A quick note before the review- this is the final module in Season 4 and is very much a capstone adventure to it. It will be very difficult to get players engaged in the antagonist and their plot if they haven't played the preceeding adventures, particularly the tier two ones where the scope of the plan is investigated and learned. Also the final confrontation is difficult even for a team of level 10 characters and I can easily imagine a scenario where they flee the final battle early rather than stay and fight if they haven't had a chance to meet and interact with everyone who will be impacted by the antagonist's success.

The review- The party has hunted monsters, gathered clues, and now knows the identity of the force responsible for drawing their portion of Faerun into the Mists of Barovia. All that remains is to stop them, but at what cost? Make sure you double check your adventure logs as choices made in previous season 4 adventures will impact how this one plays out. And be prepared for your party to be seriously challenged. I would set aside 6 hours for this adventure as there are multiple choices to be made, each of which will affect the final battle. Keep the players moving forward and stress the imminate need to stop the antagonist's plan before they are successful and they are trapped in the Mists forever.

Fair warning, this module is a tough one, and is probably much lengthier than the advertise 4hr run time.

But its thematics are great and gloomy, it is a genuinely terrifyingly challenging module, my one suggestion would instead of the throwaway chaff NPCs accompanying you-know-who in the end, you move one of the heavy hitters (like the fire elemental) to be her support instead so that she has more time to ply her craft, instead of being bursted down almost immediately by a prepared party.

Surprisingly fun module. Makes players think and action at the same time. but I think it's best not to do this stand alone and don't do this with a low level party.

This adventure runs long. The first part is role playing and exposition but it is always fun to have Jeny Greenteeth show up. My group decided to have the ghost Instructor Rabenovich be the third in the Hag coven so we skipped part 2 (I hadn't realized that part 2 is supposed to happen on the way to the ritual if you don't go to find Aya Glenmiir. But I don't feel that it's a necessary encounter, especially with the time constraints). Part 3 was really memorable with Sybil ageing away before the characters eyes as the ritual took place. The Goblyns aren't a particularly interesting monster and mostly serve to chew up the characters spell slots so it's probably best to keep them bunched up so the encounter will go quickly. The ruins of Boszorkan Keep were cool. At the gatehouse you should emphasize that the gate seems hung up on something (to subtly warn them that it might come down) and you should mention the tracks across the court yard (and the terrorvine shouldn't effect them if they stay in the tracks). The Map is labeled wrong and North shoud be on the side where it's labeled Boszorkan Keep. The assassin was a really tough opponent (especially since he got a very high initiative in my game). The controls for both the gate and the portcullis should be in the guardroom with the assassin. The secret door traps to room 8 are only disarmed and unlocked if keys have been put in on both the room 4 and 7 sides. The final boss fight was especially tough. My group had to fight the Strahd Armor in room 9 at the same time as they fought Esmae in room 10 because the witch ran to warn Esmae and the characters chased her. The witches are much more effective casting Tasha's laughter rather than trying to melee. The charm part of Esmae's kiss attack is especially effective. I decided that the charm effect went away when the Evening Glory vestige was taken. My characters pushed Esmae out the window twice but I ruled that she just misty stepped back in and I think that was reasonable but the open window will definitely lead your players to want to do the same thing. It was a very hard fought battle.

This module is a great capstone to the AL mods for season 4. The final boss far better written compared to her HC equivi.

For DMs, this is a great module to get a feel of spell casting bosses and encounter running skills. For players, death is always an option.

This mod is a challenge. The final boss is honestly more powerful than some of the hardcover bosses. It is a great module to flex the DM's spellcasting abilities and encounter running skills as well. The Barovia locking is also handled considering it is the last module in the series. It is still best played as part of an overaching run of the previous S4 modules, but as a stand-alone challenging module, it does work well. Some aspects might be tweeked to get to the boss quicker to spend more time there per DM discretion.

