Hedrack

Hedrack is the most formidable antagonist in the Temple of Elemental Evil, second only to Zuggtmoy herself. As the Supreme Commander and Mighty Priest of Iuz, Hedrack wields immense power, both magical and political, commanding fear and loyalty in equal measure. His dark influence extends across the Temple’s factions, uniting its chaotic elements under a singular, terrifying vision.

Role and Importance

Supreme Commander: As the leader of the Greater Temple, Hedrack oversees the Temple’s operations, military forces, and alliances.

• Mouth of Iuz: Hedrack acts as the emissary of Iuz, advancing his master’s agenda while covertly serving the Elder Elemental God.
• Master Manipulator: Hedrack’s cunning and charisma enable him to maintain control over a fractured and contentious hierarchy within the Temple.
• Personality: Confident, ruthless, and driven by ambition, Hedrack is a master of intimidation and subtle manipulation.

"Earth crumbles, fire fades, water dries, and air scatters. Only chaos is eternal, and only I wield the reins of that chaos."

Appearance and Presence

Hedrack exudes an aura of command and dread. He dresses in luxurious robes of black and crimson silk, adorned with intricate silver embroidery and dark gemstones that shimmer with unholy light. His every move is calculated, his dark eyes capable of unnerving even the most stalwart warriors.

• Physical Description: A tall, imposing figure with sharp features and a commanding presence.
• Unholy Regalia: Bejeweled silks, dark gemstones, and symbols of Iuz and the Elder Elemental Eye.
• Aura of Power: His mere gaze is enough to make even powerful creatures hesitate.

Role in the Temple (579 CY)

Hedrack’s authority within the Temple of Elemental Evil is paramount, yet his control is a delicate balancing act between the competing ambitions of its factions and the will of his true master, Iuz. Charged with overseeing the Temple’s operations, though his control is tenuous due to the competing ambitions of its factions and the underlying tensions between loyalties to Zuggtmoy, Iuz, and the Elder Elemental God.

• Unifier of Chaos: Despite the fractious nature of the elemental cults, Hedrack maintains order through fear, manipulation, and ruthless efficiency.
• Enforcer of Discipline: His dark reputation ensures that even the most unruly agents fall in line.
• Balancing Loyalties: Hedrack walks a delicate line between serving Iuz's interests and maintaining the illusion of loyalty to the Elder Elemental God cult, all while ensuring Zuggtmoy’s influence remains contained.

"The Old One believes he commands me. Let him think so; the fool will be devoured by the Eye like all the rest." - Hedrack

Agent of Iuz and the Elder Elemental Eye

Hedrack’s dual allegiance creates a precarious balance of loyalties that fuels intrigue and distrust within the temple.

• Iuz’s Emissary: Sent by Iuz to oversee the Temple, Hedrack is tasked with preparing the cult’s forces for conquest and securing Zuggtmoy’s debt to the Old One.
• Subverted by the Eye: Despite his outward allegiance, Hedrack’s exposure to the power of the Elder Elemental God has reshaped his ambitions, making him a dangerous wild card.
• Zuggtmoy’s Influence: While he outwardly maintains loyalty to Zuggtmoy, he regards her imprisonment as a convenient tool to keep the temple under his control. He aims to exploit her forces without truly freeing her.

"The fungal queen dreams of her freedom, but she forgets one truth: even a queen must bow before the Eye."

Political Philosophy

Hedrack views loyalty as a currency, chaos as a crucible, and failure as the Temple’s greatest teacher. He maintains dominance by turning every faction’s ambition against the others, rewarding treachery and punishing stagnation.

Key Tactics:

• Promises power, then withdraws support at key moments to induce desperation
• Leverages Greater Temple rituals and node access as political incentives
• Secretly manipulates both Zuggtmoy’s cult and Iuz’s commands to align with his own schemes

Updated Relationship Chart (579 CY)

Relationships and Allies

Hedrack’s command over the Temple's leadership is carefully maintained through a mix of intimidation and strategic alliances. His true concerns lie with those who might challenge his rule or question his motives.

