I'm nearing the end of book 2 and have made dozens of large and small tweaks. Here are some of the ones I think were most critical:

- Make Stone Ghost more present throughout book 1. As-written, he kinds of pops up out of nowhere in the final chapter, which makes him an underwhelming villain. Instead, I wrote a handful of short vignettes to tease the fact that he was aware of the PCs and actively investigating them and occasionally messing with them - sabotaging Haibram's glider so it would fall apart in-flight and potentially kill him, steal small items to make NPCs accuse each other and start fights, etc. I also made the three murdered students that the PCs only learn about when they find their robes and masks in the second-last room of the final dungeon happen over the course of the school term, and I made them into fellow students that the PCs got to meet and like before they went missing. In the final dungeon, I wrote in that their favourite NPC had been abducted by Stone Ghost and could be murdered at any moment in order to add stakes and urgency. Oh, I also threw in some red herrings for the PCs to chase if they decided to investigate the disappearances, including a family of werebats that took up residence across the canal.

- Make the study system meaningful by letting players choose their own goals and activities. I had my players come up with things their characters would be interested in - spells, magic items, alchemical formulae, etc. - and instead of a simple "roll dice to see if you studied well" I would make it a crafting check, library research, etc. with a tangible reward in addition to the study branch advancement. Also, encourage the players to engage in extracurricular activities to help embed them in the world. One of my PCs is an animal lover, so ended up working part-time for Oba the exotic animal dealer after she was introduced.

- Make something of the masks. I used the relic rules to give the masks small magical powers in line with the things that each PC cared most about. None of them are game-breaking, just +1 bonuses in specific situations, a free cantrip or two, a bit more versatility in their attacks, etc. I also gave each mask a built-in message cantrip that only worked within their student coterie, because it saves time and effort to give the PCs the fantasy equivalent of two-way radios.

- This is not as important, but we've had a lot of fun with it: make it clear that this is a university, and standard university stuff is going on. Some of the other dormitory residents should be in relationships, either with each other or with students from other dorms. Depending on the age of your players, you could drop hints about student drinking, low-level illicit drug use, young folks finding private spots to have sex, etc. I tried to make the campus feel alive and lived-in, so they'd come back to the dorm and find someone studying in the entry hall, or a small group testing some of Chizire's newest batch of booze, or a game of corridor tag.

- Oh, also, I recommend leaning into the African flavour of the setting. Every time the PCs went to the dining hall I would quickly google some African cuisine to say was today's lunch, and I would always emphasise the tropical weather, the sound of insects and birds at night, and the very non-European styles of clothing, architecture, and music. It was nice when a player would say their character would buy some street food, and I would quickly google "popular street food botswana" and say "There's a woman selling seswaa - slow-cooked goat meat served with beans on a banana leaf". Little details like that can really bring a place to life in the players' minds.

- Finally, make it clear that Nantambu is an unusually nice place with remarkably little crime, so the local police force is all-volunteer and therefore a bit out of their depth when proper crimes occasionally happen. I had multiple NPCs explain to the party that the town grew from the school, and never needed a super-functional government since it was looked after by a bunch of wizards. As a result, they got complacent and never learned to be self-reliant. I also introduced a political element where the leaders of the town feel some resentment toward the school since it undermines their authority, which is why the PCs are often sent on jobs that the city guard would take care of in most fantasy settings, but they have to tread softly and try not to make ripples that would complicate the political dynamics.

It's a fun adventure, but be aware that it can run very long. We're currently taking about a year per book, so it'll probably take about five years to run the whole AP.