Let's Sperg Temple of Elemental Evil - More like Temple of Kiwimental Autism, amirite?

[Jaimas]

So historically, one of my favorite RPGs on PC is Temple of Elemental Evil. One of the last games made by Troika before it broke up, TOEE is essentially this perfect intersection of Fallout 1-2 and Dungeons and Dragons, set in the world of Greyhawk and in one of D&D's best-known settings - dating back to Gygax's time. It uses edition 3.5 rules (basically Pathfinder's forerunner) and pretty much every bit of core content is in the game except for Prestige Classes and such.

The level cap by default is 10, the game is surprisingly well-designed (if a little buggy), and the options quite interesting. with that in mind, and in the fashion of previous Let's Spergs by the group (most notably @c-no, who encouraged me to do this), I decided to make this lovely little Let's Sperg session. Let's Temple of Elemental Evil in the fashion that only a Kiwi (and a veteran besides) can. Like in Fallout, depending on how you work things, you can talk your way through many situations and with dozens of potential endings and options, and shitloads of subquests, there's a lot to do.

Party configuration is straightforward; you first choose a party alignment. This chooses your opening vignette and determines what your party's initial mission that led them to Hommlet (the starting town) is:

Spoiler: Alignment Vignettes

Lawful Good: Your party intercedes against a group of bandits attacking a merchant caravan. One of its members asks you to head to the Wainright in Hommlet for a reward.

Neutral Good: You see a murder happen. The murder victim is a priestess of Saint Cuthbert who was assigned to the church in Hommlet. Your party arrives to deliver the bad news.

Chaotic Good: A noblewoman's convoy has gone missing. Your party is working for an elvish delegation and must find what happened to the Princess and her betrothed.

Lawful Neutral: Your party is commissioned by the Mayor of Grayhawk to head to Hommlet and help Burne's Badgers deal with the ongoing problem with the bandits.

True Neutral: You are commissioned to find the Druid Jaroo, in Hommlet, and check in with him, because he has not contacted his seer friend in a very long time and he is worried.

Chaotic Neutral: You find a treasure map leading to a "Rainbow Rock" in Emridy Meadows, near Hommlet.

Lawful Evil: Your party is working for the church of Hextor, the god of Tyranny. You are commissioned to find the sacred sword Fragarach and return it to the temple so it can be destroyed.

Neutral Evil: Your party is a murderous group of assholes who burned down the Church of Saint Cuthbert in the capital. You've gone to Hommlet to finish the job and remove the faith from the region.

Chaotic Evil: Your party is an especially bastardly group of homicidal maniacs. After slaughtering a small town your group comes upon information that someone named Rannos Davl in Hommlet has beaten you to the punch and looted the place. You're here to collect.

The player has little way of knowing this, but TOEE is actually one of those rare occasions where you can get away with playing any alignment you want. Many of the Brigands and Cultists you will fight are murderous psychopaths that have to be put down and all too often, there's precious little morality involved for "kick in the door and kill everyone" gameplay here. You're bashing in the door of a cult devoted to sacrificing to appease a dark god, so there's little moral gray area.

But the game also indulges the player by letting them get as cerebral as they want. A player who's more savvy can (and by all means should) play the varying factions of the titular temple off one another. Dig deeper and there's tons of shit you can do irregardless of your alignment or personal ethics. Whether your team is a group of holy warriors or murderous scumbags, how you play is up to you and very often there's little consequence (though obviously, Paladins will need to be careful to not fuck themselves alignment-wise, which happens by being even more of a murderous shit than usual).

This game is awesome. With this in mind, I've played through dozens of times and know more than a fair bit about it. Intending to do a proper Kiwi Farms playthrough, I assemble a small team of warriors:

Spoiler: Deets

Jaimas - My self-insert here is a fighter. Fuck it, I'm not too proud to bite this cheese. I grabbed Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword, Dodge, and Weapon Focus: Bastard Sword. This essentially dictates that my character will start with one. If you're not familiar, Bastard Swords are pretty boss in the game; there's a few reasons this is an ESPECIALLY good choice, but that won't become a thing until way later. Because the level cap in TOEE is 10, Fighters shine beautifully.

@BOLDYSPICY! - Every party needs extra muscle, and I can think of no one better to scream and swing around an axe in a berserk frenzy than Boldy. I grabbed Power Attack and Cleave with her, and made her a Barbarian. Barbarians in the game have the unique ability of Rage, which lets them get a substantial boost to their health and damage but at the cost of their defense. Boldy's entire role is to close with the enemy and fold the screaming sonofabitch in three. Barbarians have weaker armor proficiencies than fighters, but can use all the same weapons and have the best HP totals.

@c-no - C-No had two mandates: That I make him a Gnome, and that he be an interesting character. I rarely run Gnomes in D&D, and was surprised to find that they made solid Clerics. C-No became our group's frontliner; his small size means most medium weapons are two-handed and thus necessitates using a Buckler, and he cannot use larger weapons at all, but he's small, hard to hit, and pretty tough. I made him Lawful Good and set him up as a Cleric of Saint Cuthbert, for reasons I'll get into below. C-No will be essential for upgrades, as you will see later.

