Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Temple of Elemental Evil Boardgame


Over at ENWorld and in my inbox, Wizards of the Coast has announced their product lineup for their upcoming Elemental Evil storyline. Now we've speculated on this before, but now we have concrete news that there is a Temple of Elemental Evil product, but not in the fashion I expected:

"Today, Wizards of the Coast announced the latest Dungeons & Dragons storyline, Elemental Evil, which includes new product offerings for both digital and tabletop RPG players.
 
The Elemental Evil storyline will begin this March and run through mid-summer allowing players to explore the Forgotten Realms and defeat the secret cults that threaten to wipe out the Sword Coast.
 
Some of the exciting new product offerings tied to the Elemental Evil story line includes:
 
·         Neverwinter: Elemental Evil, a new module for the MMORPG
·         Princes of the Apocalypse  tabletop RPG adventure, including new options and spells for players
·         Player content including more new races, plus the content found in Princes of the Apocalypse, available as a free downloadable PDF
·         Elemental Evil-themed Dungeon Master Screen and unpainted resin miniatures from Gale Force Nine
·         Temple of Elemental Evil adventure system board game and pre-painted collectible miniatures that support the Elemental Evil storyline from WizKids Games"

A boardgame featuring the temple sounds intriguing in the very least, although the pessimist Greyhawk fan in me wonders if it'll be the Temple in title only. The trick to this release is the main storyline is nominally set in the Forgotten Realms, (which I have no problem with) so wouldn't it seem confusing to newer players if the elemental-themed boardgame referenced a different setting? Furthermore, a generic Temple of Elemental Evil has already been referenced once in 4th Edition's Conquest of Nerath boardgame. I hope this time it won't be the case. Fingers crossed this spring.

(Update: The link to the TOEE board game's blurb indicates you'll be in dungeons under the Sword Coast. Looks like it's all Faerun this time around.)

Update 06/07/2021: Removed some old links. If this board game is still available on Wizard's site, I'm sure you can find it.

2 comments:

grodog said...

Hmmm: designing a real Greyhawk ToEE boardgame could be an interesting challenge!:

- competitive play as players each assume control of evil factions trying to use the Temple to their own ends (4 elemental temples, Zuggtmoy cult, Iuz cult, drow wildcards, EEG cult)
- cooperative play as evil factions try to unify the temple in time to recover Yellowskull before the do-gooders re-raze the place
- cooperative play as good adventurers invade the Temple to try to prevent it from uniting in resurgence across the lands
- cooperative play as good characters try to prevent the freeing of Zuggtmoy and/or the EEG

A nice cross between Pandemic and Arkham Horror, perhaps?

Allan.

Mike Bridges said...

I like this idea a lot! Wizards is going to drop the ball on this hard I'm afraid.