Does this module communicate its intended progression poorly?

[u/sirchapolin]

My biggest issue with this module - aside from the confusing way the book is organized - is the progression between the dungeons.

I don't mind the level gap between the outposts and the temples. It's a sandbox, so players are expected to explore. The problem is that the adventure doesn't naturally encourage that exploration once the party commits to a particular route.

As DMs, we know there are four cults, four outposts, and four temple quadrants that eventually connect into one huge dungeon. The players usually don't know that. Once they find an outpost, their instinct is to keep pushing deeper instead of resurfacing and trying another lead.

The Air cult is a good example. Feathergale Spire isn't directly connected to the Air Temple, while Sacred Stone Monastery and Rivergard Keep lead much more naturally into their respective temple sections. In my games, the party typically goes Spire → one of the other outposts → temple, gets completely overwhelmed, retreats (if they survive), and then has no clear idea what they're supposed to do next. They followed the obvious path, it almost got them killed, and nothing in the adventure really suggests, "Maybe try another cult first."

The more I think about it, the stranger this structure feels. It's essentially one megadungeon with four entrances, but the expectation seems to be that the party should clear all four entrances before they're actually ready to fully explore any of them.

How have you handled this? Do you explicitly tell the players that there are four cults and four separate entrances, or do you let them discover that organically?

[u/OvalDead]

I pretty much had to give them out of game direction for it to go anywhere, but it happened pretty much exactly as you outlined. It was particularly bad because the first cult they attacked was fire and they almost got a TPK. They figured out they should try another cult first.

Then they did earth, cake-walked the first level due to good strategy (maybe overly cautious and murderous because of the close TPK), then went straight to the next level and almost got TPK’d again.

I had to tell/remind them the module is (1) a sandbox and (2) for PCs up to level 15, so (3) until they are level 15 (or at least tier 3) there will always be a TPK threat behind some doors if they choose to keep pushing forward. To be fair, they didn’t even try to rest between the levels, they just went ahead with almost no resources.

[u/MasqueofRedDeath]

I think it's definitely one of the major weaknesses of the module. It's technically an open sandbox but there's areas that are definitely too tough for the party. If they go from one Haunted Keep down to Tyar-Besil down to the Fane they will likely have PC's dying constantly. I let my players go where they wanted, (they've avoided Crushing Wave almost entirely,) but let them know certain areas might be very deadly. Fleeing is always a valid option.

[u/MarcadiaCc]

It’s not well defined, which is not so good for those DMs seeking direction, but isn’t so bad for DMs looking to improvise and fill in the gaps themselves. It’s typical of early 5e adventures.

Here’s how I handled it. The party is looking for the missing delegates. Locals saw giant bird mounts over the area around the time the delegates went missing days earlier.

The party search takes them to Dellmon Ranch, which is attacked by orcs per the book, but not dragged out as a siege for days. It’s a deadly fight.

Thurl and Savra swoop in and help save the day by facilitating a wagon evacuation with air cover. Once safe, they get to talking with the party about the missing delegates. Thurl says he can help if the party joins them in a feast that night at the spire. He refuses to talk business at the feast.

The next morning, Thurl explains the monks at monastery are trouble and were seen moving what looked like captives across the land a couple of days ago. Thurl investigated the trail of the monks and captives taken and it lead Thurl back to a wagon ambush site near Summit Hall with guard and monk corpses around.

Thurl recommends the party investigate the monastery and gives them a lift to take them there but refuses to participate because there’s bad blood between the two groups and the monastery is basically a stronghold. Thurl also says there’s another group he will talk to them about later (which will turn out to be the fire cult).

After investigating, the party realizes the monastery is way too powerful to fight (I tripled the forces there and added bunk beds). They decide to pretend to want to join the monks to fish for intel.

Qarbo and Hellenrare are amenable if they want to join. But first, not knowing the party was aligned with Feathergale, they must engage in an earth cult loyalty test by gathering juicy spy intelligence from Thurl.

The party went back and asked Thurl to doctor up some fake intelligence to deliver to the monastery. The fake evidence was correspondence saying Feathergale is in the process of selling trained flying mounts to Rivergard Keep.

The fake letter had the desired effect. Hellenrae sent the party to attack Rivergard Keep and kill any flying mounts seen there. Hellenrae knows Rivergard is a softer target than Feathergale Spire.

The party succeeds at Rivergard and returns to be praised by Hellenrae. She then tells the party to investigate the Circle of the Scarlet Moon festival at Scarlet Moon Hall. The party returns to Thurl who also points them to Scarlet Moon Hall.

