The Lost Mine of Phandelver is the introductory adventure for the 5th Edition Starter Set. It is designed for PC levels 1 – 5 and has a good mix of wilderness, dungeon, and village encounters with a decent story. Your players will become heroes as they save the village of Phandalin from hordes of goblins, doppelgangers and worse; all led by a sinister and maniacal Drow mage.
Plus, with the publication of The Dragon of Icespire Peak from the D&D Essentials Kit, the two are perfect adventure companions. By adding the sandbox-style message board and the rampaging white dragon to the Lost Mine storyline, you can create an absolutely epic campaign that should take players up to 8th level and beyond. In the maps section, I include a merged map that depicts all the locations of both adventures.
Adventure Resources
This is a complete overview of our experience playing this adventure. There are five sections:
The Campaign Diary – The full Tale of the Saviors of Phandalin as they attempt to collect on a $50 debt.
The Charts – All of the charts and tables that I use to run the campaign. They include Monster Stat sheets, Encounter Lists, Village Rosters, Rules Synopses, Campaign Setting Overviews and more. I’ve included the adventure-specific charts and a blank copy if you prefer to make your own. If you want a more in-depth analysis of the charts, check out my Dungeon Master Resource Page.
The Maps – All the maps that I used to run The Lost Mine of Phandelver, including some custom maps. The Player Maps have all hidden locations, traps, and secret areas removed. They are great for handing out to players (as they explore each section) so that they can better visualize the encounter.
The Handouts – The module came with one handout to give to the players. I added 10 more. Most handouts provided further motivation for the players to want to hunt down the main villain, Nezzar, since he has no contact with the players until the last chapter. A few set up future adventure hooks. I usually print them using a variety of construction and specialty papers cut to fit my printer. The Handouts can be printed as is or used as a starting point for your own creative spin.
The Online Resources – I’ve included links to some excellent websites that can help you run your game, along with some awesome YouTube channels that will improve your skills as a DM.
If there is anything else that you think I should have here to help you run your own campaign, please leave a comment.
Campaign Diary
Session 1 – Our merry band of mercenaries manages to lose their patron in five minutes and violate the Geneva Convention in ten.
Session 2 – The Mercs with No Name sack a goblin cave, collect some second-hand furniture and find an NPC that I call Captain Exposition.
Session 3 – The Mercs invade the peaceful village of Phandalin, try to be Murder Hobos, and pick a fight with the local gang of thugs.
Session 4 – The Mercs storm the Thug Hideout, pet some monsters, obtain the world’s ugliest valet, and play a wild game of Liar’s Dice.
Session 5 – Gather round while we replay the entire Phandalin section and then go off in search of the creator of the Forgotten Realms.
Session 6 – The Mercs find the ruined town of Thundertree, the spirit of Ed Greenwood in a batty old druid, and, holy crap, a green dragon!
Session 7 – We start with a TPK, then battle a very colorful sorcerer and take on the dragon! At level 2! And they steal some dragon eggs.
Session 8 – The party arrives back in Phandalin to find that everything is not as it seems. Then they trash the only good inn in town.
Session 9 – During the Festival of Greengrass, the goblin army invades Phandalin. Our heroes risk it all to save the village they call home.
Session 10 – The newly dubbed Saviors of Phandalin search for the mysterious four-fingered man and find the bum who owes them $50.
Session 11 – The Saviors finally get to Chapter 5, only to find zero treasure; just strange chucks of humming metal. And a ton of ghouls.
Session 12 – The Saviors negotiate with Nezzar, the evil puppet master, by stabbing him with a sword. And the evil spider god, Lolth, shows up.
Session 13 – Having defeated Nezzar, The Saviors continue to search the dungeon, obsessed with finding more mysterious humming metal.
Session 14 – The thrilling conclusion. The humming metal pays off, secret villains are revealed, and there’s lots of ominous foreshadowing.