• Barkinar Commander of the Greater Temple Troops: Hedrack promoted Barkinar to oversee the temple's growing military forces. He considers Barkinar loyal but keeps him occupied with military concerns to prevent political aspirations. Barkinar remains one of Hedrack's closest confidants, though Hedrack ensures the warrior-priest never gains too much influence.
• Deggum Commander of Temple Security: Hedrack serves as a mentor to Deggum, grooming him for leadership roles within the Temple. A trusted lieutenant, Deggum oversees temple security and reports directly to Hedrack. Though Deggum is fiercely loyal, his personal ambition and rumored connections to Lolth make him a potential liability.
• Feldrin Bandit Commander and Enforcer: As the Temple's enforcer, Feldrin is valuable for raids and supply operations. However, his mercenary nature means his loyalty is always in question.
• Lucius Graeme Courier and Spy Master: Lucius acts as a courier and spy for the Greater Temple, managing communications with agents like Feldrin and Lareth. Hedrack relies on Lucius for intelligence and subterfuge. Lucius's reports often help Hedrack anticipate threats and crush dissent. He is one of the few individuals Hedrack trusts implicitly, but only as long as he remains useful.
• Falrinth Wizard and Keeper of the Orb of Golden Death: Though Falrinth reports indirectly through Senshock, Hedrack views the wizard with deep suspicion, aware that his true loyalties may lie elsewhere. Hedrack’s distrust of Falrinth stems from the wizard’s secretive nature and rumored association with Lolth. Aware of his ties to Lolth and secret ambitions, Hedrack is constantly seeking ways to dispose of him without jeopardizing the temple’s arcane resources.
• Senshock Lord Wizard of the Greater Temple: Senshock is one of Hedrack’s greatest rivals within the Temple’s hierarchy. An aging and sinister wizard, Senshock considers himself the most intelligent figure within the cult and harbors ambitions to supplant Hedrack. Their relationship is marked by grudging cooperation; Hedrack values Senshock’s magical expertise but distrusts his growing influence.
• Lareth the Beautiful (Moathouse Leader): Lareth operates outside the Temple but remains a crucial figure in its regional influence. Hedrack sees Lareth as a dangerous figure with too much ambition and suspected loyalty to Lolth. While Hedrack supports Lareth’s efforts, he secretly plots to undermine him if he becomes a threat.
• Smigmal Redhand, Shadow of the Temple: Smigmal Redhand, a cunning and dangerous half-orc Fighter/Assassin, leads the brigands stationed in the outer ruins of the Temple. While officially subordinate to Hedrack, her true loyalties lie with her lover, Falrinth, and her personal ambitions. She utilizes a hat of disguise to pose as an elf and operates in secrecy, keeping tabs on temple activities and eliminating threats with ruthless precision. Hedrack tolerates her presence due to her usefulness in maintaining control over the temple's surface-level defenses but distrusts her divided loyalties.

Hedrack’s Command Over the Four Elemental Temples

As Supreme Commander of the Temple of Elemental Evil, Hedrack exerts authority over the four elemental cults: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. His leadership balances the fractious nature of these factions through intimidation, manipulation, and strategic use of their rivalries. Hedrack’s mastery of politics ensures the elemental temples remain subservient to the Greater Temple while preventing any single faction from gaining enough power to challenge his rule.

Command Structure and Strategy

Direct Authority
Hedrack holds ultimate authority over the cults, issuing orders that align their operations with the Greater Temple’s goals.

• Fear as a Tool: His reputation as a dark and powerful cleric ensures compliance. Even ambitious leaders hesitate to defy him.
• Ritual Superiority: As the only leader with direct access to the Elder Elemental Eye’s most esoteric rituals, Hedrack maintains spiritual dominance over the cults.

Divide and Conquer

Hedrack actively encourages rivalries among the elemental cults to prevent alliances that could threaten his position.

