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I have played and run this, both times at high tier. It falls into the common structure a lot of PFS scenario's have had over the last few seasons, a substantial investigation portion followed by a combat section.

Both are well done. The investigation has lots of places to visit and people to talk to. It can feel repetitive and really does rely on the GM to inject the flavour for it and you also need to keep it moving quickly. There is a substantial amount of material in part two. I would have liked to see more imagery for the locations and NPCs and some more details to help characterisation of the NPCs.

One issue that did crop up was handling the PCs looking for specific information. The mechanics allow the PCs to seek out information at different levels of obscurity which doesn't work well when the players are looking for information on particular events.

The combat section of the adventure is suitably challenging, especially at high tier. There are a couple of issues with the stat blocks and unprepared or marginal parties are going to struggle. I recommend not playing this with one of those APL7.6 groups forced to play up, especially if you only have 5 players.

We were fortunate at the end to score a gunslinger crit when I played. When I ran the final opponent ate a spirited charge lance crit. I can see parties with less luck finding life much more difficult.

Overall a definite recommendation although once again we see another common season 9 theme, status conditions. Come prepared to deal with them.

I have played this and since prepped it to run. Having prepped it I can see that our GM got a lot of things wrong. Having read the module I am not surprised.

This has some of the worst editing I have seen in a very long time from a Paizo product. Sections of the adventure are literally impossible to run because key information is missing from the text. The map also looks like it was drawn by a four year old and is almost unusable as is. Expect to draw this out yourself (it is pretty big) or better yet go to the pfsprep site and use the version there.

Having said that the adventure itself does do what it says on the tin. I don't think it reaches Bonekeep levels of lethality by any means but it is an entertaining and challenging dungeon romp. Make sure to come prepared for a whole range of different challenges.

I played this today and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has a nice mix of social, intrigue, combat and exploration elements as well as having a great call back to a season 6 scenario.

I would recommend playing it.

I have now also run this. If I could I would knock off half a star due to issues with editing. I would not run this cold, make sure to read, reread and then go back over it again. Once you are done scratching your head go over to the GM thread and decide from the various options there how it is supposed to run.

Overall though still a very enjoyable scenario. Please however use a more readable font for your handouts, the Exchange letter is rubbish.

I was the GM for Paul. I have also played this scenario.

Overall this is an excellent scenario, complex, challenging and detailed. It offers an excellent capstone to the Scarab Sage faction storyline however there are some issues which prevent it being a 5* review:

1. It will run long. There is a lot to do and a lot of information to absorb for the players and the GM. Don't run this in a 4 hour convention slot, you will be disappointed.

2. There is a lot happening here on both sides of the table. Do not run this cold. Prep it, then prep it some more. Once you think you have it prepped go back and read it again to prep some more, you will have missed something.

3. I am not a fan of how the Sages are used in the scenario. Asking players to absorb stat blocks of multiple NPC's in a very short period of time is probably too much. Also, none of them come across as really competent as they should be. I appreciate their stat blocks and effects had to be shorted to make it achievable at all but I think they could have been implemented differently. I did like how they were used to tell more of the background story.

4. My biggest issue here though is the risk of permanent character death. I survived when we played despite my GM's repeated attempts to snag me with the permadeath effect. When I ran it one of my players was not so lucky. I enjoy scenario's which offer significant challenge but death with literally no way of returning is a bit much, even in tier 10-11.

I have both run and played this and have enjoyed it very much. It has a nice mix of skill, investigation and combat with interesting, varied and thematic encounters. It does look like it could run long, especially if you play the optional.

I definitely second the suggestion to bring your Dark Archive characters. It has excellent flavour for them.

So far I have run this at low tier and played it at high. I am due to run it at least twice more and high and low tier.

This is absolutely the sort of adventure I hope to see at seeker tier. Characters taking on tasks which have potentially major ramifications in epic settings against very dangerous enemies.

More like this for seeker tier play please. Highly recommended.

I played this today and thoroughly enjoyed this scenario, until the end. It clearly draws a lot of inspiration from things like Firefly which I felt could have been built on more. We ran quite short, maybe 3 hours in total although we negotiated our way through one encounter.

