4.75 out of 5 rating for Princes of the Apolocalypse



4.75 stars.



Let's get this part out of the way right up front: This is not THE Temple of Elemental Evil. It was clearly *inspired* by ToEE. I am a huge Forgotten Realms fan, so I am incredibly happy that this is set in Faerun. Not everyone is a fan, I know. ( Back in 3.0, I made enough changes to Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil to run it in Faerun. ) Four elemental cults are attempting to summon the Princes of Elemental Evil, but Tharzdun/Zuggtmoy/Iuz are not contained within this adventure in any way shape or form. What you find instead is a fairly sandboxy adventure set in the Sumber Hills of the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms.



The adventure is designed for levels 3-15, although it contains a number of initial, related side treks that you can use to get a party up from level one to level three. Since it is set a hop skip and a jump away from the Neverwinter area, it is really easy to direct your party there post Lost Mines of Phandelver. ( In fact, it mentions three different people in Phanaldin who might ask the characters to go to the Sumber Hills area for various reasons. )



The town of Red Larch and the surrounding environment gets the most detail. Amphail, Triboar, Beliard, West Bridge, and Womford are all touched on, as are some other communities in the area. There are four temple areas on the surface, and each has a trail, tunnel, or path to get to a deeper dungeon under the hills. Each dungeon then leads to an Elemental Node. ( In addition to a connection to the other dungeons. ) The adventure also contains a number of other, unrelated side treks, which can be dropped here and there into the recommended order of running the adventure. There are also a number of responses to intrusion that the elemental cults will take, designed to be dropped in depending upon which temples get taken out first. The cultists will lash out at the surrounding area, causing mayhem.



Some DM work will be required to make everything fit together perfectly. There is one of each air/water/earth/fire of each set of areas. ( Surface, dungeon, node. ) Each is designed for a slightly different level. Luckily, 5e has a built in mechanism ( bounded accuracy ) to make it so that ending up at the areas of a slightly different level than your party is won't end up being a complete TPK tragedy. Although, it might make sense to find some ways of preventing the party from heading deeper into the next level of dungeon before they're ready. I suspect that shortly after release, some enterprising people will go about making some guides to help newer DMs realize the biggest areas to watch out for if done out of level range.



The book has seven chapters. Chapter one contains the general overview of the adventure, including the history of Elemental Evil. It also includes a bunch of adventure hooks to seed the characters with, if you desire. It gives reasons for each faction to send adventurers to the area to investigate. Chapter two is all about the Dessarin Valley, and the towns and places you're likely to see. It also has a set of random encounter tables, with a very wide variety of encounters. Some are monsters to fight, some are very flavorful. Chapter three details the four temple areas on the surface in the Sumber Hills, as well as the early cult reprisals for use as the heroes begin to clear out these locations. Chapter four delves deeper under the surface, to the higher level cult areas, and includes the middle cult reprisals. Chapter five is all about the Nodes, and the highest level cult reprisals. Chapter six contains all of the side trek information, including all of the adventures needed to level characters from one to three, and side treks for later to intersperse between delves against the cults. ( In case fighting cults gets old. ) There are some very interesting ideas here, and I really like how they're presented. Chapter seven is monsters and magic items. Lots of really great, full color illustrations. Finally there are the tree appendixes. As I think was mentioned in the EE Player's Companion, not all of the content from there is in the book. Just the Genesi, the spells, and the final appendix is the conversion guide for other worlds. ( Athas, Krynn, Oerth, Eberron, and YOUR WORLD. ) This appendix talks about where you might set the adventure in those worlds, what you might want to consider changing, and what to use for the factions.





Pros:

1 ) A very well structured adventure. There is variety among the encounters and areas. There is investigation in addition to hacking and slashing.

2 ) The villains are very memorable. There is a lot to work with here.

3 ) None of the dungeon/encounter areas are so large as to be burdensome. There are a couple of areas that might end up being multi-session areas, but most are easily doable in a single session.

4 ) There is a living quality to the adventure as presented. Things happen, in the background, and between adventures. Cultists attack towns. They disrupt trade. They generally make nuisances of themselves. A beginning DM can learn a lot about good adventure design from this adventure.

5 ) There is an eight page appendix with ideas for setting the adventure in worlds other than the Forgotten Realms.

6 ) It would be incredibly easy to make changes to this adventure. Don't like the way one of the temples is presented? Drop in another. You could easily run early potions of the adventure as a hex crawl, if that was your desire.



Cons:

1 ) Some DM work will likely be required to get the absolute most out of the adventure. I, personally, expect to have to make some changes as DM. ( Heck, sometimes I can't help myself. Sometimes a good idea springs on me and I make changes. It's part of the fun I have as DM. Not everyone is like me, though. ) It is playable as written. But adjusting things to fit your party will help make it memorable.



Summation: I *love* this adventure. It pushes all of the right buttons for me.