Temple of Elemental Evil (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons/9147)

Rating:
Summary: The coolest Greyhawk module is not in the WG series!
Review: This module, designated "T1-4", subsumes the previously released Village of Hommlet into a much larger environment which includes the shire of Nulb, the Temple of Elemental Evil, and the Elemental Nodes ( partial planes connected to the dungeon ).
There is a lot of information here tying in the events from Queen of the Demonweb Pits and detailing the various factions vying for ascendance both within the Temple and without.
If you're a fan of the Gary Gygax presentation of Greyhawk, this module is a "must-have" ( on the other hand, if Gygax's writing style or game ideas do not appeal to you, this is more of the same, so be warned ). You might have a problem finding a copy of this module in excellent condition - it's around 18 years old at this point, and the copies that are out there tend to have been used in actual campaign play, so they may have been written in, etc. This module was promoted as an adventure area which could take 1st level characters all the way to 8th level.
The module seems to provide the first up-close information about Iuz, listing his detailed statistics in the monster section
( along with St.Cuthbert ). Since the module came out around a year before the book Artifact of Evil, Iuz's origin is less certain; it is suggested he may be a "by-blow of Orcus". Well, we now know that he's actually a by-blow of Graz'zt. The information given contains some things about Iuz that I didn't get from other sources. It also mentions that he has a Soul Object secreted on Zuggtmoy's Abyssal plane ( which doesn't do a lot of good if SOMEONE kills him there ).
Speaking of killing demigods, demons, and the like, this module seems to perpetuate the influence of the Elric saga on Gygax's D&D work. Stormbringer was mentioned in the DMG, so it doesn't seem unfair to compare the killing of Lolth's and/or Zuggtmoy's Prime Material Plane avatars with Elric slaying the earthly forms of the Chaos Lords. However, just as in the later module City of Skulls ( NOT by Gygax ), a direct confrontation between Iuz and the player characters is beyond the scope of any low-level party. There are things that can be done in the greater Temple which will tend to attract the attention of Iuz and get him to appear; if he does so, the party is pretty much toast, except there is then a 90% chance that St.Cuthbert will appear to counter Iuz, at which point the two of them will depart via thunderclap to "settle their differences elsewhere".
This brings me to what is basically my sole criticism of this module : it seems unsuited for low-level characters, specifically the 3rd and 4th levels of the Temple. If a certain magical item is obtained, the module can be finished off somewhat efficiently, but the module potentially involves combat with a major demon lord ( lady, actually ), and there are many enemies to deal with, including those found in the Elemental Nodes. Many of the NPCs found in Hommlet and Nulb are listed as being potential additions to the party ( some of them are evil, so watch out! ) and it really seems like the party is going to need all the help it can get.
Finally, there's a new "Temple of Elemental Evil" out there, in which the temple is really a temple of Tharizdun, and the "Black Cyst" from the 1982 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun module is reused.
This "Temple of Elemental Evil" (9147) is the original, and it's one of the really essential snapshots into Gygax's concept of the campaign world. Why fix what ain't broke?