(Spoiler Review)

We do what we must is the last 'episode' of Season 2 , THe Coming of the Destroyer.

Battle Interactives or (BI) are a constant in Living Arcanis. Consisting of generally 7 or so battles of increasing difficulty, this scenario is no different.

In the case of We do what we must, the party seek to stop a coup by an npc the party may of encountered in an earlier scenario.

The first battle to me is one of the most interesting of perhaps the entire scenarios not so much in terms of the enemy combatants but how it goes about introducing the players to the story and then how they are equipped

The players are at a social function sans Weapons or Armor. For many characters this is an alarming moment. The start of the coup begins here by some decorative boxed text (which Battle interactives have a fair bit of). Players are in a social situation and suddenly attacked by people with ranged weapons while they are below them around a table and as I stated earlier minus their equipment. Players here will need to improvise, rely on magic or other. While not an incredibly difficult encounter for some players it will be most alarming as their gear is often very important to them.

The characters then proceed through more combat encounters against soldiers pursuing the coup. Each combat is generally harder than the last and there are set points to rest for the heroes (even though this scenario would be seen to be going over perhaps half a day or a few hours ).

The variation of challenges in this battle interactive are mostly related to human challenges. The Tiger themed arena encounter does stand out.

The final encounter is versus a Dragon. Dragon encounters can be a little hit and miss ... in fact any singular opponent can be a little hit and miss depending on party synergies.

All in all a very decent scenario. Expect a series of linked encounters from this scenario, not a chance for the characters to interact with npcs or engage in social situations.

Worth a purchase.

THe Night Land is a collection of 3 shorter adventures (althought short in this case is slightly misleading) . Each adventure bar one makes use of the Mournlands but If Im honest, I dont think they needed to do so.. at least not yet.

I have run this collection of scenarios twice.

Firstly there is good use of locations within salvation. Both the Chapel of the Silver Flames and the Salvage Market are interesting locations. A visualised a frontier chapel .. but that was not exactly what we got. I think I would of preferred a little more preaching on behalf the of the cleric there (who is essentially the quest provider). My hope is that the first scenario gives a lot of lore exposition. Something that i think the scenario could of done more in, without me needing to explain who the silver Flame were using my own knowledge).

THe quest involving the Chapel is essentially involving a Changeling (a race unique to Eberron) who masqueraded as a priest at the chapel to steal a recently received holy item. This leads to a trip to see 2 salvage on sellers, who do a good job of deceiving the party until they dont and the characters find out they need to travel inside the Mournlands to a location where the changeling and friends are.

Only to discover they are now part of a strange totemic creature and Dolgrim are present. I would of loved some more inn game information on each of these concepts to give to players as I dont think enough was given. Perhaps the Dolgrim could of gotten the characters to recite some dark religous speech in an attempt to get the salvage team freed (who may or may not be dead by this point). The grisly collection of the salvage team are turned into a Scorpion like creature which has the religous item buried within it. After that its back to either take the people home or just the item.

Another quest is that of a Goblin trader who has lost a scavenger (and I honestly had the hardest time believing that ANYONE would go into the Mournlands alone.. even just a little way in). Visually I enjoyed this one the most because while it was another short trip into the Mournlands , the 2 combat encounters were interesting. a Creature formed from some strange crystal lattice and the set piece .. a 'body' on the tracks in front of a speeding Ghost Train. Sadly I couldnt do the image in my head justice on the map. THe scavenger has been turned to stone by some Cockatrices (which only lasts 24 hours). But is no a stone body on the tracks defended by an Iron/Steel Defender. This means we get our first introduction to the artificer class which I think was great. It was a perfect combination of putting a Goblin in the game as a sympathetic character with the new class that half my table was playing.

The last encounter was a jaunt to see a caretaker of a salvage yard who worked for a more powerful.. identity in town. A Great Warforged Colossus sad on the ground in disrepair ( A visual here would of been great) and the Caretaker had found a tunel lead under the great felled metal warforged. This is where we had the introduction of the Order of the Emerald Claw.. a Antagonist organisation which came from one of the nation states of Khorvaire. In turned out that the Emerald Claw were using a secret space under the salvage yard to conduct experiments on bodies (and not just any bodies.. often their own volunteers). An 'evil' doctor was all the exposition on offer here but in the end could be broken and inform the party that the lady owning the salvage yard was a bad bad bad lady.

We get the 'Sheriff' of town turn up out of the Blue to investigate and eventually its off to the local inn to confront the person.. who as I was expecting was too well defended to actually do anything about . But it felt straight out of a western , Hero attempts to arrest the powerful baron and just cannot.

In all, I would of preferred some more social interaction with some of these mini scenarios. The Ghost train was my favorite and I used a lot of my own knowledge of Eberron to flesh things out.

