In The Gleaming Cloud Citadel, the adventurers need to find the Archmage of the eponymous mage academy. He’s ensconced in his tower, and his fellow mages are worried about him; they hire the adventurers to find out what’s wrong.

Unfortunately for the adventurers, not all the wizards see eye-to-eye on this, so the adventurers must deal with competing wizards at the same time while also facing the challenges of a wizard’s tower.

Fans of puzzle-solving and role-playing should enjoy this adventure for level 10 characters. There’s some combat, but it isn’t the focus of the adventure.

Parts of the adventure could be formatted better, as it was difficult to spot important details in a wall of text. The adventure also has an inconsistent approach to boxed text. One example of this is at the entrance to the labyrinth, where the first boxed text starts with what the monkey says. What monkey? I had to look at the long paragraph above – under a different header – to discover that there was a carved monkey above the door. I would have preferred the description of the entrance in boxed text.

There’s enough of this to be distracting, which is a pity because there are many interesting encounters. Magical darkness hiding Gorgons. A Gin-soaked Genie who offers to play draughts but is a sore loser. Riddles and corridors with no end. These are the types of inventive encounter I adore, and there are many of them.

The adventure includes the trip to the citadel from the nearest settlement. This helps enforce that it’s in the middle of nowhere. The problem is that the trip, which includes an attack with orcs and the possibility of several levels of exhaustion from bitter cold, doesn’t relate to the rest of the adventure. You could easily start with the characters arriving at the citadel without losing anything of note. If the initial encounters were caused by someone living in the citadel, then I’d like it better.

It’s a nicely produced adventure, with good art and maps used.

Overall, It’s an entertaining adventure: a good story, intriguing encounters, and a nice variety of situations. Recommended.