@Shuu Iwamine - If I'm including my dear Shuu, then I am doing so with the tacit implication that they are going to be awesome. I made her an Elven Wizard. This lets me max her Dexterity for good defense, and also gives her Elven weapon proficiencies, letting her use Shortbows, Longbows, and Rapiers - meaning unlike many other Wizards, Shuu can do things when she runs out of spells and has actual mobility she can exploit with her ranged weaponry. Like C-No, she'll be responsible for upgrades, too.

@Smutley - We needed a Rogue and Smutley gets shit done. Two Weapon Fighting and Dual Short Swords because fuck Drizzt. Loaded him up with skills. Velvet Rope or barred door, there is not a single barrier that can keep Smutley out. He kind of sucks offensively until about halfway through the game, whereupon he becomes unequivocally the group's biggest source of damage that isn't Shuu for the rest of the game.

Now, about that Cleric thing I mentioned.....

Spoiler: Holy Shit

You may not be aware of it, but in Temple of Elemental Evil, as a general rule, the most useful deities are Heironious, Saint Cuthbert, Moradin, Kord, Corellon Larethian, Pelor Garl Glittergold, Wee Jas, Hextor, and Elhonna. There's a reason for this, and it has everything to do with alignment.

See, almost every major deity has the domains of its alignment - and in Temple of Elemental Evil, the Good and Law domains are two of the most powerful you can get if you're willing to create weapons and armor. These two let you create Holy and Axiomatic weapons, which will basically do bonus damage to virtually everything sentient in the actual temple, which, being the home of a Demon cult, predominantly is Chaotic Evil. Heironious, Cuthbert, Moradin, Wee Jas, and Hextor all have the Law domain, and Heironious, Moradin, Kord, Corellon Larethian, Pelor, Garl Glittergold, and Elhonna all have the Good Domain. Though the domain powers are kind of mediocre for these, you want either Law or Good on a character for creating weapons. It helps immeasurably.

The other domain you get should be one of the utility domains. I recommend Healing, Luck, War, or Destruction. Strength, Magic, and Protection are great too.

Also make sure that your character actually follows a god at character creation or they can never be a cleric.

So with this first step, we're going with the Neutral Good vignette, and we're finally getting ready to start this fucking game. Finally. Holy shit.

 

[Jaimas]

Left to right on the Portait Bar: Jaimas, @BOLDYSPICY!, @c-no, @Smutley, @Shuu Iwamine.

So starting out, we finally get to Hommlet. I would have posted the screengrabs earlier but it took me fucking days to figure out a way to post them without Windows 8's fucking idiot-proofing ruining my attempts. One thing you'll note is that while the game's world models are perhaps a bit simple, the game is graphically quite lovely and holds up extremely well. First thing I do is spend like half an hour re-equipping everyone by hand and giving the group a better chance of living a bit longer. Armor and weapon upgrades abound, and I also do a few minor in-town quests for some bonus XP.

If you're playing like a decent person, then this encounter with a Goblin is the only time you'll ever fight in town. Kicking this little shit's ass lets you find a wedding ring, that you can return to Black Jay (who is a white guy, humorously), a Ranger in town who has been grieving his lost wife and lost her ring. He is most thankful to get it back and gives you your choice of several new goodies in return. Fittingly, I give Smutley one of the offerings, Boots of Elvenkind. I rarely use stealth in this game, but when I have to, Smutley is prepared.

Finally, we do what we got commissioned for. We head to the temple, bribe our way past Calmitt (who's an asshole), and meet with Terjon, the head cleric. C-No shmoozes and delivers the bad news, at which point Terjon is kind of mopey about the whole thing. He then tells us about why he wound up assigned here, and that he has been worried about the bandit problems lately. He also tasks the group with finding a missing charm of his that he lost during the Battle of Emridy Meadows, which was featured in TOEE's opening movie (which admittedly, is fucking badass):

TL;DR: Years ago, a Demon Cult successfully summoned its leader, the goddess Zuggtmoy, from the pit, and she led her forces in an attack on the region, with an army dwarfing any seen before, consisting of monsters, giants, and men alike. Things were going great until the Circle of Eight, a cabal of wizards, showed up and nuked the fuckers. In the confusion, Sir Thrommel, a knight of Furyondy, got a lucky shot in, weakened Zuggtmoy, and the forces of evil lost the fight.

But enough on ancient history - it's time to ADVENTURE! Taking Terjon's advice and checking in with Burne, we are tasked with stopping the bandit attacks, which are coming from the nearby moathouse. Things go.... Well, poorly when our heroes arrive.

After several encounters with giant frogs who keep trying to fucking eat us, we're tired and trying to get rest, only to constantly have our nap time interrupted by an irrittating series of random encounters. First, giant lizards show up and seriously damage Boldy.

Then Wolves show up. Then Giant Ticks. And then a Giant Viper.

This continued until our heroes drank all their healing potions (everyone starts with one) and I'm mostly sure depopulated the entire wildlife catalogue for the region. At this point, able to take a hint, our party returned to Hommlet for a rest and to make sure that Shuu could buy a few scrolls to round out her known spells list.

Thankfully, Burne is stocked with the fucking things and quickly winds up showing Shuu how to shot Web, though it will be some time before she can actually cast the spell. So our party has dealt with the immediate problem of that, but what to do about resting?

