Hall of Triumphal Evil – Temple of Elemental Evil Area of the Week 05/09/03

This page is a part (Dungeons of Elemental Evil #227) 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 huge, echoing hall was evidently once the scene of great revels celebrating the triumphs of the Temple. The floor of the place is littered with skeletons, skulls, and bones of humans and various humanoids. Here and there are parts of broken chairs, stools, tables, benches, sideboards, buffets, cabinets, and cases. Much of the wreckage has probably been carted off for firewood. Tapestries and trophies still remain on the walls in spots. The former show scenes of raiding, looting, pillate, and rapine; trophies include mummified heads, torn battle standards, hides and skins, battered shields, sundered armor, and a broken broadsword. Dozens of empty cressets and sconces line the walls. The broad steps in the middle of the north wall are of dull black stone, and the descending stair seems most depressing and horrible — though passable.

For the DM: Nothing here has any notable value. The runes of the permanent antipathy effect (found on the main Temple entrance, area 210, et al. ) are here scribed on the steps, 20 feet from the corridor. No creature of evil alignment can even enter this stairway; no one having failed a previous saving throw against this effect can descend the stair more than ten feet. Anyone succeeding at all previous saving throws against like dweomers must again save here (and again with a -2 penalty) or be blocked. Furthermore, the same effect is placed on a pair of huge bronze doors at the base of this staircase (area 340), which are triple-chained and triple-barred with cold iron.