This pdf is 80 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisements and 1 page SRD, leaving 74 pages of content, so let's check this out!

This being an adventure-review, the following text contains SPOILERS, so potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.

Still here? All right! This is a sandbox in the truest sense of the word in that no linear timeline of events is presented - instead, we kick off this book with settlements and a lot of statblocks of chandlers and similar people, providing a level of detail rarely seen in such a supplement. The first settlement, Harmony, is famous for music instruments, the second , Stone's Throw has a minor thief's guild and the third, Thorbold, is a militaristic little village with stone walls and compulsory militia duty. Many of the characters herein come with little side-quests, population write-ups and plenty of small tasks to do for aspiring heroes.

The circus, Brallorn's amazing circus troupe, follows much the same write-up and provides plenty of adventuring opportunities by adding a smuggler's operation to the politics of the small towns. The circus also provides the backdrop for the main hook to draw the Pcs into the rest of the adventure - one of the shows is attacked by goblins and the trail leads to a deserted svirfneblin village just below ground, a 3-level dungeon inhabited by 3 different goblin tribes led by bugbears, ogrens and similar goblinoids. The dungeon makes for a neat low-level exploration, especially due to rather extensive pieces of information on reactions toward PC intrusions, making the overall dungeon feel very much organic, even though the creatures per se are not that exciting.

While exploring the dungeon and killing goblins by the dozen, pieces of evidence start to suggest that the little creatures have been set up to attack the denizens of the three settlements. The dungeon has an entrance leading inside the magically concealed periphery of a druid-settlement housing the radical order that houses a grudge for cutting down their swath of forest. Their village is a great two-level settlement constructed into the tops of huge magnificent trees. The druids have been plagues by murders among their own kind in the last couple of days and unfortunate reminiscences of how the original elvish inhabitants had to abandon their village due to strange series of murders. Unbeknown to the genocidal druidic fanatics, the original perpetrator, a deadly insane fey has awoken from hibernation and the druids are sure to suffer from fates similar to the elves - unless the PCs intervene, that is.

From hack-and-slash massacres to diplomatic reasoning, the module offers options for a multitude of possible ways to deal with the various conflicts between the settlements and factions. The pdf also contains 3 new monsters.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks are awesome. The maps provided for the dungeon and the final village are nice, but unfortunately the maps also constitute my biggest gripe with the module - neither the cities, nor the circus get their own maps, which is a pity, as it would have made them easier to picture. While the artworks do a fine job, especially the circus would have been in need of a map and it feels like they've been cut from the product. Also, in this day and age not having bookmarks in the pdf version is WEAK, especially at 80+ pages. While I did read my print version, if you only own the pdf, this might annoy you. The sandbox presented herein with the side-quests galore and the tiny jealousies, rivalries etc., especially when combined with the options to influence the long-term politics of essentially 5 settlements (including the circus), provides a stellar example of old-school design, that is only marred a bit by afore-mentioned rough edges and glitches. My final verdict thus will be -1 star for the lack of maps and -0.5 stars for the lack of bookmarks, leaving me with 3.5 stars for the concisely-written module. Seeing how I did enjoy the ambition of the module and its attention to detail, I'll round up for the purpose of this platform and a final verdict of 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.