The Perfect OSR Sandbox?

I’m going total fanboy here and describing the old-school sandbox campaign I put together using a handful of inexpensive, commercially available products and a little creativity. I have no commercial relationship with the vendors, but I do follow Raging Swan Press of Patreon—because I really like their work.

I am currently running this setting using Mongoose Legend rules, I hope to run it someday with Mythras, but it nothing here is setting specific. If you are interested, here is a link to my d100 mechanics. Raging Swan has versions of Citadel on the Wilderlands in 5e, and OSR right now but you can easily port to anything else.  

The Set Up

We will take a modern OSR setting that is designed to accommodate two old and classic Basic D&D adventures, then add to it my personal favorite classic AD&D adventure. Since the Basic D&D adventures each have several wilderness encounters before the players get to the place of adventure, I have mapped them onto the setting map—so you don’t have to. Of course, as a GM you’re free to change it however you want.

Citadel on the Wilderlands, by Raging Swan Press, allows us to run that absolutely fantastic low-level, OSR campaign that I've always wanted to play, but never did. We are going to mix together with it, U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and B5 Horror on the Hill.

 

Sources

Citadel on the Wilderlands: Raging Swan Press or Drivethrurpg

Colorized maps: Raging Swan Press (And, yes I colorized these maps)

Thornhill: Raging Swan Press

There is also another adventure based here for 5th level characters, (OSR, P1, 5e)

U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh: Drivethrurpg

B2 Keep on the Borderlands: Drivethrurpg 

B5 Horror on the Hill: Drivethrurpg

 

The Map

I've taken the Skeleton Coast map and marked on it how I have placed the various numbered encounters from the adventures. (For most browsers, right click to download).

U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh fits easily enough on to the island of Solonor. It has one permanent location, an old, haunted house. Instead of the old house being on a coastal road, it is now abandoned above a cliff face, a little less than a mile outside of Bleakhaven. The only change needed is that the four wondering goblins are hiding out there as they look for things to steal from the humans--or some such—instead of travelling from one place to another. And the smuggler's ship Sea Ghost is a Picaroon ship.

The other two adventures on the mainland. B2 Keep on the Borderlands is centered on the Caves of Chaos, which in this version become the Ebbur Caves. Likewise, the Ruined Monastery from B5 Horror on the Hill becomes the Monastery of Ineffable Evil.

The overland adventure portions of both modules are mapped onto the Skeleton Coast map. Solid red lines are good trails. Characters can travel three hexes per hour on good trails. Dashed red lines are poor trails. Characters can only travel two hexes per hour on these. Characters take one hour per hex when off trails and must make some kind of Navigation roll or become disoriented.

Circled purple numbers correspond to B2 Keep on the Borderlands outdoor encounters.

Red Numbers correspond to B5 Horror on the Hill outdoor encounters. The Monastery of Ineffable Evil is the ruined monastery from B5 Horror on the Hill, but until Wild Swan Press releases their own monastery map, I will be using mine, and you can too. It can be found here.

 

Purples lines mark the underground locations of the Ebbur caves. Yellow letters correspond to the Cave Entrances in B2 Keep on the Borderlands.

The Letter sites are keyed. Letters in red on the Key correspond to the Citadel on the Wilderlands group name, while the three in purple don't have a Citadel equivalent (that I could find).

 

There are great, separate maps for each of the Key caves / mini-dungeons by  Dyson Logos. They can be found here.

Dyson’s Dodecahedron: First Six 

Dyson’s Dodecahedron: remainder 

 

Lastly, I moved the village of Thornhill from Ashlar to Fenmire. This gives the players a safe-ish place away from the island and I think it works well here. And the GM could add a fourth, modern adventure from Raging Swan, set there when the players level up enough.

As always, questions and comments are appreciated.