Looking to start a campaign in Blackmoor, where do I start?

[RobJN]

Hey all! I'm new to this site as well as the huge fantasy setting which is Blackmoor! I wanted to ask how I would go about running a campaign based in this world using D&D 5e. I see a lot of the stuff on this site is geared towards older versions of D&D, as Blackmoor originally was, and all the content on this site is very overwhelming, although fascinating.

I'm thinking for the campaign I can generally stick to 5e, I have seen the Race and Class conversions by our lord and savior, Harvard. I'm just struggling to to grasp how to wrap my head around the expansive lore of this campaign setting and where to begin a sandbox campaign in this massive world.

Thanks for any info!

-acorn

People and places.

If you want to emphasize exploration, concentrate on the "what" and the "where." Where can the PCs go, and what can they find there? The City of the Gods, the Temple of the Frog, the Temple of the Id, the risen lands of the Egg of COOT, the Gargoyle Hills, the Tower of Blue Glass -- these are all places to go, but in some cases, the people to see come secondary. This is not to say that the NPCs are not important -- just that the lure of the location will lead to the PCs involvement with them, rather than with their directly interacting with the PCs to begin with.

Which leads me to the other avenue of sandboxing: the NPCs. Blackmoor is chock full of them, many of them powerful, some legendary (Hi, Greg!). Going the social/political route will emphasize the "who." (No, not The Who!) Get to know the NPCs, their allegiances, their goals and desires, and then it's just a matter of how your group of PCs will bounce off of those. Who do they know? How do they know them? What have those NPCs asked of the group? What happens once the PCs foil another NPCs plans?

You don't have to know everyone and everything. Start with a few places 'close to home,' and the NPCs who move-and-shake there. Then its just a matter of spiraling outward, geographically, or politically.

And in addition to Havard's 5e work, I've also cooked up the Half-Sidhe and the Soulbound Construct races for my own iteration of Blackmoor....