A huge module with the potential for greatness: This is NOT your average Adventurer's League module. Featuring two entirely separate overland journeys, each containing multiple unique and memorable encounters, followed by a sprawling miniature city with dozens of named characters, this feels more like the spine of an entire campaign than an AL one-shot. You will not finish this module in four hours, or even six hours. And it ends on a cliffhanger - the story's only halfway over, and continues in DDEX2-13 The Howling Void!

My heart goes out to anyone who sat down at a regular AL night and tried to get through this monster. It can't be done. But for those running this in a different setting, who have the time and space to let the module breathe, this is a highly recommendable outing, and one of the best efforts of Adventurer's League Season 2.

Let's start with the weaknesses. First: yes, there are two entirely different versions of the first half of the module, based on which of two roads players decide to take. They'll only see one of them. This is ridiculous over-design, especially as both paths are really great adventurers, and it's heartbreaking as a DM to see what the players are missing.

Second: the monastery is just too big and unstructured. There are dozens of named characters in here. Some have short roleplaying notes. Others have none. There's no map of the area. Most of the NPCs, and indeed most of what they have to say, are red herrings, and players could lose hours diving down rabbit holes that lead nowhere without the DM keeping a firm hand on things.

And thirdly: Encounter balance is all over the place. Early encounters threaten frost giants and remorhazes for players who have no real chance of opposing them. Later ones are problematic. The final battle is either trivially easy or overwhelmingly difficult depending on how long players take to reach it, with no real chance of tuning it to a happy medium.

BUT - oh, the content that's there. Almost none of what's in the module feels stale or done to death. Encounters routinely break the Adventurer's League mold, including a remorhaz rodeo, a friendly giant druid, and more. The detail is there for DMs to make each section as long or as short as player interest demands, and if players ask you a worldbuilding question, the chances are the answer is right there in the module. The final battle is thematically climactic, even if the difficulty is off, and the cliffhanger ending is potentially exciting. It feels like there's just too many ideas here to fit into Adventurer's League, and they're bursting out at the seams.

Overall, I highly recommend the module - with the two caveats that you will need enough time to run it, and you will need to run the sequel as well.