Hommlet's Welcoming Wench is a tavern and inn. We can get a room here for some scratch, but the Baretender has an offer for us that is arguably a far better one: He's had it up to his gills with Furnok, a local bard who keeps making a killing at the gambling table; he always wins, but Ostler, the bar owner, has never been able to prove he's cheating. If we can prove he's a cheat, we get a free room for the rest of the game. Score.

Smutley loses exactly two games before figuring out that the dice are loaded. Furnok begs you not to turn him in. You have a choice here - turn Furnok in and he's disallowed from Gambling here, or use this to hard-edge him, and he'll join your party for free. There's only room for Kiwis on the whirlwind nonsense train, so we rat Furnok out and now we can finally have a nap without a random encounter.

 

[c-no]

I can't wait to see what mishaps happens to our Kiwi's at the moathouse. This does make me want to give TOEE a shot without the circle of eight mod. That said, is that custom portrait Jaimas is sporting?

 

[Sonic Speed Monkey]

Look at me being so useful with the Web I can't shot yet.

Soon.

 

[Jaimas]

I can't wait to see what mishaps happens to our Kiwi's at the moathouse. This does make me want to give TOEE a shot without the circle of eight mod. That said, is that custom portrait Jaimas is sporting?

Yeah. It's the only custom portrait I made that currently works.

Anyway.

So our heroes return to the moathouse and are greeted by more of their perennial nemesis: GIANT FUCKING FROGS.

Fuck these things, seriously. They aren't that strong but they constantly use an attack to gulp a party member down whole and take them out of the fight while the frog basically then gets free shots while your party member's trapped inside, being digested. They aren't that hard, but they're fucking annoying for how many this game throws at you this early.

I then spend 10 minutes ensuring I killed every Frog in this area.

The area's still infested with random encounters, and the Bandits are still a threat but less people will be eaten at least.

Our first encounter with human foes nicely shows off this game's tactical aspects. It's practically a turn-based wargame at this point, with literally everything you can do in 3.5 D&D available, from trip attacks and disarms to old combinations like Web and Burning Hands. It's all here, and that makes it a riot. Early human encounters give you a taste of enemies that fight like you do, though they'll usually be out-equipped by a fair sized margain.

A few rounds later and we've mostly routed the foes, with only @Smutley taking any real abuse here. C-No patches him up easily enough, and we clear the courtyard a few moments later, loot everything of value, and check the nearby guard tower. After killing a giant spider and stealing its chest of loot nearby, our group gains its first level up and I take a few minutes to quibble with Shuu and C-No's spell loadout, having C-No cast Bless Water a few times to give us some Holy Water.

Holy water isn't all that useful since it only damages fiends and undead, but it'll be nice to have this shit handy if we encounter some, especially since it lets C-No chuck a bottle or two from afar. C-No's a solid fighter, but his small size means he's also got a commensurately bad movement rate, so positioning him is key.

Inside the moathouse we see giant rats. They'll generally ignore you unless you piss them off, but don't wait in areas where they're patrolling, or you can catch Filth Fever. A very weak disease, to be sure, but sickness this early in the game can be fucking annoying and necessitate literal in-game days of recovery. Ignoring the vermin, we move on and we encounter the Brigands' main strike force.

Their commander is basically a counterpoint to @BOLDYSPICY!, and we are having none of that shit. Boldy flies into a rage, and we begin fighting our way past the enemies whilst Shuu provides fire support and C-No runs around pot-shotting people with holy water flasks because I wanted to see if those can effect anything but undead and fiends.

Short answer: No.
Long answer: He didn't have much to do anyway because we weren't hit too often by these clowns and our fat asses were blocking the doorway.

Soon their leader lies dead at Boldy's feet, and she proceeds to take his stuff in accordance with the law of go fuck yourself. She equips his armor, helmet, and axe, all of which were better than what she was carrying (though the Scythe she was packing kind of was about the same damage wise). The other brigands fell soonafter, and C-No appropriated one of the enemy's crossbows for his own use.

Below, we encountered an Ogre. The game normally expects you to use a series of cloaks (more on that later) to bluff your way past the oaf, but fuck that, we're Kiwis, and we're tough enough to show this bastard what for. In this image, Shuu- displays that the spell Color Spray is actually hilariously useful to the point of borderline game-breaking at this stage in the game, stunning the bumblefuck long enough for the group to surround him and Smutley to Sneak Attack his ass into the ground.

We save a series of Gnomes who were captured by these clowns, and he gives us a ring of Friendship. C-No, being a Gnome himself, makes nice and he leaves soonafter.

Soon after this shit, we run into a band of Gnolls. These rowdy dog-men know how to party, but they're also self-aware and are willing to parley with us. Realizing that a bunch of nuts who just butchered the Ogre upstairs is not worth this shit, the Gnolls allow themselves to be bought off for a hilariously cheap price that Smutley then talks down further. They leave, hopefully headed off to find a new place to chill out. Later, dogboys.

With the foreknowledge that the master of the Brigands is somewhere down here, our party gets their shit together, rests, restocks, and prepares to move forward.

 

[c-no]

Look at me being so useful with the Web I can't shot yet.

Soon.