Everything would have been fine and this would have been a 4* review if not for the last encounter. It is ridiculously overtuned, especially for new characters which will be the vast majority of players at this point in time. We had six and for four of us this was our first adventure.

Fighting an enemy which largely invalidates any investment in defence, who is hitting for enough damage to drop full health level 1 characters in two hits, who is difficult to reach and who also comes with minions was extremely frustrating.

I enjoy a challenge but this felt really excessive for brand new characters. Chatting with the GM afterwards it also seemed that his stats were rather arbitrary and that, as a class level based opponent, he wasn't actually built using the class level rules.

I could not recommend this for a group of new characters.

This was a perfectly enjoyable scenario until near the end when it decided to insert a school philosophy class into the game, a rather clumsy and difficult to implement element in any sort of roleplaying game.

Seriously, this sort of thing really isn't needed or helpful. So far I have only played this but it put me off running it completely. Expect annoyance and frustration at many tables.

I played this recently and will be running it in a couple of weeks. This felt far more like a 7-11 from the adventure location to the nature of the task (and it doesn't hand hold you through it) to the opposition you face.

Thoroughly enjoyed playing it at high tier, looks like I will be running it low tier. I think I will be rougher at low tier given the more limited resources for acquiring a long duration swim speed.

The module also had stuff for multiple different player types, there was planning, uncovering old knowledge, a bit of diplomacy and some potentially quite tough combat encounters.

Overall would definitely recommend checking it out.

I played this one and have prepped it to run it next week. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. It was challenging for our group although you should expect adventures at 10-11 to be difficult. It is very much doable if you come prepared.

My one annoyance was the puzzle, mostly because I despise puzzles in adventures. Soaking up time making people figure out random stuff rather than actually getting on with things annoys me.

I have now played and run this and enjoyed both. It is very atmospheric, spooky and lives up to the previous too parts. Hrenthar's story is interesting and you do actually get to learn a bit about it.

I do have two issues with the scenario. Including a disintegrate effect in a 5-9, even if it is only at the high end, feels very unfair. I did actually disintegrate a PC when I ran it although in my defence he did have a con of 8 and 47hp at level 9. He could just afford a resurrection due to the silver crusade boon but it cost basically all of his prestige.

Secondly some of the tactics simply don't work at all. The thing in the hold is expected to spend 3 rounds casting 1 round cast time spells in a tiny space where people will be in melee with it while the end opponent simply cannot survive anything even vaguely threatening. The optional encounter is interesting but really needed a bigger room to work. Sadly we skipped it when I ran it as the first encounter took quite a while.

I played this recently and have since picked it up and have skimmed it. I haven't run it yet. I thoroughly enjoyed it as a player but I can see how it might be challenging for some groups, especially those with hyper specialised characters whose specialism might not apply.

The answer to that would seem to be, don't be hyper specialised or if you are make sure you have at least some other things you can do. Having played it and enjoyed it I am looking forward to running it.

My one issue would be the complexity of the advantage system which seems a bit involved for a 1-5.

So far I have only played this, I have yet to prep it to run it.

I found it a rather enjoyable romp of a scenario. It felt a bit small and I could see it running rather short. The location was interesting and I would like to know more about it. I think the previous review of this was meant to be for part 1 as I didn't encounter anything which required a craft check.

Overall it was an enjoyable experience particularly helped by the fact that I was playing my grippli druid who finally got to use his feather domain spells.

Started off OK and then dropped off a cliff. Adding a complex subsystem in the middle of time limited sessions is just an awful idea. The fact that the debate rules are terrible also doesn't help.

So far I have only played this and skim read it afterwards. Deeply unimpressed with it, especially as I was playing as a sorcerer and was essentially told you cannot use any of your class abilities or you just fail automatically. Being unable to use any magic for the "arena" fight was immensely dull and the other actual encounter was trivially simplistic.

The forced way in which one NPC gets to sneak attack people also screams how much Paizo hates its own rules at times.

The over reliance on obscure skills is just liable to annoy people and most of the evidence being somewhere you have no real basis for going to look is likely to lead to a lot of frustration unless people go and read spoilers in the GM thread.

