GARY GYGAX Q&A PART XXXIII

[I have similar questions involving the temple area in D2 and my questions about what you
exactly intended for the Vault of the Drow are numerous, but my main question involving D3
is how did you envision that the players are supposed to ferret out that the temple of Lolth is
final encounter?]

To discover the temple the party was meant to do some big-time role-play by entering the city
of Erelheicindlu and mixing in with all the Evil NPCS and monsters there, ask questions,
maybe even take a prisoner and question that one. Of course, many of the inhabitants of the
Vault would know where the fane was located, so the DM could decide how to manage the
matter--bribery, threat, whatever. [EGG] http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?
t=38912&page=4&pp=30

[In looking at this, it's clear that the chief "shadowy mastermind" of the G series is Eclavdra,
head of the house Eilservs, who have turned away from Lolth to serve the Elder Elemental
Eye... why then is the "final confrontation" with Lolth? Was something meant to happen in
the Vault of the Drow that led to the destruction of House Eilservs and the impending
unleashing of the true worshippers of the Spider Goddess upon the surface?]

As for Q1, Ask Dave Sutherland and Brian Blume about that. It was taken out of my hands by
the latter when Sutherland discovered the "Demonweb" pattern in a hand towel and talked
Brian into using it as the main theme for the concluding module. I had no creative control
over it.

I had hoped to get to the Elder Elemental god in a sequal to the ToEE, but... [EGG]
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38912&page=5&pp=30

My concept was that Eclavdra was aiming at dominance of the Drow through using the EEG
to replace Lolth. She, as the chief priestess of the elemental deity would then be the mistress
of all. The final scenario was to have been one in which the adventurers got involved in the
battle between the evil entities and made it so that both lost and were tossed back to their
own planes, relatively powerless in the Mundane world for some time to come.

The Sunless Sea was indeed meant to serve as a place for further subterranean adventuring, of
course. Always leave some room for that sort of thing, obvious or concealed in the setting
[EGG] http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38912&page=5&pp=30

We had one cavalier, a couple of barbarians, and one thief-acrobat ex post facto... I actually
worked up a barbarian just to use as an annoyance factor when playing with a group that had
greedy mages in it. Of course I made sure to have a goodly number of simpatico PC 痴
around to avoid undue retribution for his destruction of "stinking magic!" [EGG]
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38912&page=6&pp=30

[You played a barbarian just to annoy your group's magic-users? Right - time to start a new
character. I don't think Meliander the Mage would enjoy such a companion. You weren't
pilfering the items alreadypossessed by the magic-users, were you?]
Merric, we played a LOT. An average of seven gaming sessions a week was typical even when I
was busy working. Often I played more than that. Rob would DM for me one-on-one where I
mostly role-played because i was doing manual work at the same time. So, understanding
that, the number of PCs I created and played should be likewise understandable. Playing
seriously and intensely a good deal of the time, I varied that by playing otherwise--such as
with my half-orc cleric-assassin

When I played a barbarian, I would indeed attempt to get at newly discovered magic items
and rid the world of their bane, and if some mage was foolish enough to flaunt such an object
before the character, and he could lay hands on it, then... Because the barbarian was otherwise
cooperative and put the overall interest of the party first, he survived quite a number of
adventures, and his demise was not at the hands of a fellow PC. Some monster got him--
which I don't recall, but it seems to me it was a basilisk. No cleric or mage in the group was
much interested in having the poor chap returned to life :rolleyes: [EGG]
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38912&page=6&pp=30