video review: https://youtu.be/iKWa0leL1Hg?si=-Jtgm_2Z4xTJPGH5

this is a 2/5, maybe even a 1. its story is lackluster, its design seemes rushed, and the adventure isnt that great...

this module was the one that comvinced me to make yourube reviews, somit has thatbgoing for it. But only because no one else had really done one on it. I decided to share my pain with everyone else.

now... dont get me wrong, there are worse adventures out there.... but this was one published and released by TSR... there was a certain expectation. And this one fauled to meet it.

-The Lost Adventurer

This scan and print are of great quality, however you can only polish a thing so much. This is a hex crawl, and a boring one. the maps and print are great, so if you want some close up maps of Mystara swamplands, then its cool for collecting. The POD quality on the print i was sent is excellent.

Originally posted here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2020/06/retrospective-review-and-refit-x6.html

Quagmire is a 32-page adventure module written by Merle M. Rasmussen, of Top Secret fame, for the Expert Set. Character levels 4-10. Color covers and some maps, black & white interiors. Art by Steve Peregrine (cover) and Jeffrey Butler (interior).

For this review, I am considering the PDF and POD versions from DriveThruRPG.

Quagmire focuses on a city that used to be by the seashore but is now sinking into the sea. The city is actually a large spiral tower that looks like a whelk shell. The city leaders are moving the entire populace from their city to a nearby, identical one. The PCs have been hired to clear out the wilderness area of lizardmen and goblins and help them get to the new city.

The module expands the Known World to now include the Serpent Penisula, which is just west of the Isle of Dread. If the Isle of Dread is Jamaica or the Bahamas then the Serpent Penisula is Florida and Cuba. All I need to do is add a "Bermuda Triangle."

This expansion of the Known World detail is the best part of the adventure. This area would later be expanded on in future products and The Voyage of the Princess Ark feature in Dragon magazine. Additionally, the city design itself is very interesting. Something very appealing about it to be honest and a giant tower as a city is the sort of thing I love to see in my games.

The adventure itself sadly a little lack-luster. The ending is a little anti-climatic and the wilderness encounters seem to be strung together to provide the characters something to do. There are a lot of great parts to this adventure and there is plenty of potential, I am not sure the adventure itself lives up to all of that. Still, the parts are good and there is no end of ideas for other swamp-based adventures or even the spiral cities.

The adventure, like all adventures of this time period, features new monsters and some new magic items. There are also some pre-rolled characters.

The POD (Print on Demand) version is very clean and easy to read. There is some of the "fuzziness" I associate with a POD of a scanned product, but much less than some of the others I have purchased. In fact, this might be one of the better scans I have seen. At the time of this review, the POD is only $4.99 for both the POD and the PDF. That is a fantastic price really.

So while the adventure is a little lacking, the material that comes with it is great and the PDF/POD is great.

This is a very good POD reproduction, the cover looks great (just a hair of distaction in the blue band at the top as the grain wasn't duplicated over onto the very top part that has clearly been recreated in photoshop),there's also an ink mark on the back cover which probably should have been cloned out, but these are really mild nitpicks. What you care about is inside after all: It's almost perfect. Black levels are correct, the text looks incredibly sharp and makes me wonder if its been redone digitally, art and maps look great. The one flaw for the inside is the player handout at the back, on the POD release it is quite hard to read the first few lines as it looks like the image has actually been rendered too dark, usually these problems are the opposite. But all in all it is legible with some effort (aids the experience, plus you're printing handouts from the PDF right?) and this is otherwise an absolutely reference quality reproduction of the product.

This review is for the POD copy only.

The cover is constructed of a durable, laminated heavy cardstock; the artwork on the front is clear, crisp, and just about as good as the original in quality. The same can be said for the text on the back cover, which is also clean, crisp and easily legible. The scans for the module itself are beautiful; the text, the maps, all of it, look just as good as the original copy; the maps which were traditionally on the inside cover of the orginal modules are reprinted on the last few pages of the module instead and are easily accessed for use. It's great to see one of my favorite old school modules available for purchase in hardcopy again!

Good scan, good module. Useful if you're in a swampy environment. The shell city is easily modified to suit.

joe b.