Hall of Dread – Temple of Elemental Evil Area of the Week 06/13/03

This page is a part (Dungeons of Elemental Evil #340) of a playthrough that spanned the year of 2003. All the information was taken from TSR’s original AD&D adventure, the Temple of Elemental Evil.

For the players: This place is horrible and disgusting, loathsome and fearsome. The stonework seems leprous and mottled. Everywhere are sculpted fungous shapes of nightmare form and coloration. Each column rising to the roof above writhes and squirms with intertwined fungi. The walls drip with slimes and ooze revolting exudations. The bizarre reds, disgusting yellows, rotten grays and browns, nauseous greens, and hideous blues blend in a vertiginous swirl in the center of the northern part of the place, wherein squats a huge sprawling purple throne.

This great chair is sculpted to display fungi and human forms, but those depicted are shown crying out in pain as fungi shoot up from their flesh, feed upon their dead and decomposing bodies, or grow rampant in their bony remains. Even the shape of the throne is abominable; its seat is broad and round, with a concave surface and four hemispherical indentations, two in front, two behind. It has wide arm rests but no back whatsoever. It stands upon a four-tiered dais, the top and 2′ high steps of which are carved in bas-relief to depict fungi, smut, slimes, molds, jellies, and other horrible growths devouring a compacted mass of living and dead humans.

The demoness must have used this area to view captives and servants, the former going to whatever unspeakable fates awaited them, the latter exalting in the fact that no similar prospect awaited them, as long as they served Zuggtmoy well.

Projections resembling blighted vegetation line the walls, and each gives off a dim but pervasive illumination. Passages and doors are in the east and south walls. Twin valves of bronze in the middle of the south wall accompany twins of gates found elsewhere in the dungeon, complete with bindings and silvery glowing runes. To the west, a 20′ broad flight of serpentine steps leads down into a highdomed chamber, filled with dim but multi-hued light continually changing in color and intensity.

For the DM: The large bronze doors have, of course, a permanent antipathy spell upon them; all those failing any previous saving throw against this effect are unable to approach within ten feet of these doors. They are bound in the standard fashion–chained, locked, sealed with soft iron, and bearing the deeply cut sequence of warning runes. The secret door in the southwest corner cannot be opened from this area except by magical means. Zuggtmoy cannot enter this Audience Hall unless three gates have been sundered: the Grand Entrance, Earth Temple, and Octagonal Chamber.