I am in the process of running all of DDAL09 as a campaign, so will be reviewing each adventure as I run them. For context, I have run 7 adventures in this campaign already, a homebrew one where the party needs to get out of Elturel with as many civilians as possible as the city is being sucked into hell, and then Baldur's Gate: Fall of Elturel, also on DM's Guild for a different group of adventurers, finally I have run DDAL09-01 through DDAL09-05.

What I liked: This is a solid dungeon crawl, with a layered dungeon location to explore in The Dump. There is plenty to explore, fight, and negotiate with. There are some optional objectives that the players can decide to pursue or not to pursue as well as different approaches of attacking the base and infernal or abyssal monsters to collaborate or engage in conflict with. I really liked the ability for the party to get partial maps of the dump ahead of time and the secret areas not included in those maps that could still be found. It was a really great 10 hours of adventure split amongst 3 sessions. So I would also say this adventure is over-full, plenty to do!

What I didn't like:

The initial goal is unclear. I kept the general idea (pull resources away from Plagueshield Point) but there doesn't seem to be a good mechanism for destroying the forte, the bombs you're supposed to plant aren't defined, nor is there a way to succeed or fail at placing them in a particular location. Also, there is often discussion in the module about not being seen, but I feel as though the consequences for not taking a stealthy approach are not clear (other than more combat).

But still a solid structure and with the use of an adversary roster to run the dungeon it's a lot of fun!

I am in the process of running all of DDAL09 as a campaign, so will be reviewing each adventure as I run them. For context, I ran 5 adventures in this campaign already, a homebrew one where the party needs to get out of Elturel with as many civilians as possible as the city is being sucked into hell, and then Baldur's Gate: Fall of Elturel, also on DM's Guild for a different group of adventurers, finally I have run DDAL09-01 through DDAL09-04.

What I liked: This is a fun adventure! Mahadi's Wandering Emporium is a GREAT central location to venture out from in Avernus. There are a bunch of great characters you meet and if you are a savvy DM you can look ahead and grab the NPCs from DDAL09-06 to fill it out even more. The adventure structure is a nice reason to tour through Mahadi's and the optional quests in the module add some fun combat. Overall just a solid adventure design in a memorable location that helps establish the tone of the rest of Avernus.

What I didn't like:

Starting in media res with a chase. The chase itself isn't great (infernal vehicles aren't statted, discouraging combat, but the chase mechanics aren't particularly interesting) and it takes too long. It's neat that it introduces the rust razors, but if I ran things again, I'd try and shorten it, adding more complications and not worrying about closing in for melee combat.

A great way to end the player character's time at Baldur's Gate, a very solid recommendation to anyone to run!

I've been running and remixing the DDAL04 Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts adventure series of modules as a single campaign for a group of players via play by post, so certain things don't translate fully. The big thing being I forshadow the hooks for the modules ahead of time as I built the village of Orasnou for the players and the runtimes of the modules don't matter as much in PbP.

What I liked: Overall a fun short little adventure. There's a mix of roleplay (I expanded a lot on the two Vistani families in my campaign), combat, and the twist with Lela is fun.

What I didn't like: Even though it's 2 hours focused on level 3 PCs, it feels like the combat is too easy. I added way more zombies, and a few ghouls/ghasts and that helped. I also brought Alina and the wolves back from DDAL04-02 the beast because the module references wolf tracks, and then forgets about them. This felt like a copy editing error.

Overall: Pretty fun, I like the idea, I changed things up significantly to meet my needs, but most of that was particular to my campaign and not a fault of the module itself.

I am in the process of running all of DDAL09 as a campaign, so will be reviewing each adventure as I run them. For context, I ran 4 adventures in this campaign already, a homebrew one where the party needs to get out of Elturel with as many civilians as possible as the city is being sucked into hell, and then Baldur's Gate: Fall of Elturel, also on DM's Guild for a different group of adventurers, finally I have run DDAL09-01 through DDAL09-03.

What I liked: This has been the high point of the campaign so far. Starts off with a bang, the party had spent time developing ties and relations with the Flaming Fists and refugees. I also introduced Duke Portyr earlier in the adventure to help develop a rapport with the group. I gave him sympathies to the Elturel refugees and it made his assassination very impactful, as well as the encounter with the devils in the crowd very chaotic. I also found that the chase was really fun for the players, but to incentivize them I changed two things. 1: I made it so they noticed the cultists (who were corrupt flaming fists from the previous adventure) going to the warehouse and were chasing them. 2: I had them overhear that other cultists were already at the warehouse to incentivize getting there as fast as possible and not fighting the traveling cultists, it became a race. The tracking of progress by landmarks was really really nice, I liked that bit of flavor. The defense of the warehouse was also a lot of fun, having the cultists come in both sides helped keep the party on their toes, really just fun overall. Same with the reveal about the angels and introduction of Fai Chen (although I forshadowed him to give some more impact).