I would recommend this scenario , but be aware it can run long.

THe second in the Embers of War Organised play campaign, this scenario attempts to use a still tenous connection to an npc that the characters have possibly interacted with (due to some clever background on the fly work or some random rolls). I think this connection could be better built up first before being activated so quickly into the relationship. That aside, the premise of the scenario is that the characters are asked to rescue the Grey Dogs, a salvage team lead by this npc from a location deep into the Mournlands known as the Fireweave Bazaar.

THe trip of 80 miles! is made via a seriels of ability checks in which the party will suffer some mostly good effects from being in the Mournlands (personally I felt the table a little too much in the pcs favor).

The Fireweave Bazaar itself could be considered a small dungeon. It has some interesting locations (The Hall of Illusions was a standout for me) and I think so far is the best example of the magic as technology feel of Eberron. The salvage team itself consists of a variety of others . One is found fairly early on dead with an interesting combat encounter with a Rug of Smothering.

As the party progresses ,the party can meet some interesting characters. However I didnt feel like there was much there for the party to interact with. A PseudoDragon runs a lantern shop, and could be an interesting character but needs more fleshing out. The party can stumble upon a maintenance closet and a possible fight with some Animated Brooms.

In a later part of the dungeon, there is an encounter with a Warforged who is siding with the Lord of Blades. Perceptive parties can fairly easily stop him from informing his cohorts about these new Adventures. In the final areas of the Dungeon, there is standoff between the remaining Scavengers and Warforged Raiders (who fastly outnumber the scavenger.s.. which made me wonder why there was a standoff)

In a nice scene, a Warforged transport breaks through a wall and deposits even more troops.. much more.

Then we get a slightly jarring floors falls out from beneath the players and the introduction of the Oracle of War a magical device designed to analyse combat situations and suggesting ways of defeating them. This was an interesting premise, but one I dont think my players fully comprehended. Lots of trial and error.

Time was getting away from me, so my party used the hole in the wall made by the entering transport to escape without really tangling with the enemy forces.

Personally, I think thats how many groups will go as the forces arrayed against the party are fairly immense.

In all, Id recommend this scenario but I'd be prepared for the players to um and arr about actually siding with the Scavengers. I think it was waaay too early in the adventure process to use the 'friend you just met last adventure to go missing story' but it is what it is. While there are some social encounters, so far in both scenarios Ive found the Social aspect a bit lacking in respect to the combat aspects.

--Moon 2-1 Defenders of Caer Moray puts the characters slap bang into the defense of Caer Moray a moderately sized town/village (more information on the Caer part would of been appreciated in the scenario). 'City' defense scenarios DO have their place in D&D and have had for a long time, but after the relative openess of the Moonshae Treasure Hunt, this scenario immediatly smacked of a combat fest in a relatively enclosed location with the last 1/3 being a more investigative component which ends in a resolution that dosnt feel like it resolves much.

Firstly , Id like to draw to the fact that if you are reading this you will likely be dming for AL players under season 8 rules. That means that characters will at this point in their life have very limited funds. This scenario includes a lot of creatures that take less damage from normal weaponary that is likely to be seen in Tier 1. Silvering weapons costs 100 gold pieces. It is unlikely that a character will have that money by this point. THis means that you will be having melee adventurers in combat with monsters than can fully affect them, but not be fully hurt in return. And multiple of such creatures (obv depending on the tiering). Certainly groups may be lucky and have enough spellcasters to even things up, and some may not.

Many of the encounters here are pretty brutal because of it. There is some balancing with silvered weapons being found in some encounters which can even things up. Now the monsters themselves are spot on. THe Black Blood Cultists are Jackalweres, Wererats and Werewolves. That is perfectly fine and they should all be involved in the attack.

I did like the use of 3 NPCS to give the characters ties to Caery Moray. Its a good spontaneous way to get players to improv at the spur of the moment. I was asking questions of some characters and getting wild stories. It led however to an expected outcome.

Characters decided to split up. I had some going to rescue Sandra, others going to rescue Ybie. I certainly had to pull back on some tactics, but it was still some very close encounters because of reduce resources. Im not a fan of looming over the groups and saying 'Are you sure?' .. thats just not me.

Because of the base encounters (as well as further encounters that can be generated) , this game can seem very front heavy..... that is it will likely chew up a lot of time. Combats/Encounters by their very nature are time consuming esp when resources are spread between different battles. I found this took more time than I alloted. The encounter at the Gate was interesting, the party managed to close the Gates with only one pc being found and chased into the city (as kinda a diversion) that paid off but again... it would be very easy to have a really really tough encounter here.