Soon we all will be more powerful, especially @Smutley. The only real question however is whose gonna be the first to croak that requires resurrection if that is possible in the game.

 

[Jaimas]

So our group presses on, and meets the Eye of Flame. These dipshits are the heads of the bandits, and you can find their cloaks earlier in the level. They're basically go-betweens for the local riffraff and the Temple, and their boss is a dark elf named Lareth, who our party meets with after butchering his entire force group for threatening @Shuu Iwamine and subsequently getting Color Sprayed. And then Magic Missiled. Jaimas then took his lieutenant's armor and is now wearing it.

If you're willing to play along, you can join up with these asshats by wearing the cloaks and proving your loyalty and all that nonsense. Lareth remains a backstabbing shit, however, and will eventually try to stab you in the back for signing up with this two-bit operation of dullards, so he's kind of a hard sell.

Lareth is a preening, self-absorbed egotistical faggot who refers to himself as "the beautiful," and talks to others in the third person (which I understand may carry the death sentence in some territories). He also keeps this journal you can find where he writes like this hideous crossbreed of Cobra Commander, the Ultimate Warrior, and myself. Long and short, this asshole is responsible for pretty much all the problems we've had in Hommlet as far as bandits are concerned. It's time for him to die.

Shuu leads off with her customary Color Spray to the face, but Lareth actually makes the save, making him the first opponent we face that does so.

It avails him little and he dies in two turns. Then Shuu takes his stuff from his dresser whilst @c-no repurposes his armor and weapons to a more noble end.

Technically we've finished the Moathouse now, but I'm not done exploring and raiding everything that isn't nailed down. C-No grabs his holy water, because we're going into the depths.

@BOLDYSPICY! and C-No prove vital here, as Ghouls begin attacking, and these assholes have damage reduction that makes them very, very annoying, and a dead-on hit can paralyze anyone in our party except for Shuu, who, being an elf, is immune. Boldy hits so hard that the damage reduction doesn't matter, and C-No's use of Holy Water bypasses that shit entirely. We gain more scrolls that Shuu immediately bogarts and writes into her spellbook, giving her the Knock spell (automatically unlocks ANYTHING but the best magic locks) and Melf's Acid Arrow, a solid attack spell.

@Smutley finds a secret passage I've never seen before, and we go upstairs only to run into Zombies.

It goes about as well as you'd expect, and we level up from all this idiocy.

All that's left is a small barracks full of Bugbears, which is almost laughable after the fight getting to Lareth.

The Bugbears are dicks and immediately go after us for opening the door. Suffice to say we murder all of them, because we didn't start this fight, but we damned well will finish it.

Our heroes quickly smack their way through the enemy ranks and soon we've successfully cleared out the Moathouse - for now.

Back at Hommlet, we turn in a few quests, learn the location of Nulb, the game's other town, purportedly inhabited by bad guys and ne'er-do-wells, and Boldy wins a drinking contest with contemptuous ease that gives us some fee XP. We rest up and we prepare for the trip ahead.

Nulb is a city built in a swamp, and a meandering series of docks and bridges. It's very seedy and honestly isn't as dangerous as it's made out to be. Because Nulb is very close to the Temple of Elemental Evil, it makes a vital resupply point. Setting up and getting a base of operations in Nulb is thus our next priority. Some dude named Preston Wetz is selling a house, but he's not able to think about that until his toothache is dealt with. Monah, a gypsy woman who can help him, recently had her fortune telling orb stolen and she refuses to help until she has it back and can channel the spirits or some such shit. Anyway we need to track the thief down.

The thief is some little bastard punk from Hommlet who is in Nulb for fast times and loose women. Jaimas puts him in a chokehold and takes the Orb back, and we return it to Mona.

Smutley talks down the price from 800 gold, and Wetz sells us a house for five hundred gold. We now have a great little base of operations for our missions here in the region. Sadly, this also means that it's time for a part of the game I've fucking dreaded...

 

[Jaimas]

Emridy Meadows. Where the game's intro movie began. This place is a cruel trap that exists to fuck over the unexpecting.

So peaceful and open. Seems like a good level up spot, really, since the random encounters here are relatively light. But looks can be decieving. Take a few steps anywhere here...

And you will have a fuckton of Skeletons to deal with.

Our party avoids being and presses on. You have no idea what flagrant bullshit lies in this region, there to prey on the unsuspecting.

The surprisingly gray Rainbow Rock is here, and is filled with treasure. You may remember this one from the Chaotic Neutral Vignette. This also lets us fill out Terjon's quest. Excelsior. But these Skeletons are fucking everywhere, and the worst is yet to come.

Behold, the TPK King. This motherfucker - a Hill Giant Fighter and his Brown Bear buddy - patrol the south edge of the Meadow, and the pair can effortlessly butcher your party before you even realized you had an accident. The Giant alone can do upwards of 15 damage a hit, and if he crits, it's pretty much a guaranteed kill if you're under level 5. Thankfully, this asshole has a weakness and that's the bear he has. If you found the Charm Animal scroll (or you have a Druid with that spell) the bear will fail to resist it most of the time and act as your buddy. This is the best way to beat the giant - charm the bear then buff the shit out of it and heal it.