What I didn't like: Small things.

1. Gharizol needed to be a chain devil and have some buddies, he got burned down way to easily by my players, even when I bumped him up to a Barbed Devil. He also needed meatier thugs instead of just cultist statblocks. They were not real threats.
2. Fai Chen needed some background info given, I did it myself, but it would have been nice in the module.

A great way to end the player character's time at Baldur's Gate, a very solid recommendation to anyone to run!

I am in the process of running all of DDAL09 as a campaign, so will be reviewing each adventure as I run them. For context, I ran two adventures in this campaign already, a homebrew one where the party needs to get out of Elturel with as many civilians as possible as the city is being sucked into hell, and then Baldur's Gate: Fall of Elturel, also on DM's Guild for a different group of adventurers, finally I have run DDAL09-01 through DDAL09-02.

What I liked: Again, the idea here is really intruiging. Learning more about Gharizol and the cult of Zariel, a mystery involving someone being killed with no visible entry or exit. A secret cult lair to explore, this is good stuff!

What I didn't like: Again it comes down to the details. I basically took the idea and the maps and redid the map keys (which are poor) and the details. I game more info on the cult to discover and motivate the players, I gave a better sign of the summoning (and the fact that something killed Sands and then broke the door down out toward the secret entrance). I also think that the first optional quest doesn't add a lot of value as is. What I did was use it along with some general details to help the party discover the murder more naturally, pointing clues at Sands' house for them to go check it out without having to be told by the Flaming Fists. But the second Optional Quest doesn't feel optional, that is the conclusion of the adventure.

Two weak mysteries in a row, the nice thing is the investigations seem over now that Gharizol has been flushed out. And I have heard good things about the next adventure in the series!

If the only thing you use from this map pack is the WONDERFULLY done Wandering Emporium, it's worth 2 bucks, even if you don't run these adventure's it's still a great map for your Descent into Avernus campaign.

But it also comes with great maps for the adventures, made running them really easy, thanks!

I am in the process of running all of DDAL09 as a campaign, so will be reviewing each adventure as I run them. For context, I ran three adventures in this campaign already, a homebrew one where the party needs to get out of Elturel with as many civilians as possible as the city is being sucked into hell, and then Baldur's Gate: Fall of Elturel, also on DM's Guild for a different group of adventurers, and DDAL09-01.

What I liked: The attempt at continuation from the previous adventure is nice. The focus on an area of Baldur's Gate other than the parts in the Descent into Avernus book is also a nice addition to flesh out the city. The overall idea of Descendants of the original Hellriders being targeted by a Serial Killer/Fiend is really nice. The immigration paperwork as the introduction to the city is also a fun bit of roleplay.

What I didn't like: As 4 hour adventure, the structure here is really weak. The goal of this adventure should have been taking the initial seed of mystery from the end of the last one (Who/What is Gharizol and what do they want) and spending 2-4 hours investigating it. But this murder is fairly weak. We are given hints at other murders to look at but no details to help coroborate a pattern, and the logic of the murder doesn't make a lot of sense either. I ended up stripping the details and building a node based investigation, different clues at several murder sites and that gave the party room to breath and put the pieces together themselves instead of just having NPCs telling them what happened. I also cleaned up the timeline of the murder to be more sensible. finally I used the first optional quest as that introduced the cult of Zariel in Baldur's Gate, but not the second one since it seemed like a pointless distraction.

Overall, it's a fun idea, but needs a lot of extra love and work to make fully functional.

Especially for the price it's an easy recommendation. If you want to spend $10-15 more bucks to expand and solidify your Avernus Adventure, pick this up.

There's a ton of resources, some guids to help walk through more confusing parts of the book, maps references.

I am in the process of running all of DDAL09 as a campaign, so will be reviewing each adventure as I run them. For context, I ran two adventures in this campaign already, a homebrew one where the party needs to get out of Elturel with as many civilians as possible as the city is being sucked into hell, and then Baldur's Gate: Fall of Elturel, also on DM's Guild for a different group of adventurers.

What I liked: This has some great flavor, and a nice structure! The set up of getting the caravan together with refugees and supplies works really nicely it. It allows time for short and long rests during travel so the level 1 party doesn't get TPK'd purely through attrition, and there are some dangerous encounters here to play out. A particular hilight is burning Inn.