Due to timing, everything after this went quick. THe Investigation involves finding out that Two Guards were drugged to open the gate by a 'Cook' who in turn was murdered to keep the secret of what he had done. This in turn leads to a boat moored which is run by some pirates who arnt really involved as much as a info source to direct you only the real culprit. There can be a fight here but by this point I think my players were getting a bit spent so there was no combat and after a bribe were directed onto another secret Cultist, who didnt really explain much of what was going on. Another cultist is arrested 'off screen'

The story is concluded at that point.

THe investigation is quite linear and thankfully short. Guards leads to cook which leads to boat which leads to secret person. Linear lines of investigation are not bad, but if the party dosnt search or bribe or interact well then it can go nowhere fast (people can run away if things take too long).

However Part 1 and it's Siege really overwhelms my view of this scenario. The use of friendly pcs is good, the splitting up not so much and the brutualness of resistant creatures makes it tough. If you are coming into this from Treasure hunt, you are likely bringing in Level 1 or 2 characters to play and things could get messy.

It's honestly not what I would have had as a first up scenario after the introductory one, however it does show the party that Lycanthropes are indeed a menance and hopefully gives them some future npcs to interact with.

EDIT: Something I completely forgot. a Map of the Southern Area of the Moonshae Isles comes with this scenario. Now printing it out for me with the rest of the scenario means I get a very small font A4 sized map. Moray sadly is not the focus of the map, as it should be front and center. It's actually somewhat difficult to read the text of Caer Moray. My suggest would be the full size of Moray only on the map with none of the other landmasses present (they arnt needed here). I printed it to A3 which was much better. Print this map if you are going to print it on a larger Size of paper!

Part 3 of the TAROT series sees the story continue from the previous 'stories'. Unknown forces plague Thentia which has become filled and engorged with Water due to torrential rain.

We are presented with a scenario which sees a Priest of Ilmater, Nestor arrested for the murder of the High Priestess of Selune in the previous Scenario. A Paladin of Tyr makes a plea to the party to save Nestor by going after the 'Bandit King' who looks like Nestor a lot. A person he thinks committed the crime.

In terms of plot that is what we get . The scenario is made up of that discussion, a trip through the countryside and an eventual assault on a castle being rebuilt.

As with the previous scenarios there is a choice of 2 here. The party can bring the bandit king back to take Nestors place or let Nestor die due to .. well.. some prophecy that they can learn about in a book.

The more I actually type this out, the stranger it gets thinking about this scenario.

Another key figure of sorts in this scenario is an old fortuneteller who just keeps appearing to the point where I had a player say 'I bet he is evil'.. and who always disappears. Apart or charging for readings and giving dice based readings, I dont see what he is adding to the overarching plot.. which is very paper thin at times.

This scenario does not have any glaring mechanical issues or spelling problems. The combats that are given are somewhat interesting and mostly revolved around bandits.

The biggest problem is that it's yet another scenario based on this mystical Tartot Deck in which the players feel little to no connection to the story. Even as the DM I dont really know who the 'bad' people are, because Im not told.

If Im honest, you are likely better off running a different series.

Tarot 1-2 By the Light of the Moon is the follow up to Awakening of Fates. Again set in Thentia during a time of chaos and torrential rain, this Scenario uses a 'chance' encounter with an npc or may or may not truly exist to propel the character into an adventure to rescue the Grandson of a local townsfolk noble.

The scenario itself is written fairly well with insights into the characters, and like more than a few scenarios now half way through it decides to give the characters two options .. one being to continue into a crypt with an npc or turn around and go back to a Festival being held (because why not hold one with famine and torrential rain being on). The reason I rate this scenario so lonely is that really only one of these options is truly given any weight. The option to help the travelling along npc, Vasily to go into the crypt to rescue his grandson is given via the lens of a likely imploring npc and is closer at hand. The other option is shrouded in mystery and really isnt given much weight by the scenario. Leeta one of the bandits may give some more info if she isnt killed outright.

Relying on a 'monster' to give the secondary option isnt a great idea and Im guessing most parties never go back into town.

Monster selection was good, and the difficulty felt appropriate. It seemed edited well enough although following the logic line of what this series is building towards is a little difficult.

If you were not aware , The Border Kingdoms is a little explored area of the Forgotten Realms that has been selected by a gaming convention in the Us, GameholeCon to base new CCC (Convention Created Content) there. This is Gameholecons 'creation' in a sense and is out there for dms and players (its never really clear who its pitched to) to get a better idea of the area. I settled on it being pitched to dms because of the 'insider' information it gives the reader about some events and people.

The Border Kingdoms is similar in ways to the Bandit Kingdoms of Greyhawk fame .. and both are lands of petty lords and small areas of control which supposedly change ownership more often than not.