The Charts – Player Resources
Prior to every campaign, I give my players a folder for their character. Theses two-pocket folders hold each player’s character sheets, spell cards, handouts, and other PC related items. The center binder holds four important handouts.
First, is a brief (4 page) Rules Synopsis that includes info on Adventuring and Combat basics to help new players learn and veteran players remember some the of the core rules of D&D.
PDF – Rules FOUR PAGE
Next, is a homebrewed Critical Hit / Fumble Chart. Although this is included in the Rules FOUR Page, some have asked for this chart spearately. My players love the chart since it allows them the chance to completely obliterate an enemy even at the risk of falling flat on their face, losing a weapon, or stabbing an ally.
PDF – Critical Hit-Fumble Table
Here is a complete Equipment List from the Player’s Handbook. It includes the basic equipment commonly available for purchase. While it can be fun to role play the shopping spree, usually it’s just easier for players to look it up and tell me what they bought. Plus, it keeps the murder-hobos from killing your shopkeeps. Obviously, prices can be adjusted, based upon the availability of the item and the quality of the shop. There are two files for the Equipment Lists.
PDFs – Equipment List & Equipment List Gear
Last, is the Setting Synopsis. The Lost Mine of Phandelver (as well as most of the published adventures) takes place in the official D&D setting, The Forgotten Realms. This two-page Overview gives your players the common knowledge that a person living in the Realms would know. Basic Geography, Known Factions, Currency, Major Gods, the Standard Calendar, and a Brief History of the World are included. I’ve removed any reference to a specific date, so that you can set your campaign whenever you want.
PDF – Sword Coast Codex
The Charts – DM Resources
Up next are all the charts and tables for the DM eyes only. No peeking, you conniving, cheating, double-crossing, lily-livered, dice-fudging, min-maxed, hobo-murdering, meta-gaming PCs! For further explanation of any of these tables, go to my Dungeon Master Resource Page.
First, I keep all the important Player Character Stats on this cheat sheet. You can see it attached to my DM screen below. It helps me plan encounters and keep things balanced, especially when running things on the fly. The PDF is blank, so that you can pencil in your own PC stats.
PDF – Party Character Stats
The thing I miss most about the Old School D&D modules is the Monster Stat Sheet included in the back. This puts all of the relevant combat data for every creature in the adventure all in one place. No more forgetting a special ability, hunting through the book for a single stat, or flipping back and forth when running combat with two or more monsters. This single page will make running the adventure ten times easier. This PDF includes all of the monsters encountered in the Lost Mine of Phandelver.
PDF – Monster Stats Phandelver
Next, this Master Encounter List has all the keyed encounter areas of the adventure. This helps me keep track of every room at a glance; including Monsters, Traps, Treasure and Experience Points that can be found or earned in each room. No more forgetting a cool trap or missing a key plot point because it was buried in the text.
PDF – Encounter List Phandelver
The Village Roster. The adventure lists about a dozen NPCs in the village of Phandalin. I’ve expanded the local map and included a roster of every resident of the town’s 40+ builings. The new roster lists a several more shops, class and level listings of the important NPCs, a few gossipy details, and a rundown of every combat-capable citizen (typed in bold) that will come to bear during my campaign’s goblin invasion.
PDF – Phandalin Village Roster
The Phandalin Battle Chart. Many people asked how I ran my Siege of Phandalin that occurs in Session 9. I wanted a simple, basic set of rules that evoked the chaos of war without all the added math. Refer to my How To Run a Fantasy Siege post for more info. This is the chart that I used to track all the combatant of that glorious battle. Basically, it is a modified version of 4th edition Minion rules where each combatant requires “x” number of hits to kill (goblins take 1 hit, hobgoblins take 2, etc). This method only requires the use of the D20 die and this chart (and about 50 optional minis).
PDF – Phandalin Battle Chart
For those of you who prefer to make their own lists, here are links to clean, blank versions of all these charts. If you prefer to type your own, you can recreate them using Microsoft Excel.