Alternatively, if you're feeling cheesy, cast Glitterdust or Blindness/Deafness. Blind the fucker and he's easy as hell, though he can still curb-stomp you if he manages to hit.

A wealth of treasure can be found here for murdering this bastard, including a magic sword and a suit of Green Elven Chain. This armor is highly useful and one of three suits of Elven Chain in the game. This is, by and large, the best armor for its weight - classified as light, decent armor bonus, and decent max dex allowance. The first suit of it goes to @BOLDYSPICY! and additional suits will see that armor move around a few times in our adventure.

We drop off Terjon's necklace and we also show him an item that was in that treasure cache - a statue of woman, but warped, as if it were made of fungus. Terjon explains that it's a tool of Demon worship and bids us remove it from his sight. He explains that the Temple of Elemental Evil, where the cult once lurked, is undeniably involved, and we have that location added to our map - we can now go there. Terjon thanks us with a cost reduction in all temple services and in the shop downstairs.

Back to Nulb, it's time to restock, rest, and resupply for the next leg of our journey, which is only going to get more perilous.

Our home in Nulb is small, but it gets the job done and has secure chests for item storage. This will be handy as we proceed through the game.

 

[c-no]

At this point, are we hitting the temple or is there gonna something to block our party and give us all a hard time?

 

[Jaimas]

Our next mission is from Grud Squinteye, an old pirate and Fisher. Everyone loves Grud, and he's a known and respected guy around Nulb. Grud offers to help us, but only if we do him a solid in return.

He went and encountered a big gar in Emiryds Run, and the fucking thing kicked his ass. He wants us to kill the fucker and restore his honor, so our team gets right on that.

BAD MOVE COMING BACK FOR SECONDS MOTHERFUCKERS THIS TIME I'M READY

All right , I've calmed down slightly. Emiryds Run is bullshit. On entering you get attacked by a Giant Frog. Fight that fucking thing and a Behemoth Kingfrog shows up. Then to the left of these idiots you have a Sea hag wielding a Scorpion Venom-soaked dagger and a fuckton of Lizardfolk. This could very well be the start of the children's book series The Kiwi Farms Party has a Shitty Day.

And it is. Holy fuck it is.

Fuck Giant Frogs.

I wound up getting quite lucky with @Shuu Iwamine pulling off a Glitterdust and blinding half these fuckers, because that Seahag alone can end games, to say nothing of what a giant pain in the ass the Lizardmen can be. Jaimas wound up using the Fungus Figurine because I figured calling in an Ascomid for backup was worth a bit of evil so the enemy had something to attack that wasn't us.

By the time the Seahag fell, the entire party was either unconscious (negative HP) or paralyzed from the fucking Scorpion venom sucking their strength score dry, except for Shuu and @c-no. Eventually, the pair dragged everyone else's unconscious bodies back to Hommlet for a much needed rest and to drop off some goodies.

It was fucking days before my group slept off the ability damage from the fucking poison. Eventually, after four days, everyone was only mostly better. We didn't find the Gar, but the trip had been worth it; the Kingfrog has a ton of goodies inside it, including the second set of Elven Chain, a magic bow that immediately went to Shuu, and even a Ring of Protection that I slapped on Boldy.

Humorously, I've noticed that Boldy, being a Barbarian, gets different responses from townsfolk than others; they greet her by recognizing that she's a Berserker or greet her as "wild woman." Nice.

So once again we take the fucking gigantic walk between Imeryds Run (which I realize now I have been mispelling the whole time) and Hommlet.

That Gar is going down, son.

So after all that buildup, all that time, we finally find the bastard and fight it.

...It dies in a round between being hit by a Scorching Ray from Shuu, and everyone else beating the fuck out of it.

Well, at least Grud's happy. And now we have way better prices in town when we sell shit or buy shit. This is actually a pretty big economic boost, though you won't get to take advantage of it till later. We resupply, and we ready - our new objective lies beyond.

The Temple of Elemental Evil actually has like four entrances. There's the obvious front door that doesn't work, a side door that's open, another door nearby that leads basically nowhere but can get you in on an upper floor, and then there's the way you're not fucking supposed to take, but we're going to go anyway because I'm an obstinate fuck and I'm completely incapable of accepting defeat.

Beyond this guard, in the Watchtower ahead, lies one of the hardest battles in the entire game.

 

[c-no]

I can't wait to see what makes the Watchtower have one of the hardest fights in the game.

 

[Jaimas]

I made certain to buy masterwork weapons in Nulb. These make it easier for us to hit enemies and will be necessary later on. But you don't want to hear about that. You want to hear about the cliffhanger from earlier.

...So, about that battle I mentioned.

SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKER.

This is an asshole battle and the trap that Lareth leads you directly into if you go with his retarded plans. These assholes all are members of the Eye of Flame, the same bandit group that was annoying people in Hommlet. Unlike that group, these guys are fucking tough - the group has a bunch of low-level shits (the archers), but a number of level 4-5 guys as well. Especially noteworthy are the two Witches, who are basically healers, and that fucking Wizard right there. I lucked out and @c-no nailed him with Hold Person. Good thing, too, because if you don't kill him quick, this little fuck will ruin your party, and not by using damage spells. Instead, he will buff himself with Mirror Image, before absolutely hammering your fighters with Ray of Enfeeblement and buffing his friends with Enlarge Person and Bull's Strength. All the while the Witches are spamming Bane and patching up the wounded.