Before I go any further, I felt this need to point out this : http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archfr/frbk

That archive was released by Wizards around 2005.. which was the mid point of 3.5 edition of D&D. The reason I point it out is that while reading through this product, I got a major sense of deja vu from the wizards archive of articles. So much so that lines seemed directly cut and paste from those older articles which is perfectly appropriate...considering that only 100 years have passed time wise between the 3.5 era FR and the 5e era (1372 to roughly 1471). However it being FR I did expect more changes to the localities that dont really arise.

The book itself is physically layed out well, the localities are layed out in alphabetical order and follow and introduction to the BK as well as a geography and a way of life section. It makes good use of layout and stock art also.

Some locations have more information than others, which is to be expected. Again because I had read the wizard archive articles, my Deja vu came up a lot.. but there was also more recent information.

Finally we are left with a 1490's plots section, which will likely see some relevance in future CCC scenarios in this region.

I think what this product lacks is some player level information. It would of been great to perhaps see some background tables or hooks for people looking to make characters from this region. Use the information already provided to create some tables.

I would of also have liked to have seen some more... general information on the region. a Table perhaps where I could see which was the largest city by population, what the human/demihuman ratio was like, where was the largest temple, the most prominent faith.. the wizard schools. Information that might be buried in each location section information but which would be more useful if you only had time for a cursory glance when a player asked a question.

I think for a DM this is a great product. I think its also going to help me create characters based on the metagame knowledge I know. What I think the product does not do as well, is provide an entry point for the newer or existing player.

MAP : This product comes with the 3.5 archive era map. As the world has more or less 'reverted' to this geographical look its a welcome sight. I do wish it was bigger though.

(27/7 EDIT) I edited the rating down based on the comparison with the other recent guide out for the Moonshaes. While this guide is bigger, it actually offers less to the prospective player)

This product marks the second release of a 'guide' for the new regions opened up for Adventurers League, the previous one being by the people of Gameholecon and the Border Kingdoms. At 57 pages, this guide is smaller by about half on the Border Kingdoms one, however in terms of information this product does as much if not more than the Border Kingdoms version.

Firstly, the cover is quite majestic depicting a beautful tower with a dragon waiting outside. Douglas Niles the creator of the Moonshaes gives a foreward which is a nice touch and we are then treated an overview of the Moonshae as well a very particular and layed out Contents.

Chapter 1 is the overview of the Moonshae and it's actually something that the Border Kingdoms guide noticeably needed also. THe people found in the Moonshaes are listed , where they might be found (in terms of the racial mix) we are given concrete information on the local Pantheon. I can't stress how important this is to players who want to create a character who feels like a local. (but more on that later). One thing I really loved about this section is that it DOES reference more current Realms History with information on some spellplague effects.

After this section we are given details on the Islands that make up the Moonshaes as well as up close maps of the locations. These are great, and the maps are their formatting near the text that is referring to them make this spot on in terms of presentation and access. There is a lot of information here ... so much in fact Im sure Ill reread it several times in the future and find out new facts, because you dont absorb it all the first time.

The guide then moves on to Chapter 3. Player options.

Honestly I'd love to underline those two words, because honestly they deserve to be. We move from the Lore to perhaps.. a different kind of lore. Lore that is given firstly in the form of Backgrounds. THe Backgrounds on offered are keyed to the kinda of 'roles' you would see in the Moonshae and its obvious they are because of the language used. Each background comes with a table for bonds and flaws and the standard background variety is present. This is a GREAT edition because it helps the player make a choice. Sometimes when presented with some much .. forest.. its hard to pick a single path through that forest and these backgrounds do a great job in making that so. Marked by the Beast stands out to me.

This is followed by a section on names. If you didn't know the Moonshaes were originally modeled on the Anglo-Celtic traditions of 'England, Wales and Ireland' (although to me more Wales/Ireland). Thus we are given a table of names to go along with that premise. Whilst only the Ffolk and Northlanders are given such tables, we are also treated to a pronounciation guide (always useful!). There is a then a trinklet section with a wide variety on offer.

Moving towards the end of this guide, we have 'Player organisations'. Which in effect are faction like premises for the Moonshae Isles. They simply give a purpose to some characters or a way to get some notoriety/fame in the Moonshae. Its hard to know what to make of them without seeing them in action. Still a very welcome addition.

57 pages just wizzes by with this product. It has a lot of information to put across and it does I think in a way thats far more conducive to players than the Border Kingdoms Guide (the only thing I have as a Comparison). The mapping is great, the font size easy to read and just the little sidebars and hidden nuggets of information are worth it to find them. Credit must be given to the authors and editors of this product. It honestly made me evaluate the Border Kingdoms guide in a bit of a negative light because there is so much 'extra' stuff here to use .. even if the other Guide is almost double the size.

