G3's EEG's shrine, more descriptions, art references

Good and Real tentacle monster horror comic art here: https://whosoutthere.ca/2019/08/20/tentacle-tuesday-masters-tom-sutton/   and    https://whosoutthere.ca/category/tentacle-tuesday/

GreyhawkGrognard's G1 stuff is a good one, recap and explains more than the obvious: https://www.greyhawkgrognard.com/2008/06/10/thoughts-on-elder-elemental-god/

Another take on the EEG and the other related or whatever gods: http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=9977

Maybe they'll have more here, see some non TSR EEG modules: https://urudnd.blogspot.com/2023/06/greyhawk-campaign-update.html

• OH, it's Rob Kuntz, one of the original DnD guys doing the Dark Druid module. I need to look into this: https://threelinestudiostore.com/DARK-DRUIDS-p552048392

Below is mostly From 3Orcs blog (they have some Ay-Eye art, yikes): https://3orcs.blogspot.com/2024/11/embracing-chaos-elder-elemental-god-in.html

Features of Rentaq’s Shrines:

• Unnerving Atmosphere: Use dim lighting, strange sounds, and otherworldly phenomena to set the tone.
• My sub notes: (((Maybe do a -1 to hit or -1 concentration check for any of these relevant, but not cumulative. If player has a creative way around the issue, then no penalty anymore.)))
• You hear dripping and squelching, coming from nowhere/everywhere, quietly. Then it stops. 
• Others didn't hear it that time. 
• You start to feel like snails or leeches are touching your hands, then your neck, but it's nothing really there. 
• Slightly dizzy and nauseated. -1 to hit or -1 concentration check
• Starting to sweat so much it's getting in your eyes and you taste the salt on your lips. 
• Hands turning red and purple, uncomfortable. -1 to hit or -1 concentration check. 
• Ears start ringing very loudly for a few minutes. -1 wisdom-perception checks. 
• Random one second of sharp pain in your back, your foot, or around your heart. 
• Dangerous Rituals: Cultists might perform sacrifices or summon elemental horrors, challenging your players to intervene.
• My sub notes:
• Yes, I think the tail end of a ritual... those poor folks walking into it. BUT, I don't think the party can intervene. So... eh? 
• MAYBE a vision of the recent ritual, but it's not happening now. 
• They find leftover body parts. The arm with the tentacle (are they specifically like octopuses? remember they are HAIRY tentacles, so different at least that way) marks on it. 
• Corruption Effects: Exposure to Rentaq’s influence might curse or transform characters, adding stakes to their encounters.
• My sub notes:
• I mean... IF they touch the altar and stuff like that, G3 already has repercussions written down. 

This part from GreyhawkGrognard's G1 stuff is a good one, recap and explains more than the obvious: https://www.greyhawkgrognard.com/2008/06/10/thoughts-on-elder-elemental-god/

Three things are significant about this appearance of the temple of what we will later know to be the EEG; the renegade orc slaves have blocked off the passage to it, there is apparently more to it which has been cut off by a (deliberate?) cave-in in area 18, and the fact that it has been abandoned in the first place.

The first is easy to explain; it is the hill giants, not the orcs, who were converted to the worship of the EEG, and thus they found the place disturbing enough to wall off once they occupied this section of the dungeon level. The second, I think, is deliberately vague, as we have no way of knowing what was or was not included in that caved-in section. Was it merely an extension of the temple, similar to what we eventually see in G3? Or does that caved-in section actually lead to a now-defunct passage into the Depths of the Oerth? If so, what caused its collapse? Such a connection is rank speculation, especially since the parallel temple complex in G3 does not, in fact, directly lead to the entrance to the Depths.

However, it does fit in with my own speculation that the whole campaign of the drow House Eilservs to use the giant clans in their war of conquest came from the burrowers below. That is, the unknowing hill giants were one day confronted with a newly-created tunnel to the Depths, whence came Eilservs ambassadors bearing gifts and promises of easy loot. On[c]e the hill giants were in their thrall, they moved on to the frost giants (there is a puzzlingly similar collapsed tunnel, sans the EEG paraphernalia, in area 4A of the lower level of “The Glacial Rift of the Front Giant Jarl”), abandoning the EEG temple beneath the Steading once they didn’t need to directly control the hill giants, but could do so through their stronger cousins, the frost giants. And ditto for the Fire Giants.

Which brings us to said fire giants. In G3, “Hall of the Fire Giant King” (and note how the title progresses from “chief” to “jarl” (=earl) to “king”), we are treated to our fullest description and explanation of the whole Temple of the Eye (which, of course, is how the fane of the EEG is referred to). Areas 9-11 of the second level; the Temple of the Eye.

... "and a conversion to the worship of the EEG was part of the Eilserv’s plot all along;"

So from what he says, I follow and agree with a lot. The part I might change (is this actually a change?) would be... they abandoned the Hillgiants and Frostgiants ... and the Drow openly attend (I'm putting it in our game) worship at the G3 Firegiant area, at the Temple of the Eye (the EEG's temple).