Hashtag Excited. (That’s how those hash-thingies work, right?)
Way back in 2019 I had the pleasure of reviewing The Dark of Hotsprings Island and Field Guide to Hotsprings Island and to this day I still think that either The Dark individually, or both books as a set, are still one of the best OSR products on the market.
Finally, the wait is over and the next of the Swordfish Islands is entering the world. For the record, it definitely is coming, since the campaign funded in under an hour and is steamrolling right along. As you can see from the “author’s map” above Marlo’s Mire is tiny compared to everything else. The second update on the campaign talks about the challenge of fitting this into the series, and plans going forward. I’m excited.
The Dark of Hotspring Island is meant as a GM resource and Field Guide to Hotspring Island is designed as a Player resource. The current plan for Marlo’s Mire is a single, standalone, saddle-stitched, softcover, book. The Dark of Marlo’s Mire for GMs with no separate Field Guide book for Players. The decision to make this a softcover is a bit disappointing, but perfectly reasonable given the state of everything.
$20 USD gets a PDF of The Dark of Marlo’s Mire, both Hot Springs Island books, and Worldbuilder’s Notebook. The PDFs are also included in all the higher pledges. $25 gets a physical copy of Marlo’s Mire. $50 includes two copies of the Field Guide to Hotspring Island. $75 includes The Dark of Hot Springs Island and Marlo’s Mire OR two copies of the Field Guide and Marlo’s Mire. $100 gets a physical copy of all three books. Finally, $150 gets both Dark books, two Field Guides, the Worldbuilder Notebook, and a beautiful cloth map of Hot Springs Island.
The one thing that I’m disappointed about, and apparently I’m not the only one, is that this third printing of The Dark of Hotsprings Island is getting a new cover. This was a necessity to make the cost of the book feasible, and there’s nothing wrong with a new cover in general. I appreciate the classic OSR/Pulp aesthetic for most things, and the new cover is a very nice example of that style. But to be blunt, if the chosen art had been the cover for the previous editions I’m not sure I would have been interested in even looking at it. Obviously, the old adage of “don’t judge a book by its cover” applies rather literally here, but I really feel the new art does a disservice to the previous editions, and it worries me for the unreleased cover plans for Marlo’s Mire and for future Islands in the series.
That aside, I’m still very excited about the content, and there are still several weeks left in the campaign to make adjustments. If you have the previous books, you want The Dark of Marlo’s Mire. If you don’t have them, get them.
You can find Swordfish Islands (the publisher, but also the setting) online at shop.swordfishislands.co or on Facebook at facebook.com/SwordfishIslands.