This is a nightmarishly hard fight. It dragged on so long that @BOLDYSPICY!'s rage wore off and we had to deal with fatigue.

By the time we killed them all, the entire party had been through a brush with death (brought to negtive hit points) except for Jaimas, who for reasons uncertain was completely ignored by the enemies. @Shuu Iwamine and @Smutley took a fucking enormous amount of abuse here, with the former being knocked unconscious, revived, then knocked unconscious again around five times.

In the end though, we were victorious, and to the victors went the spoils. We raided these fucks for tons of good treasure, including a magic sword that, again, nobody in our fucking party can use, a magic shield that Jaimas immediately strapped on, and more scrolls that Shuu squirreled away for her ever-widening spellbook.

We went back to Nulb for a nap. If you think I'm going to risk random encounters after that bullshit you're insane.

The route I showed you actually cuts right into the heart of the Temple of Elemental Evil. It actually bypasses all the upper floors with all their stuff (and subsequent sidequests), and if you're a smart player this is easily the best way to speedrun, but you're essentially forcing your way through the hardest zones in the game. It also brings you quick access to great gear and a critical plot item of obscene power, which you'll soon see.

And here we have this fucker. Smigal is not only an annoying fight against a level 10 Rogue, but she has disguised herself as a half-elf despite being a half-orc. She fights you here, and I strongly encourage you to murder her during that fight. If you take too long after her health is below half, she'll pull a poor pitiful me routine and claim she was brainwashed, then she'll escape. Later she'll come back pissed, invisible, and if your game bugs out, missing a hitbox, resulting in an impossible fight. Fortunately, a critical hit from Boldy introduced this asshole to the ground and we looted her shit - getting Smutley a magic short sword (FINALLY) and a level up for good measure. Finally, we're able to start making our own gear!

See, when I said this game includes almost everything from D&D, I meant it. You can make your own magic weapons and armor. All you need is levels, the right crafting feats, and a Masterwork piece of equipment to turn into a magic item. You even get the chance to name them, as you can see from Boldy's delightful Pufferton Greataxe.

And here it is, tucked in Boldy's Inventory. Glorious.

An interesting quirk with the item creation system is a bizarre occurrence that sometimes happens, albeit randomly, with certain pieces of armor. When you first find (or create) magic armor or shields, they will have the bonus they say on the package and work exactly as they should. However, at some point, after being in your inventory for a while, if you examine them with the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat, they will have inexplicably become +3 (the highest in the game). This happens to almost every piece of magic armor, from the Elven Chain suits we've been salvaging all game to the magic shield Jaimas got after the watchtower. Even the magic Buckler Shuu made for Boldy, in time, inexplicably evolves from +1 to +3. I'm almost entirely sure it's a bug because I've only seen a handful of armors and shields that do not do this. Weapons, meanwhile, work exactly as they should.

Back to the temple, we go through a well-hidden little cache near where we fought Smigal, and encounter Falrinth, a bastardly mage who has an equally-bastardly Quasit familiar. Thankfully, @c-no brought Dispel Magic to the table, which dispelled the asshole's buffs and quickly led to him having his shit punched in.

Searching his study revealed another hidden door - with both a treasure trove of scrolls that I'm entirely sure made Shuu schoolgirl squee and this fucking thing:

That skull is the Orb of Golden Death, a major artifact. It is needed to get most of the game's endings. It can cast several spells, is used to activate the temple's elevator, and you can power it up with elemental gems that make this obscenely overpowered thing even more obscenely overpowered. I'd show you the scrolls in the chest but as you can see, Shuu already stole them all. Boldy took all the potions and Jaimas was saddled with the Orb.

On the way back to Nulb, this happened, and I'm so glad because good god, this encounter.

That is Zaxis. I'm normally not a fan of the game's NPCs (I prefer going with my team so they get all the loot), but Zaxis.... Well. Not only is Zaxis a random character that you can only find if the game lets you, but...

He sings. Every fucking line.

EVERY.
FUCKING.
LINE.



I can scarcely explain to you how surreal this guy's trying to say these lines whilst trying to maintain some level of harmony in his song is. It's fucking amazing, absolutely retarded, and if this weren't a Kiwis only run I'd consider adding this lunatic in a second.

Back to the temple after we resupply and re-equip. Time to continue our adventure. The entire team now has at least basic level magic weapons now, so I fancied our chances. You know how well that's carried us so far.

 

[c-no]

At this point, one can only ask if at this point, future encounters aren't as hard compared to the watchtower and it's denizens. That said, whats the first stop in the Temple at this point?

 

[Jaimas]

....So our trip into the labyrinth runs us head to head with Will-O-Wisps.

This fight took around 100 turns solely because you can't hit these fucking things. Their base AC is 29, which is frankly better than any of us have with maxed-out armor. I wound up having to have Shuu load up all her slots with Magic Missile and spam the ever-loving shit out of it just to reliably finish these little glowing death balls off. Each of them has dozens of hitpoints and hits fucking hard to boot. Bad combination.

