Mini Review - JD1 Cess-Pit of the Bog-Mother (OSR Adventure Levels 1-3)

I have a bunch of reviews in the hopper. I may get to two or three a day at times. We'll see.

Cess-Pit of the Bog-Mother is a low level adventure for pretty much any OSR game, but hews closest to AD&D / OSRIC. In it, your party explores the ruins of a castle in a swamp - or is it "bog"?

I like the fact that Jeff Dee supplies you with three different hooks to get your party involved. It's rare that I use the hooks provided as is, but including three options gives me a better than even chance that one of the hooks will fit without too much adjusting.

I like the adventure. It got an interesting theme and I expect would be a decent challenge for the average newbie party, but I suspect the loot is off by a decimal point. The reward offered to the party is 5,000 GP and there is over 50,000 GP worth of loot in an adventure. Maybe I'm a stingy DM, but at those levels I'd be sliding the decimal point to the left one position. Magical loot is relatively minor and balanced for the levels in question.

We get some new monsters (Bog Blights, Bog Dwellers and Blog Shamblers. Or I think they are new, as well as the Hatchlings. All are easily used outside the adventure, so they are ripe for reusing.

Two versions of the map are included - one classic blue and one more modern. I'd have preferred having the second map as an unlabeled version suitable for VTT play, but that's me.

Cess-Pit of the Bog-Mother looks to be fun to run, but you have to move a decimal point to keep the treasure in line.

From the blurb:

What strange being has taken up residence in the long-ruined swamp-circled castle, and what is its connection to the increase of Orc raids in the region?

JD1: Cess-Pit of the Bog-Mother is a dungeon on a swamp & muck theme for characters of level 1-3 for all advanced fantasy role-playing games by classic TSR artist Jeff Dee!

The adventure includes a full-page color map and a black & white cover painting by the author. Also included are three alternate scenario introductions and five unique creatures especially designed for this adventure.