Village of Hommlet (10/7/2026)

DM: Jerry McCoy
Players: Ben Longman, Demian Kendall, Mark Phagan, Laura Quinn, Sean Nittner
System: AD&D 1st Edition

I can’t believe this is really happening. In august this year, Jerry posted as bucket list of 31 gaming goals he wants to achieve, and when I saw it I zeroed in on the #8: Run a campaign of The Temple of Elemental Evil

I tried to run Temple in high school maybe half a dozen times. Most of the time we made characters, went to Hommlett, and went to the Moathouse, and never made it past that. Another time, I just told my friend Alex to make a few characters and we’d jump them right into the Temple itself, but I got lost and the campaign went off in another direction before he had made it through a single level. Later, I thought i might rebrand it. Take the temple and drop it into my gnome-focused campaign under a different name. None of these plans ever got off the ground and I gave up on ever running (or playing) through the ToEE.

And then Jerry made this post and a part of me that withered 30 years ago, sprang back to life. We chatted in Discord to see if it was really a thing we could put together. We’ve got schedules to wrangle, all our 1st edition books are beat to hell, and would anyone really want to play in this cursed adventure?

The answer was “Fuck it, let’s do this.” So we found a time and location both Jerry I and could make and the started recruiting friends. And two months later our first session began with character creation (oh my god, I forgot how much there was to it) and our arrival at Hommlet. Thankfully my memory of the adventure is dim enough that I feel very good about diving in, and any spoilers I might know, I’m likely only going to remember after we find them out in game “Oh yeah, now I remember that…”

It’s a Trap

I can not fucking believe I fell for the trap “if it’s is hard to obtain, it must be valuable.” I will probably be kicking myself in the butt for this as long as we play this game. I could have played a Cleric of St. Cuthbert and kicked seven kinds of ass. Instead, I made a Half-elven Druid who can find animals. What was I thinking?

Jerry offered what I consider a very generous and fair stat generation method. Roll 4d6, keep the best 3, and assign stats wherever you want them. I rolled a very handsome 16, 16, 14, 13, 13, 10 (sorted in descending order, I don’t remember what order I rolled the min). Ben jumped on Dwarf Fighter and Laura ended up going Half-Orc Fighter (She rolled a 17, and with the +1 to Strength from being a Half-Orc got exceptional strength, huzzah!), so our fighting man quota was likely full. Damien was debating between Thief and Cleric, and after some back and forth he went for a Halfling Thief and I was going to take the Cleric spot (Mark went for a Magic User).

And I had Cleric right in front of me. I could go 16 Wisdom (which grants that sweet sweet 10% XP bonus) and have either a 16 Dexterity for better AC or 16 Constitution for more HP.

But as I was sifting through those tattered pages, I came upon a class where I could meet the requirements. I was no Paladin or Monk (those are impossible), I could pull off Ranger but not very well…and then I saw Druid. Requires a 12 Wisdom and 15 Charisma. And if you have a 16 in both stats you get 10% XP bonus. Hey, I’ve got two 16s. I could get that bonus! And Druids get Cure Light Wounds right? So even if my AC is terrible and I don’t get any extra HP, I could still be a healer while also getting to use a scimitar. Seems like a reasonable trade, yeah?

Except, Cure Light Wounds is 2nd level Druid Spell (not 1st level like it is for Clerics). But that’s fine, Goodberrry is a spell, right? Nope, not in the 1st edition PHB. It’s a 2nd level spell in Unearthed Aracuna (which we’re not using). We all had some laughs and there I was playing Underbrush, the Half-Elven Druid. I speak a lot of languages and I’m really good with animals (spells are Locate Animal, Speak with Animal, Animal Friendship, and Detect Magic). And I roll an 8 for hit points, so let’s gooooo!

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Our Band of Adventurers

Collectively or individually we felt the lure to go beyond on mundane lives. To commune with nature, to study ancient tomes, to bash heads, and to lighten purses. Most importantly, to explore the world. We ran into one another and formed a band, seeking our fortunes in the lands south of Verbobonc.

