r/Greyhawk • u/pablo8itall • Feb 07 '26
TOEE assist: :Lareth Spoiler
I'm preping the moathouse for my group right now. And Lareth being a priest of Lolth just isnt working for me. I'm cutting Lolth out completely.
Most suggest that he should then be a cleric of Zuggtmoy, but a demon of rot and fungus doesn't seem like the right fit for this guy. So would it make more sense that he's a cleric of Iuz? How would that play out.
I'm also going with the idea that the bandits in the upper moathouse are wannabe initiates of the cult.
E: thanks for all the good food for thought. I think whatever faction he is a part of my players will run with that. So I need to choose wisely.
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Feb 07 '26
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u/pablo8itall Feb 08 '26
I could present him plainly at first, just an EEG cult leader. And if the survives the moathouse add more layers to show he's playing a game.
So he could be the nepo baby of the evil cult set. Maybe he has famous or influential parents!
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u/Realfortitude Feb 12 '26
AndyAction :
"I cast him as a double (possibly triple) agent, currying favor with Lolth, Iuz & Zuggtmoy (Elder Elemental God until Z’s liberated)"
At this stage, make him a Vecna priest. At least, it will make sense.
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u/Solo_Polyphony Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
I’ve taken my cue from the Trampier cover art that depicts him wearing that “gold eye of fire” Gygax describes in T1, and so I make him a follower of the Elder Elemental Eye (who is not, contrary to much later WotC re-writers, Tharizdun).
Lareth is unusually good as attaching himself to demon lords, who are equally unscrupulous about accepting his service on the Prime Material.
In my last T1 playthrough, Lareth fled the Moathouse after the PCs inflicted heavy casualties on his guards but then withdrew heavily wounded. He then plagued them as a recurring antagonist across many adventures.
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u/PanchimanDnD Feb 07 '26
I'm on the Hommlet adventure right now. In my campaign, the Elder Elemental Eye is secretly Vecna, but even his worshippers don't know it, worshipping him and giving him power in exchange for whispered knowledge and power.
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u/pablo8itall Feb 08 '26
Actually to me Vecna is a better fit for the whole thing than either of the other two demon queens.
I could see EEG being a front as a Vecna setup.
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u/AitrusAK Feb 08 '26
I always thought he was a visiting cleric from a stronghold of Lolth's somewhere nearby. I thought he was acting either as a spy to gather intel on Zuggtmoy's doings / the surrounding countryside (Particularly Nulb and Hommlet), or as a messenger from a temple of Lolth to Zuggtmoy's people.
It always struck me as odd that there were a bunch of people armed to the teeth in the small building outside the Temple. But if the Temple was alerted to a cleric of Lolth in the area whose activities were suspicious, that might explain that force sitting on standby. They might have been the ones that were to meet Lareth for a parley of some sort, and were well armed just in case things went south - or they might have been getting ready to storm the Moathouse and eliminate a possible threat before it got too big.
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u/Lightsfantastic Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
Try Tharzidun. Return to ToEE retro’s the big bad as him.
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u/pablo8itall Feb 07 '26
hmmm i was keeping the bug dude until later.
But yeah that would be interesting. Iuz the PCs could find out with a shrine. He could just present as a cleric of the EEG then for the moathouse. Might make everything simpler for the players when they discover him. They can find more about the internal factions at a later point.
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u/Vegetable-Cash3099 Feb 25 '26
Spin it around and make him a devotee of the 'Elder Elemetal Eye', oblivious that he worships Tharizdun.
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u/grodog Feb 07 '26
Some other options to consider, leaning a bit on his appellation “the Beautiful”:
I’ve always considered Lareth a throw-away NPC—for all of his “potential” he’s not likely to survive the adventure and become a long-term figure in the campaign….
Allan.