PDF – Monster Stats Sheet Blank
PDF – Encounter List Blank
PDF – Village Roster Blank
PDF – Calendar Forgotten Realms –
Bonus! This is a blank calendar (6 pages) for use in the Forgotten Realms setting. Use it to plan out the timeline of your campaign; never miss a festival, celebrate every holiday, and maybe even create a few new holidays (based on the Player’s actions, of course).
The Maps
The Handouts
Online Resources
There are a number of excellent additional resources available online to help you be a better DM. Here are a few that I use all the time. I often keep the website tabs open on my phone or tablet to refer to them as needed during a game.
Websites
Roll 20 D&D 5th Edition Compendeum – Roll 20 is one of the best virtual tabletop systems and they have compiled a complete listing of every rule, monster, spell, and more that is D&D. The link does offer virtual books for sale, but the entire database is fully searchable and completely free. Just use the Search Bar to type in whatever you need to find and get the full description and statistics of that item. This resource is invaluable.
Forgotten Realms Wiki – Every article of fact, trivia, and lore relating to the Forgotten Realms (where the 5th edition adventures are set) can be found here. This is a tremendous source for inspiration to add favor and spice up your campaign. Perfect for researching the people, places, and events of the world’s greatest fantasy setting. I use this all the time.
Kobold Fight Club – Wandering Monsters are a staple of D&D. Nothing keeps players on their toes better than some random thing jumping out from the shadows. But the tables provided in most modules are pretty boring. Kobold Fight Club uses math, algorithms, and magic(?) to create memorable and unique random encounters for any level. Yip, yip, yip!
Drivethru RPG – This is an excellent source for finding all the OSR D&D adventures and modules from every edition, but especially 1st and 2nd edition. They mostly come in PDF format but some have a print on demand option. I have been replacing all of my original and lost D&D materials using this website. In the rare event that I can’t find what I need, I will use the Dungeon Masters Guild which is their sister site.
YouTube Channels
There are a number of excellent YouTubers who produce good, useful content related to roleplaying games and D&D specifically. Here are a few of my favorites.
Matthew Colville – This is by far and away, the best channel for getting advice about being a dungeon master. His series on Running the Game is phenomenal, and covers every topics from running a simple hack-and-slash dungeon to an open sandbox adventure and even a deep, sophisticated politcally-motivated Game of Thrones style campaign. His love of RPGs is evident in every syllable of every word. And the streaming of his actual gameplay sessions is the only one I can watch, even over Critical Roll! I would kill to play in his campaign.
Seth Skorkowsky – This is a kick-ass site that dives into a ton of great stuff such as DM tips, player advice, RPG Philosophy, adventure reviews and overviews. He also discusses several other RPG systems, including Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, and Star Traveller. His videos are always fun to watch and his interlaced skits are the only ones that are actually funny. Plus, I met him once and he is a truly great guy, so I’ll try to help him out. Not that he needs it. His channel just won an ENnie award for best online content!
Jorphdan – Jordan the ph is silent has one of the best channels that delves into the lore of the Forgotten Realms. He has plenty of other things on his channel, such as reviews and advice about the 5th edition D&D adventures, a series on creating your own world, and collaborations with other YouTubers. But it is his encyclopedic knowledge of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting is without equal. From the gods, factions, races, nations, geography, and history of the fabled land of Faerun, Jorphdan is the omnipotent god of trivia.
Capt Corajus -Pronounced Captain Courageous, this channel is an excellent place to learn about the Old School Revival that is finding its way into more and more D&D campaigns. Here you will find out about all the original D&DC adventures as well as ways to incorporate the elements of Old School style of play into your game. This is also where I stole the Game On! tag that ends all my posts.
That’s about it. After 20 sessions that took over a year to complete, we finally concluded the epic Lost Mine of Phandelver. (We played every other week for only 2 hours per session, the limit of a kid’s D&D focus)
We hope that you have as much fun and excitement when you run this adventure. Feel free to use any, all, or none of these extras that I used to run the adventure. Hopefully, you can use them to inspire your own epic adventure.