One thing Im still not sure of with this product though is who it is pitched to exactly. I come from an era of gaming where a product was often just for dms or just for players. 5e has destroyed that foundation for me , so like the BK Guide I will see that is for both.

A definite buy!

Firstly, Id like to call out this scenario for it's superb production values. It's use of art that does not appear stock is to be applauded plus the use of detailed maps (both of encounters and a visual map) is to be commended. I hae not noticed any other scenario to date which has these level of values .. and that includes much bigger producers that SHOULD

Secondly, I love the fact that each of the titles in this quadrology has a set purpose. Far too often a trilogy in a CCC series runs foul of a middling middle scenario because it seems the story isnt long enough to keep it going. Not this series. It nails what it intends to do right off the bat. THe central issue of the issues between Torm and Bane are on show and some roleplaying can be used to get the point across (and even some info for characters who worship Torm or Bane)

At this point however, I do want to point out an issue I have.. and its not just with this scenario. but occurs in a good chunk of CCCs. From the tone of the story we get that these 3 platinum discs are objects of great power.. tied to the portfolio of Bane (great use of his old holy symbol btw). As a DM and as a player Id probably expect to be fighting direct servants of Bane in each of these scenarios. Bane much surely sense that the time is right to put the smack down on the agents of Torm. Yet in this scenario we are treated to a battle with Xvarts, possible Ogre encounter and a Goblin Encounter. I will admit, this adventure is located in THar so all of these creatures COULD be encountered there , but I would honestly of replaced the optional encounter with an encounter with a kill team sent perhaps by a Banite priest to kill the defilers or something similar (reasoning isnt as important). I think it was the perfect opportunity to make an encounter here more important to the story. THe varied combats while interesting just seem to make it more about Thar then about the story. Ive no issue with the Story driving monster selection. I was originally going to give this a 4 star but this issue meant 3 stars.

Many scenarios suffer from these issues with poor/ strange monster selections for encounters.

Finally this scenario ran well to time, although 16 Xvarts was a bit of a time hog. I dont mind a lot of monsters, but I prefer more powerful and fewer if Im honest.

Im lookinng forward to reading the next in the series to run and I greatly appreciate all these Tier 1 scenarios coming out. Keep them coming!

Matthew

Faiths and Avatars from Eric L Boyd to this day remains my favorite FR product because of two reasons.

The sheer amount of detail and secondly because intrinsically I love the concept of a Pantheon of Deities and their alignment to certain portfolios.

Faiths of the Forgotten Realms while not as exhaustive as that and related products, does a very good job of detailing the core Faerunian Pantheon which is itself one of the biggest numbers of any published setting. Of course this is a double edged sword. A large number means any product detailing them is also going to have a significant page counnt. Faiths of the Forgotten Realms however also needs to dedicate some of its hefty page count to 'crunch' or the mechanical aspect... a thing that I was not really truly interested in.

What this means is that in the initial section where the God is discussed we get mostly a paragraph and a half initially dedicated to talking about the gods. Each God's followers get a background table which is an incredibly useful source for background information. Information on holy days and centres of faith (ie temples) in the Realms is also provided. There is some information here which is useful but I would of like to have seen more. Straight up practical stuff like 'The Clerics and Paladins of the Faith wear colour x and colour Y, and the priests are given titles such as T.

All of this minute information goes towards making a fully rounded story and character. Still the information we get provided is still very useful.

In the second section comes the mechanics of the book (or essentially from here on), each faith listed in the previous sections gets something. Whether that be a new domain, A new Warlock path, a subclass for Paladins. On top of this new spells. It would take al ong time to go through and use them all to get a good idea of how well they worked or dont work, but some look very interesting. I think many campaigns would benefit from this section more than mine.

At this point I should also say these are were the 'current' holy Symbols are depicted. If you are unaware, more than a few gods DO change their holy symbol from time to time, reflecting often a change in the Gods outlook or a change in the 'mortal' faith. Its a good resource to have when you are trying to explain what your holy symbol actually looks like (although it would of been nice also to have it spelled out in words too.. trying to describe Asmodeus symbol might be a bit hard)

Chapter 3 or Holy Texts is probably my favorite chapter. It goes into some detail on the Holy Texts of most of the Gods found in this product. This is GREAT!. Obviously its not going to come up much in game but a Cleric that goes around proletysing their faith might get to scream out ' And now a reading from the Black Book of Beshaba!'. There is a lot of good information here and it is clear to read.

I should also point out that not every God seems to have a holy text listed.

