Choir members only. Editing is the major problem with wand of webs being in player handout 3. Player handout 5 is the one you want. And none of my group thought the singing idea was good. Some the maps are still missing information. And only real greedy or first time murderhobos will fall for the shrine traps.

I thought this was a pretty fun dungeon crawl. You may need to tweak the puzzles in places. The final combat encounter was really too easy. That can vary based on how beat up the party gets based on how well they handle the traps. Be prepared to adjust the difficulty on the fly to keep it challenging.

This module has the potential of being an interesting role-playing and exploration-focused module (in contrast to the combat-heavy trip to reach the tower, so they form a good pair): one optional fight, one technically-optional-but-players-would-definitely-trigger-the-trap fight, and a non-hostile "boss" NPC. Unfortunately, poor writing and editing makes this easily the worst module in the storyline (and made only worse by the season 8 AL rules changes), and requires lots of tweaks to fix.

For issues with the module inherently:

• The reward for placing offerings in the altars is 3 or 5 "resistance to elemental damage", which is not a 5e mechanic.
• Several of the tests (Oghma's shrine and the elemental walls on the second floor) give no sign when characters do the right thing or if they are answering incorrectly. It's easy for players to think that they sang the wrong praises if there's no visual change in the walls, although it also doesn't make sense for these traps to make it obvious when they're disarmed, so players may be stuck.
• The parallel between "4 shrines" and "4 elemental altars" might be a red herring and unnecessarily stall players.
• Some skill checks (e.g. recognizing the elemental deities) have no difficulty listed, and other skill checks have weird difficulties (Characters auto-recognize the symbols of Azuth and Deneir but need a skill check to recogfnize the shrines with their symbols? Oghma's shrine isn't recognizable at all? Characters who worship Mystra but who aren't clerics/paladins still need to make a skill check to recognize her symbol?)
• The fire and air summoning chambers have the same room descriptions, which seems like bad copy-pasting.
• At least one of the riddles for the summoning chambers has an incorrect answer (or at least, an inconsistent answer with the other riddles).
• The story award listed in the text of the module (which suggests that only Harpers are interested / able to copy texts to gain a spell, matching their faction objective) differs from the story award in the player handout (all characters can do so).
• The DC30 skill check to bypass half of the module is amusing but questionable writing from a DM-ing standpoint and pointless (since players don't know what they're bypassing and would likely backtrack to look through the floor anyway).

For issues that emerged due to Season 8's rules changes:

• The shrines are all based on the idea of testing characters' greed: taking the gems would be worth money, but would be punished by traps (and not geting XP). In season 8, players know that there's nothing to be gained anyway.
• The story award for the module assumes that players are in a faction, even though it is presumably meant to be open to all players.

In summary, the module feels like it lacked both a copy editor to fix some of the spelling / writing errors as well as a playtester (i.e. a DM uninvolved in the writing of the module) to identify the mechanic / gameplay problems. It's still runnable (it's not fundamentally problematic or anything), but hard to play as written.

WARNING: Potential Spoilers ahead.

I really wanted to like this module. The concept itself is grand - an ancient wizard's tower for researching the elements. Shrines to various gods with mini trials and rewards. Puzzles and riddles! All thematic.

The actual layout and execution was troublesome and a little frustrating. The maps were difficult to follow, even in the updated version, and it took me several readings to get the gist of what each floor was trying to do.

I made several modifications to it in what I hoped would help with coherence, especially with S8 rules:

• Since few players will be faction aligned now, it might be expident to just give them the bag of holding at the start.
• Instead of gold, I had SEER promise to sponsor food for Parnast during the winter in exchange for the books.
• Nix the secret doors that let the players bypass the floor puzzles. They are kinda anticlimatic if found, and don't do anything if not.
• For the shrines of the gods, try to project a sense of reverance. Else, your players are liable to be suspicious of them at best, and ignore them utterly at worst. Also be careful to seperate (narratively) the elemental shrine room from the gods of magic. My players ended up thinking they were all linked together and tried to take stuff from one shrine to burn at the other (not a bad idea, just does not seem to be the intent)
• Since S8 means all the treasure traps don't tempt anyone anymore, I did some substitutions. The topaz gem for Azuth's staff now contains a key. This key allows a player to open the secret treasure room downstairs - however both acquiring the key -and- using the key trigger the shocking grasp trap. I reasoned it as a sort of plant by the Wizard of the Crags: thieves would take the key and try to use it since it looks like it works (and does!) but doing so triggers his tower's security.
• The shrines don't reward anything -unless- the players are respectful. This means active respect, not simply ignoring the ink bottle (prayers, offerings...etc).
• This includes the elemental gods. My players tried to brute force guess the earth shrine's material without even bothering to empty the bowl or make supplications, so they did not get the resistance. (I interpreted the resistance as just resistance to damage by the corresponding screen instead of the out-dated description)
• Oghmas room was really confusing for my party, you might need better prompts for right/wrong answers. I had the book glow to indicate success. A counter/timer might have been helpful. I also changed it so the room shocks anyone who writes nonsense in the book, or tries to force their way through (everyone writing something in the book was the only way to get past. Conveniently, the rewarded tongues scroll is helpful for the gargoyles in the next room)
• The riddles are -extremely- confusing as a number of posters here have noticed. I wasted a lot of time here and players got frustrated. Suggest adjustments to make it clearer. As compensation, make the players actually sing (IRL) to go through, or roll a performance check :P
• The magmin trap was substituted with the griffin halloween encounter.
• Speaking of the librarian, it seems odd that he does not have any spellcasting ability (even if he has sworn off it). I had planned on substituting him with a deathlock wight from Tome of Foes that would not cast magic unless pushed into a corner.
• The wand of webs is just...there. I removed it and fluffed the TP/unlock as them finding valuable arcane schematics for a wand of webs. Alternatively, put it with the librarian.

