This adventure starts off with a pretty solid connection to the previous module, with the decisions and actions taken therein impacting this adventure, but with minimum bookkeeping. Speaking of minimum bookkeeping, the starting errand is well set-up to get characters right into the flow of things quickly. The only criticism I would make of that errand is that if the player characters discover a councilor's secret but don't engage with it, there doesn't appear to be a consequence.

The adventure does a good job giving meaningful character choice--although one of those big choices is essentially negated if the players went through the previous adventure. I would have much preferred removing that choice point if the characters have done so, because there's literally no reason that a group of characters risked their lives (note that one of my group's PCs died in the previous adventure) to get the secret at the end of the previous adventure only to hand it off to NPCs they hurriedly fed the information they literally took 8 hours to learn.

Too many of the combats in this adventure center around large numbers of single-digit-HP enemies. A single Spirit Guardians almost singlehandedly won one of the encounters when I ran this module. A slight design flaw, but definitely helped the cleric to fell influential.

Then the climactic battle was very anticlimactic. Centering a tier-2 fight on a single caster is a significant design flaw. Said caster almost didn't get to act in this combat at all.

The game was certainly fun, and provided a mostly-satisfying conclusion to this trilogy, but could have used another revision or two to iron out some kinks.

The first encounter is basically just filler--although in the game I ran, the players could have sure used it to shake the dust off as it had been nearly four months since the previous adventure! It only serves to tip the players off that there may be other people in the area, possibly with their own agendas. Which is an interesting setting detail, but does not further the story at all, and neither does the follow-up encounter it sets up. It's just for filling up run time.

The keystone combat encounter proved to be very challenging to my party--including one (albeit temporary) fatality and lots of yo-yo-ing by the tank. I really liked the way the monsters in that fight interacted, and it was definitely the high point of the adventure. The theme in this combat was really good as well, and served to reinforce the connection to the source material this trilogy is referencing.

Then all that theme gets cashed in when the party solved the final puzzle, only to get the stupid password that makes no sense as an in-setting reference, but rather an out-of-universe reference. The puzzle itself is both very interesting and fairly challenging. It definitely hits that sweet spot where it's challenging enough to engage the group, but not so challenging as to bog down the game.

All in all, an enjoyable adventure, but could just as well have trimmed to be the beginning of the final adventure.

This is really a fun module to run. Very interesting encounters. If you manage to get through this without your party having a massive surplus of all of the different points they can earn at the beginning, I salute you, because they're going to be very conservative early on and then realize they have more points than can even be spent in the final fight--which ends up being fine, because Fruul and his mammoth is a very challenging encounter for a level 4 party anyway.

I really like how basically every skill in the game has a role in the early part of the module, and that depending on how they're used, can have different effects. The tie-ins to earlier modules are great, except as I have noted in my reviews of those modules. Definitely encourage the party to interact with anyone they may have previously encountered.

My only real criticism is that it's really easy to accidentally miss the pre-siege combat encounters, just through minor happenstance. The good news is that we played this under season 8 so the players didn't miss out on any XP or gold from doing so.

This module's encounters are great. All interesting--both in flavor and tactics--and there's even a variety of final encounters depending on events earlier in the module. Part two seems a little weird, but it's engaging--especially if you have players without a ton of tangram experience. I really like how the challenges play out once Gralm is met, and the way this module ties in with Parnast Under Siege adds a lot to that adventure. If you're building towards the siege, this is probably the most indispensible module to run beforehand.

The fixed timing of background plot events created a great difficulty for my group. They felt the urgency of the situation and began investigating the town before there were any clues of any significance--despite the many indications I gave that it would be best to rest for the night before investigating. This led to a tremendous amount of frustration with the process. Combine that with failing the relatively easy skill checks to find some of the more significant clues and the party barely managed to get caught up in the plot. I had to contrive some coincidences even to give them a chance at finding the boss fight.

I encourage DMs running this to use "plot-convenient" time rather than the times specified in the module itself for events to take place. The plot will hold together less well, but it'll be much more enjoyable for your party. Also, don't require the skill checks listed to find clues, because failing those checks is boring. Give them the checks, but give them the plot regardless of success--reward success with bonus information.

Ultimately, this plays like an older module. It doesn't incorporate many of the tips that have been culled from decades of DMing mysteries, and some of its writing unintentionally discourages the DM from incorporating those same tips. Familiarize yourself with the concept of the module, then run it like a more modern mystery game.

This module does a really good job of creating interesting choices and really different consequences for the different choices. My biggest criticism is going to be that some of the fallout of wrong choices has such a strong impact on later modules in this series of adventures--and can do so even outside the control of the players. There is an early encounter in this adventure that, if a certain NPC rolls particularly well (say, a natural 20, as happened to my group), a certain NPC faction will have a very negative opinion of the party, and if they go on to certain other adventures (DDAL05-10 and DDAL05-16 in particular), will make certain options unavailable--or at least so difficult as to be unappealing to nearly any party.

That said, both paths of encounters are flavorful and challenging, and the players--unless they've played or run the module before--won't see a lot of the opportunities they may be missing as a result of their--or NPCs--choices.

This module is greatly improved under Season 8 AL rules. Some of the XP rewards are pretty ridiculous, as the party is up 1200XP before even leaving the town by the book.

That said, the combat encounters in this module do a really good job of challenging the party. The final encounter has a combination of monster abilities and environmental effects that will make life difficult for basically any level-appropriate party. Our group burned through multiple consumable magic items to stay alive--and that was at the minimum challenge level.

An excellent module for any old-time second-edition players who were reading the FR novels at the time. If the phrase "Song of the Saurials" means anything to you, you should play or run this adventure (and probably the rest of the series).

An excellent dungeon crawl. Very challenging, especially for level 1 and 2 characters. Even scaled-down, it's a lot of encounters for those characters.

The mystery that opens it up can be a bit tricky to unwind, but most of the stops have clear clues to spur you towards the plot. It can bog the game down if there are completionists in the party, though. The first fight and its revelations are very interesting, so there is some payoff to the investigation.

Probably the biggest problem with this module is that the most interesting part of the story is all behind the scenes, and the players don't really get to understand the interesting backstory of their antagonist and what motivates the goblin forces. More explicit hints as to what's going on than vague descriptions of a horned goblin and other goblins pounding spikes into their heads to look like him would really help the adventurers get interested in their foe.

A simple and straightforward mission, but still has some meaningful decision points that alter the adventure. The twist is a lot of fun for players to feel better about their decisions, too. Strongly recommended for a first mission for Adventurer's League.

The adventure is a great concept, with lots of branching options and plenty of interesting plot opportunities. It's a great module to be in, and mostly straightforward to run.

That said, the module is kind of a mess. Inconsistent formatting with regards to when it tells you how to modify encounters makes doing so a bit of a challenge. Finding a particular element can also be difficult. I did a lot of rereading because I was sure I missed something important, only to have to read half the module to find it.

Additionally, there are some very punishing elements to portions of the adventure that can create issues. In the chase, a failed attempt to leap from one vehicle or mount to another effectively removes a character from the encounter as a whole. Fortunately, when I ran it, the chase was brought to a stop only two rounds later, or one player would have missed the whole encounter. Additionally, the important plot device from one of the encounters is very easy to miss, which can end the adventure prematurely if players don't remember where the caravan was headed.

I would run this adventure again--it's a fun one, and helps newer players understand the kinds of ethical choices that roleplaying games can include--but this is a difficult module to run the first time.