And if you like these Resources pages, then check out the ones I’ve created for the other campaigns I’m running at the D&D Campaign Resources Page.
As always, it’s better to show than tell, and Game On!
Game Night Blog 
Hello!
Thank you so much for this very interesting and informative read.
Im starting out as a DM and will be running this adventure to four adult noobs 🤪
I’m very excited to use your knowledge of the game, the handouts are a great addition.
I really appreciate the time taken to write this for us all.
All the best!
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Thank you so much for your comments. I love hearing from new people who manage to find my stuff. I’m glad it is useful and I hope you have a great time showing these noobs the ropes. If you ever have a question just ask.
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I really Like your resources you given the Comunity too! Esspacally the handouts are a great idea to keep the players interesting! I beeing a Dm for the first time next week an will apsolutly use some of them! I lost my group a couple of moth ago and hope i can show some people how great DnD is! Is there any way to get the playermaps as PDF or something to print them propaly? Or can i just Print those images, and how big should i scale them? In my opinnion it is kind of wierd to have batles without them! Thanks for your work i really think my players have a better time, thanks to you!
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Welcome to the cult. I’m glad I could be of service. Sorry my maps are kinda small. Higher resolution maps (including player maps) are found at 5e.tools. It is an excellent site I use everyday.
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Hi!
Wonderful work. It convinced me to finally try my hand at DM’ing, and with your guidance I am sure it will be a succes.
Keep on rolling.
MiniMe
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Hello, I was wondering if you made the Player maps yourself or if you used some resources (free or paid). I would like to use them with my group. I know there are many player maps out there for free, but I am really interested in these. Thanks!
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I did make these player maps myself by photoshopping out the numbers. But there’s a better way. Go to 5etools.com and click on the Adventures icon. It is essentially a free digital reprint of every adventure and each has full player maps for every map in the game. Plus they are saved at a larger format than mine. But you are welcome to print out mine if you want. Game On!
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Thanks for all of the great info and supplemental add-ons, so many things I have not found time to do myself starting up DMing for my 8yo and his friends.
Also thanks for the link to 5e tools but it looks like the link has changed, 5etools.com does’t work, had to google it and found https://5e.tools/ matching what you recommended, thanks again!
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Enjoy playing with your kid while you can. Too soon they’ll ditch your campaign to play with their friends. Thanks for the intel on the link. I’ll update my pages.
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A few weeks ago, my 14-year-old son came to me asking to get the DND Starter set. Like all good moms, I started my research into this hobby. One of the first websites I found when researching and learning about DND was yours. I have found it to be beneficial! After buying a few more books (DMG, PHB, MM), the Essential Starter Set, and hours of reading, I can’t wait to get started DM’ing both LMoP and DoIP together for my boys, ages: 14, 10, and 7, as well as my husband. None of us have played DND before, but we have always been lovers of RPG games for PC. Thank you again for all the great ideas and advice.
Sincerely,
Dungeon Mom
Miekka
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You are most welcome. I love hearing about new families getting into the hobby. Good luck and keep me posted!
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how did you print out big enough battle maps?
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Thanks, Colton. This is a really important and often overlooked issue.
It is not practical to print out battle maps in the proper scale for miniature battles. I only use a battle map for the really important combats. I purchased a dry erase plastic battle “mat” from my hobby store and draw out the map for those combats. Many battles don’t need maps or minis, though sometimes I just place the minis on the table (without a map or mat) to show general location and area of effect spells. There are also excellent mats that have generic terrains printed on them for a more aesthetic look.
But you probably want to recreate the official maps from the book to use as your battle map. There are two options.
First, find online the largest map you can with the highest resolution. 5etools.com has high resolution maps of all the official adventures. Then, using photoshop or other program crop the map into an image that is 8 squares by 10 squares, since each square represents 1 inch. Then print that image from your printer using the “crop to fit” setting. This method only allows for combat areas that are 40’ x 50’ since each inch equals 5’. Also beware of maps that have a scale of 1” = 10’.