• Competition for Favor: He rewards factions based on their contributions to the Temple’s success, fostering infighting and ambition.
• Strategic Resources: Hedrack controls the allocation of resources, including access to the Elemental Nodes, to keep the factions dependent on his authority.

"They call me the Mouth of Iuz, but I am the voice of chaos, the will of the Elder Eye. Kneel, or be ground to dust." - Hedrack

Cult of the Black Earth (Earth Temple)

• Leader: Romag, Prophet of Earth, is pragmatic but self-serving.
• Hedrack’s Approach: Romag is a useful pawn due to the Earth Temple’s strong position within the Temple hierarchy. Hedrack exploits Romag’s ambition by promising him greater influence while subtly undermining his autonomy.
• Political Dynamics: Hedrack ensures that Romag remains focused on the Greater Temple’s goals by threatening to replace him with another rising leader, such as Barkinar.

Cult of the Crushing Wave (Water Temple)

• Leader: Belsornig, Prophet of Water, is cunning and ambitious, leveraging a network of agents beyond the Temple.
• Hedrack’s Approach: Recognizing Belsornig’s potential as both an asset and a threat, Hedrack keeps a close watch on him. He frequently pits Belsornig against Romag to distract him from pursuing greater power.
• Political Dynamics: Hedrack uses the Water Temple’s need for external resources as leverage, ensuring Belsornig remains reliant on the Greater Temple’s support.

Cult of the Howling Hatred (Air Temple)

• Leader: Kelno, Prophet of Air, inherited a weakened position after the death of his predecessor, Ashrem.
• Hedrack’s Approach: Kelno is kept in line through promises of future power, though Hedrack privately regards the Air Temple as the least effective faction.
• Political Dynamics: By ensuring Kelno remains isolated from his agents, Hedrack prevents the Air Temple from becoming a significant threat.

Cult of the Eternal Flame (Fire Temple)

• Leader: Alrrem, Prophet of Fire, is battle-hardened and well-connected.
• Hedrack’s Approach: Hedrack views Alrrem as both a powerful ally and a dangerous rival. He assigns the Fire Temple high-risk tasks to maintain its dominance while ensuring its forces are often depleted.
• Political Dynamics: Hedrack subtly encourages animosity between Alrrem and Belsornig, knowing that their rivalry prevents a united front against the Greater Temple.

Key Political Strategies

Inter-Faction Rivalries

Hedrack uses the cults’ natural distrust of each other to maintain control.

• Competition for Resources: By controlling access to the Elemental Nodes and magical artifacts, Hedrack keeps the factions dependent on his favor.
• Fostering Distrust: He spreads rumors and misinformation to sow discord among the cults, ensuring they view each other as competitors rather than allies.

Reward and Punishment

Hedrack employs a system of incentives and discipline to maintain order.

• Rewards: Successful factions receive additional resources, access to the nodes, or positions of influence within the Greater Temple.
• Punishments: Leaders who defy Hedrack face public humiliation, demotion, or even execution, reinforcing his authority.

Use of the Greater Temple’s Power

The Greater Temple serves as a symbol of Hedrack’s supremacy, and he uses its resources and personnel to project his influence.

• Elite Troops: Hedrack deploys Greater Temple forces to assist or suppress factions as needed.
• Magical Resources: He withholds powerful rituals and artifacts, ensuring the cults cannot act without his approval.

Political Mastery the Greater Temple

Hedrack is a master manipulator who orchestrates the temple’s activities without directly involving himself in their execution. Instead, he relies on his trusted lieutenants to manage the logistics of supply, recruitment, and intelligence gathering.

Delegation to Trusted Leaders

• Barkinar: Oversees the welding of Greater Temple troops into an army, ensuring their readiness for future invasions.
• Deggum: Manages temple security, ensuring secrecy and internal discipline while securing the borders from adventurers and spies.
• Feldrin: Leads raids and scrounging operations, acquiring supplies, captives, and wealth for the temple’s coffers.