But ever ready for more comes the Temple's rare memes, and this Lamia right here is a great example. She's one of the most annoying fights in the game because she spams Charm Person and is surrounded by Hooting Fungi, who provoke attacks of opportunity on purpose in order to make you hit them, then explode in clouds of blinding spores.

Do you see the joke with the Lamia yet? You will when I raid her corpse.

THUNDERCATS, HOOOOOO~

Just past the Lamia is the temple's lowest floor. Take the wrong route here and you're in a fight that will end things for you in a heartbeat. Thankfully, we're not staying down here for long, and we have one very specific target to take out before we go back to the upper floors and deal with that shit properly.

With the lone exception of the boss fights ahead, this asshole, Senshock, is undeniably the game's hardest enemy. He also has a badass cloak that Jaimas fully intends to appropriate, scrolls that Shuu demands, and his room is designed to murder anyone stupid enough to rush his ass. Inside is a large elemental of every single type, and Senshock will happily summon more of the fucking things before evocation spelling your party into a smear on the wall. Thankfully, the elementals do not get along and will often fight one another. In particular the earth and air elemental will go at one another, and the fire and water elemental will do the same. This fight ended with Jaimas and Smutley rushing Senshock and killing him, then the party fighting off the others whilst being repeatedly beaten into unconsciousness and saved at the Zero Hour by C-No. This is getting to be a fucking habit.

Finally though, we were successful, and our sequence breaking for treasure, as it were, comes to a brief end. We return to Hommlet to restock, resupply, and buy out the rest of Burne's scrolls for Shuu.

Now our party's cooking with gas. Jaimas has a magic shield, magic bastard sword, solid magic armor, and spell resistance from Senshock's goofy robe. Boldy has a magic axe, magic buckler, magic armor, a ring of protection, and magic greataxe. Shuu also gave Boldy a magic cloak to boost her saves against status effects and magic. Smutley has two magic short swords and magic armor, as well as a ring of protection, and magic boots and a cloak that make him stealthier. C-No has magic full plate, a magic warhammer, and a magic buckler, and Shuu has bracers of armor, a magic longbow, several wands, and a ton of scrolls added to her spellbook. She also has boots that can cast Haste on her once a day. We're now ready to crack open the surface of the temple proper, and start properly exploring the temple grounds.

 

[Sonic Speed Monkey]

We all decked out in badassery now. We gonna wreck that temple good.

 

[c-no]

We all decked out in badassery now. We gonna wreck that temple good.

I could be optimistic since I never gotten past the moathouse but I bet at this point, the party will mostly wipe the floor with all other enemies they encounter.

 

[Jaimas]

I could be optimistic since I never gotten past the moathouse but I bet at this point, the party will mostly wipe the floor with all other enemies they encounter.

You have no idea. A lot of the encounters, yes, will be easier now, but there's plenty of stuff that will wreck even this team's shit if they aren't careful. Don't worry.

 

[Jaimas]

Back at the Temple, our heroes give the Fire floor a visit. There's some great treasure stashed here, in a relatively isolated place, but getting it is by no means easy.

The Fire Shrine doesn't fuck around as we like to say.

Moving southward, we run into the Fire Temple's military commander, who proceeds to call backup from the fire pits - Salamanders. Salamanders hit hard, do fire damage, and will also do fire damage to you every time you strike one in close combat because they're kind of on fire. This means every hit one one of these pricks does retaliatory damage. Worse, they're immune to fire and the commander is a fucking brute as well, wielding a Flame Tongue sword. This is a longsword that inherently has the Flaming enchantment. The damage that you take here can be brutal, especially if you're unprepared; every hit you land from anything but reach weapons, ranged weapons, and spells will hit you with fire damage. The Fire Shield and Resist Elements spells can help a lot, but we wound up having to brute force it even with @c-no buffing our team. Fire resistance only can block so much damage per round, and when you're being ganged up on by these clowns and taking fire damage from hitting them and taking hits from the lieutenant and residual damage, even that may not help. Once again several in the team got knocked unconscious, but C-No's gotten stronger and he's able to return someone to the fight pretty quick now.

Another terrifyingly brutal fight later and we crack the chest. In addition to money and jewelry, it has a sword inside that is, in actuality, the Frostbrand sword, a powerful ice-enchanted greatsword that grants fire resistance when held. Suffice to say it goes right on @BOLDYSPICY! and will be a staple of hers for a while. The chest also has a ring of fire resistance which I put on C-No. These two items would have been handy earlier, but will still be very useful where we're going. This also gave us a level up for good measure, and gives Boldy a substantial attack boost.

So do you like politics, Kiwis? Because it's time for politics.

In the Temple of Elemental Evil, there are four separate cults devoted to each of the four elements. All of them are worshippers of the same entity, but they worship her via different aspects and they are constantly plotting and scheming against one another in a fashion altogether hilarious. All of them have three quests and you can play them off one another, meaning there's tons of XP and treasure to be had by helping these loons. This offers the best way to get into the lower temple if you're planning a stealthier approach (or plan to join the Temple entirely).

There's the morose head of the Earth Temple, the scheming head of the Water Temple, the megalomaniacal head of the Fire Temple.....