Ratings:

• Combat: 6/10 (very little combat until the end)
• Puzzles: 7/10 (potential is there, but execution needs work)
• Social: 5/10 (the gargoyles can be diplo'd but have no tension)
• Explore: 6/10 (pretty linear rooms, some traps but needs work to make them relevant)

The Good:

• The first portion has interesting things both flavor and mechanics wise for players to mess with. Some good ol' investigating with plenty of variety as well as short and sweet.

The Bad:

• The second portion can feel like a slog. Most of my players pretty much stopped caring halfway through this part.
• Combat is way too easy, to the point where it didn't interest players much. The rest of the scenario isn't evocative enough flavor wise to make up for it. Really needed spicing up.

Not a bad adventure if your party likes puzzles. I feel like somethings weren't explained well and you have to ad-hoc a bit, for the puzzles, specifically. My players had a good time but the boss fight is pretty simple.

A bit of an obstacle course that looks for the players to solve puzzles, nothing terribly complicated. Does a good job of rewarding the players efforts to investigate their surroundings, which are a bit dangerous. 05-06 and 05-07 work well together to give players access to combat, travel, overworld exploration, puzzles, environmental hazards, dungeon exploration all in two "two hour" adventures. It's nice that they can be done together in under four hours if the players don't spend too long in 05-07.

I wanted to like this one, the framework is there to have a good adventure. It just didn’t come together in a way that was fun. I like the fact that there are few combats and lots of puzzles and traps. However, half the puzzles were badly written and confusing, which was made worse by the poor maps.

I originally picked this module because I had a four hour block and I was already running its prequel. After I started reading it, I followed through just to teach my players a lesson. Specifically, to teach them that sometimes it's a bad idea if the entire party dumps Intelligence and that sometimes there are entire DDAL/DDEX modules for which the combat rewards are minimal.

Seriously, I liked the concept of this module and I wish there were more like it. However, because there are so few like it, it was definitely not what my players were expecting and a good chunk of the party was effectively useless for the vast majority of the session. Mechanically, I felt like the puzzles and traps went okay, but not great (again, partly because it's not a muscle other modules exercise much).

Oh, one bitter angry gripe: The maps were not usefully labeled in a way that connected them to the module text. I spent a lot of time preparing parsing the text carefully in order to figure out exactly which room was which, where each coloured wall/barrier was, etc. It also took me multiple readings to understand how the author was describing the bookshelves and the different sets of books (and why it would be a problem to carry them). Ultimately, I handwaved that section because there was no in-game time pressure and they had multiple casters who knew Tenser's Floating Disk.

Edit: Apparently the module has been updated. I checked the latest PDF and its maps are much better labeled than when I ran it. That's great.

Man i wanted to like this one, the bones are there. i like the fact that there are few combats and lots of puzzles and traps. i like that it is a 2 parter. good reward for a magic caster. however half the puzzles were badly written and confusing (especially the ritual chambers), the book layout in the library was confusing, what books can you take? what are the effects? the resistances were bad, i can translate resist 5, but some of the elements dont map to 5e elements. the story reward only helps wizards. this definitely seems written in an afternoon without checking the rule books and never really edited.

One of my favorite AL modules, both to play and to DM. My biggest comment is that you should be open to a non-combat solution to it. If someone speaks Primordial, the gargoyles are perfectly willing to help them. And as for the wight at the end, as far as I can tell, he seems far more interested in maintaining the library than anything else. Given that the hobgoblins sent by Bad Fruul are dead, they don't need to actually steal all the books, or fight the librarian. If they have a clever solution, like trading knowledge (suggested by Oghma's shrine upstairs), leaving a party member as collateral, copying the information there, or working to establish a policy for borrowing books from the library, I say let them. It's a far more interesting endgame than just "hack and slash".

This was an ok module. The group preferred Beneath the Fetid Chamber, but they still had fun in this one. The traps were varied and a bit tricky, but also a little vague. The ending was very satisfying for my group since they prefer battle over puzzles. I thought it had a decent mix of both.

The adventure is very puzzle/trap focused. Players knowlegable of Forgotten Realms lore will be pleased. DM Tips: Please spend time preparing this adventure. The puzzles/traps require the time.

Like most have said, certain of the puzzle's lack of clarity made this one frustrating both to run and play. (And it continues to surprise that they were cleaned up.) That said, it's very well-paced and well-balanced for a tier one two-hour adventure. The story also feeds in well to later adventures in the season storyline. But would not recommend running unless you plan on taking an editing pen to the puzzles.

An dungeon with various elements and informations, but boring after 1 hour of playing. Magic items very useful for wizards and spellcaster.