Chapter 4 is a collection of Magical items , thematically tied to the Gods in this product going all the way up to Holy Artifacts that could be the focus of a campaign. Some look very Interesting

My Final Thoughts:

This book is nearly everything I want for a FR Product. It's an incredibly difficult book to write in my opinion because of how aligned to FR it is. FR is a dynamic setting (one of very few FR settings that are) and as such religous events happen and , Temples and cities are destroyed, new Gods appear then go and come back. 5e pressed a reset back to 3e in many ways, but time has still passed. Finding current information of where each gods temples are has to be an issue because its just not information that has been released by Wizards yet.

I would of prefferred the God Information from Chapter 1 and 2 to be put together. I do not see any reason to split the lore from the mechanics. You are simply making the user look up two different page numbers. It would have the secondary effect of making each God section appear larger.

One final point:

One of my greatest loves of Faiths and Avatars was actually SEEING what a Priest of a God looked like. TSR decided to get art done of the 'dress' of each priest and they were beautiful pictures. While very hard for a book like this to do, perhaps one day this might be possible.

All in all a Great buy.

Hi, before I start Id just like to say three things.

A) This scenario is the last of the Hul 2 series and personally I think its does a pretty average job of wrapping up the Hul 2 series to the point where I think the second scenario in the series is much more interesting B) More than most CCC series players will get the full benefit for their own story path if they play it in order. C) Surpisingly its the one most likely to run to time.

Hul 2-3 , has the party following up with the Relic in hand, in a trade with the Malarites for the return of some townsfolk. At least thats how its framed. However it starts out with an Ambush Monster encounter. I didnt mind this as much as I thought it would because it breaks away from the usual way the story is layed out. In this case its the party against some Werewolves in a Flashback type scene.

The use of Werewolves in this scenario is an odd one. They are all Malarites for starters and as a lore person I know that lycanthropy is a gift from Malar, and all were creatures spring from him. This scenario though does its best to just depict Werewolves and retools other werecreatures into Werewolves. We have Weretigers, Wererats and Wereboars all reskinned to a version of a Werewolf for different power levels. I personally would of had no problem with actually using Wereboars, Rats and Tigers in this adventure as it would of shown Malars variety of servants.

At any rate, once this ambush occurs, we flip to a new scene where the Quest giver asks the party to deal with the Malarites .. and thus trade for the lives of the kidnapped townsfolk. This can involve tracking the malarites back to their 'base', actually talking to their representatives or something else the party comes up with. As it is, there is a lot of scope to really improv here if the dm can handle that but the whole scenario feels very open.. like its going out of its way to be and comes off a little directionless.

The two paths come down to .. attacking the Malar lead Konig Erl for the hostages or agreeing to participate in a Malar Hunt, where the party need to run away back to Hulburg while been attacked and tracked as they go. Both make for interesting diversions and the hunt part could slow down the game a bit. I have a feeling most people might go for the direct attack.

All in all the battles are varied and the hunt encounters are quite interesting. However there is no villain here that seems that interesting compare to the previous two. Konig feels a little flat as does this scenario. It just dosnt FEEL like a wrap up for the trilogy and thats the biggest issue I had. I think it somehow it could of been flipped into the middle scenario and the 2nd brought to the end (with obviously a lot of story work done to make it work)... then It would of been a whole lot better.

As it is , I dont think I can really recommend this series to others. THere are some really nice parts I like, others I really dont, and some parts that are just eh.

Firstly Id like to say I ran this almost the week directly after running part 1 , so I think I was able to look at how this was connected to part 1 in a better light and my parties were doing this straight after part 1.

Also before I get started, Id like to mention that the Hul 2 series seems long for 4 hours. In that while its certainly possible it might go under 4 hours due to factors, its also very likely it will go longer without some creative work from the dm. I dont know if this points to inadequate playtesting but as a scenario goes it feels like it has often one encounter or two, too many.

Continuing the Winter/Cold theme, the Party is now introduced to a variation of the city under siege (the story type common in the majority of AL and other organised play Epics). In this case its more of a Ruined city under siege story. The party is asked after an initial encounter with some Wolf/Werewolf servants of Malar to investigate some information the guards have discovered about a missing relic and a thief apparently hiding in town . Rather than directly tangle with the servants of Malar, the quest giver would prefer the adventures to locate the relic and the thief.

While Im not adverse to an information dump from Quest Givers, I am a little saddened that this information has to come from there as I dont see another natural way for this to be learned. I guess some information could of been given by the Servant of Malar in the previous scenario, but then there is the issue of .. what happens if the characters havnt played it ? This is of course the price that comes with organised play and not being able to play everything in order.

To me at least, perhaps if the party was told about the thief and then found out about the relic perhaps by encountering it or finding out from the Villains brother.. it might of felt more natural.

