I just finished running it. It is sublime. Thank you so much MT Black for such amazing module. I used it as a side quest in the Spelljammer 5E adventure: The Light of Xaryxis. I started the sidequest when the players enter for the first time the Astral Sea. We had an absolute blast. I was particularly impressed with how fun the mechanics for the Dream challenge were for the players. Also the mechanics for outpacing the astral dreadnought at the end were super fun.

Fully recommend!!

Very amazing adventure. I skipped some parts because I was on a time crunch of 5 hours and barely finished. I received a couple texts after running it thanking me for putting it together. So I'd like to extend those thanks to you for writing it. Great work! I'd definitely like to run it again when time is a non issue. Definitely going to be looking into your other works!

This is a cool one-shot for high-level characters, which is something we don't get enough of and could definitely use more of. It's DDAL legal and written in that style, and one part of that is that it's a little light on details. 19 pages is a little slim for what this adventure is doing, and I think to get the most out of it I would certainly recommend having a copy of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes to really have the background to flesh it out. That said, it's an M.T. Black adventure, so the quality level is high. One thing you won't find here is a stat-block for Vlaakith, the lich-queen. She wasn't in MTF either, but you can find her 5e statblock in issue 19 of Dragon+! Just a helpful tip. Meanwhile, this adventure is worth checking out!

This was a super fun, high level one shot! It was challenging and interesting without being overly complicated. Definitely could easily be incorporated into a longer campaign if you chose to. Thanks for making this!

Any enjoyable astral sea romp. I took some images from Thor Ragnarok's junkyard and made that the part of the Githyanki City after I turned it into comic form using Paint.Net. The adventure works best if you pad it out for your party in the style that they like. This is a very good template for a jaunt.

Probably the coolest adventure I've run yet. There's swashbuckling and interdimensional travel and a bit of a look at the Githyanki/Githzerai conflict that I don't think many players get to see. 10/10 a perfect one shot to play around with higher level characters.

Loved this adventure. Great combet but has the depth needed to adjust for more exploration and combat if desried. Could be run in four hours or tweleve depending on how much the party and the DM want to explore and create.

Great adventure! I'd love running it over and over again. I have no other words to say. Run it as many times as possible!

It's MT Black, a heavy tie in to the Tome of Foes, and it's AL legal AND Tier 3 (which seems like an under-represented level range). It's a great adventure and a whole lot of "three pillars" going on. Plenty of roleplay, exploration and combat sequences spread throughout the adventure. Highly recommend.

We finished this yesterday, having split it into two sessions. My group typically runs twice as long as "recommended" times (very heavy RP and tactical planning) so it should be a decent length for most.

I enjoyed running it, and I think it might have been my group's favorite one-shot ever. (Said one player after the climactic conclusion, "I feel like I need a cigarette after that..." She's not a smoker.)

The pacing is great: opening with a bang-up narrative hook, taking you through some oppressive low-profile scenes, offering an optional tension-breaking dream sequence (push your group towards this), climaxing in a difficult moral dilemna (some of us might have gotten a little moist-eyed), and concluding with a high-octane chase that encourages collaborative storytelling. There are many combats, but clever players (and flexible DM) will find ways that characters can avoid many. (It's also easy to cut some for time.) There is a lot of roleplay potential for tables that enjoy that. Overall, it's a great balance of the "three pillars," with parts that appeal to all styles of play, and flexibility to emphasize what you enjoy best.

Of course, an opportunity to visit the Astral Plane and take part in the great Gith conflict is great, and it's hard to believe it can be effectively streamlined into a simple-to-run one-shot that can be dropped into any campaign. (All you need is characters of reknown walking through any city alone.) That does lead into one of my few quibbles, though: if the players aren't familiar with the material about gith in Mordenkainen's Tome Of Foes, you either need a hefty lore dump early on, or they'll need to accept a bit of a whirlwind ride. (I prepared a "handout" for my group and gave it to them the week before.) And if you the DM are't familiar with it, a lot of this might feel arbitrary, with details tougher to fill in or improvise. Not having access to Mordenkainen's Tome Of Foes is one of the only reasons I would not recommend this adventure to you.

