Symbols of Elemental Evil

[@welovettrpgs]

Editorial error? Yes, that's exactly what Iuz would like us to believe!

[@74lefanu]

That was great! A bit of detective work and you managed to nicely expand the lore. If WoTC end up messing up their Grayhawk, we'll always have our version, with ever growing fans thanks to many pro-fans like you who keep it going. Please do show us the wargame once readt, even at a con, I'm certainly interested, havng spent many in game hours in Celine.

[@shayulghul]

Great video. I had made the same changes from idea #2 to my game; it just makes sense. It's also a good reason why the PCs would have a hard time convincing anyone to assault the Temple because the kingdom forces would be busy in the north. I also removed all references to Lolth and made a certain NPC a lesser member of the Horned Society (keeping an eye on things for Iuz).

[@diegoborges3716]

I guess you're talking about Lareth. I also doesn't think much sense in him being a servant of Lolth. Her rivalry with Zuggtmoy is not well explained in TOEE, so I think it's ok erase the mentions of Lolth in the adventure.

[@DavidShepheard]

I really like your run down of the different symbols associated with the Eye of Fire. I think that my take on symbols used by armies is that different units need to identify who is in their unit and who is in a different unit. Real-world heraldry had a "one-man-one-coat" rule, so that individuals could be identified. In the modern world we have sports team that all uses the same uniforms. So I think it's fine to have more than one symbol for the forces of Iuz. The picture of the guy with an actual burning eye on him, is the sort of thing that might work for a commander, for example. So that could be a way to keep him around, even if you went with all the other symbols you mentioned. I really liked that you switched to a different presentation system, so that you could showcase the different symbols. That was so much more easy to understand. I liked the two triangle symbols with different Y symbols inside them. When you showed the four elemental symbols representing earth, air, fire and water, and I could see that earth was a triangle, it made me think that other variant symbols could maybe be made from elemental symbols with Y shapes in them. That could maybe be something to do if a GM wanted to make new temples that were built on top of the remains of other Temples of the Eye. I've been looking to find a way to reboot some Greyhawk stuff, so that I can put things into Greyspace, that feel like they "belong" to Greyhawk. And I think you might have given me inspiration for a way to do it.

[@worldbigfootcentral3933]

YAY! New show from The GROGNARD! Awesome! "The Ruse of Iuz", great adventure module title. Lol.

[@AtomicSnackBar]

Hard to beat a flaming eyeball and a giant lobster. But once again, really interesting and informative video. Your players are quite lucky to have you as a DM.

[@hamishshaw4907]

I like your take on the intentional distortion of the Eye of Fire. It makes COMPLETE sense.

[@EarlRumburg]

I really like that explanation. Makes sense that Iuz would want plausible deniability.

[@mattinthehat3]

Excellent video as always. I like your suggestions that Iuz and Zuggtmoy would create a similar but yet different symbol of The Elemental Eye to acquire power for themselves and denying any power to The Elemental God. 👏👏👏

[@alexreid6224]

Thank you for the videos and content! Helping my hommlet campaign so much with your wisdom

[@Iambiguous]

Great video, very timely for my campaign.

[@e-bolaz]

Excellent video I am currently running TOEE in the Greyhawk setting and was recently trying to figure all of this out. I like this theory; it clears up a few issues I have been having.

[@williammeek7218]

Yes that’s the question “ what’s going on “ . Secrets hidden in secrets. It’s on a need to know basis. Thanx Grognard .

[@kathykoenig6512]

I have to admit this video is some really good digging into Greyhawk history, both in universe and out. I neither knew about the missing symbol, nor realized its significance. And your in universe explanation should be considered canon. Still, for your game you might want to take a movie art director's point of view: evil armies sporting flaming eyes and bloody skulls are much more visually exciting than triangles with Ys.

[@BrooklynRedLeg]

Don't forget the 4 Elemental Temple symbols match the Keys of The Platinum Egg of Lolth from D3/Q1. Everything seemingly leading back to various demons using each other all the while being manipulated by The Elder Elemental God.

[@sethbrodie]

I ran the T1-4 campaign 5 or 6 times back in the day. It was not without it's issues, and always needed some modifications to make it work. I was always a little puzzled by the flaming eye symbol and why Lareth and his gang used it. To be honest, the whole "elder elemental eye" thing was confusing to me. And why was Lareth, who supposedly was loyal to Lolth, using this symbol? Well, I won't get into to it, but I used all kinds of different explanations for this. It's fascinating to hear something more like an actual answer to this puzzle. I love the bit of conjecture about Trampier. Makes total sense. Anyway, good stuff.