At any rate some cold zones have popped up in proximity in Tent City Cold Zones that obscure sight and are obviously the creation of this RElic. THe party have a choice of a northern or Western one. Both have encounters connected to them and if the party is lucky they might

The biggest issue here is that one of these encounters is a red herring encounter. It involves a somewhat challenging fight with the party using resources and then a trek across to another encounter with the party using more resources. If the party picks the right one first, then the other really isnt neccessary and if they dont well, you are adding to the length of the scenario and perhaps the deadliness. I personally have had a party go to just one and both.

The party encounter the brother (who I made a Twin of the villain) and after a discussion and a further info dump, the party is asked to go to an area in the frozen docks called the ARches where the Brother will be found, looking for a prison for his Warlock (yay!*) Patron , Kasval.

• I say Yay here because the build of this villain is one of the best I have seen in all AL scenarios. Normally I get given a spellcaster who is .. if not underpowered.. lacking. THis one was not.

Kasval, does not really play a part in this scenario. He gets a name drop and then later is sent essence wise back to his plane. One thing my logic brain here has an issue with is this. Kasval is the originator of Geldryks powers. Geldryk is a Warlock. Geldryks plan is to use a tome (which again means little in the scenario) to Free Kasval from a prison in which, the end result would be that Kasval would still be imprisoned in the Item Geldryk wears. But still imprisoned in there. I made up some story that is was likely Kasval would come to fully take over Geldryk.

Kasval seems like perhaps a great villain for maybe a different Hul series.

So the party head into the arches (and another monster encounter) and finally enter a secret bunker/fortress/something which is decorate with pictures of flame and holy warriors fighting evil things. We are introduced to the now dead order of the Guardian Flame( or as the scenario says later order of the Flame)

I love secret organisations like anyone else, and these guys seem/ed? interesting. We are treated to another dead Paladin/Holy Warrior encounter (which can finally lead to a monster fight) or go peacefully. So yeah, another Hul scenario with a possibly good ghost thing helping a live person out. THe party also encounter a skill based challenge or free a trapped Imp. I had a little fun either with him insulting party members but also wanting out.

This all leads to a prison room where many years previously Kasvals body was destroyed and his essence played into an item.. which is now the property of Geldryk. No mention is made of why Geldryk didnt have to also get the locks open.. he just got in and left after taking the Kasval prison.

THe encounter with the 'Guardian Flame ' is interesting. I played him like a cracking fire. Part of me secretly was hoping that he was ANOTHER Imprisoned creature that had Warlocks of his own and was a foe of Kasval only because Kasval poached potential souls. ooh.. and the party gets a possible hopefully future story award assuming future writers remember it.

Maybe that was just me though.

THe party from here can chose to take on some extra power vs Kasval and then all roads lead to the final encounter with the good brother being put into a block of ice and the Party fighting the Relic/Kasval prison/Geldryk combination. A fairly interesting fight as long as he gets a chance to use his stuff. Otherwise it can be over quick.

Now at a few points in this scenario, I showed that the Good brother still cared for the bad one. While he didnt ask directly for people to not kill his brother, he implied he still saw good in him. Narrowly both times Geldryk was saved from death (although Im still confused as to why he isnt a Warlock anymore.. Kasvals prison is destroyed.. he goes back to the Hells).. its not that easy to get out of a deal.

One thing I will point out, this is one of the few scenarios where the magic item reveal is entirely dependant on if the BBEG is killed or not. Im really really really loving this. If people wanna evil it uip and annihilate the big guy because hes not worthy of even trying to save him, then thats on them. I personally applaud the writer.

As a final note, I gave this 3 stars because I quite liked the story, I like the monster choices, the possible Guardian Flame devil creature (Come on.. make it an unknowingly EVIL order!) and the Warlock build. I still think there were too many encounters there, and the middle encounters are an issue . However it is much better than parts 1 and 3, which is a rarety (because generally Ive found its the middle one, that is the weakest scenario)

Firstly Id like to state that I quite enjoyed the first HUL series, it had a good build up to the last battle with forces most foul. It spread out its stories over all 3 scenarios without sacrificing pace for the most part.

HUL 2 series has picked the theme of the cold/winter as a story point for this series and includes the use of agents of the FR Gods .. in that of Auril and Malar as the 'foes' for this series. Both are great choices as they have got very little 'screen time' in AL to date.

HUL 2-1 opens with the party being employed by a non nonsense Guard Captain to track down some missing Hunters who have gone missing in A secluded Valley to the North. THe party are given a list of those people and as they venture around the valley , the dm is also give an order of 'events'.. in that the villain travels around locations .. and affects these locations. I actually quite liked this and it made me work on something a little different and that both my runnings of this scenario were fairly different.

The issue with this scenario is that there is too much content there for 4 hours. Both mine ran over time as players and thus their characters want to do everything. Its the price you pay however when you mention a ritual to summon the end encounter requires varied spell components (more on that in a second).

