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Both played and GM'd this one.

1 out of 5 stars for this

5 out of 5 stars.

3 out of 5 stars.

Runtime of this was around 3 hours, which could've been expanded a bit by adding some things to act 1, but I don't think they should be much longer.
From running the Quests it seems that Space combat will be the main point that causes scenarios to run long, and that's something that's not in this scenario.

Overall a solid 3 out of 5 and I'd like to see more of a certain town and it's developments :)

This scenario is a great way to meet four of the faction leaders.

Our dice were not playing really nice during combats, but we had a lot of fun nonetheless.

I want to particularly point out that Eleanor Ferron has made some excellent pictures to go along with several NPCs (technically fanart as they're not comissioned by Paizo), which we used to give it just that extra touch during play.

That said, the lack of space combat makes me not give it 5 stars, due my expectation of to it being such an integral part of Starfinder.

I like this book.
While I understand that some people prefer setting neutral things, I feel that by using the Golarion names and adding a page with suggestions for setting neutral names makes this work well enough.

I'm happy to see there is a bloodrager archetype, and amazed at which organisation they belong. Awesomeness.

Love the headshots of three important members and a bit of their background. Wonder if they are or will become available as avatars for the forum.

That said, I'm less than happy with the amount of coverage the Pathfinders got, as that chapter felt like completely copied and toned down. I don't think it was necesary to change the lorewarden that hard, it was a very niche archetype, it feels like a big step backwards. Particularly the change to skills feels unnatural. The explanation in the product discussion that it was to make it futureproof while it already was feels odd. (From all intbased skills as class skills, to a small selection makes it futureproof? I don't buy it.)

Some chapters feel like they got a lot more love than others, not just in terms on content, but also in terms of quality. Magaambya, Red Mantis and Grey Maidens especially jumped out to me. Aldori Swordlords, Mammoth Lords, Storm Kindlers, Hell Knights (and the aforemented Pathfinders) less so.

The Al-Zabriti and Rivethun were the two factions I barely knew anything about. The options the Al-Zabriti give to mounted combats are awesome, and the Rivethun theme is very interesting.

We derailed this one so bad, but so much fun was had by all.

The use of the cards was inventive.

Played this with my lorewarden, together with a riftwarden, a bard, and pregen Kyra.

A nice balanced party, with a variety of skills made sure I had a load of fun and got the story across.

Some combats were a bit lopsided thanks to my lorewardens extreme combat maneuver bonus and defence, but that didn't diminish the fun we had (except maybe for the poor GM during the combats, his monsters got repositioned and tripped to very disadvantageous positions).

I played this with TheDegraded on our Season 8 kickoff weekend.

Being one of the level 11s I have to say I had a load of fun with this one.

The encounters are nicely spaced, some very nice NPCs along and a great story.

The crowning moment however for me during this adventure was halfway into it, when 5 players and the GM look at eachother and realize that no-one can cast Detect Magic (Abyssal Bloodrager, Paladin, Paladin/Ninja, Savage Technologist, and Alchemist).

Played this last evening, low tier.

While the scenario felt really short, it was more due to the fact that time flies when you are having fun :).

A balanced mix of encounters and very interesting NPCs, made this scenario very worthwhile to me.

I played this together with Quentin under Magabeus.

Due to circumstances I went with my most antisocial character I have (an 8 charisma psychic without points in any of the social skills bluff/diplomacy/intimidate), yet due to my high knowledge skills I managed to be a fairly valuable asset.

Like Quentin and Magabeus I felt the opening scene had little to nothing to do with the rest of the scenario.

The repetitiveness (coupled with it being bloody hot and humid at the location) along with the need to 'divide' the party made the attention of everyone wander on occasion. A break between part 3 and 4 in which something different happened (a training event against some rookie cityguards or something) would have been welcome.

Magabeus had a very good grip on the time for every piece though, and it was nicely spaced, and his preperation was superb with lots of handouts for us to get a better grip at the NPCs involved.

Despite the repetitiveness, it was quite a nice scenario.

Played it today in a 7 hour slot (10-18 with half hour lunch break and muster taking about half an hour).

Tier 10-11, with level 11 cleric, level 11 paladin, level 10 barbarian, level 10 bloodrager, level 9 bard. Only the barbarian I don't recall if he was diplomatic, but the other 4 would try to talk if it would be possible and solve stuff not by violence, which kinda didn't really work out often.

