I'm kind of torn about if I like the role Auril plays as a villain in this module. The weird thing is I really feel like Auril should be the pinnacle of the whole thing, rather than a stepping stone.

I definitely understand how Auril was added after most of it was already written. You can have just the duergar and the Netheril stuff on its own. But the thing is it all feels disjointed now. Maybe there's something to be said about players killing Auril, but it REALLY turns out that there's a whole other level of weirdness and creepiness going on? I know Perkins said "At the Mountains of Madness" was a huge inspiration for this module, and it makes total sense how it influenced it.

I'm just not sure if the "ancient tech, weird magic, ancient arcane city" is awesome because it adds a whole extra layer of alienness to the story that isn't expected, or if it's just a weird disjointed after-thought in the module and it's this weird extra thing that the players don't necessarily care about.

THAT'S one of my main points: The only reason the party goes anywhere outside Ten-Towns are because Vellynne asks them nicely.

There is some stuff about "hey maybe we'll find something to get rid of the forever-night" and "hey maybe there's cool magic stuff down there." But there's no strong verb or deeper motivation for the players to go there that isn't "hey guys, the module needs you to go here."

This is probably my harshest criticism of the module, in that it's a very very established rule as a DM: Never bottleneck a story point by relying on the players to say yes to a single hook.

It feels like a very simple thing to not rely so heavily on this. The fact that it gives advice for the DM to have Vellynne convince the party to go is a huge red flag. As a DM, you really shouldn't have to convince your players to do the ONE thing that will allow the rest of the story to happen.

Because once they kill Auril and defeat the duergar, what happens if they don't go to the city?

I don't think anything really. Unless I'm wrong. The story really ends at Chapter 5 when they (probably) kill Auril.

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I think there needs to be a really significant reason for the party to go the the city. Maybe Auril isn't in her sanctum, maybe she's in the city for whatever reason. Maybe she's using the ancient tech to create the forever night. Who knows.

Let me know what you guys think about this and if you have any specific plans on reworking the structure of the story/plot to make it make more sense and to make it cohesive. I'm really interested in what other people have to say about this.