THE SECRET INGREDIENT (which of course is imagination) would be a tasty title for this finely crafted, Top shelf Adventure! This submission is rich with favor, full of back story, and brimming with graphic depictions of the flora, fauna, and villains dwelling in the murky, immense, untamed jungle beneath the Abby. The canvas the author paints gives the adventurers and GM the panorama tableau surrounding the narrow path that the party must travel to complete their mission. My imagination got a big gulp of the taste and favors of this place, and teleported my mind, with extreme gusto, into the very clever story and interesting characters (especially in such a short summary). I believe without "a lot going on" in the setting around the adventure, the place would not be a jungle. It would be closer to a petting zoo.... or nature preserve, neither of which would present a challenge to seasoned party of adventurers. I enjoy adventures were some content parallel to the mission is present, which is non mission critical, and which must be avoided by a clever party. The close proximity of these story element parallel to the core mission give a non-unified, over confident, and poorly equipped adventure group license and opportunity to stray from the core mission. Such a departure from the objective will ultimately avail the party the chance to slowly kill themselves by wasting resources/time on unnecessary tasks. Some of my favorite memories at PATHFINDER events are waiting for another PFS event group to finish an adventure, one that I had already participate in, to find out if my PATHFINDER friends strayed from the mission goals and fought a big bad monster that they could have avoided (Ghenett Manor comes painfully to mind). I agree the chapter titles need to be modified. I like the idea of incorporating a growing threat. How about.... if the monks have been bribing the Root Dragon with a barrel of ale every two weeks (You have all heard of Root Beer right?)to check the dragons aggression. If the Secret Ingredient (again a good title for this adventure) is not found, then the ale cannot be produced. Without the ale the monks will be unable to prevent the Root Dragon (that lush) from attacking the Abby! In summation, the author colors a vivid back drop of reality and overlays the mission setting atop this rich environment. The author mixes up and pours, a heady adventure "tALE" that I am certain my gaming group would thoroughly guzzle to the frothy dregs. Cheers to the winning submission!