We had all heard stories of heroes being swathed in gems and glory, but so far we’ve mostly experienced stale rations and the cultural divide between elves and dwarves. South of Verbobonc we passed through the Kron Hills and eventually made it to the small but prosperous village of Hommlet. In turn we are:

Dorf Von Dorfenstein, the Dwarf Fighter, who has still not warmed to the Elves in his party, but I’ll win him over one day! (played by Ben)

The Wisp, our Halfling Thief, who travels with his hunting companion the hawk Willow. (played by Damien)

Niv, the Elven Magic Users, whose very low charisma comes off as seeing others beneath him (played by Mark)

Malachite, the Half-Orc Fighter, whose brawn proved useful as soon as we entered the town. (played by Laura)

Underbrush, the Half-Elven Druid, who I envision as a cross between Frank Harkness and Elrond, perhaps with a bit of Thaddeus Valentine thrown in. Liked by Wisps’ hawk Willow and travelers on the road, but still working on kinship with his band. (played by Sean)

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Rumors and Encounters

On the way to the village we met few folks on the road, who gave us some advice on the way in. “Hommlet is small but bustling. You’ll find good lodging at the Inn of the Welcome Wench. Don’t stay with with Lady Johnson on Birchwood lane, my stomach is still not right from the food she served. Not everything is cozy though. There is a herder named Black Jay, and rumor has it that he’s a member of the bandits that plague the land.”

Unrolling the Map

Jerry made a map of Hommlet, look at this beauty!

As we entered the town, we spotted many of the establishments along the way, farm houses, barns, a tanner, a stable, and the anticipated Inn of Welcome. In the hills above, we also saw a stone church of St. Cuthbert, a brewery, and a castle under construction.

Inside the inn we found patrons enjoying an early supper and the working staff. Ostler Gundigoot, proprietor of the inn welcomed up, gave us access to the common room for a mere 5sp and offered us meals and in impressive list of mead, ale, and wine. He was mildly disappointed when we ordered the standard fare, but Underbrush paid for a week in advance and promised we’d keep frequenting his establishment.

He told us about the tower under construction as a reward for heroes who had done great deeds. And that he normally stayed out of the woods nearby, because Jaroo, the lady that lives there likes her privacy.

We each claimed a feather associated with a bunk in the common room, and headed out to learn more about the town before the sun set.

Exploring Hommlet

Malachite found a swearing smithy who seemed believe he could scorn metal into taking the correct form. When he took a break for the hammering he looked up to see Malachite he asked what the brawny fighter wanted. “Any chance you need someone to help work those bellows?” The smith sized up Malachite and then stretched his neck revealing his weariness “My shoulder does act up from time to time from an old war wound. Yeah, let’s see what you’ve got!”

Dorf and Underbrush headed to the grove which seemed so oddly placed inside the town. Ostler said that the grove had grown quite a bit since Jaroo arrived and we were curious how she They called from the edge of the grove so as not to alarm anyone by entering and then saw a deer fawn step out of the grove. To Dorf it seemed to simply grunt and sniff, but Underbrush heard the words in Druidic “Greetings brother.”

Niv and Wisp explored more of the town, discovering the stone mason, smithy, manor home, wheelwright, carpenter, the keep under construction (the central tower already complete), and a small tent city of the migrant workers who were hired

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Resources

Character Sheets. Wow, I couldn’t believe this was so tricky to find. We’ve downloaded several but most of them are cluttered with tons of fields we’ll never use: run speed, AC from the rear, honor (from Oriental Adventures), long lists of proficiencies, HP gained at each level, comeliness (form Unearthed Arcana), etc. And then they leave off things like gear, XP, or armor class! After some tinkering in Acrobat, I’ve cobbled together this sheet that I think will work for everything but spells memorized. Those will have to go on page two!

Wiki. Since I’ve had so little adoption to Obsidian Portal wikis, we’re going to keep this simple and use a google doc Temple of Elemental Evil Wiki to track NPCs, evets, etc. The main think I need is quick searching, and until a Google doc gets over 80k words or a few hundred comments, it’s very fast.

Thoughts on the game

Playing original AD&D 1e without weapon specialization, flame blades, expanded class level limitations, or extra classes is wild. There was so much that I though I remembered about 1st ed that was wrong, or right but only based on optional or house rules.

Though I think I made a tragically poor decision creating a druid, the one upshot is that since we’re all playing demi humans, we all have infravision. Not needing a hand (or a torchbearer) to hold a torch) and not automatically announcing ourselves in the darkness is a pretty incredible super power for a group of low level adventurers.

This group is a very chaotic one. Most of the characters are Chaotic Neutral and Wisp is Chaotic Good. Underbrush, the only non-chaotic character, is True Neutral (by necessity) and I’m curious to see how that plays out. My past experience with CN characters was it was just a way to play completely immoral characters without taking the mantle of “evil”. That was also when I was much younger though and don’t want my past immature antics to cast a shadow on our likely future immature antics. I talked to the table about it and voiced my concerns, which I’m glad I did. Keeping that stuff inside serves no one.

I’ve so thankful to Jerry and everyone in the group of giving this a shot. I hope I have many more AP reports to write in the future as we inch our way to the elemental evil below!