The Skull Square Murders is a level 5-10 adventure by Paige Leitman for the D&D Adventurers League. It is written in the 2+2 format (two hours of main adventures with two 1-hour bonus objectives) and demonstrates all the problems that the format has when it comes to writing investigations.

The central concept is that you need to find a key, and you discover that the last person to have the key has been murdered. So, you go on a quest for the murderer to discover the key. The trouble is that the plot makes no sense. Key details about what happened are missing, and things make even less sense once you include the bonus objectives.

The one thing the adventure does right is to provide support for all three pillars for each encounter. The DM has advice as to how to run things depending on the wishes of the group! Hooray! Unfortunately, even with that, this adventure can run very short. My impressions are even with the bonus content it struggles to reach two hours. One bonus objective boils down to “You go to the store, make a Persuasion check. Did you succeed? You learn the information and move onto the next encounter.” NPCs aren’t described enough to provide good role-playing hooks. The store owner is a slightly barmy necromancer who doesn’t talk about their clients – and that’s all the information you have for role-playing them. I don’t find that enough.

It’ll probably take longer if you fight your way through. If you’re happy inventing new material and improvising for the exploration and role-playing scenes, you’ll likely have a better time of it.

The investigation is light and very linear. The structure of the adventure is as follows:

• You go to a store where the Key is being sold. It’s already been sold – to Mugrub, who lives in the Skull Square area.
• You travel to Skull Square and learn there are murders taking place. Mugrub has been murdered! Investigating her home, you discover that there’s a note directing Mugrub to deliver the key to the Lair.
• You go to the Lair and confront the person (Mr Y) who contracted Mugrub to get the key and discover they murdered Mugrub and took the key – which they then gave to a Zhent. The End.

With the bonus objectives, the structure is:

• You go to a store where the Key is being sold. It’s already been sold – to Mugrub, who lives in the Skull Square area.
• You travel to Skull Square and learn there are murders taking place. Mugrub has been murdered! Investigating his home, you discover that there’s a note saying Mugrub got the gold for the key from a Necromancer.
• You visit the Necromancer and learn that the Necromancer was given the gold by the Pit Boss.
• You visit the Pit Boss and learn that the gold was won by Mr Y, who wanted it to pay off the Zhentarim. The location of Y’s Lair is also given.
• You go to the Lair and confront Mr Y, and discover they murdered Mugrub and took the key – which they then gave to a Zhent. The End.

Hang on a moment… I thought the Necromancer got the gold from the Pit Boss? If Mr Y has the gold, why doesn’t he just give it to the Necromancer? Why doesn’t the Pit Boss know about the Necromancer? What’s going on?

Yes, with the bonus objectives, the story doesn’t make sense. (It’s also purely linear. One clue in each location, that leads to the next location. Trying to design an adventure where there are multiple clues and multiple ways through also taking into account bonus objectives wanders into the tremendously difficult.)

There’s a lack of background information here that is frustrating. Mr Y killed Mugrub, and also committed the other murders. However, why did he kill Mugrub? There’s a definite reason for the other murders that doesn’t line-up with the murder of Mugrub, but what actually happened and why is not described. The storyline makes even less sense when you add the bonus objectives. At that point, there’s no direct link between Mr Y and Mugrub. Perhaps the intention is Mr Y contracts Mugrub, then says Mugrub can get the gold from the Necromancer. How does the Necromancer know about the gold? Did Mr Y. talk to her too, or was she contacted by the Pit Boss. And, if so, why doesn’t the Pit Boss describe this transaction?

There are some nice bits of invention here, but the lack of attention to important details about the plot are frustrating beyond belief. The leap of logic that “the person who hired Mugrub must also be the killer that took the key” is also staggering.

(Also, the murders were by decapitation. Did Mr Y take the heads with him after he left? That would make sense given the true identity of Mr Y, but it’s not stated one way or the other).

Overall, there’s stuff in here that you can enjoy, but the lazy plotting makes this an underwhelming entry. Not recommended.