Second method is even more complicated. A friend of mine made an insert for his dining room table that fit a computer monitor. That monitor was hooked up to my phone and my phone has all the maps on it. I could use that to project any map I wanted and enlarged to act as a battle map.
Good luck with your game and let me know how it goes.
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Wow, this is fantastic! After a 40 year absence (played OG D&D and AD&D as a kid), my older kids (20s) decided they wanted to try it, so we picked up the Essentials Kit and the manual 3-pack. While it’s fundamentally still the same game, it seems to have gotten a lot more complicated since I played! All this material will help a TON. Thank you!
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Welcome back! My absence only lasted 30 years. Glad I could help.
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Hi. Thanks for all these resources – very helpful! I was just wondering what the lower case letters in brackets after villagers names are please? The c and s specifically. Thanks!
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You’re welcome, Jon. The “S” is for a senior citizen/elderly. The “C” is for child. This marks them as non-combatants during the goblin invasion that occurs later in my campaign. Thanks for asking.
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Nahhh bro, this godtier resources, I was looking to make the campaing more deep for the players, this is awesome, i have never seen a better “rework” of a campaing
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Thank you very much. You’re very kind. And just like WotC I plan to “revisit” Phandalin and see what else I can add. Someday. Soon.
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Oh my gosh, this looks incredible, thank you for sharing! I’m running this (as a first time DM) for a bunch of 3-6th graders as a library program, so there’s definitely a lot here to make things run more smoothly.
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You are exactly who I’ve written this for. Enjoy!
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Absolutely amazing stuff, thanks so much for sharing! Am I right in assuming that you did not include doip in your campaign?
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Correct. When I ran LMoP, the Essential kit didn’t exist. But I have run DoIP and if you check out either campaign’s Resources Page, I do include a section on running both adventures at the same time. And I included a map that combines all the encounter locations.
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Forgot to ask in my previous comment, do you happen to have links for the fonts you used for the props, maps and such?
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Sorry, I don’t have links to the various fonts. I always assumed they came standard with Windows Office. I usually mention them by name, so you can recreate them if needed. I try to go back into the posts to update that. Thank you for the suggestion.
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This is incredible!!! I’m a long-time DM for other adults, but recently three younger students where I work wanted to start a Dnd club so I offered to DM. The player resources you have are some of the best breakdowns of what can feel so daunting for new players!! Thank you SO MUCH for all of your work on these incredible resources.
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You are most welcome. And Thank you.
You are exactly whom I have written these posts for. Good luck!
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Thanks so much for all of the resources and campaign diaries!! I’ve been following for some time now, and figured I should leave a comment to let you know how much I thoroughly enjoy reading all of the ongoing campaigns, and also how much your materials inspired me for the campaign(s) with my kids (8 and 11).
We started playing during the pandemic, and have played on and off since then. Our primary campaign is a combination of LMoP and DoIP, which has been modified to include other threads, and fun scenes like your invasion of Phandalin. (We haven’t gotten to the invasion yet, though).
Again, thank you so much for all of your great work and honest recounting of the challenges of DM’ing and playing with your kids.
-Dan
For our campaign-
I am setting Axeholm up to be capable of taking down Cryovain, with functional ballista so they can lay a trap and lure him there as one possible finale for Cryovain.
I had the logging camp run by Tobin Wester (Harbin’s half-brother). The party found a spy with a messaging indicating that Tobin and Harbin were working for the Black Spider, but likely under duress. I liked your idea of the mayoral elections, so we’re likely headed that direction with Harbin being removed from leadership after being revealed as an agent of the Black Spider (even if an unwilling one).