Exploitation of Regional Contacts

While Hedrack rarely sets foot beyond the obsidian sanctum of the Greater Temple, his hand extends deep into the underworlds of Nulb, Dyvers, the Wild Coast, and the Velverdyva River corridor. Through a web of intermediaries, agents, and manipulated allies, he carefully orchestrates the movements of pirates, bandits, slavers, and black-market brokers—all without so much as drawing his own dagger.

Hedrack's manipulation of Nulb is subtle, deliberate, and layered. Rather than command by direct force, he empowers ruthless lieutenants like Lucius Graeme and Commander Feldrin to manage and pressure key regional contacts. Each serves a function in Hedrack’s long plan to enslave the region’s economies and shatter its moral infrastructure.

Madame Selentis (Nysera Krivaltis) – The Baroness of Shadows

Disguised as "Madame Selentis," the disgraced noble Nysera Krivaltis serves as Hedrack’s primary civilian proxy in Nulb, tasked with overseeing the Temple's prisoner and contraband logistics. Her fortified holdout in the Old Mayor’s Manor functions as a warehouse, waystation, and interrogator’s den.

• Status: Trusted field agent, given direct authority to liaise with all other Temple elements in Nulb.
• Function: Coordinates the shipment of prisoners and sacred relics from the Boatman’s Wharf and Waterside Hostel to Feldrin’s Hunting Cottage.
• Risks: Hedrack recognizes her ambition and her past as a Verbobonc noble. She is a useful tool—but one who must remain leashed through fear, manipulation, and false promises of redemption.

Pirate Captain Marad Vesrek – The Crimson Trafficker

Operating the notorious Crimson Trader, Marad Vesrek smuggles captives from the Wild Coast, Dyvers, and Veluna’s river colonies, delivering them through the Velverdyva network into Nulb’s slave market. While not a true cultist, Marad understands that aligning with the Temple ensures survival—and profit.

• Status: Valued but expendable.
• Function: Imports slaves, sells weapons, and ferries smuggled priests along the river.
• Management: Feldrin oversees Marad’s operations directly, ensuring shipments are timed to avoid detection. Selentis monitors him through informants in the Boatman’s Brothel.

The Bandit Lords – Fangs on the Roads

The scattered bandit factions surrounding Nulb are indispensable to Hedrack’s strategy of disruption and destabilization. They raid caravans, seize prisoners, and keep Verbobonc’s mounted patrols stretched thin. Hedrack sees them as tools—useful, but entirely disposable.

• Feldrin manages the largest and most organized gangs, particularly those operating out of the Hunting Cottage near the Temple’s secret tunnel.
• Gefreid Patris serves under Feldrin and oversees prisoner intake and storage.
• Smigmal Redhand, though independently dangerous, is tolerated as a strike enforcer. Her Crimson Reapers serve to suppress rogue factions and eliminate rival cells that refuse Temple control.

Dick Rentsch – The Listening Blade in the Shadows

The 1. Waterside Hostel of Nulb’s affable innkeeper is no simple tavern master. Rentsch is Hedrack’s most deeply planted listening post in Nulb. Though publicly aligned with Romag and the Earth Temple, he answers quietly to Lucius Graeme, and thus Hedrack himself.

• Function: Tracks adventurer arrivals, eavesdrops on mercenaries, and channels intelligence through Wat and the barkeep staff.
• Reach: Rentsch’s connections extend across boatmen, beggars, and street thugs. He maintains plausible neutrality while feeding a constant stream of data.
• Concern: Hedrack suspects Rentsch’s loyalty could be purchased by Belsornig or Romag, and has begun planting alternate informants in the hostel.

Operational Summary

Strategy and Manipulation

Hedrack exploits these figures not with faith, but with:

• Promises of elevation or pardon (Nysera, Feldrin)
• Carefully timed payments or threats (Vesrek, Smigmal)
• Controlled exposure to higher truths (Lucius, Rentsch)

By keeping each contact in tension with another, Hedrack ensures no one person controls the full network—except him.

