This adventure is a solidly written combat romp. Most of the adventure hooks are pretty good, for a tier 1 party, especially if they're already invested in Parnast. The addition of Hsing is clumsy, but thats pretty common - using "SEER" (which is always stupidly written in all-caps) as a deus ex machina is boring. It's a strong reason for the lack of a fifth star.
The first fight is good. The descriptions are good, and the enemies are reasonable. For people who want to RP, there's a good encounter included but it is neither required nor forced upon the players. Befriending him is helpful, of course.
The second scene is a brief exploration bit, tapping on one of the other pillars of the D&D experience. It has some good advice for when things go wrong, when things go well, and how to incorporate some character backgrounds. The DCs are a little bit easy, but other than that, a good section of the module.
The third scene, another combat encounter is just as good as the first. The enemies have a solid explaination for why they're together in such an atypical grouping. The setting provides a couple of different ways to approach it, and is set up in a way that is very easy to scale (even on the fly).
And of course, it's a good lead-in to the second part. If I could give half stars, I would only ding it the half for the inclusion of Hsing... but I can't. Only near perfection gets all five stars from me.
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