).
A lot of players and DMs used T1 as their introduction to Greyhawk, so for that alone this adventure gets a lot of nostalgia points. Bottom line is that this supermodule is required reading for the Greyhawk fan.
In an effort to make the whole more than just the sum of its parts, materials were added to the already published modules [snip]
So in the spirit of being a reviewer and a completist, I want to go through each of these supermodules and see what was added, taken away, and whether they succeeded in making the first adventure path of D&D.
Some of the added material was interesting, more so in A1-4 than GDQ1-7, as I recall, but I don’t recall there being a ton in either.
Osmund-Davizid wrote:
and the idea was that the entirety of these modules could make one huge campaign.
And that, of course, was always the problem with this concept in the first place, since the original campaigns were unrelated, and the levels sequences out-of-order….
Osmund-Davizid wrote:
The modules in question were: T1-4, A1-4, and GDQ 1-7 - known as "The Temple of Elemental Evil", "Scourge of the Slavelords", and "Queen of the Spiders".
S1-4 did something of the same, while omitting most of S3, and B1-9, but ISTR that they were even more so hatched jobs.
But I will press on in my usual review style. This was published in 1985, and its format set the standard for the other supermodules TSR would produce. It was a 128-page book with a 16-page map insert.
The T1-4 map booklet is probably the worst-produced set of maps for any published TSR module: they’re sloppy, inaccurate, and just plain poorly-rendered. The fact that they were also much smaller than the 8.5x11” standard size only exacerbated the issue further (although the maps being separate and not bound-in was quite useful).
The first unofficial adventure path could be WG1-WG6. But these were not supermodules. WG1 was renamed T1 and was released in 1979. WG2 was renamed T1-4. WG3 was renamed S4. WG6 was released in 1985. These would cover levels 1-18+.
An interesting idea I had never considered!
T1-4 was 1-8; WG4 was levels 5-10; S4 was 6-10; WG5 was 1985 for levels 9-12; WG6 was 18+. That still leaves a large gap between WG5 and WG6, but Gary, Steve Marsh, and Skip Williams we’re working on planar modules like Starstrands (some info on Steve’s site at https://adrr.com/story/sketch.htm#StarStrands and I have a TSR memo I’ll try to refind my typed-up text for), and Shadowlands (some info at the Acaeum at https://www.acaeum.com/library/research.html).
My hunch is that Rob Kuntz’s Xaene and PlantMaster modules (Xaene first done as an RPGA scenario in 1983, self-published by Rob in 1987-88) were also intended to fit into the mix here, along (of course) with the unpublished Stoink and City+Castle Greyhawk and Lost City of the Elders serieses.
Raymond wrote:
A1-4 covers levels 7-11.
Interestingly, the A series has an A0 for "Danger at Darkshelf Quarry" from 2015 for levels 1-3 (nevermind what the front cover says) and what I'll call A0.5 for "Lowdown in Highport" from Dungeon Magazine - #221 from 2013 for levels 3-5. So those bits aren't in either the original modules or in the supermodule.
Since the individual A1-4 modules were originally for levels 4-7, the prequel adventures fit in better with the original level ranges.
A lot of players and DMs used T1 as their introduction to Greyhawk, so for that alone this adventure gets a lot of nostalgia points. Bottom line is that this supermodule is required reading for the Greyhawk fan.
That said, in addition to the abysmal maps, the editing in T1-4 was also pretty shoddy. The original T1 text was trimmed/abridged intentionally or just screwed up during production, removing details present in the original module.
Trent Smith did some nice work analyzing the issues with T2-4 on his blog; see:
S1-4 did something of the same, while omitting most of S3, and B1-9, but ISTR that they were even more so hatched jobs.
Allan.
I am not sure "hatchet job" is sufficient to describe B1-9.
B1 is just the map with no key, B2 loses the keep and outdoor areas, B4 drops the partially described lower levels, the outdoor material for B5 was deleted, two of three outdoor paths in B8 were skipped, and one part of the five in B9 was not included.
It is just short of false advertising on the cover as "the best of the B-Series modules".
If you want the B1-9 modules, you need to buy them, not the partial compilation.
I confess, part of this is going to be personal to me, but I tried to like this supermodule, but just do not. I know it is a "classic" and has been voted on being one of the top adventures in D&D (#4 according to issue 116 of Dungeon Magazine), but I never really cared for this product as it was presented.