I have enjoyed this conflict between the Dungeon of the Dead Three and the Cult of the Dragon, I'm looking to expand on that in my campaign. I also like the NPCs they have unique art and personalities, and have made my caravan come alive.

I also liked the murder in the caravan, definitely helped remind the party of the stakes and dangers but I talk about it more in the what I didn't like, as written it didn't make a lot of sense.

What I didn't like: I have two issues, one more minor, and one that decently bothered me.

1. The minor one, for an adventure called Escape from Elturel, it kind of brushes off the escape. I would have liked a travel and encounter table as the caravan travels across the River Chionthar to help flesh out what is happening in the Western Heartlands while Etlurel is gone, as well as more opportunity for the adventurer's to defend the caravan and RP with the NPCs more.

2. This second one is enough of an issue that I changed that part of the adventure. The whole mission to get the poet and bring him into the Caravan felt very contrived. I ended up giving him an artifact of the Hellriders, a tablet that needs translating (it's fake because of his whole thing at the end), so that Elturel citizens would be interested in what that means. His "murder" is interesting, and I kept it, I feel it makes more sense now why he would get murdered to make it seem like this was a powerful relic that needed protecting. The tone of this part of the adventure just didn't match the rest.

Overall a really nice start to the series, looking forward to running the rest!

I've been running and remixing the DDAL04 Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts adventure series of modules as a single campaign for a group of players via play by post, so certain things don't translate fully. The big thing being I forshadow the hooks for the modules ahead of time as I built the village of Orasnou for the players and the runtimes of the modules don't matter as much in PbP.

What I liked: This has been my favorite adventure of the series so far! Very thematic and evocative! Glovia is a great vilian with a tragedy surrounding her evil. Her husband as well as their daughter are great set pieces inside their haunted manor. The use of horror in the adventure is fantastic and everything is nice and creepy. The vision ahead of time is great, as is the the undead attack. This adventure isn't perfect, but it's truly excellent and the multiple paths through the manor and ability to explore it are great.

The challenge is dialed in to, I had a player die after some very poor in character choices and unlucky dice, and that helped amped the horror up to.

What I didn't like: Again this is MINOR stuff.

1. Glovia would have been nice to get fleshed out and some attachment to her earlier in the adventure, maybe if she helped go follow the wagon.
2. Some copy editing errors, the harpies have been cut but are still referenced here and there (I ended up running them).
3. Laszlo just disappears? That's it! Again overall really fun!

Some very minor alterations I recommend:

1. I introduced Glovia way earlier in the campaign, during DDAL04-03 to build a relatinoship with the party.
2. I included the harpies to drain more resources of the party and make things more challenging.
3. I added Stress from Van Richten's Guide along with the Horror elements
4. Here's the big one. Add another Ghoul/Ghast as Glovia's bodyguard, and a couple rounds in the encounter with her, have Laszlo and some Zombies/Skeletons come breaking through the lab window. Make it a 3 way fight for more tension and opportunity to bring his journey to an end as well as hers!

I paid $6 and got a lot of great tools to mix into my Avernus inspired campaign. There are a bunc hof different encounters, some longer encounter chains to flesh out parts of the campaign, just a great toolset for any DM running advntures in Avernus.

This adventure doesn't always match the tone of the rest of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, but it provides an EXCELLENT city primer and gazette. I took all the sights and several of the encounters and used them to design my own version of Elturel that my players needed to escape from as it was falling to start the campaign. It's a great alternative to establish connection to the city and the stakes involved!

For a lazy DM, this is a great alternative to the opening of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. It's a nice little level one adventure that sets up the the threat of the culto of the Dead Three as well as showcases the disappearance of Elturel. The additional backgrounds are also really nice. The VTT bundle was great as I didn't need to worry about doing any roll20 building myself. I basically grabbed it, and then read the adventure half an hour before we played and we ran it having a great time!

For a lazy DM, this is a great alternative to the opening of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. It's a nice little level one adventure that sets up the the threat of the culto of the Dead Three as well as showcases the disappearance of Elturel. The additional backgrounds are also really nice. The VTT bundle was great as I didn't need to worry about doing any roll20 building myself. I basically grabbed it, and then read the adventure half an hour before we played and we ran it having a great time!

For $5 there is a lot of value here.

Some info on Elturel, a great character backgrounds to include in your campaign, and a wonderful alternate adventure and hook to get things started. A lot of value to add to your Descent into Avernus campaign for the price!