Friday, October 29, 2004

The Uniques - Who is Lareth the Beautiful?

In 1979, Gary Gygax released Dungeon Module T1: The Village of Hommlet. This was meant to be the first of a two part series, the second part being T2: The Temple of Elemental Evil. T1 provided an introduction to the themes of the fall of Elemental Evil in the Battle of Emridy Meadows and its subsequent rebuilding.

Particularly unusual about T1 was what it contained: an entire village (hamlet, rather). The bulk of the module was taken up with the description of Hommlet: its residents, buildings and intrigues. There was plenty of adventure there for the inventive DM before even the actual dungeon was reached. That dungeon was the ruined Moathouse, home to bandits and other nasties, led by the "Master", a cleric of Lolth named Lareth the Beautiful.

Lareth fared badly in the original play of T1 in Gygax's campaign. The adventurers (including Burne, Rufus and Elmo) overwhelmed and slew him, bringing his plans to naught. Elemental Evil was set back once more.

Elemental Evil? Wasn't Lareth a (human) cleric of Lolth, the drow goddess? What was going on here?

There's a story there and it's not entirely certain what occurred. Lolth had been introduced in the recent Vault of the Drow module, and it didn't quite make sense for Lareth to worship her. Was Lareth instead meant to be a disciple of Iuz or Tsuggtmoy? (the latter being the Demoness of Fungi?) It seems far more likely.


Regardless, all would be revealed in the upcoming T2: The Temple of Elemental Evil. Unfortunately, that module was delayed, and then delayed again. Gary Gygax was rather busy with other matters. Eventually, the incomplete manuscript was pressed into the hands of Frank Mentzer (most famous for his editing of the Basic line of D&D products, including the classic "Red Box" edition), and using Gary's notes as basis, proceeded to expand the module into a publishable form.

Unfortunately, he missed some of Gygax's intentions. In its original form, the Evil Elemental God, which had been worshipped by the splinter faction of Drow behind the Giants series, was going to make a return in the Temple of Elemental Evil. Instead, that plot line was discarded entirely - and with it went the explanation to why a priest of Lolth was nosing about.

Thus, the Temple of Elemental Evil, which many, many gamers had been impatiently waiting for over six years, was somewhat incomplete. Still playable and very enjoyable, but not the masterpiece that it should have been.

For all the problems with the ToEE, it still was regarded as one of the classics of AD&D modules. So, in 2000, to celebrate the release of the 3e D&D game, Monte Cook wrote a new version of the module, the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

RttToEE was a return, in truth. Set some 20 years after the original ToEE module, it touched on many elements that Gygax had introduced in his World of Greyhawk modules. In particular, it picked up on the imprisoned god Tharizdun and made a link between him and the mysterious Elder Elemental God of the Giant and Drow modules.

This was all very clever, and it fixed a bunch of canonical problems that had arisen from Gygax's modules - unfortunately, Monte Cook wasn't aware of the original intentions of Gygax in this matter, and thus for some fans, the RttToEE is a lost opportunity.

Monte Cook made Lareth a very interesting figure - indeed, one of the core figures of the entire RttToEE campaign. To solve the problem of his strange worship of Lolth, Monte made it so Lareth was actually serving Tharizdun, but posing as a cleric of Lolth or Zuggtmoy as necessary to further the freedom of his dread deity.

Lareth was important enough to Tharizdun that he had been raised from his death in the original play of T1, though he had been horribly scarred - no longer was he "the Beautiful". It is this version of Lareth that was made into the miniature you can find in Giants of Legend. Eventually, Lareth would assume a more daunting aspect during the finale to the Return, which is why he has that intriguing trait, "Avatar of Chaos". It's a nod to his service to Tharizdun.

(Unfortunately, this brings up one inconsistently: Tharizdun was originally described as the deity of Evil incarnate, not Chaotic or Lawful. However, as many of his worshippers are mad, it's not too much of a stretch from the original form to what Lareth represents.)