This adventure provides a lot of fun, an opportunity for the players to engage in a diplomatic mission, and an interesting setting with an environmental message for us all to consider.

PREPARATION I chose this module as I had wanted to run some recent Kumori adventures, without taking a look at what was involved in the adventure. Then in preparation I realised that there was a fundamental diplomatic mission to this adventure, within a setting where there is political conflict between groups of the Fey Council. Into this is thrust the mechanical steam punk world of the millwrights, an inventive group threatening to upset the balance of power in the forest. Initially, I felt it looked a little light, but as I got into the preparation, and understanding the role of the NPCs and the bonus objectives, this came alive for me as I built the scene in my imagination. In other words I fell in love with this story and all the goings on in the Quivering Forest, a place associated with many fun memories for me and many AL players. The content itself wasn't going to fill the whole four hours, as I believe you would need to indulge in a lot of negotiations and creative roleplay to fill the fourth hour.

GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE I ran this adventure on Roll20 with seven players over three hours including the two bonus objectives. For my players, they enjoyed focussing on the challenges and objectives, and didn't want to engage in protracted discussions. In fact, they were determined to cut short discussions, so they strove to get to the point, and raised the stakes whenever the NPCs wanted to prolong the negotiations. In saying that, I felt that I still got the chance to deliver the dialogue from the NPCs that I was aiming for. It was a very strong party, and I used the higher settings for the two encounters in the bonus objectives. In the first combat, the party were of mixed view with regards to either hacking their way through their opponents or to establishing the motivations of their opponents. Eventually enough PCs acted diplomatically to ensure a limited amount of blood was spilled. In the second bonus objective combat, I really liked the strange context of the battle, and this perplexed the players quite a bit, leading to a very satisfactory combat, which didn't need to be resolved to the end according to the guidance in the module. Then finally, the players used their creativity to deal with the problem of the golem. I really enjoyed this aspect as a nice little detail.

OVERALL CONCLUSIONS This is a very well written and satisfying adventure to run. The players enjoyed it a lot, and each PC got a chance to get involved, even in a large party with a diplomatic challenge. Even if only one or two PCs are doing the talking, each player can still voice their point of view to support or dispute each argument. Finally, the environmental message is beautiful and adds significant meaning for the DM and the players. Thank you for a chance to visit to the Quivering Forest.