The story has too many back references to places stories and characters that never appear in the adventure, and it says a lot that most of the text is actually trying to get DM to buy into how the villain became so powerful. In any case, players are not privy this information. For those who have not played the related stories, this is bound to get lost ; for those who have, it is still very likely to be lost. And for the item that can be used to make the final encounter easier, it is hardly mentioned, and the final area is full of distractions that have relatively little to do with the encounter and seem intended to distract also from using the item also. So we know who the villain is trying to transform into, does that have any bearing to defeating the encounter? And why is the villain so powerful, mechanically so much more powerful than even Strahd? (The CR rating is grossly inaccurate) The spells themselves are also dangerous, and combined with the special abilities (which cannot be counterspelled, cannot be dispelled) it is a very deadly showdown that manages to make little sense in context of the setting, unless you buy into all the text that only the DM can see. On the plus side, there is room for a DM to merciful and not kill people after party is unable to pull through. Play with a strong heart and with a DM you're cool with.

Jenny you complete me! Through the ups and lows you made it the finale of Misty hearts and the broken players club or whatever the story was. Joking aside this was a fun way to end it and that fluff on the magic items heart So much awesome, not a module to just drop on players and that first scene can stretch and make you go over time but is sooo worth it. I would DM this again. -DM Ace

This was my first foray into Ravenloft (see note) and I quite liked it! The NPC Jeny Greenteeth was probably my favorite part. It was fun forcing the players to work with a hag. Haha! The goblyns were also qutie fun! I enjoyed making them knaw on the players.

I had some help from one of the players (another DM) to understand how the end boss was supposed to work, then I finally understood the hype. She was hard. The group had run down their resources by the time they got to her and they had to pull out everything they had left. She was fun for me to play with but at least one of the players was getting frustrated (the sorcerror) as she was immune to his remaining attacks. In that case I reccomend having Jeny "whisper" in their head a reminder to use the special item and have it appear in that character's pocket (no matter where it was previously).

This took no where near 4 hours - it took my group about 8 hours. Granted some of that was because I ran this short-notice and I'd not run a boss fight with legendary actions before this. So I may have added an extra hour from that. My group was also role-play heavy and pretty thorough (though towards the end we tried to press a on a bit harder and skipped 1 room.)

Summary: Good mod and fights, same old editing issues and underestimating time. Reccomended.

*We wanted to play a module and one of my players had to stay in CoS season. So I obliged him.

This module was very interesting to run, particularly with the opening roleplay. It took a little DM creativity to fit it into a one-shot adventure, rather than running the CoS modules in series. The notes on adjusting the encounters were greatly appreciated, as the group I had was a couple levels low for the adventure. Overall, I really liked running the adventure, and my players enjoyed it as well.

Great opening role-play encounter that could take a few minutes or half the adventure. Veterans of CoS modules, especially characters who just finished the previous module, can start playing this module running. I have seen PCs play this module as their first CoS module and be a little lost. DMs will need to force a path for them. The first combat encounter is a great fight, but does not seem to serve any purpose. It is great to see the Goblyns back from 2e, but they come across a little broken. The encounter also does not scale, it is just a set encounter. The final dungeon of this season is pretty straightforward, but leaves a lot of choices for the party. The inhabitants of the dungeon are tough, but fighting does not have to be the only solution. The final fight is probably pretty tough for most parties, as it should be. My only complaint about the battle is that after this fight, Strahd comes across as pretty weak. Esmae outshines Strahd in almost every way. If your PCs are walking all over Strahd, pick up this module and just replace Strahd's stats with Esmae's.

