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Thanks for starting the thread!
re: Drinking from the Chalice:
I'm not sure that there's a "good" way for DMs to deal with this one. From a player's perspective, drinking gives a one-scenario-long penalty but rewards them with a single-use, possibly life-saving boon; not drinking keeps them from feeling gimped during the scenario, but they may get upset at missing out on the boon once the game's over.
From a GM-ethics perspective, my perspective is that giving out meta-knowledge about boons is something you should avoid if at all possible, at least when it impacts characters' decisions during play. I've done it when it affects which character a player brings to the game, but I'm hesitant to do it in a way that changes how they play their character. *shrug* Still, unless there're specific rules in organized play as to what you absolutely can and can't disclose, I'd say that this one's up to the individual DM and how well they know their players.
I like your idea of letting them Detect Magic/Spellcraft/K(Arcana) the water to get a hint:
"Strong divination magic, with just a hint of transmutation running through it."
"The divination is a combination of communication and vision spells, all of which seem to have a distinct aspect of temporal distortion to them. It seems similar to the descriptions you've heard of other examples of cyclopean oracular magic."
"The transmutation is somewhat reminiscent of low-level transmutation curses, but it's too weak to tell exactly what kind of effect it has." (or, alternately, be a bit more specific and say that it seems like it would mess with the drinker's vision)
That should be enough to confirm that 1) this is in fact the magic water they've been sent to take a drink of, and 2) they might not want to all drink at once.
Which brings up another point - you can always suggest that one person drink first, just to see what happens, then nudge a melee or caster to take the first drink and let the ranged characters make their own decision once the first volunteer's eyes go wonky.
TLDR: *shrug* I see a lot of possibility for individual table variation here, not sure that there's a "right" answer.
Things I noted while going through and prepping:
The Headhunters have Favored Enemy: Human. Don't forget to add the +2 to hit and damage where applicable!
There's potentially a buttload of cure light/moderate potions dropping in this scenario, especially in tier 4-5; every headhunter has some, and the battlefield where they meet the grippli has a handful as well. Grabbing some physical tokens (i.e. poker chips or similar) to represent them might be handy for the players to keep track of them all.
Because I always have trouble remembering Fast Healing, make a reminder for yourself on the Ngoga to keep healing them on their turn.
If you have a rogue in your party, don't forget the all-around vision that Karan gets blessed with if the PCs take the time to clean up area B3, it makes him impossible to flank.
Overall, I'm looking forward to this, the combats should be relatively straightforward but the setting and RP possibilities are really cool.