Free D&D Starter Adventures and How to Drop Them Into Blackmarsh
This is me grabbing stuff off my shelf and showing you how to throw it into Blackmarsh without overthinking anything. Three different campaign styles. Mostly free. Years of play.
The Faerie Forest Campaign (Free)
Start with The Black Apple Brugh by Kyle Hettinger - a Basic Fantasy adventure featuring an insane asylum and fey-touched elves. Drop it on the east side of the Greywoods, where the magical fallout from the fallen mountain creates that weird forest vibe.
Work through the villages on that side. The centaurs mentioned in Blackmarsh are stealing cattle - that fits perfectly. Then graduate to The Sepulchre of Seven (free on DriveThruRPG), a fantastic faerie-themed adventure about people killed long ago.
Black Apple Brugh takes you levels 1-3. Sepulchre is 4-6. Sprinkle other adventures between them. You’ve got an entire forest campaign for free.
The Classic Keep Campaign (£4.99 or Free)
Keep on the Borderlands is £4.99 on DriveThruRPG. Or grab The Caves of Chaos from Basic Fantasy for free - heavily inspired by the original.
Drop it in the hills where the orcs are fighting each other. Run it from the Viking area for a different feel. Or start from a village like Ethenfield. You’ve got levels 1-4 of classic dungeon crawling.
Black Wyrm of Brandonsford (£4.99) ties into that faerie forest vibe too.
Tomb of the Serpent Kings is free and probably the best introduction to old-school play. Scurbles wrote it specifically to teach players the style. An old tomb with fungal goblins. Run it near the Coarse of Black Moss.
The Political Campaign (Free to Cheap)
The southern part of Blackmarsh has tension baked in. Drawvich supported the old big bad. The elves hold Castle Blackmarsh. Humans want control back.
Take Morgansfort from Basic Fantasy and replace Inaccurus Keep. Seed adventures around that area and let players get involved in the politics between old regime supporters, current elven rulers, and resentful humans.
Falcrest Abbey (one dollar on DriveThruRPG) slots in as the old monastery south of the castle.
The Nuclear Option: Stonehill
Stonehill is my favourite mega-dungeon. £7.44 for book one. Ten levels. 150-200 rooms per level. An abandoned prison where people still live.
You could drop it near Castle Blackmarsh. But here’s the better move: put it underneath the castle itself.
The dungeons below Castle Blackmarsh haven’t been discovered. Replace them with Stonehill. It’s modular - take out bits that don’t fit. Now you have an entire fully-fleshed dungeon flavouring that whole region.
The town campaign above, the mega-dungeon below. Years of play.
The Point
In ten minutes I’ve given you three campaign styles with mostly free resources. You could play this for years.
Blackmarsh is 24 pages. Light enough to bend. Throw adventures in without overthinking. Read them, get the vibe, drop them on the map.
You don’t need a core book, monster manual, DM’s guide, and linear adventure path from level 1-20. This is cheaper, more flexible, and you get to be part of your game instead of performing someone else’s story.
That’s the attraction of old-school gaming.
Links
- Blackmarsh (Free)
- Basic Fantasy Adventures (Free)
- Tomb of the Serpent Kings (Free PDF)
- Stonehill (£7.44)
- Keep on the Borderlands (£4.99)