Temple of Elemental Evil

[venger]

Tzila maps the underworld route to the Temple of Elemental Evil and draws floorplans of the levels she is familiar with.

[venger]

In the distant past, lost to all recorded histories of the present age, a powerful Chaos-being of rot and parasitism twisted forth from the bowels of the earth, a poison against the natural ordering of life. Its physical manifestation rose to horrible maturity in the shape of a contorted, toadstool-like fungus dripping with mold and slime, towering more than a hundred feet into the prehistoric skies.

This being of Chaos grew from unspeakable fonts of evil deep beneath the earth and emerged near the site of a great volcano, whose smoke plumes created a constant shadow many miles in diameter. In the darkness of its twilight-shaded realm, primitives worshipped the Chaos-being as a god, feeding it the rotting bodies of prehistoric beasts and sapient creatures that ventured into the nearby regions.

Eventually, after many thousands of years, the volcano was to erupt, covering the surface with ash that rose to a depth of more than a hundred feet, completely covering the Chaos-god and choking out its immortal life over centuries of imprisonment as the ash hardened into rock.

When at long last its immortality failed and its body rotted away, the decomposition left behind a huge, empty space beneath the rock where it had long survived. This great cyst in the stone lay undiscovered for countless years.

The existence and the eventual death of this demi-god was lost to the memory of all except one, Jezule the Nebbarite, that legendary wizard-priest of dreadful reputation whose bizarre visions and recorded prophecies would form the basis for the Jezulein cult.

Guided by those ancient esoteric writings, a Jezulein expedition led by the sorcerer Mishtot returned to the site where this demigod had ruled, only to find that the monstrosity had rotted away beneath the surface, leaving behind an extensive root system which lead to a vast subterranean underworld; miles upon miles of labyrinthine passages, natural caverns and underground rivers.

During the course of these explorations, the cultists found a spore that had been left by the demigod, and recognized the possibility of growing an heir to the creature ...

After this discovery, the various highly-individualistic sorcerers, whose relations with each other had always been unstable and mutually perilous, suddenly coalesced behind a new task. Formidable even as individuals, the sorcerers began to achieve considerable power and influence when working in cooperation with each other, even though their newly united community still remained little more than a loose confederation.

In the depths of the earth, guided by their arch-elemental masters, the Jezulein constructed a Great Temple to house the “Armageddon Seed, ” a living weapon which they believed would ultimately give them dominion over the entire world.

The cultivation of the growing demigod was a project requiring immense quantities of energy: the Jezulein ability to provide meat, souls, and alchemy was increasingly taxed to its very limit by the growing hungers of the nascent god. The increasing demands of their project required the Jezulein to reach beyond their traditional isolation and to increase the reach of their malignant influence as far as possible. They even lowered themselves to engage in bartering with several pockets of underground creatures which they could not easily subjugate, although they would have preferred to enslave or co-opt outsiders as minions rather than to treat with them as partners.

As years passed, the power of the Temple waxed and the influence of the Jezulein grew. Their allies raided the surface, bringing captives and foodstuffs to the furnace of consumption that was the Demonspore.

Recognizing its growing power, the mad alchemists of the Jezulein, whose ambition was second only to their overweening arrogance, plied the creature with magical elixirs and otherworldly ichors, attempting to exert their control before it could attain the willpower of a full-fledged god. These efforts were for naught. Eventually, lest it consume them, the greatest sorcerers of the Jezulein imprisoned the Chaos-entity beneath the temple with powerful binding spells.

The creature was not so easily contained however, and its mere presence began to take its toll upon the Jezulein. The Temple became divided, and rivalries between the cult’s fractious elemental sects were exacerbated as the already-chaotic cultists succumbed to the corrupting influences of the Demonspore.

Through the use of forbidden oracles the Jezulein probed the uncertain future and what they discovered did not please them. Their divinations foretold the cult’s destruction; too late had they recognized the danger and now their pride was to usher in the unalterable doom of the world. The ruling body of the cult, the Iron Circle, sat in dark chambers debating methods by which the Jezulein might thwart this fate.

In the end it was decided that the most powerful of the Jezulein sorcerers would hide in temporal stasis, while their trusted minions carried on the cult’s traditions in secret, waiting for the day when they could awaken their masters from the long, shadowy sleep and return to the glory and power of the degenerate past.

Of course they did not count on the ferocity with which their cult would be stalked, and those minions who were trusted with the secrets of the hidden crypts were laboriously hunted down and put to the sword in what historians called the Great Purge. To those in the land above, a new dawn was breaking. But below the earth, beneath that Great Temple, something malevolent waited in the darkness, ever-straining against its sorcerous bindings…

[Ginger]

This is rad, and the Armageddon Seed sounds like something out of Doctor Who.

[venger]

Some additional insights gleaned from the Mud Sorcerer texts, interrogation of Tzila and the sage's interpretations:

• The Temple of Elemental Evil has within it four individual temples, one to each of the Princes (and Princess) of Elemental Evil. The party knows the location of these on the map provided by Tzila.
  
  
• The mud sorcerers and their minions were the most powerful faction in the Jezulein cult, representing an alliance of the Earth and Water temples. They were not the only faction however. The temples of Fire and Air, being more chaotic in nature, had smaller followings and held less influence.
  
  
• The denizens of the underworld are numerous. The Jezulein subjugated the weaker and less organized tribes of subterranean humanoids they encountered (goblins, bugbears, trolls, etc.) and were forced to ally with their nearest neighbors, the dwarves of the Adamantine Tower.
  

[venger]

Fabius discovered a hidden cipher in one of the books that he almost forgot to give you!

Hark unto this final sending,
evil omens now portending,
death and doom, soon impending,
a terrible fate, beyond comprehending;

Bindings broken, there is no mending,
mystic wards, She is rending,
countless souls for the spending,
against Her will, no contending;

Upon you, now, all are depending;
deeper, deeper; keep descending,
down lightless halls, winding, wending,
to a place of darkness, never-ending,

In each temple, fierce guardians defending,
four magic stones, the very elements transcending,
and their powers combined, a mighty blending,
if to thwart Her, you are intending;

Then don the Crown, fear not offending,
before the throne, their knees bending,
Her wicked servants, all attending,
The Demonspore, a dark god ascending.