This is the finale of the Border Kingdoms T2 trilogy, where the party makes a stand against the Black Wyvern and his forces.

The descriptions of the two entrances to the cellar under the Gryphon's Head Inn could be clearer; there should be labels on the map as to which entrance is from the hearth, and which is from the stairs. It is also quite possible for the players to screw themselves out of the secondary objectives and the item - if they end up provoking and (re-)killing Rymdyl, they do not (as written) seem to get the crystal that is the "Heart of the Tower", which is needed to reconstitute the tower and save Rymdyl.

The two paths to the tower seem like encounters to pad the module. The choice of an elder oblex for the Shadow Path is somewhat questionable, as it is not in a good position to really make use of its strengths.

The final part of the module is the Tower fight, and it does provide a glorious payoff, as the players attempt the ritual to rebuild the tower (if they have the Heart) and then defend it from the Black Wyvern's strike force. It's an uphill battle against a (hopefully) fortified position, except that it's the party that's holding off the invaders. It's a bit puzzling that the Black Wyvern himself is less resilient than most of his force, though; my players were surprised when he actually fell before his allies.

A generally satisfying finish to the trilogy, with a hint at more to come. Definitely needs some tweaking before running, though.

Following the raids (and revelations) of The Tithes That Bind, the party is tasked to seek out the Great Oak for answers, only to find that something is pulling his strings...

The creatures controlling the Great Oak don't really mesh well with the rest of the trilogy. With the undead theme of the Black Wyvern's minions, an illithid and an aboleth stick out like a sore thumb.

The initial fights with the undead soldiers and the mercenaries seem meant to showcase what minions are available, but only serve to drag out the module if the party is poor on AOE damage. The combat with the illithid as written feels like it's out to get the players, with it being allowed to mind blast through walls as they try to chase it through the mansion. The aboleth fight is also easy to miss (thus losing the players that objective, although this would not be applicable post-S8), if the players decide to attack the Great Oak when they meet him.

This module needs a fair bit of work to make it playable. Definitely the low point of the trilogy.

The party is hired by a mercantile matriarch (and generally Cool Old Lady) to catch those responsible for despoiling her granaries. As they capture the raiders and bring their bodies in for investigation, they discover the manipulations of darker powers behind the scenes...

The module transitions smoothly from the granary counter-raid, to the post-mortem at the church (where the dark powers rear their heads), to the finale in the ancient monastery and the reveal. The combats are well thought out, with the raiders in particular having effective, magically enabled tactics.

A strong introductory module, with a great hook for future modules.

A quest by the scion of a fallen barony to reclaim the crown of his famous kinsman, which leads to a ruin that has been infested with undead. 'Tis a simple, yet compelling hook, and one that hints at the darker powers that remain at the call of the Black Wyvern's dark master.

The traps and puzzles in the ruins are pretty clever, and seem to have been designed in such a way as to troll players ("You're not jumping over this gap!") without being overly deadly. I did have to tweak the [REDACTED] to "allow safe passage to those bearing symbols of [REDACTED], as asking for alignment would have been too obvious (this is from an AL perspective, so we won't always have the same players).

Format wise, the module document is quite clearly written I like how the module points out suggested encounters for the trek to the ruins (in the event that time is a concern). One gripe is that they didn't include the Archer stats in the Creature Statistics section - DMs might wish to send the guide into (ranged) combat as backup for weaker parties (and not have to check elsewhere to do so).

Highly recommend this mod, and would definitely run it again.

A straightforward dungeon crawl, where the players go in to rescue the missing adventurers - well, adventurer, as the rest are all dead - and then stop the evil.

With no listed scaling for stronger or weaker parties, DMs will have to be careful with how they tweak encounters to fit their parties (especially since, at this tier of play, player and character ability can be all over the place) - adding/removing/shifting enemies, tweaking hit points, changing tactics etc. The surge effects can add an additional wrinkle for caster-heavy parties, but require additional effort on players and DMs for tracking, and (as written) don't really show up often enough to be significant anyway.

Formatting wise, the document is simple, giving enough information for the DM to run the module without bogging them down with information (no Bonus Objective appendices is a Very Good Thing, and I approve).

A competition to hunt the largest beastie - what's not to like? Size and feriocity aside, however, the alpha peryton isn't any tougher than a normal peryton, stats wise, which may lead to an anticlimatic fight against a high-damage party. DMs might consider giving the alpha peryton maximum HP, and/or implementing the Strong Winds/Gusting Winds effects in the sidebar regardless of party strength based on the party composition - if the party has a large number of Sharpshooter archers, they will be able to lay on a lot of hurt even without magic weaponry.

The second bonus objective at the end rather diminishes the result of this module. The betrayal and assault seem to abruptly come out of nowhere, and the aftermath of it also invalidates the results that the party got for the peryton hunt proper (winning by default so long as they caught a peryton), which might leave a bad taste in the players' mouths.

The formatting of the module itself is also atrocious. The Season 8 format does the document no favors (dumping the two meaty bonus objectives as appendices after all the maps and creature stats), and there are several extraneous bookmarks that do nothing except frustrate.

A module that has potential, but definitely needs tidying up before it can shine.

A hunt to save adventurers in over their own heads from one of the classic "A Wizard Did It" monsters in DnD soon turns into a miniature dungeon crawl into the remnants of an ancient ruin, one which hints at darker powers lurking behind the scenes.

The split objectives (awarding the ACP fractionally for each segment) is a bit awkward, but it does encourage tables to push for full exploration of the location ("You haven't found the gnome yet? We need to go DEEPER...").