Combat: 1 out of 5 stars. Nothing seemed to stand out. While mildly dangerous due to stupid tactical decisions (oh lets tumble past those two strong looking fellows, so they can flank me next round so I can whack the caster), due to a cleric who had dedicated herself to healing nobody was ever in serious danger, without that cleric I would personally never have been soo reckless and used a lot more tactical combat.

Story: 2 out of 5 stars. Two stories folded in one. Too much crammed into it, resulting in something that just didn't come out as it could have. Should have gone with a more worked out version of either the first part, or the second part, with for me personally the second part being more interesting. A short period spend on the first part, say maybe 2 encounters total, and then the rest of the time in the second part would have improved this by a lot. There were a few more options available in the second part that did not involve only combat. The ending was also a bit of a letdown. It felt like you can do either this or that, but if you choose that, you also have to do a bit of this because of reasons. If you choose this you don't get that.

Social roleplay: 2 out of 5 stars. First part was almost only combat for us, with only 1 encounter we could talk with/to. The second part had a lot more potential, but it felt all a bit rushed because of cramming too many options into it but not considering that social roleplay can take a lot longer than combat, because people try to roleplay their rolls, which I have noticed takes a lot longer with social skillchecks compared to combat.

Aid token: There was 1, but I have not seen it being used, even with only having a grand total of 6 tables. Also no idea what it could have been used of this time.

Special:
The chronicle sheet is the most redeeming part of this adventure in my eyes, with a lot of interesting options.

Afterthought:
The most enjoyable bit from this special for me was simply the interaction between the partymembers, not between the party and the adventure.
Also due to me playing in a certain adventurepath, I had a lot more OC insight into the first bit, which I found quite a nice touch.

I'm not really sure what to write as a review, as this is an excellent example of an adventure that caters to all play styles.

Want to talk your way through? You can.
Want to fight your way through? You can.
Want to pick your fights and talks? You can.
Follow up on a very old scenario: awesome.

The only downside for me was the haunt, but then haunts have always been a bit of a letdown for me personally. I simply don't like how they work.

I forgot on which tier we played this, but it was a highly amusing adventure. I think it was high tier, with me playing out of tier. We are already planning when to do the followup scenario with the same wacky party.

The location is interesting, though some bits felt a bit railroaded.

The premise for this scenario was great, it sounded like a perfect adventure for pathfinders.

I played this in high tier with 4 player adjustments under Ascalaphus with my lorewarden.

I'm finding it fairly difficult to rate this adventure.
The location, and encounters were really interesting, yet it didn't really stand out. Maybe it is because it was the 4th and final table of a weekend long PFS sessions.

I played this in low tier without the 4-player adjustments with a party of 4, two level 3s and two level 2s.

All in all though it felt like a proper adventure, catering to everyone's needs.

I wish I could give this more stars because I love the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, but I cannot.

Most posters below already pointed out the weak points of this scenario.
- Runs long because of enormous statblock combats
- Railroad decision of the big choice you're supposed to make

However the rest is quite fantastic, from the moment you arrive until you conclude the scenario, the realms are portrayed really well.
Minor nitpick here, the Mammoth Lords have followings, not tribes. Shoanti and Mwangi have tribes.

Anyway, I played this with Ascalaphus, TheDegraded and a few others under GM Quentin Coldwater and I personally had a blast.
I timed this scenario to be my Hunter/Mammoth Rider's last scenario before becoming a Seeker and it was awesome to just go home for a mission for the last time. The Zoo (as after the first combat everyone had a pet of some sorts) was fairly effective and we managed to avoid most nastyness from the enemies. It also helped that we had aerial surveillance and thus could choose our battlegrounds.

All in all a very solid scenario, but it requires co-operation from the party and the GM needs to be well prepared.

Played this on low tier, in a group of 4.

Fights were mostly onesided thanks to a negative energy channeling cleric, but that's to be expected on lower tiers.

The chase mechanic made up for it, though it needs some GM creativity and prep to make it fun. Ours did a great job with sound effects and scene descriptions, and everyone had relevant abilities/checks to contribute.

Great second installment of a three parter.

I played this last evening in party of 4, on low tier with 4 player adjustment.

The GM warned us in advanced that it would be a very tough scenario and that we were to bring our best gameplay. So we did and we were successful.

We played this in low tier with a party of 6 this evening.
While the combats were relative easy, our dice made the final fight last fairly long.

Overall feel 4/5: A nice introduction to the quest of Sharrowsmith. Now to find out what he is actually after.

I've played this scenario twice now. Once under normal PFS rules and last night under Core PFS. Both were on low tier, with the normal group having 6 players of various levels, and the core group consisted of 4 brand new pcs.

