D&D 5E first level greyhawk adventure?

[Proyas the Elder]

So I am about to start a new 5e Greyhawk campaign with a completely new group of players. I would love to start them with a great first level adventure that has some nice Greyhawk-y flavor and lots of variety as far as monsters, NPCs, etc. Does anyone have any good recommendations for first level adventures based in Greyhawk (other than the obvious ones like Keep on the Borderlands)? Or even a good recommendation from the DMs Guild? A pirate themed one would be great but any recommendations would be fantastic.

 

[Shiroiken]

The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and The Secret of Bone Hill are really good 1E Greyhawk adventures for low level. Obviously some conversion will be necessary, but AD&D - 5E is pretty simple. Technically Against the Cult of the Reptile God is a starting level adventure too, but the conversion makes it too difficult before level 3 (at least!).

Even though it's not Greyhawk, Lost Mines of Phandelver is super awesome. To make it Greyhawk-y, you'll need to ditch the Factions though, and change the locations around a bit. I'd suggest putting it in the Duchy of Ulek, traveling from Waybury instead of Waterdeed, and the Lortmills make an appropriate location for the mines. Steirch or the Yeomanry can work too (by flipping the map) if you want to use the Crystalmist mountains.

 

[aco175]

I played Age of Worms for 3e and thought it was good. Last adventure I played and not DM'd though. I think it is available.

 

[LordEntrails]

I second Bone Hill, though I don't think you could scale it for first level, but maybe. Haven't played it in several decades so...

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Mad God's Key, Dungeon #114, by Jason Bulmahn. Do a Google search for details.

 

[thalmin]

Village of Homlet (T-1)) is a classic low level 1E module. Village, NPC encounters, dungeonn crawl, overland exploration, intrigue. Designed for levels 1 to 4. It is the beginning of a larger module: Temple of Elemental Evil.

 

[Jester David]

I second doing Village of Homlet potentially followed by The Temple of Elemental Evil. If you don't mind updating 3e and can run off PDFs, Age of Worms might also be good.

 

[JeffB]

Homlett

Saltmarsh (my fave, I have run this in every edition from OD&D through 13A and Dungeon World)

Bone Hill

Against the Cult of the Reptile God (more for novices to the game)

If you don't mind some work- Greyhawk Adventures, From the Ashes, and The Adventure Begins all are full of adventure materials, from bare bones plot/event seeds to small adventures.

 

[Thalionalfirin]

I'm also going to throw my support for Homlet. It's the classic. Wonderful and memorable NPCs make for a great starting base of operations for a long term campaign.

 

[hastur_nz]

I 100% second Mad God's Key. I've run it twice now, as an alternative intro to a much longer Age of Worms campaign, but that's not the point. The point is that my players found it a great adventure, with lots of variety, both in its original 3.5 version, and also when I converted it to 5e rules (which wasn't overly hard).

It starts in Greyhawk City, covers urban investigations, a chase, and a couple of smallish 'lairs' both in the city as well as in the Cairn Hills. It's for levels 1-3, but in 5e you could probably go with levels 1-4 (maybe completing it levels them to 4). There are no pirates, but hey, there's lots of cool stuff as far as adventures for level 1 PC's go (and not a single goblin, or even a kobold, IIRC).

Kick it off by making sure your players understand they must create characters that are inclined to help others, and you should be good to go. If you want some other advise, opinion etc, there's bound to be a few old posts on the Paizo forums (I'm probably the author of a couple there).

There is even a sequel, somewhat different but equally as cool especially as it's more 'urban investigation' with a fairly realistic plot that progresses regardless of what the PC's do rather than waits for the PC's to arrive. However I'm not sure if that's available these days, as it was published in the old Living Greyhawk thing, which unfortunately was a closed shop.