....And then we have my favorite, the head of the Wind Temple, Kelno, who is a shit-upon everyman and one of my favorite characters in this entire game. Kelno is the closest this group comes to to being a genuinely decent person here, and he's so desperate and paranoid, hiding himself in a tiny secret chamber in the Wind Fane that you really can't help but feel for the guy. His reaction to the group showing up is something to behold, like a guy who's just having the worst day ever and is reacting the fact that now he has adventurers in his office with the same level of annoyance as someone fucking up his chinese food order.

I love it.

Long and short, his temple is by far the weakest at the moment because the other temples gang-raped his faction. His desperation, however, makes him useful and his quests are relatively straightforward, which is good for us. He doesn't give a shit that you're adventurers, he's just fucking happy that someone's helping him. So we do so. First task is that Kelno wants us to poach some Bugbears for his army from the Water Temple.

Their office is literally right the fuck next door, and it quickly becomes apparent that the only reason that Kelno hasn't done this himself is because he's that paranoid, like we just ran into the Loveshy Temple cleric.

You can bribe the Water Temple bugbears into submission, you can sweet-talk them, you can impress them, or you can have Jaimas threaten that if they won't join he'll murder every single one of them and feed their remains to the wolves with the intimidate skill. We go with that option. The bugbears join Kelno's forces and we make our favorite Loveshy Cleric very happy. Kelno then asks us, for his second task, to bring a flask of unholy water to the Earth temple and defile the shrine there. Easy peasy.

Or it would be, until we run across a barracks full of temple guards on the floor above. These guys are way tougher than the Eye of Flame clowns and packing magic gear for good measure. Several have levels of Rogue, so their numbers are a big problem since they can sneak attack you, like Smutley, if they surround you. They also call for reinforcements.

During the fight with their backup, @Shuu Iwamine demonstrates that she has, indeed, the ability to shot web now....

....She then drops a Fireball into the webbing, burning it all away and killing everything trapped in the mass. Due to fire resistance, Jaimas and Boldy are fine, resulting in Shuu having effectively turned into a field artillery piece.

Humorously, these elite guards were absolutely chill and gave no fuck about the pile of corpses we left outside the door, warning us simply to stay out of trouble (and out of Hedrak's way), and that there would be no problems. It's nice that not everyone down here is an asshole; just most of them really.

The Earth Fane shows that the Earth Temple is by far the biggest one, occupying virtually the entirety of the second floor basement. The shrine on the Earth Fane is well-protected by guards who will attack you just for entering unless you're all wearing Earth Robes. Curiously killing them will not stop the Earth Priest from asking us to help him, because he does not give a fuck. Suffice to say, the group blasts and slashes their way through the forces in their way, drops off the unholy water, and fucks off. Kelno is overjoyed, and gives us our third task.

Kelno asks us to kill either Belsornig (head of the Water Temple), or Alrrem (head of the Fire Temple). We can kill either or both at our option, so we'll come back to this later.

Shuu once again shows off that she can shot web, and this encounter is a bastard of one. These Jackalweres have ridiculously strong damage reduction and only Boldy can damage them without magic. Thankfully Shuu's web means we were able to stay out of its range as she and C-No rained attack spells on the bastards before Shuu detonated the web in the fashion to which she has become accustomed.

The temple abounds with tough opposition. Death lurks literally around every corner. These trolls are a great example; they regenerate, so you can't hurt them. Any attack that comes from anything but fire or acid damage will be treated as subdual (nonlethal) damage, which can't kill them, though it can knock them out. If you leave a troll down, but don't finish it off, it will get back up in a few minutes unless you killed it outright. Fortunately, there is another way - knock them out, then deliver a coup de grace with a weapon of the appropriate element. That Flametongue sword may not be anything anyone in this party really wants, but finishing these off with it using Jaimas works just fine. Gotta be careful though, because the monsters down here hit hard.

Mandatory. There is always a Gelatinous Cube. Always. Forever. I actually make it a point to throw one of these dumb things in every dungeon I run in D&D tabletop, because Oozes can benefit from potions, you can sometimes set up some unexpected encounters with 'em. The flying Gelatinous Cube I put in one dungeon is to this day a meme with my friends.

Now this is an encounter I forgot about, and fuck you if this goes south. This asshole is a powerful undead that does ability damage and worse, has an ability that can flat-out kill your entire party if they fail to resist! Thankfully, she needs a few rounds to ready it, and our group manages to kill this insufferable Banshee before she gets off the scream, looting her chest nearby for good measure and giving Shuu yet more scrolls for the spellbook.

With the area sanitized for the most part, it's time we gave the other temples a visit.

 

[c-no]

With how things are going in this run, one may as well ask if there are any unique npc's that could actually put the party down. Suffice to say, will there be any other special npc's as memorable as Kelno?

 

[Jaimas]

With how things are going in this run, one may as well ask if there are any unique npc's that could actually put the party down. Suffice to say, will there be any other special npc's as memorable as Kelno?

Yes on both counts. There's plenty of NPCs that can wreck this party if they aren't careful, and pretty much every battle on the bottom floors of the temple has the chance to punch your ticket because of all the giants and shit they have. The toughest bosses ahead are nightmarishly hard and will require that this party be kitted out for bear and level 10.