The final boss for the AL CoS season, and overall a good module. This module can be very deadly if your players roll poorly, or you roll well, in a few locations. A few notes: The first fight with Vid and the giant ape for me went poorly, for one thing having a goliath carrying the still-disguised oni as combat broke out. He managed to get down, but if you have any characters that seem like they'd want to carry the child, I'd have Vid refuse, just to make the fight easier to work with. My players similarly didn't realize that, since they all still had ghosts from DDAL04-10, the ghosts would work until after they had gotten Aya. The fight with the goblyns seemed a bit underwhelming as written, I just added a bunch more (1 per party member, plus 3 for the coven), and it seemed a lot more fair. Inside the keep: That assassin is brutal. The party was under-leveled, but had a couple of pets, so I played him as written. Nearly killed three party members before they walked in the door. If they don't realize where the arrows are coming from, or if they don't have a way to get past the portcullis quickly, this could easily be a TPK because of that sweet, sweet, 12d6+3/11d6+1d8+3 a round, considering he hides as a bonus action each round before firing. The Con save for half didn't help my party. I'd warn that if the party is low on resources already, maybe half the poison damage to 3d6, or cut the assassin all together. He seems to be there to waste resources for the fight with Esmae. The secret door is very easily stone shaped away, especially if someone just disarms the magical trap. This easily bypasses half of the keep. As for the fight with Esmae itself, given the 11 PC (7+4 pets) nature of the encounter, a couple of suggestions: I didn't find the witch and the thug useful at all; Esme seemed to be the only person managing to do real damage to the group. The witch(es) and thug occupied one of the pets, balancing the fight somewhat. As for Esmae herself, I ended up giving her max HP, an additional 6th and 7th level spell slot, and an extra legendary action per round. She was still toppled in four rounds. With a smaller party, this probably would've been sufficient. Suggestions: polymorph a PC as fast as possible, the one that looks the most dangerous, transfer the concentration to a witch. Kiss often, and try to target creatures that look like they would be succeptible to the charm. She ended up getting an extra three allies due to that ability alone, and made the fight much better. I awarded inspiration liberally for good roleplaying by a drow who had to protect his Mistress.

Overall, a fun module to run, a good boss, and a nice end to the CoS season. I had the mists bring them deep into Chult for season 7 content, so if you want to modify the end for that, go for it.

This module was brutal. It was well written, and I loved the finale of the story itself, but it is brutal for the players. I enjoyed the final fight itself, I think that there are other combats/events that take away from getting there and make the module take a lot longer than it's scheduled 4 hours. But, this module was fantastic and the thrill of getting out for my poor wizard was great.

Recommend Purchase: Yes. XP Range: 4,500-6,000

The overall story woven between all fourteen modules is called 'Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts' and is relatively strong overall, but suffers for a couple reasons. The final module probably wasn't written at the time the first was released, so they couldn't or didn't want to spill some of the meta information that DMs would have LOVED to have. In the early modules things would occur 'deus ex machina' and even the DM wouldn't have a clue as to why.

If you're planning on running these, i HIGHLY recommend buying the bundle, reading the DDAL04-14 (The Dark Lord) Adventure Overview on pages 7-8 to see where everthing is heading ... and then reading each module's Overview in turn before running everything. This will help you greatly.

If you start with the first module you'll have enough XP to level up, stay within the module tiers and make it all the way to the 14th module. Afterwards you could always play a few chapters of the Curse of Strahd Harcover and then leave Barovia behind.

Before running any Season 4 module, you should download the following content:

• dndadventurersleague.org/barexit-escaping-the-mists-of-barovia/
• dndadventurersleague.org/curse-of-strahd-backgrounds/
• DMSGUILD: DDAL04 Expanded Dark Gifts Table [OPTIONAL CONTENT]

Season 4 initially couldn't leave the Demiplane of Dread until the very end, but the Admins later introduced the 'Barexit' mechanic.

This is it, the final boss, the ultimate conclusion, and it is deadly. This module tries to combine a bunch of stuff into it, but the only thing that happens is that it detracts from the time of the final boss. As a result, if it was me, I would cut out at least one of the pre-castle fights, since it seems useless. I also know that the nobody knew about the list of items until now, but I would have tried to communicate that information earlier so that way a player would know whether or not they have a certain item. Other than that, it's a great culmination of everything.