X6 Quagmire! by Merle M. Rasmussen is a role playing game supplement published by Wizards of the Coast (originally TSR) for use with Basic Dungeons & Dragons. This is a wilderness adventure set in the Known World, later Mystara, and is an Expert level adventure for 2-8 characters of levels 4-10.
The supplement is available as a PDF from RPGNow for $4.99, as a print on demand softcover for $9.99 or as PDF and softcover for $11.99, but the original printed book, which is the version reviewed, is still available from sites such as Amazon. The book has 32 pages, with one being the Table of Contents and front matter. The three page cardboard cover is, as was typical for the time, not attached to the rest of the book. Two pages of the cover can function as a DM’s screen and they have a map of the Spiral City on the inside. The third page of the cover is removable and has a player’s handout on one side and a mostly blank map of the Wild Lands on the other.
Preparing for the Expedition covers four pages and has a variety of topics. It covers what the adventure is about and gives a synopsis. How the large hex map of the Serpent Peninsula joins to those from X1 The Isle of Dread (it actually doesn’t; it’s a few hexes west), X4 Master of the Desert Nomads and X5 Temple of Death is explained.
Also in this section are details of abbreviations, the party it is designed for, how wandering monsters should be treated and on capturing wild animals (horses, mules and camels can be caught and sold).
There is an overview of all the different, labelled, terrain that can be found in the Wild Lands area, as well as weather and climate. Finally, there is the note that characters will find wherein the ruler of the city of Quagmire asks for aid, and travel times from several places and how to get there by land or sea. It is assumed that the characters will have access to a ship. At the start anyway; it might be destroyed during the adventure.
Wild Lands Adventures starts with various area encounters with no fixed location. There are 25 numbered encounters and a table showing which terrain these can happen in. Some encounters may happen more than once. There are also tables for flotsam, jetsam and encounters that can be found in different places, all d12. These are for sandy shorelines, floating flotsam, rocky coastlines and the high seas. The types of coastline are listed in the previous section.
Next are seventeen different encounters that happen at fixed locations. Three of these are spiral cities, one of them the titular Quagmire, that can be explored in detail.
Spiral City Adventures covers the three spiral cities. Each has the same layout and uses the same map found inside the cover. One of these is underwater. Each location on the map is described three times, once for each city. The inhabitants of Quagmire are under siege by lizardmen, and their city is sinking. The siege needs lifting and the sole spiral city still on solid ground needs finding so the inhabitants can move to it.
The Appendix has six new monsters, although several had been used before, followed by a complex set of wandering monster charts, varying by terrain with sub tables for monster type. Finally, there are seven pre-rolled characters, all of which come from AC1 The Shady Dragon Inn, and four new magic items, three related to underwater usage.
The middle four pages have a two page hex map of the Wild Lands, a single page large scale hex map of Quagmire and its surroundings and a side view of the spiral cities.
X6 Quagmire! in Review
The text maintains a three column format and the most significant error was on the hex map. The letter related to one of the spiral cities is placed by a northern village rather than by the city itself. Oddly, one spiral city is completely underwater and one is partially flooded, yet there are no rules for underwater combat (such can be found in X7 The War Rafts of Kron). There is only a single colour illustration, on the front cover, but there is plenty of custom black and white artwork inside, including a custom snake-themed logo. Presentation is good for the time.
This is most definitely a hex crawl, even if there is a definite adventure thread related to saving Quagmire. In fact, it is probably one of the most detailed hex crawls from the period, and the majority of the supplement is the wilderness exploration, highly unusual even in Expert supplements that were full of wilderness. There are enough random and fixed encounters, and variations between such depending on the location, that this largely empty land feels surprisingly busy.
The area covered by this module is one of those that got a massive overhaul in Voyage of the Princess Ark (in Dragon #170 and #171) and Champions of Mystara. The Serpent Peninsula went from being a largely uninhabited wilderness area in this module with almost all the population being in three northern settlements to a country of over one million, although the country had the same name as the supposedly former inhabitants mentioned in this.
The method by which the ruler of Quagmire seeks help, which is to throw messages in bottles into the water, seems a little daft. In its defence, the city (although there are only a few dozen people in it) is cut off from the outside world by besieging lizardmen, ships can’t get in and he did send out two messengers as well.
This is an old school wilderness hex crawl, and one of the more interesting version of the type from the period. X6 Quagmire! can be found by clicking here.
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