This last point is important, as with all review of modules and adventures, you are free to modify as your style and campaign warrant it, but to have a common reference a review needs to try and keep their insights to what was presented in the product itself, not what you can modify on your own. And as I see it, this product was a let down, especially compared to the hype surrounding its release. Finally, we were going to get a huge supermodule of a place that was steeped in Greyhawk lore, but what we got was really more of a 'meh' large dungeon.
Don't get me wrong, there are some its and pieces in it that should really be considered a pro: we got stats for a new demon! That was welcome. But this particular demoness was not really elemental based. Now, Zuggtmoy did have connections to Iuz and Greyhawk lore, so having her in the mix made sense in that respect. But the module kinda makes her lame: she "decided that Elemental Evil would have more appeal than a cult dedicated to her beloved fungi", while maybe being more practical in a humanocentric way, nothing says that you are a big, powerful demon more than ditching your motif for a generic elemental one.
I liked the idea of the different factions of elemental evil and other powers competing in the temple. That lended itself to some role playing opportunities. But all in all, I think this product could have benefitted from being published as separate modules first, T1 being Hommlet, maybe having T2 be Nulb and the outer portions of the temple, and T3 and T4 being the upper and lower levels. In that manner, the entire dungeon and plot could have been kept in more bite sized portions making it easier to resolve some of the conflicting plot points and ideas.
I think I always just expected something better in the vein of the GDQ series. We got a big adventure to be sure, but I am left with it just not really being that memorable in the same way the best Greyhawk adventures did.
I played through it first as a kid in high school, then later ran it as the DM. My main problem with the adventure itself was that I just didn't understand many of the sub-plots going on. Nulb, as a side-trek, didn't seem to be necessary. Lareth and Falrinth, both apprently human, worshipping Lolth seemed out of place - Lareth was supposed to be supervising the provisioning of the Temple, IIRC, and Falrinth had a secret lair hidden right in the Temple itself.
I grew up playing (and DMing) Basic and Expert and Advanced D&D modules, so I know how they were written. But, the chaotic randomness of the various rooms' occupants made no sense whatsoever. It's no wonder those idiot elemental clerics couldn't raise an army. ToEE takes too much work by the DM to make it into a believable campaign, in my opinion.
The lower level and elemental nodes seem very thrown together and played out as a pretty dull, brutal slog after the brutal slog of the third level. And then of course there is the rather casual 5% or so chance of instant death via deus ex random die roll.
I definitely agree about the plot issues with Lareth and Falrinth. While people love the Lolth references, I think they are best simply changed to being Zuggtmoy, and never mind the crossover with GDQ.
I have also noted in the past, particularly when the edition wars start up, the raw amount of treasure, both coin and magical, compounded by stripping the fittings (picking up every bit of mundane equipment) which is called out in the instruction text. Never mind local inflation in Hommlet, the entire economy of Verbobonc should be threatened with collapse if all of that is dumped on the market!
The magic deserves particular attention. There are perhaps a dozen men-at-arms and NPC captives to be found and offered employment. There is enough magic arms and armor for all of them to be strutting around with +1 everything without impinging on character equipment in the slightest. That is before getting to the rods, staffs, wands, and wondrous items, which are enough to equip another party.
Ultimately, while I mostly like it, I understand those who do not. It is not an easy module to love.
The lower level and elemental nodes seem very thrown together and played out as a pretty dull, brutal slog after the brutal slog of the third level. And then of course there is the rather casual 5% or so chance of instant death via deus ex random die roll.
True...
Though my dwarven cleric/fighter had the perfect justification for calling on Moradin with his Necklace of Prayer Beads [summon your deity] to save the party when Iuz showed up. The DM said we heard Moradin's voice boom out, "Cuthbert! Handle this!" and St. Cuthbert appeared and battled Iuz while we escaped through a mirror that would teleport us elsewhere.
Quote:
Ultimately, while I mostly like it, I understand those who do not. It is not an easy module to love.
And, true. I do like the module. I just prefer many others that require far less work on my part as the DM.
Alrighty - here is my overall impression of the T1-4 supermodule.
