DDO is Headed to The Temple of Elemental Evil Next Year

If there ever was an iconic adventure module for 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (and the Greyhawk setting), it’s Gary Gygax’s The Temple of Elemental Evil.  After being realized in Troika’s single-player CRPG and re-established in other editions of the tabletop game, it appears that we’re going to be returning to the memorable location yet again, as indicated by this “sneak peek” developer post on the Dungeons & Dragons Online forums that takes us through Update 25 and beyond:

Upcoming dungeons in Update 24

Update 24 will be previewed on Lamannia starting this weekend, so now seems like a good time to unveil its dungeons. Get ready for some surprises!

First up in Update 24 is a new content pack, Heart of Madness. The plane of Xoriat is encroaching on Eberron once again and the result is three dungeons full of Xorian insanity. Both the Lord of Eyes and the Lord of Stone are back, as well as some other fan favorite characters. (Hint one of the dungeons is named (Fashion Madness.)) The centerpiece of the pack is (Terminal Delirium,) the follow-up to two of our most popular dungeons. Once again you’ll be returning to the Sleeping Spell Inn, and once again you’ll be seeing and be turned into some very unusual things. Heart of Madness is CR 18 Heroic/26 Epic, and is a paid pack (450 Turbine Points; free to VIPs of course.)

Also coming in Update 24 is a Forgotten Realms dungeon themed to tie in with Wizards of the Coast’s Tyranny of Dragons storyline. You’ll infiltrate a Cult of the Dragon base while on the trail of the fabled White Dragon mask. (The Mask of Deception) is CR 16 Heroic/30 Epic, and is free to everyone.

Hey, what happened to Anauroch?

Earlier we had mentioned Anauroch as one of the places we wanted to go in 2014. Obviously that’s not happening.

Why the change? It’s tempting to blame it all on Xorian madness, but the truth is we’ve been listening to what excites you guys when it comes to D&D settings. We may still make it to Anauroch eventually, but don’t expect it any time soon. It’s a long, long walk from Cormyr. Instead of the blazing hot desert, we’re going someplace cooler instead.

Future plans and Update 25

So what kind of cool things led to the detour away from Anauroch? One of them will be coming in Update 25. Since The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar was received so well, we’ve decided to adapt another classic pen-and-paper module to DDO. Rather than blabbing on, I’ll skip right to the awesome part and give you five simple words:

The Temple of Elemental Evil.

Yep, we will be creating our own version of the original, classic Temple inside DDO. We’re very excited about adapting one of the most famous modules in Dungeons and Dragons history, and we hope you are too.

In the meantime, though, we have a date with insanity. Hope to see everyone this weekend on Lamannia for a preview of Update 24!