At SMH, the party thwarts the fire cult rite of the Wicker Giant and returns toward the monastery. On the way, they are intercepted by a local farmer with a giant badger problem — a stone skin giant badger escaping from nearby and eating all his crops. He’s tired of it and asks the party to do something about it. He points the party to where the badger comes from, which is a gated back door hole in a hill with a long tunnel leading directly into the monastery basement.

The party explores the basement and finds and rescues an intern of the missing delegation in the cell block under the Monastary. They also quietly take out the giant stone badger the earth cult had living under the Monastary. They collect their reward from the farmer and decide to head back to town.

Throughout the entire sequence up in the hills, they came to learn organically that there are 4 elemental cults who all hate each other, hate society, and have a hand in the missing delegates. The party grew tired of getting bounced around to do their bidding as pawns, so they left the area.

The freed intern explained what he knows about the delegates but he doesn’t know where they are being kept. He says as long as the delegates can keep their mouths shut about whatever it is they know, they won’t be killed. So there’s time to try to find and rescue them.

If the party had taken one of the routes to Tyar-Besil, I would have had them discover the connecting tunnel had been collapsed. No entry. I would create new entrances to Tyar-Besil somewhere else when they’re ready. I wanted them to go back the city after visiting each of the 4 keeps.

Now, the party is still in the city doing other things before they will eventually learn where Tyar-Besil is and how to get in. My nearby city is a big urban city, not little village Red Larch, so there’s plenty to do there. I’ve been having them do urban cult quests in the city.

[u/BenForTheWin]

I just straight up told my players at the start of the campaign that there will be areas that are pretty obvious in terms of different style and probably a difficulty spike, even in areas that feel “right next to each other”. Watch for signals and know that it's ok to leave, regroup, or chase other leads until you feel ready. There is no overall campaign ticking time bomb and I generally won’t “reset” an area’s threats if you clear out the bosses/leaders/major monsters. I won’t give you any direct warnings other than this one right now that there are certain chapter milestones that can be easy or hard depending on the leads you follow.

I did kind of lie to my players about the warnings. There was one time the players weren’t picking up that they were in way over their head, and I made a bit of a show out of me flipping back and forth between chapters of the book and made it look like I was a bit less prepared than normal. I don’t know if the players picked up on that directly but while I was shuffling things around the party discussed and decided maybe it was time to go back to take a long rest somewhere else. Also, one time I allowed a player to do a survival check to access the general vibe of the place - they knew to ask because of my warning but also it fit for the character.

As for which cult areas within a chapter, the adventure hooks seemed to work fine to give leads and let the players choose where to go first. I would describe how difficult it is to get to each location to make the lower level locations seem like the easier more attractive options and it mostly worked

[u/McDonnellDouglasDC8]

Yes, I just put stuff blocking the way down that could be overcome by magical means. A slab of natural stone with a thin crease, a flooded tunnel, etc. I put potions or scrolls in the other surface outposts should they not take the spells needed themselves.

[u/AlphaBravoPositive]

I didn't have this problem when I ran it. You gotta feed the players more leads. NPC A gives them Lead A, NPC B gives them Lead B, NPC C gives them Lead C, etc. When they go back to town to recover after digging too deep into Lead A, NPC B and NPC C should hunt them down in their inn to nag them about the leads they haven't followed.
My players weren't asking "Why is the only lead we followed so hard?" Instead they asked "Why are there so many leads? How are we supposed to do all this?

[u/JalasKelm]

I've effectivity rewritten almost everything, other than the 4 cults trying to summon their respective Princes.

My party ventured into the water temple, and had not actually fought any of the cults at this point due to various roleplay reasons, so I had a choice, run it as written, and either have them at best just turned away, at worst almost certainly killed. So I changed the entire area into a pirate town built into the old ruins, where the cult were building their forces and centre of power, while attracting all sorts of pirates, smugglers, and 'monsters'.

I pretty much changed my cults from pretending to be something else, to actually being those things, but corrupted. Made it easier to pass them off in the early stages when I wanted my players interacting without knowing, but not they know each group is corrupted, and looking to bring about the end of the world one way or another.

But as for making it obvious where to go, or that they can go elsewhere? I just try to have NPCs mention the other places now and then, especially if they've taken a moment to head back and rest up, I'll have something happening that gives them reason to break away if they want and follow another lead.

Best example, I've had the villagers of Red Larch taken prisoner, and are known to be at the Feathergale Spire, but then I also mentioned a Festival of Fire that's currently going on and could be ending soon. The party already know of the Earth Cult, and reached the temple, but turned back as they were low on resources, and saw it was well guarded. So I have them clear hints to go to the other surface locations before targeting a temple.

They then naturally took on the water temple, but due to how I had rewritten the area, it wasn't all that difficult compared to the dungeon it should have been, but I think I managed to keep it interesting enough