We are treated to another Friendly ghost encounter with a spirit of Eldath (good contrast off Auril and Malar.. and something the HUL series loves to use for some reason.. friendly ghosts)

What I found the most entertaining about this scenario was that the actual more interesting fight is the fight up in the far North with a great creature that everyone is concerned about, rather than the fight with the servant of Malar. This Yeti fight I really played up with tremendous raws and dead carcasses littering the area. It really highlighted a very challenging battle.

When finally summoned, the text for the dm is at best .... incorrect. THe characters are supposed to summon the servant in a less powerful or more powerful form depending on what they have component wise. Yet the text has been swapped around, the partially summoned creature is more powerful. Its something that should of been picked up in editing but was missed and at the time of writing this I dont think has been fixed. It really sours this encounter which is still reasonable but .. just is not as compelling as the fight in the North of the vale.

While the editing is good, and the monsters used as very much on point, I cannot give this a higher rating because of the length of the scenario or the issues with the final servant of Malar. However this scenario does introduce a great common theme heading through the series.

Firstly, off the bat I ran part 1 to this 2 weeks earlier, Murder at the Stop so I was expecting perhaps maybe something similar

Secondly, the formatting in this scenario (both in terms of spelling and layout) was topnotch. Cannot fault this scenario on that. Things were easy to find and plain to see.

My biggest issue with this story is the plot and some of the encounters. Dr Jubals Carnivale has now been present in a couple of AL scenarios, however all of them have found it.. somewhat hard to get across the life of a carnival and the members that make it up. I would of loved a list of members in the back of this scenario because in the rescue scene deep into the scenario I didnt have much to play with.. which was a shame. It may seem like a minor quibble , but players thrive on memorable characters and this scenario didn't really have many of those.

THe encounter's were pretty much on point and thematically appropriate. The owlbear encounter was nice, and I did like the Visual of an Elephant harrassing the good guys and bad guys. It just felt a little forced for time in the end.

I think my biggest issue.. probably is that this scenario did not feel as .. detailed as the previous one. With all the additional documentation on the stop, its people and so on , Murder at the stop was a great scenario, with well detailed characters and locations. Whilst this adventure is obviously not a murder mystery, there was some detail missing which made it fall flat for me.

This was run recently by me for two local groups.

Again this scenario was well formatted and spellchecked by the content creators . Kudos to them.

A direct follow up to SALT 1-1, the party finds themselves in an abandoned town in Thar surrounded by bodies of a previos expedition and some of the orcs who had slain them.

The Half -ORC Co leader of SALT (You can look it up if you want to know what it means) now requires the party to travel to the Tomb of Khered and open it . Oh and find his fellow co leader a missing Cleric of Ilmater.

The party has also had some bad dreams.

I must admit, the opening .scenes of SALT 1-2 felt very disjointed. THe party is either recruited in Phlan and arrives here, or is already here. The trek to some large boulders is foreshadowed by a group or single dream of... large boulders perhaps.

This sorta foreshadowing is normally the domain of tv shows who are worried the audience wont be able to put 1 and 1 together but here it just feels jarring. After setting off the party encounter a.. boulder field where there party can essentially go through or around. Both lead to combat encounters of sorts.

The randomness in this scenario comes from an option 1 or two. THere is either a fight with some spiders or a non combat encounter of sorts with a swarm of spiders. Thats it for the random. It was good whilst it lasted! :)

All of this however leads to the discovery that the missing Co-owner Sorrim is trapped in a spider cocoon. Hes still alive , but exhausted and needs some help.. sortoff (he actually seems like he just wants to head back to the town by himself... likely at least to me to mean death in THar :) )

He tells the pcs however how to get to the Tomb.

This leads to the second encounter and probably the hardest combat in this scenario. The fight outside the tomb entrance with an Eye of Grumush and allies. Depending on the level makeup this encounter can go slow or very fast I found. I had one each way. Also without the earlier combat encounter this is where the party is going to have to get its exp if its going to so you may want to make it tougher.

Finally the battle is over and the party use the key they were provided and entire a single tomb room which is a dead end with a coffin inside.

I did have a laugh that the magic item a mace was resting on the coffin lid. One of the players blurted out ' A Vampire at this Tier? '. SALT turns up with some guards and a conclusion of sorts is had with the parties next job to press further on int othe tomb in SALT 1-3, which is easily my favorite of the scenarios and goes back hardcore to the randomness of SALT 1-1.

SALT 1-2, is a short 2 hours scenario. However like the middle part of some movies it just feels flat like all the good stuff was in the front or back of the product which is a shame. THe party is always going to find Sorrim and the dream was uneeded.

Id recommend this one only if you want to run them all, otherwise it can be avoided.