This is one of my favourite Basic Fantasy adventures. The Blackapple Brugh by Kyle Hettinger—and it’s free.
What You Get
47 pages. Levels 1-3. A village hub, wilderness locations, and a three-level fairy dungeon. There’s a wand that raises the dead but they come back insane. Gloves that force you to blurt out impolite truths. An Elf Lord with mood swings who only speaks through his jester.
This is dark fairy tale done right. The fey are actually unsettling—elves with a dark side, not just pretty faces.
Wandering Monsters That Actually Work
“Five goblins” is crap. This is not crap:
“The goblins are trying their hand at racketeering in the name of Lord Gizkick. They’re going to ask for one gold piece per person in back taxes. The goblins will fight if they think they can win.”
What would be a standard throwaway encounter becomes something your players will remember. And it’s linked to other parts of the adventure—everything connects.
There’s a poisoned poet who’s ingested belladonna berries. Wild dogs chasing a black cat that belongs to a witch. Help the witch and she gives you the Blonde Lady’s Wig of Mediumship—nine charges of speaking to the dead, but you have to put on this ridiculous wig.
That’s how magic items should work. Not “a scroll with nine uses of this spell.” Something with personality.
Dr. Lavinius’s Sanitarium
Just outside the village is an insane asylum run by a doctor who wears a funnel on his head “to focus mental exertions” and keeps a cudgel on hand alongside 24 leeches.
One of the children—Arthur Figwort, son of the richest family in the village—has been diagnosed with “humoral imbalances caused by persistent category two demon infestations.” Treatment requires brain surgery. He can’t be legally released until cured.
The conflicts write themselves. Lady Figwort wants you to break her son out. But Dr. Lavinius has knowledge you need. What do you do?
The Mirror Rhyme
There’s a magic mirror that’s one of the ways into the Brugh. To activate it:
“Mirror man, mirror man, come to me. I’ll see your face on the count of three. One, two, three.”
Remember being young and scared to say certain things in the mirror? That’s the vibe this whole adventure captures.
The Brugh Itself
When you go underground, there are two versions of reality. If you fail your save, you see grandeur—beautiful halls, elegant décor. If you pass, you see the truth: everything’s falling apart.
The Elf Lord has “haughty sophistication” but is also “devious and absolutely off his nut.” He won’t speak to you directly—his jester, Moth in Water, handles that.
The Problems
This is Basic Fantasy, which means the information can be buried. Pigman Jack is an amazing NPC, but you have to dig his personality out of multiple paragraphs.
The seven children who’ve been taken are scattered across the dungeon with no master list. You’ll need to make one.
There’s a room that’s a full page of prose. Cool room, but you have to hunt for what you actually need mid-session.
What I’d Do to Prep
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Highlighter pass - Mark NPC names, interactive objects, exits, triggers. The information is there, it just needs surfacing.
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Master reference sheet - All seven children, their ibix doubles, and where they are.
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Faction sketch - Who knows what about whom. Five minutes with a pen.
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Give each child one detail - They’re the whole point of the adventure. Make them individuals.
No bullet-pointing required. The content is amazing—you just need to be able to find it.
Would I Run This?
Hell yeah. It’s going into my Black Marsh setting as the gateway to a fairy forest. The village works as a hub you’d want to come back to again and again.
This is one of the best adventures I’ve read in a very long time. Love Basic Fantasy. Love the community. And you can get this for free.
Get it: The Blackapple Brugh on Basic Fantasy (search for KH1)
