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Hey all,
This may have already been posted in the past, but I didn't want to wade through the archives.
I'm currently running TFoE, currently 2/3 of the way in. The PCs have cleared the Hextor (Mockery) and Erythnul (Keeper) sections of the temple. While doing so, they've come upon a couple curious keys... Theldrick has a stone key in his chamber, while there is a silver key found on Grallak's body.
In the text for Theldrick's chamber is the following: "The stone key opens the door that leads to the caves of Erythnul. It is marked with that god’s holy symbol." I totally missed this in the fine print the first time through...
There is no such comment in the grimlock section regarding the silver key. I can only assume the silver key is meant to open the Vecna (Shadow) section of the temple.
In the room details for the central cathedral, and in the opening comments for the three areas, there is no mention that the doors are locked, or that any special keys are required.
I'm guessing that this was an editing oversight or was removed for space. It makes sense, if a bit of railroading, to keep the party going from Hex-Ery-Vec, in order.
Anyway, I only just figured this all out, so now my party has two keys with no locks - they are, of course, mysteriously intrigued. I plan to give TFO a third key, the three of which can be used to open up some kind of special treasure at the end, perhaps...
Again, this may all be common knowledge, but I wanted to pass it along to anyone prepping/running TFoE who are similarly comfused by the forgotten keys.
I noticed this too, as I am currently running this adventure. My PC's went for Hextor (Bane) first cause the keys from the tiefling guards matched that lock anyways. So it was a simple matter to assume the other two doors are locked in area 1.
Thankfully the adventures' editing improves as you progress through the AP and oversights like this are less common.
This was discussed here a long time ago - it's probably still in the archives, but I couldn't find it either. The author basically said what you already guessed: originally there were keys, in order to force the 3 parts to be played in order. Later, this was removed, to make it less linear - but a few things slipped through editing.
The main problem you'll have doing the areas out of order is getting the challenge rating right (3rd level PCs will find the CR 5 area too hard, 5th level PCs will find the CR 3 area too easy - so you'll have to make lots of adjustments, etc.)
The tieflings attempt to retreat to the Hextor area, so this kind of makes it the first area by default as the pcs try to keep an alarm from being raised. In my campaign, I made the door to the vecna area into a secret door. (Vecna being the god of secrets and all). This railroaded my group into doing the areas in order with them being none the wiser that I railroaded them!