As a collector of Greyhawk and a fan of the setting, this is something that you should own, either electronically or in print. But just being reviewed on its own merits, ToEE is not a great product as it is written. I suspect a lot of the folks who give it high praise began their D&D careers with T1 - and on the power of that module give higher marks to T1-4 than they would otherwise, and/or be willing to do a lot of extra writing to cover up some of the module's flaws (I began my Greyhawk career with Orlane and Saltmarsh rather than Hommlet, so I definitely did not have a personal connection to any of the adventuring points in ToEE).
So having said all of that, I give this product two stars out of five. If you can get this for a reasonable price, you should definitely do so, but it may be more for a collection then for actual play.
Ultimately, I thought this product as written wanted to be epic, but it ended up being too disjointed and obscure to make a lasting impact on the world of Greyhawk setting.
Case in point - SPOILERS: in room 334 you can find the kidnapped Grand Marshall of Furyondy in a weird illusion-stasis and can rescue him if the party sees through the illusion. This is potentially a world altering event! But future products did not go through with any follow on about this - in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil - this character actually is a vampire. So this seems to be a thread that the individual DM can decide to use in their campaign or not as they see fit.
Another point I found perplexing to me is that if the ToEE is indeed rising in power again, why are the doors with the protective symbols and seals not being desecrated/destroyed by the temple followers? Sure, there are antipathy spells protecting the doors from evil, but any halfway clever plan should be able to defeat them. There seemed to me that there was too many things going on in the ToEE to have this point not addressed (maybe have these doors damaged and the PCs have to repair them would be a better plot point?)
Anyway, some products reference/try to explain some of these hanging chads. In Iuz the Evil, some of the inconsistencies were described as being part of a diversion plan by Iuz leading up to the Greyhawk Wars. As mentioned above, there was a Return to the ToEE, but that product muddled things up even more for me, and I found that I liked it even less than the original.
There have been many additions and discussions over these very topics on forums and podcasts over the years. There was a "T5 Errata" that some fans homebrewed. Greyhawk Grognard made up an addition to reconcile ToEE with other products (along with some add-ons to T1). Available here:
The bottom line is that this adventure had a lot of potential, but ultimately it is what you decide to make it. As written, I found it to be middling, but I am sure many DMs out there edited it and added to it to make ToEE the epic it deserves to be. To those people, I salute you!
Now, on to the reason I began this thread - Scourge of the Slavelords (SotS).
As I said earlier, I owned the original A1, A2, A3, and A4 modules, but never had the collected supermodule before. It was published in 1986, after ToEE, and followed the same format - it is a 128 page book with a 16 page map insert. In this case, however, the supermodule is taking four published modules and adding in extra materials around them, rather than using only one published module with all new materials.
One thing about this type of publishing is that the re-release can fix some errors in the original modules. I especially noticed that the temple in A1 had an error in it, and in SotS they fix that (a doorway now connects rooms 9 and 16A). So for that, it is a nice touch to polish up on errata.
Having said that, there are some little differences between the original series and SotS. For one, the sails of the slavelords are described as purple in SotS, while they were yellow in the A1 background and were described that way in the follow up module Slavers. Certainly a minor point, to be sure, but if that is something I spot in the very early background information of a product, it may be an indicator of a lack of attention to detail throughout the product.
I will detail my thoughts on the positives and negatives in a follow up thread, so stay tuned.
O-D
Last edited by Osmund-Davizid on Wed Jul 03, 2024 3:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
I played in Hommlet many times, never DMed it. That seemed to be our starting point. By the time ToEE came out we had moved on. From what I have read, I think we did not miss a thing.
OK let us talk about the positive aspects of SotS.
One thing I appreciated about SotS was actually the forward comments by David Cook. He explains the thought process behind making the A1 through 4 modules. They were tournament modules and each author had some requirements to meet when drafting their adventure (having 2 traps, 1 trick, an ambush encounter, etc). That little bit does a lot to explain why these adventures were set up they way they were. That is a good example of a thing to include in a repackaging - some inside looks into the thought process.
One positive was that the overland travel from Highport to Suderham was fleshed out a little more. While not having too much detail (I would have preferred more detailed maps rather than geomorphs of Highport, for example) any more information on the Pomarj was a good thing. I also did like the running bit about having a couple of the Slavelords in a rivalry and having one of them passing on information to set up his rival through the players. That tidbit gives a reason to how a party of adventurers could get so far into enemy territory.
