Trail of Destruction
Written by Alastor Guzman
Even though "Trail of Destruction" is a mid-level adventure, it has a pretty epic feel to it. Something is awakening volcanoes, so this is a scenario in which the characters can intervene and potentially save the world a significant number of imperiled people by thwarting a cataclysmic event.
However, I also felt like the set-up of this adventure could use more dramatic tension. As written, the NPCs the characters can interact with are all a little too nice, which means they have a lack of texture and nuance. To remedy that, I had the priest NPCs be part of a colonizing religion that wasn't native to the land. That allowed me to work a more interesting angle about the creatures in the volcanoes being the former "gods" of the native populace and add some elements of usurpation where the new religion's dominance was causing something atavistic from the past to reawaken--a classic Gothic convention.
As written, the adventure is fairly linear, but I opened it up by having the characters obtain a map that showed the locations of the observatory, a town, and the shrine, which let the players choose where they went and how they investigated the underlying mystery. Thankfully, the shrine also allows for some decent site-based exploration and has a nice area for a climatic boss battle.
Speaking of the boss battle, this adventure adds the tlexolotl, a massive salamander-like elemental, as the Big Bad of the scenario. I don't know if it was intentionally on the part of the adventure's author, but the combination of this monster and the surrounding setting elements gave me strong "Mesoamerican Kaiju" vibes, what with the giant fire-spewing lizard-like monster that was worshiped as a god(zilla), the jungles and volcanoes, and the elements of natural cataclysm. If you don't lean into that vibe in this adventure, you are a fool! Overall, this one felt like a pretty fun romp. There are great ideas here, and although I think they greatly benefit from a few embellishments from the DM, this one was quite fun for my group.