[@LassMIGS]

You actually run the whole temple like 5 or 6 times? I would be absolutly happy if my group survives our one playthrough. We are playing for over a year now on every other week and just reached the temple grounds.

[@nobody342]

I havent actually played or DM the temple ( well started hommlet once) and at first take a person most likely would not notice, then later would say a edit for some editorial reason, but what little I actually know of Gygax, I could see him doing something like this, but in any case, you have a very good interpretation, that a person would not go wrong in using if you could weave it into actual game play. my observation is most players miss just about every clue imaginable, but still I would recommend trying to use your interpretation.

[@pentegarn1]

Wow so it was taken out of the Gold Box...interesting. Unfortunately we've used the symbol as its show on the "Village of Hommlet" module for so long that it would be like giving up a drug. A very iconic drug. lol

[@Andre99328]

Great video. We played ToEE back in the 1980s, which was a great experiece, but my memory is a bit blurred.

[@harmonicaman79]

Great video.

[@cmicha8303]

I would love to see some pics of your painted TEE army!

[@GreyhawkGrognard]

They're coming!

[@jason916]

Love your channel !

[@GreyhawkGrognard]

Thank you!

[@verpalorian310]

Including your face in the symbols of elemental evil huh? Is that a hint 😂

[@stevestumpy6873]

🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉

[@TallDude73]

I think the symbols at 7:10 are different, not on purpose, but because the time between T1 and T1-4 just made for inconsistencies between the writings. I wouldn't read too much into it, but I get it's fun to speculate. I found one other thing weird, speaking of inconsistencies... for the cleric Lareth the Beautiful, in the moathouse, it talks about Lolth not being happy with whoever harms him, yet he was sent to the moathouse to restore the Temple. It implies he's her cleric/worshipper, but she doesn't have any role in T1-4. Is this just random, mentioning another god, since he actually seems to be part of the Temple? I wouldn't expect the level of sophistication and foreshadowing to tie this in to the GDQ1-7 modules.

[@GreyhawkGrognard]

Please keep watching to the 13:12 mark, where I say precisely that. 🙂 For your point about Lareth and Lolth, I've done a lot of work on that, too here and on the blog (especially). It's too much to in detail, but it works in perfectly with the idea that Lolth is the one who has the key to the Elder Elemental God's prison, as was the original intent.

[@Kidharlo6723]

Clerical magic is granted by a deity to their faithful clerics. So who is the actual deity granting this magic to the CE clerics of the air temple, the water temple, the fire temple, etc… Lolth? Iuz? Zugtmoy? The EEG? Does each elemental temple worship a different deity?

[@GreyhawkGrognard]

Another fascinating question.

[@keithbieberly6445]

I remember drawing different versions, trying to figure out the symbol You did a great job making sense of contradictory information; you would have gotten a "no-prize" for it in the old days But I kept expecting this to show up: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZCrc3WclMp3gq8si=2wKVKynDwEG_069U

[@johnstorm9314]

Never understood why the elements were the source of "evil" at all, the elements create life, not take it.

[@GreyhawkGrognard]

The Elder Elemental God isn't necessarily connected with the four elements. In Gygax's original conception, he said he was thinking of "elemental" in the sense of elder, foundational, and basic. There are no particular four-element connections to the Elder Elemental God in G3 or D3. My thinking is that the air/earth/fire/water thing was Zuggtmoy's invention, but there's also the fact that the Egg of Lolth (which originally held the keys to the EEG's prison) has associations with the elemental symbols. So there's some more Deep Think to be done on the topic. Something's not adding up. It's also worth noting that you have figures like the Elemental Princes of Evil in the Fiend Folio, but later on they did introduce a few Elemental Princes of Good. But bear in mind that "the elements" also encompasses things like hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, and floods. So there's definitely some justification in associating the elements with evil, or at least destruction.

[@jasonjacobson1157]

Having elemental evil implies that elemental good also exists.

[@jasonjacobson1157]

​@GreyhawkGrognard Lew Pulsipher created the Elemental Princes in FF. He wasn't involved with the Greyhawk campaign, so there's no need to make the two jive with each other.

[@GreyhawkGrognard]

@@jasonjacobson1157 I wasn't trying to. Just pointing out that "elemental" can have an evil, destructive side.

[@jasonjacobson1157]

​@GreyhawkGrognard for sure.

[@DavidShepheard]

Have you looked at the Temple of the Elemental Evil novel or the computer game to see what they have done with the symbols?

[@GreyhawkGrognard]

I did read the novel (it was okay) but didn't re-read it for this video. Never played the video game.