Nothing about this really said "you are on the elemental plane of earth" and even a strong GM couldn't compensate for the poor material he had to work with.

Overall a complete dud, would not run or recommend anyone play.

I played this at the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has lots of different things in it for many different character types set in a great location with some excellent GM opportunities.

It would have been 5 star but for the slight bait and switch element too it. Overall I highly recommend this one and am looking forward to running it.

So far I have only run this at high tier. I will be running it again at low tier in the next few weeks and hope to play it at some point too.

Overall I was very happy with this scenario. It has a good mix of roleplay opportunities and some challenging combats. I would be extremely cautious about playing this in hard mode, played to the utmost of its options that is highly likely to lead to a lot of PC deaths.

I found Mr Khayn fairly underwhelming, he lacks the defences to be much of a threat but his partner is quite terrifying for many parties. Alexayn presents a credible challenge and both Sulijji and the alternate ending are both suitably challenging.

One warning, this can easily run very long. My game took about 6.5 hours to complete and they didn't fight Alexayn. I did run the optional although it didn't take very long. My group only faced 1 obstacle but decided to root around HQ for more loot.

If I have a complaint it is that Aspis HQ isn't really well described. I would have liked to see quite a bit more about the place given it is effectively their version of Skyreach. I also expected t to be a bit more "epic" inside.

Finally this is not one to run cold. Much of the opposition is class levelled NPC's who are fairly complex to run. You will need notes, lots of notes. Also, pay really careful attention to their gear, especially Suliji's.

I have run this at low tier and played it at high tier. It is wrong to say that this module is unplayable, but it does require either some expensive preparations or for you to hit a particular buff.

Overall I like the set up, it's an interesting location although it has some odd plot holes. Just what are the critters in the ruin actually doing other than hanging out in a room waiting for someone to arrive and kill them for.

This module does have two glaring issues. The end encounter can be utterly, stupidly brutal and unbeatable. It is potentially extremely unfair and can leave people sitting around twiddling their thumbs for the entire fight.

The four player adjustment for that encounter and the second one are also very poor and may end up having little to no effect. This is in stark contrast to the first encounter which is so weak as to be almost irrelevant.

I strongly recommend not playing this with a marginal group and certainly not if you are mid APL being forced into high tier.

So far I have only run this at high tier. I am due to run at low tier at some point shortly and hope to play at some point.

Overall I was pleased with this instalment. It is an interesting location, has a fair bit of flavour to it, some challenging encounters and nicely pushes forward the whole Korholm Agenda storyline.

I did find the encounter area for the first part much too small for what was involved and the end opponent is more a puzzle creature than an actual real threat. High level encounters also need to stop assuming people wont have common buffs. For part 1 it was freedom of movement, for part 2 it is flight.

I have played this at high tier and run it at low tier. Overall I recommend it and it definitely goes into my "Would run multiple times" pile.

It comes with an interesting mix of social and combat encounters. The locale is unusual, filled with interesting characters and gives plenty of chances to weird out the PC's. It could have done with some art for the venue and/or some of the NPC's you meet.

The combat encounters are potentially challenging and the first encounter will present obstacles unless you come well prepared. It also has a nice twist where you are not just looking to murder things.

The boss encounter is an interesting one but has the real potential to become a bit of a cluster****. She is also pretty complicated to run, even at the low tier, at the high tier she is excessively complex. Even running on low tier PC's moving to engage her were making three or four different saves before they got to do anything.

That level of complexity would make this a 4.5 star review if I could. I am also now entirely done with running Psychic classes, could we have something different please.

I have run this once in core mode and played it. Overall it left little impression on me which was disappointing as I wanted to like it.

The story has a lot of potential and you visit some interesting places but the mechanics really let this one down. They range from rather fiddly tracking mechanics for disease (once again Paizo demonstrates that they don't really like their own rules) to opposition which presents little threat while simultaneously being annoying to fight.

I don't think I have ever seen so many flying opponents in a 1-5 which clearly frustrated some people both when I ran and played it.

Overall I would have given this 2.5 if the system allowed it. Still, it was nice to learn some more about the Ekujae.

