(review originally posted at TenkarsTavern.com)

Hex Crawls can lead to a wonderful campaign, if the GM is up to the task. They are never as simple as running a prewritten adventure, but in the right hands it can lead to many sessions of gaming. This is why I find people either loved the old Judges Guild products or they hated them - they were ingredients to create your own masterpiece, with no two campaigns ever looking the same. Some folks want more of a a detailed list of situations.

I find myself these days really appreciating the "Hex Crawl" type of products. They are pretty much direct opposites of what WotC puts out for their settings. Lean, mean and lots of green (outdoors) is what I like these days.

Beyond the Black Water fits the bill of what I look for in a Hex Crawl type products - lots of adventure seeds with hexes that aren't so large as to defeat the purpose of a hex crawl. 6 miles wide is just about perfect in my opinion. It makes for a nice, localized campaign setting

The PDF is bookmarked (as well it should be) and we get a handful of new creatures at the end, but I do have one complaint. The map takes up about half a page. If they had changed it's orientation to sideways, it would have been a full page and much easier to use, never mind the increased usability. As this is a PDF product I'm looking at, they could always tack on a full page map to an update of the file. Just an idea.

Otherwise, it's a nice setting. Dangerous as all hell, but still nice ;)