A couple other notes: balance gets tough at tier 3, and it's possible that the opening battle can be tougher than it ought to be, while others might be a little easy; although the balance is overall very good (and I appreciate the Adventurer's League-style suggestions on adjusting encounters), the ideal DM will be ready to tweak difficulty slightly. Also, there are no tactical maps; if your group prefers combat on a grid to theater of the mind, you'll have to prepare a few simple maps yourself. (Although the 3D nature of combat in the astral plane means you might still have trouble if you aren't ready to abstract some things.) Finally, there can be a twinge of sci-fi tone, which is a fun change of pace for some but might not work if you are running a gritty low fantasy campaign. I don't think any of these are actual "problems," but they are worth knowing when deciding if this adventure is for you. If you are not put off by any of these, then I can't recommend The Lich-Queen's Begotten more highly.

Excellent game. I had fun running it, and I had a blast with the Astral Dreadnought!

Ran this last night as a one-shot, for a group that hardly ever has time to play, plus 2 new players. My first time running anything for characters higher than level 10. We enjoyed it very much. Good variety of encounters, just enough RP opportunity to keep things balanced for a fairly combat-focused group of players and DM, very interesting story, a nice moral dilemma near the end.

I'll report on some specifics (with spoilers) of how our session went.

First of all, I completly disrupted the difficulty and balance - this is my fault but it worked out OK. I thought we would only have 3 players. So I told them to make L17 characters, because kobold fight club math said that was about the same balance (as 5x L13). Then I ended up with 5 players, all level 17. Yes, I realize having new players run L17s is insane. I helped them make the simplest (champion fighter with a big sword) characters possible.

I cranked the difficulty of all the encounters, using the suggestions in the text as well as KFC math, and the encounters still ended up on the easy side but the players had fun.

The entire adventure took about 5 hours. I was concerned about time near the beginning, and I completely skipped the 'Break Yingyong Out of Jail' encounter, and just had them find him in town and go to the docks.

I made one of the 3 mind flayers an alhoon (CR 10); that fight was still pretty easy for the players, even though some of them were mind blast stunned for most of it.

For the dragon encounter on the skiff, I made it an adult red dragon. They banished it and took zero damage that fight. My bad, I forgot to use legendary resistance.

They used tactics and a stealthy approach to avoid having to fight the bolter guns. I was glad because I thought it would have been tedious rolling 2 attacks x 8 guns every round, at disadvantage for long range, if they just charged straight in on the skiff.

I upped the HP on the steel predator considerably, but it was still pretty easy for them. Again, this is my responsibility, certainly not the writer's.

For the fight with the Begotten's guards, I made the kith'rak into a supreme commander, added 2 more warriors and 2 knights, and added a green abishai (CR 15) in addition to the black. This was way beyond deadly by KFC math - it was chaotic and fun, but the players still got through it pretty easily.

Everyone enjoyed the skill challenge to escape the dreadnought. I had never done that before. The players got away, and then wished they had fought it. So we retconned them back to fight it just for funsies, and it went down in 3 rounds. Level 17 characters are insane.

A great time was had by all. Thanks MT for another good one. I just kind of wish I had used the recommended player level.

This is an excellent adventure.

It hits all the right notes of combat, social interaction, and exploration. The story is believable and solid, while the setting is underused in current AL-legal material resulting in a unique play experience.

Some of the combat is too easy, Gith warriors aren't close to being a challenge for most tier 3 parties, at least not at the numbers involved. Other combat offer a good amount of challenge though, the inclusion of creatures showcased in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is welcome. It should be noted that those creature in particular are included in the module, meanwhile ones found in the Monster Manual are not so don't forget your books!

The only other criticism I can offer is that it isn't clear how the characters are transported to the Astral plane, it would be helpful to know if they are plane-shifted or astrally projected there.

Nice work!

Very good and fantastical adventure! It was the party's first extended jaunt into the Astral Plane so it was quite eye opening. The combat / puzzles provided enough room for creativity (that plus the now-ubiquitous Staff of the Magi gave the party creative opportunities for solving many problems with no or minimal combat). And oh man the last - shall we say - moral dilemma. Very compelling. Party was arguing over what to do for many minutes.

Good fantastical fights, good personality-driven stories, high drama in the Outer Planes. Classic D&D!

This adventure tells a cool story and is relatively well balanced, along with interesting encounters for a good variety of planar stuff and fun settings that make you definitely feel like you're not on the prime anymore.

I strongly suggest reading about the conflicts between the Gith in Mordy's before running it since the climax has pretty serious ideology challenges that can make for meaty RP.