The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is a notoriously large adventure for 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons. It revolves around an effort by depraved cultists of the ancient god Tharizdun trying to bring about the destruction of the world. Heroes interested in stopping this group (or even finding out what they’re up to) are faced with a number of adventuring locations, including a ruined temple (the broken down old Temple of Elemental Evil of yore), and ruined moathouse, a ghost town, a thriving small city, a run-down old mining town, and a 200+ room volcano-top dungeon filled with literally hundreds of baddies.

The module itself is quite well laid out, including a reasonably in-depth explanation of what all is going on at each location, and even going so far as to provide tactics that some of the baddies will use against a party of adventurers. It is also set in Oerth, the world of Grayhawk. That is all well and good, but personally I prefer the Iron Kingdoms.

Because the premise of this adventure, which can be reasonably expected to take a party of four 4th level characters all the way to 13th or 14th level before they’re done, revolves around a religious cult bent on global destruction, this poses a bit of a problem for a DM that wants to plug it into the IK: there are no IK Deities that fit the bill smoothly. Let’s take a look.
Continue reading →

The game word of the Iron Kingdoms includes a pantheon that is in some ways unusual for a Dungeons & Dragons high fantasy environment. This is no great suprise, as the Iron Kingdoms is a significantly unusual D&D campaign setting.

In the similarities column, you’ve got some old standbys: Dwarves and Elves have separate pantheons and religious traditions entirely. The Dwarves revere the literal founders of their race, the Stone Fathers, which the Elves have their own mysterious religious tradition (they don’t like to talk about it).

Humans have yet another pantheon, unrelated to the Elves and Dwarves (we’re still in “similar to other campaigns” mode here). The uncivilized humanoids of the world have yet another religious tradition, and there is your obligatory Dragon Cult.
Continue reading →