Overall feel 4/5: A very nicely told story, which rewards players who think creatively.

We played this on high tier with a party of 5

As others have mentioned a really straight forward dungeon crawl, hindered by the fact that it's an older scenario.

I would have given it three stars if it weren't for the redeeming end fight. Our GM actually asked us if he could put in the lower tier mobs as well because we were tearing through stuff like a hot knife through butter (1 round combats), and with the additional mobs the action economy got a lot better for the GM and we had more fun.

Played this scenario yesterday with a group of 4

There is something for everyone to do:

Without the happystick of the oracle this scenario would have been a lot more threatening, as several of us got hit quite a few times.

All in all a very good scenario to start a new character's career with if you haven't played it yet.

I played this with 4 others during a gameday on saturday, which meant we had 7 hours to play it, which we almost needed.

Otherwise we managed with some trickery (sleight of hand) and lots of talking/diplomacy to avoid all the fighting. Because we aren't the group to just simply roll for it, but also try to play it out the diplomacy takes easily as much time as the combats.

So for parties who don't roleplay as much as we do, the talking route will definately shorten this scenario.

At a certain point during the adventure the GM got confused about the location of a certain item and after a few minutes of searching the pdf he decided that we had it in order to progress. Besides that minor point we had a very good time.

Players who are willing to negotiate and have some idea of the morals of their character will definately like the dilemma(s) this scenario will present.

We had an 8 table special, which has been the biggest turnup for the Netherlands thus far, last sunday, in a 7 hour slot.

I was in a group of 5 who played it on the 7-8 tier.

We played with this group a couple of times before and knew our weaknesses and strengths, and it was the second time we had that specific GM running for us (the first time was Technic Siege, but we were a bit lower level back then), and we had a load of fun surprising him with our new abilities while going through it.

His portrayel of the NPCs was quite awesome (especially the first combat, where his deep gravelly voice from suffering a bit from a cold was really appropriate).

Combatwise we shined, everyone from the group was prepared for his/her role and the look on the GM's face when he found out that both the Bloodrager and the Living Monolith could grow to large size really quicky was priceless ("Wait, what? There's two of you?").
The Eldritch Knights distracting musket was another source of great joy for us players ("Wait, so I have to make a concentration check when I want to cast at a -5 penalty, okay there goes that spell")

While the scenario is fairly heavy on combat, there are enough oppertunities for other skills to shine, especially knowledges, perception and disable device and even a puzzle for the players themselves.

The aid tokens for interaction between the tables were also quite clever, but I never found out how they came into play in the first place except when another table gave one to ours in order to help out the poor cursed Eldritch Knight.

We played it today with a party of 6, most of whom already walked through 6-01, 6-02, and 6-03 together so this was a nice way of getting the group back together.

It was almost as if the adventure was written with this kind of group in mind.

We spend about 5 hours on it, as we roleplayed our way through a lot of encounters but kept the combats fairly short, I can see parties with less damage output take a bit longer on combats.

We just ran this with 3 players and a pregen last evening

We finished in just under 4 hours, and there were quite a few wtf moments which contributed to it being an awesome adventure.

Story and flavor fit immensely.

A tiny nitpick though in spoiler below

And finally recommendation for hier tier being run

I am torn between 3 and 4 stars for this scenario.

We played it this afternoon with 5 players in low tier, one person at the table completely new to pathfinder, two others played 1 or 2 scenarios, and I was there to support the GM in helping to promote Society play.

The introduction and reason for going to the Operahouse were done efficiently, introducing the newer players to how most scenarios start.

Then came the first roleplay wave, finding a way to get into the opera with as much of our gear as possible. We managed to get the weapons from the fighter and the barbarian in, by having the fighter pose as a noble who wouldn't go anywhere without her family weapon (heirloom trait, coupled with dressing up as a member of minor noble house from Absalom) and the barbarian as her bodyguard. For the others we simply procured weapons after the zombies started coming in.

Even though it's really easy to simply walk straight to the BBEG here, that kinda means you're ignore the explore part of the Society credo. Normally you don't get to visit the Operahouse, so why not take the time to explore it.

The story itself is rather short, but the location makes up a lot for it in my opinion.

The reason I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars is that while it's a great scenario for introducing pathfinder society play to new people, the x4 crit weapons have a (tiny) chance of simply killing one of said new players. Killing new players is a bad thing, as it may result in them not coming back.

Overall though as long as you have players who aren't going in as murderhobos intent on killing everything as fast as possible, but are willing to roleplay, this makes an awesome scene.