Combat encounters are fairly simple, as may be expected from this tier (and none of the creatures involved would be winning prizes for intellect anyway) - this means less moving parts for newer DMs to track. As there is no real encounter scaling, the fights may be less challenging for stronger/more experienced parties, or deadly for weaker/inexperienced players; DMs may have to move encounters around the map to compensate.

Overall, a simple, yet memorable dungeon crawl.

Very fun and flavorful module.

It was quite amusing how my players got wary of the "mind controlling" cats and started chasing them away; this came back to haunt them later when there weren't enough cats willing to bond them anymore to go around. Only a few players got to leave with the cat miniatures I printed out of cardstock (so sad).

If anything falls short in this module, it would be that the two castles (the Bonus Objective castle and the "final boss" castle) were relatively empty of anything of note for their size. In addition, the Bonus Objective for the bandits seems to just be there to foreshadow future developments in the Border Kingdoms (with the Call to Action at the start being a somewhat ham-fisted attempt to get the players invested in said Objective). I would recommend combining the two castles together, with the boss having taken control of the bandits to do their own bidding and better defend their base. If some of the bandits (maybe the leader and/or the priestess) have managed to avoid said control, this also opens the possibility of them forming a grudging alliance with the players to take down the more obvious, mind controlling evil.

The "Call to Action" section at the start feels rather truncated; it feels like it could be merged into the next section ("The Brawl") with little impact to the module. Unlike with Into the Border Kingdoms, only the motivations of the client and the goons they're trying to arrest in the tavern are given in this section, and even then it's purely in the context of the module - everyone else in the Swollen Goat are pretty much background characters. This does (and might have been intended to) speed things into action quickly, which helps save time for the final section ("Subterranean Blues"), where we finally get to hunt down Cutter Jack. And you might very well need the extra time, if the players or DM lack experience.

The ruined keep that is Cutter Jack's base is a nasty place, especially with its new residents. It is entirely possible for things to degrade into a mass melee between the party, Cutter Jack's gang and the slavering pack of ghouls (who simply want to have everybody for dinner), which will drag things out (this is why we need the extra time).

This is a module intended for both new players and DMs, and it shows.

The module's flow is quite basic, but one shouldn't expect much variation in a module that you'd want to keep within two hours, and it isn't too hard to hide the rails. Enough detail is given for the characters to bring them (and Hawker's Cleaver) to life, without swamping the players (and DM) with too much information. Fittingly for a starter module, the villian is petty and venial, while still hinting at more sinister forces that might be using them for their purposes.

The enemies are simple and recognizable, with no confusing gimmicks^ that might bog down combat. The maps included with the module look gorgeous and are easily printable for quick use, while still being simple enough to be copied onto a reusable gaming mat if you wish to save paper. One thing that wasn't really worked out (and might have to be improvised) are lighting conditions for the last fight - the villian (and possibly the players) lacks darkvision, and this may change up their tactics if the encounter takes place at night.

Overall, a good way to ease your table into the Border Kingdoms.

^: Certain monsters refusing to die when they are killed aside. But those are always funny.

A very flavorful CCC module, which (sadly) is gutted by the transition to Season 8 AL rules due to the loss of mundane treasure rewards. Run as-is, the players would have little incentive to explore the Duindelve complex (especially if there is time pressure), since most hints point towards the mines and mundane loot is no longer a thing.

My takeaways, and suggestions for DMs who wish to run this module [SPOILERS AHEAD]:

• Don't be afraid to alter the map of the complex, especially if you have to stick to a 2 hour time limit in your FLGS and need to simplify things. Moving the mine entrance to "behind" the complex could be a quick (if lazy) way of getting the players to poke around a bit.

• One possibility would be to have Ani Kuleimatt follow the party in search of her brother (and to act as Ms. Exposition). This could work for smaller groups or for parties where no one has any means of speaking or reading Dwarvish.

• My players honestly thought there was some evil drow bard lurking around when I described the spidery "harp" music within the mines. An actual drow hunting party wising to (re-)claim the tame spiders for themselves is one way to spice things up...especially if they run afoul of the Duindelve's defenses.

• Try to make the various "treasure" around the Duindelve useful in the context of the module. The gems in the dorm could be required for repairing the looms or (if you're going with the hunting party idea above) for potential bribes. And the stone tablet could hint at how to retrieve the Traveler's Heart safely (or perhaps the lantern could be used for that purpose...?).

A fun module, but it could do with a fair bit of prep work and tweaking beforehand (especially for AL tables).

A great module to run, with a decent mix of combat, diplomacy and investigation (although throwing out diplomacy for more combat is possible [if dangerous] if your players are strong enough to handle it).

Much shenanigans were had at the river, especially since I chose to run the most...amorous encounter from the ones available.

Suggestion for people who plan to DM this module - try to give out the faction quest in secret (if you know your players will appreciate it). It's funnier that way.

Just finished running this module a couple of hours ago. The players were at first flabbergasted, and then delighted when they realized what was the "easiest" solution to get the dwarves and their cargo to safety. :D

If there's an issue I have with the module, it'd be that the open-endedness of the latter segment can bog things down for inexperienced DMs, especially if you have large numbers of players around. (Double especially if said players have summons.) The time constraints on the journey to the Birthright Stones makes that part snappy, but once the players actually get there, things can get confusing really fast. (And draggy. This 2 hour mod took us 3 and a half.)

That said, I find that this module does its job of portraying an epic rescue mission, and does it well. And "Tombstone Joyride" sounds like a kickass band name.