Tomb of the Serpent King: The Best Free Starter Dungeon

The best starter dungeon. Maybe the best ever for introducing players to old school style games. It teaches your players how to be better players. It teaches you as a GM how to be better too.

And it’s free.

What Is It?

Tomb of the Serpent King by Skerples from the Coins and Scrolls blog. Art by Scrap Princess - dirty, scratchy, I love it.

It’s a 50-room dungeon structured into four thematic areas: a false tomb, the main tomb, a vast chasm, and goblin warrens. Each area has a different feel.

You can get the PDF free. You can get the publisher files if you want to make additions. I print mine into little booklets.

It Teaches While You Play

Every step of the way, there are lessons. Not just for players - for GMs too. It explains why the dungeon is structured that way. This is dungeon design education.

Example - the opening: You walk into the tomb. There are coffin-type things on left and right. Inside one: a small statue worth money, a dried snake skeleton, and cloud smoke poison damage. You can drop to zero points.

Underneath: the lesson being learned. “Dungeons can be organized into patterns.” Players approach the second coffin with more care. In old school games without things like Mage Hand, they start using stones, rocks, sticks to poke things from a distance.

Interact with the environment. Minimise damage. That’s the lesson.

A First Level Dungeon With A Lich

There’s a basilisk. A black pudding. A lich. At first level.

How cool is that?

These aren’t things to beat. They’re things to think around. Players learn to look away from character sheets and look at the environment. Find other ways. The lich has a collar. The basilisk might be befriended if you ease its pain. Multiple solutions, none of them “roll to hit.”

Traps Become Tools

There’s a trap that can flat-out kill them. Telegraph it well - but now it’s part of the environment. Later, something’s chasing them? Lure it into the trap.

The dungeon isn’t an inanimate object. It’s a living environment that can kill them or work to their advantage.

Everything On Two Pages

You can print the entire dungeon on two bits of A4. There’s an annotated version at the back you can use to run it.

The Scholar’s Tomb: Size of room. “Smells like dust and rot of fabric.” Crude stone paint of leaping snakes. One wooden coffin painted with abstract scene. Statue, gold amulet, poison gas.

That’s enough for me to riff off at the table. Short descriptions, huge flexibility.

Where To Place It

The module gives you options - ancient map, landslide, various hooks.

If I was placing it in Blackmarsh, I’d stick it near Strange Stones - a small halfling village. Put it in the hills. Easy.

Or use Fourtower Bridge, a free starter town from Path Peculiar’s blog. Really cool free resource.

The Bottom Line

If this was paid, I’d happily pay for it. The fact that it’s free is incredible.

Run it. Your players will have a ball learning to play properly. You’ll learn to design dungeons properly. Everyone wins.

Get it. Tomb of the Serpent King