This is, in my opinion, a must play Tier 1 adventure because of the following

• the beautiful twist at the end
• not many adventures give this kind of gotcha moment
• it's well written enough such that the DM can give hints on what is going on based on what the players perceive - without giving the reveal away

That being said, I would balance this with the overall campaign. It gets darker and more action-packed later on. Having an initial adventure be as RP heavy as this could discourage players from wanting to play the full campaign.

Regardless, this is top notch and loved it 100%

I think this can be a fun stand alone adventure, but unfortunately it neither connects well to the rest of the Ravenloft Misthunters storyline, nor is very easy to run as itself.

Things I liked: Emherst is a fun town to set the adventure in, the idea is creepy and supports a DM being able to turn up the uncomfortable realities of Kartakass for the players. The final confrontation is a fun little fight that should be a decent encounter for a level 3 party. The adventure does a half decent job of making a mystery with different motives for potential suspects.

Things I didn't like: Kartakass as a place doesn't feel very cohesive or make a lot of sense, and neither does Emherst, why are the people doing this play, who is it for, how does the larger community engage with it? The timeline also isn't very simple to run, I would have preferred adversary tables showing what the different NPCs were doing morning, afternoon, evening of each day or something. As is, it felt like the party was on their way to solving the mystery well ahead of the timeline of the villain to doing their next murder. I had to improvise as a DM to fill that time a bit. The lack of physical evidence indicating other suspects made it pretty simple to figure out who the murderer was. The entier premise requires a lot of consent and buy in from your players, if they don't want to engage in RP this is not an adventure to run. The "understage" of Emherst is way more engaging than the living play, and should have been more supported with maps and encounters. This felt like an adventure that was prefect for a Dark Lord cameo, and not having something built in was unsatisfying.

THE BIG PROBLEM: Nothing in the adventure matters to the larger plot, you enter the adventure with a rumor of Radaga's location, and you leave with a rumor on her location. My players asked, "Why did we bother?" and you never want to be asked that after a session. This could have been solved with maybe stronger forshadowing to what the adventure storyline is in this adventure.

Final review: I compare this adventure to something by Arcane library, like Temple of the Basilisk Cult or Crypts of Azaruum, and I struggle to see the value for $10. You're better of spending that money on better prepared adventures, even if they aren't as flashy in art and presentation as this one.

This adventure is a lot of fun, if a little frustrating as a player. I felt like our DM kept stonewalling us and withholding information, which made sense in the end. I think this takes careful work to have the players feel like they're making progress and keeping them outside of the conspiracy. This adventure left a lasting impression on me, and I hope to run it sometime soon.

One of my players was a spirits bard, and really got into the role, and started referring to themselves in character.

When the lights came on, one of mmy players was a gloomstalker ranger, and he hunter's marked the Meistersinger in retalitory rage.

10/10, would run again.