Having run a second time now in regular my opinion has not changed and has probably worsened. The end encounters in particular are pretty much terrible and present little to no risk. I ran at high tier both times and even the level 1 character in the core game was rarely challenged.

I have run this twice now, once in normal, once in core. Both runs were high tier with the core game having the four player adjustment. Both games went well with groups managing to complete the adventure although not without difficulty.

Overall it is an interesting and enjoyable game in an unusual location with a nice call back to The Emerald Spire. It includes a good mix of fighting and roleplay which isn't immediately evident from the start.

It does have a few issues which prevent it getting a 5 start review.

1. The stat blocks have a number of editing errors, especially for the 1st encounter. The variant critters are missing key information such as their reach and their ranged attack stats are inconsistent. The end critter is missing the impact of one of its feats in high tier and the effect of one of its abilities on a key part of the encounter isn't addressed.

2. Season 7 has been the season of the Occult classes and this is no different. I would have liked to see a bit more explanation of how that particular characters abilities worked. I shouldn't have to be dependant on Iammars producing a cheat sheet on pfsprep to run this (thanks Iammars!).

3. It feels like there should be a way to talk your way past the second to last encounter but you cannot. That felt quite off.

4. Again, as had happened in several big Season 7 scenarios, there are no reporting conditions. Given this scenario relates to finding a new Master of Spells you might think that player success should factor fairly heavily into the actual outcome but there are none provided.

Having said that I would recommend playing this, it is a lot of fun and has some very interesting boons. I am quite keen to see what scenario's might follow on from this. I would strongly recommend not running this cold, there are a lot of little details which have potentially significant impact on the events.

I have run this three times now and highly recommend it for anyone, but especially Scarab Sage members.

It has a bit of everything in it. There are social challenges for face characters, exploration stuff hitting a range of different skills and a good mix of potentially challenging combat.

Each run has been high tier with 5 PC's. So far 1 actual death and numerous close calls.

Also comes with an interesting moral choice at the end which has a real and substantial impact on how the final part of the module plays out.

I have given this 5 stars but would have given it 4.5 due to one issue.

I played this last night at Aethercon and thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a group of six with five casters in 10-11 so largely stomped the fighting bits but even so it was highly enjoyable and had some excellent twists and turns. I can see how a different group might have been very challenged.

I also really like the chronicle boon. They represent a small but highly useful benefit, heartily approve and would love to see more like this.

I ran this today at high tier with a party of 6. We had:

Wizard 3
Swashbuckler 4
Alchemist 4
Skald 3/Gunslinger 1
Sorcerer 5
Investigator 5

Overall I was impressed and thoroughly enjoyed running the game. The players seemed to as well.

On the plus side:

There are lots of things to do which will appeal to social characters, knowledge monkeys and murder hobos.

The mechanics are simply, easy to follow and make use of. It feels rather like Out of Anarchy but done right.

The combats look like they can provide a decent level of challenge. The set up nearly claimed one unlucky PC's life while the ambush and ruins encounters were largely turned around on the enemy through clever use of diplomacy and invisibility.

The final combat looks like a potential to be a bit of a beast. It nearly resulted in a TPK, largely because the groups primary two handed damage dealer was nearly taken out early on. It did see the PC sorcerer choosing to fail the save when prone next to his own pit rather than stay where he was surrounded b enemies.

On the negative side:

I would have liked to see a map of Tamran so I could relate where the different areas were in the City and give the PC's something to look at.

The ruins encounter is really unlikely to go off as suggested. A lot of time is spent setting it up in the text but given the enemy perception skills it feels like a lot of wasted space.

I would have liked to see a bit more solid information provided at each location. I got the sense my players were floundering a little with the rather limited info you get. Something which gave them a stronger sense of progress would have helped.

The length of the investigation seemed way longer than necessary. Three days to investigate four locations isn't needed. My group finished in one and I short circuited the return of Guaril.

They are all relatively minor complaints. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this one and hope my players did to. They survived, completed all of their missions and no-one died. We did run way over at 6 hours but partly that was a run of bad luck in the final fight which took much longer than expected. Even so you need to keep your players on track to complete in 4.