As a side note: one of the slavelords is the drow Edralve. Now playing the supermodules as one big adventure makes having this character introduced earlier then the published introduction of drow. G3 is when the dark elves made their game debut in 1978, and their introduction was intended to rock the game world. A4 was published in 1981 after drow became common knowledge. So depending on how you run your campaigns, this character's introduction loses some of its impact. But by current standards, drow are a common fantasy trope, so this may be a moot point anyway.
Edralve was originally described as being an exile from Erelhei-Cinlu, but in SotS, she "has powerful connections as described in Queen of the Spiders", making her likely an ally of Eclavdra. I find that to be an interesting development, making the slavelords a part of Eclavdra's schemes as well as the giants. I think that is a plot point worth exploiting in the larger narrative.
As far as the adventures themselves, each of them definitely feels like a tournament adventure - there are puzzles to work through, some randomness to negotiate, and surprises that are non-standard. Makes you think you are being graded as you go. They are fun to play, and worthy of a strong campaign setting to support them.
As a side note: one of the slavelords is the drow Edralve. Now playing the supermodules as one big adventure makes having this character introduced earlier then the published introduction of drow. G3 is when the dark elves made their game debut in 1978, and their introduction was intended to rock the game world. A4 was published in 1981 after drow became common knowledge. So depending on how you run your campaigns, this character's introduction loses some of its impact. But by current standards, drow are a common fantasy trope, so this may be a moot point anyway.
Drow were already starting to proliferate even before A2 (which featured a drowic merchant caravan buying slaves destined for Erelhei Cinlu), A4, “Forest of Doom”, UA, and Drizzt.
My hunch is that the A2 and A4 encounters are what drove the supermodule thinking that connected A1-4 to GDQ.
I noted the issue of the drow in the A series if you follow it with the GDQ supermodule - it takes away the shock reveal in G3.
Of course, nowadays, drow are a dime a dozen.
So now for the downsides of the supermodule. One note, I am evaluating SotS as a supermodule, not the individual adventures A1 to A4. This is really a look at the whole package to see if the new materials add or detract to the original modules.
First off, some of the artwork from the original modules is reused, but there is new artwork throughout SotS. And while I am not an artist myself, I can state with certainty that the artwork by Ron and Val Lakey Lindahn was not very good. Borderline terrible. Basically, the humanoids you are fighting throughout the series appear to be muppets. This absolutely detracts from my enjoyment of the module as a DM, in that it takes you out of the atmosphere of dread that is trying to be built up by the ruthlessness of the slavelords.
While I liked any additional information about the Pomarj that was provided, there was not enough in my opinion. Having a better regional map, city maps, and descriptions of the Pomarj would have helped in giving more options to players as they made their way through the adventure. As it stands, the plot is a little too linear and that is why there is not so much added details.
I will say this though, the description of what the slavers would do to the party when they are captured (and according to the supermodule as written, they will be captured fairly early in the module, before even getting to A1's beginning) is absolutely brutal and chilling. The party would have their possessions taken away with good aligned magic items tossed into the sea, the characters would be forced as galley rowers, and may find themselves taken many days of time to escape - if at all.
This leads me to my next point, A4 was about the party using their wits to escape from capture by the slavelords. Essentially, SotS has the party be captured twice if you stick to the plot points of the original modules. That certainly would motivate the party to hate the slavelords all the more, but getting stripped and humiliated twice may serve more to deflate your players, rather than motivate your characters. If the party is starting this supermodule right after ToEE, chances are that they are of higher level than originally intended (A1 was written as for levels 4-7; ToEE can take a party beyond that with a huge horde of magical treasures to boot), and thus less likely that the shanghaiing scenario would successfully work as written without the DM forcing the issue. So tact is required if you run SotS as it is written - I would not use the first capture event, just have the party be able to fight them off rather than lumber them, and then run the rest of the module as is.
The ending gets a little muddled, as A4 originally has the party being captured and thrown into some caverns to fight their way out. But you may opt to have the party just fight it out as opposed to being captured at the end of A3 - but that raises additional problems with matching up the activities of A4. Again, the Dm would have to put some thought as to how to tailor SotS to their PCs.
So how does the whole thing stack up? I will summarize in my next post.
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