"Nysera is a necessary evil—one that must be carefully watched and subtly directed.", "Rentsch is a man of vice and greed, and thus a perfect ally." – Hedrack

Orchestrating Regional Influence

• The Moathouse Operations: Under Lareth the Beautiful, this facility trains new recruits and serves as a staging ground for raids into Hommlet.
• Lord Conner Bridgeforth and Lakash Quallad: These nobles, posing as wealthy merchants from Dyvers, infiltrate Verbobonc, spreading influence and securing resources.

Command Over Logistics and Recruitment

Hedrack does not personally oversee raids or logistics; instead, he approves plans and manipulates his subordinates to ensure they align with his greater strategy. He uses:

• Lucius Graeme, his spymaster, to report on troop morale and loyalty.
• Senshock, to provide arcane support and ensure no magical interference disrupts their operations.

Internal Suspicions and Rivalries

Hedrack’s position is far from secure, with ambitious underlings and outside forces seeking to subvert his rule. He harbors deep distrust toward certain key figures within the Temple’s leadership:

Falrinth and Lareth

Hedrack suspects both of harboring secret agendas tied to Lolth and works tirelessly to monitor their activities.

• He relies on Lucius Graeme and Deggum to discreetly gather intelligence without alerting them.
• Falrinth’s possession of the Orb of Golden Death is a particular concern, and Hedrack is constantly scheming ways to seize it without risking open conflict.
• Lareth’s growing influence and popularity among the troops make him a potential threat, and Hedrack has considered eliminating him through Barkinar or Deggum.

Barkinar and Deggum

Though ostensibly loyal, Hedrack is aware that both men harbor ambitions of their own. He keeps them focused on their duties—Barkinar in preparing the temple’s forces and Deggum in overseeing security—while fostering rivalry between them to prevent any collusion.

"A good leader knows how to wield his subordinates against one another, so none have time to plot against him." – Hedrack

Quest: “Breaking the Chain of Command”

The adventurers learn of Hedrack’s pivotal role in the Temple’s operations and his secret agenda to free Zuggtmoy. Eliminating him would create chaos within the Temple’s hierarchy and weaken its connection to both Iuz and the Elder Elemental Eye.

Primary Objectives:

• Confront Hedrack: Infiltrate the Greater Temple and defeat Hedrack to dismantle the leadership of the Temple.
• Uncover His Plans: Retrieve evidence of Hedrack’s dual allegiance and his role in the plot to free Zuggtmoy.

Secondary Objectives:

• Disrupt the Greater Temple: Sabotage the Temple’s supply chain and alliances to further destabilize its operations.
• Leverage Temple Politics: Use the ambitions of Barkinar or Deggum to undermine Hedrack from within.

The Temple Guardians

• Setting: The adventurers must navigate the Greater Temple’s defenses, including cultists, traps, and summoned creatures.
• Key Challenge: Overcoming elite guards and magical wards protecting Hedrack’s chambers.

The Final Confrontation

• Setting: Hedrack’s opulent sanctum, adorned with symbols of Iuz and the Elder Elemental Eye.
• Key Challenge: Hedrack fights with powerful spells, relying on summoned allies and magical defenses.

Aftermath

• Setting: With Hedrack defeated, the Temple’s leadership falls into chaos, creating opportunities for the adventurers to strike at its weakened factions.
• Key Challenge: Deciding how to handle the power vacuum and potential threats from ambitious underlings like Barkinar.

Rewards

• Magical Artifacts: Hedrack’s personal treasures, including rare magical items and scrolls.
• Intel on Iuz and the Elder Eye: Documents revealing the extent of Iuz’s influence and the Elder Elemental Eye’s true goals.

Consequences

• Temple Disarray: Hedrack’s death sparks infighting among the Temple’s factions, weakening its overall power.
• Increased Resistance: Surviving leaders may rally their forces to avenge Hedrack, posing new challenges for the adventurers.

Summary

Hedrack’s position as Supreme Commander makes him a central figure in the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign. His role ties together the Temple’s factions, Iuz’s machinations, and the greater threat of the Elder Elemental Eye, offering adventurers a high-stakes target whose defeat could change the course of the story.