The idea of our campaign is that the Black Spider is in league with an orc named Hartusk in the North, and they both aim to wipe out Silverymoon. The Black Spider has a branch from the Grandfather tree that he is using for various rituals in the area (such as one the party disrupted at Butterskull ranch, where orcs were corrupting the forest and were subsequently thanked by the forest guardian- a unicorn). But the ultimate goal is to find a portal he heard exists in Phandalin that leads into Silverymoon, so he can invade and destroy the tree. The portal is hidden underneath the manor. Glasstaff was studying the manor and trying to determine if something magical was hidden there, and the Black Spider has been using the magic from the mine to prepare his siege and try to locate the portal. The invasion of Phandalin (inspired by yours) is intended to retake the manor.
I wanted the party to encounter orcs who did not all want war. So the backstory is that Hartusk is a warmonger in the Many-Arrows tribe, and is undermining the king, Bargdesh. His son Logru knows that Hartusk, is making moves to take over, and he suspects that Hartusk had sent orcs down this far to work with some hidden partner here. Bargdesh wants to continue the history of the kings and make peace with the dwarves. Hartusk wants open war, and has sworn to destroy Mithral Hall, and to push past and lay waste to Silverymoon and the Grandfather Tree to rid the North of elves.
Our party found a captive and badly injured orc in the back of Wyvern Tor. They healed him, and he told them (one of our party speaks orcish) that he is an emissary from Logru and has with him a note that Lorgru’s force found one of Hartusk’s spies. It has the Black Spider’s mark on it and says “Send more forces. We must take Phandalin and find the connection.”
They also found out from an elven emissary that the High Forest is in danger because someone desecrated the Grandfather Tree by cutting off a branch and is using it to both power their own magical rituals and to damage the forest. The emissary beseeches the party to find this missing branch and return it to the forest so that it might be rejoined to the tree.
We are currently working on the manor and they may soon discover the portal there.
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Thank you for your kind praise. I love hearing about others playing with their kids. I love all the ideas you’re using. The last stand at Axeholm is a great idea and I love the expansion of the ruined mansion and orc political intrigue. Great stuff. Have you seen the WotC expanded Phandelver and Below campaign book?
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I read the review on the Alexandrian, and it did not sound worth purchasing. But I’d be curious about your thoughts if you ended up getting it.
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This is such an amazing resource! I’m running two campaigns in this area where pcs come and go. It’ll be so nice to build out the town on top of the actual map!
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Thank you so much. Happy to be of service to you.
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I did get it. I will do a full review eventually. The first half is a direct reprint or LMoP with a half dozen trivial and unnecessary tweaks. The second half is an interesting adventure involving deformed goblins and mind flyers but it isn’t worth the $60 price tag.
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Dude, this is great work. thankyou!!! after Baldurs gate 3 our family has caught the D&D bug and after a recent visit to Comicon London we bought this set. you’ve made it much easier for a first time novice DM to navigate through and make it enjoyable!! what I have learned so far for the younger ones that less in definitely more (time-wise i mean!).
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Welcome to the cult. I’m glad you found my stuff useful. Have fun bonding with the family. Haven’t tried BG3 yet, but I’m gonna. I’m a huge BG1&2 fan.
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Im super new to Dnd and have never play a campaign, but some how i am dm a game with others who have not played before. i am having a difficult time understanding how the critical hit and fumble table work. would you be able to explain or provide an example on how to use?
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Such a wonderful list of resources! This will be super useful, thank you deeply, you’re a great person! 🙂
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You are very welcome. Thank you for visiting my obscure website.
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These are very helpful resources, thank you for making them public!
Perhaps I’m missing something, but why did you feel the need to create a separate map of Phandalin for the players? I don’t believe any of the place-names on the default version you find in the campaign guide are meant to be secret.
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You are welcome. I’m glad you enjoyed them. As for the Player version of the Phandalin map, you’re right, it’s not really needed. But some players like to look at a clean map and ask, “What’s this building over here? How about this red one? What;’s the name of the ruins on the hill?” without having everything given to them on a pre-written map. Once they know where things are then they can use the DM map. I have played it both ways. Besides, the clean version is provided in the Starter Set, so I did the same.
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