Plot: Detailed and very evocative of the multi-faceted Mulmaster setting. Great hook to get the characters roleplaying and lots of investigation, with a great introduction to each of the cults.

Pacing: Each mini-adventure is difficult to run in an hour, and can easily run to two hours or more. Lots of bang for buck with lots of adventuring possible for a group of new players especially.

Difficulty: This is one of the hardest -01 adventures for a new DM to run as there are so many characters and organisations to convey. It's easy to get overloaded by the detail. Also a couple of the encounters toward the end can be very challenging and have to be managed carefully to avoid overwhelming a smaller party.

Rewards: Low, as you'd expect for 5 x 100xp minis. No permanent magic items.

Highlights: Each adventure is very different and memorable. High towers, burning buildings, buried gnomes and underwater caves all made for interesting settings, with lots of puzzles too.

Problems: Some of the NPC motivations and actions are a bit contrived and implausible, and hence difficult to convey successfully. Definitely more difficult to run without preparation.

Overall: My favourite -01 adventure, a winner with new players and one I've enjoyed running multiple times.

Recommend Purchase: Yes Playing this adventure counts towards the Season 2 quest: 'Benefits of the Brotherhood of the Cloaks' XP Range: 375-500

Note: No Season 1, 2, or 3 module has a digital certificate to print because WotC says they can't accept volunteer help for legal reasons and won't allow their paid employees to create the certificates even though they have the templates.

The DMSGUILD site segregates reviews between people who've purchased it here and everyone else. They do NOT have a robust rating system, relying instead on the 5-star model.

It is a good intro to the city of Mulmaster and what lie ahead for season 2. The five mini adventures keep it short and make it easy to have players new to 5E and AL sit in on a quick game or two to see if it's something that interests them. Each one has its own quirk that challenges the players to prime them for full adventures.

City of Danger is an introductory adventure that will introduce the characters to Mulmaster and the scene and story for the Princes of the Apocalypse storyline. It's a good adventure for new players that want to get more information about the storyline and learn more about Mulmaster. It tends to take some time to finish because it is for new players and they have to get themselves acquainted to the rules and what needs to be done. Overall, a good adventure for starting players.

"City of Danger" is an introductory adventure consisting of 5 separate 1-2 hour adventures for 1-2 level characters. The mini-adventures are intended to introduce players to the major themes of Adventures League season two and, as such, each focuses on a different elemental theme.

Many of the adventures showcase two different aspects of adventure design. First, they use the idea that a failure on a skill check or saving throw doesn't have to disrupt the adventure, but can and should have consequences later. In some cases, the players (or at least the DM) will actually have more fun if someone has failed a saving throw. The other design element, using an "against the clock" mechanism to inject a sense of urgency, is tried in most of the adventures. Sometimes this works well, but in other cases is less successful because the players either don't know they need to hurry or else don't care if they finish in time.

The editing could use some improvement. In most places, the errors are just minor irritants, but in at least one case an editing oversight could lead to confusion at the table (The handout for "Fathomless Water" has the two sets of glyphs swapped, so question one lines up with answer two and vice versa).

My only real disappointment with these adventures in general is the weakness of the hooks. In a con setting, where everyone understands they have two hours and just need to swallow the hook, the motivations may be enough to get the adventure started. Even in that setting, the use of "bait and switch" storylines, where the adventurers sign up for one mission only to find that that premise was false and the adventure really wants to go in a different direction, can lead to problems. This happens in two of the five adventures and leaves the players wondering if they should stick with the original plan or take a sharp turn to a new plot direction.

The first four adventures were quite fun. The fifth, however, was really below the bar set by the others. It is an unsatisfying mash up of overused tropes (see the Discussion), the skill challenge relied on PCs taking actions that probably didn't make sense, and NPCs acted out of character. If you only need to run some of the mini-adventures, give the fifth (Fear Like Dark Oblivion) a miss. If you do run it, in the Discussion, I give some suggestions for how to polish it up.

The adventures could be used as side quests in a larger campaign, especially if run as part of Princes of the Apocalypse.

Chris Krieger @SquareKnotRPG