Old Road

The Old Road is the very first Location in which the player finds themselves after lauching the Game and creating a savefile. It begins after "Road Home", the second cinematic of the game, in which the Stage Coach carrying you to Hamlet suffers an accident because of the apparent madness of its driver. The Old Road is supposedly located in the Weald, as the background and music both match with the ones you find in this region.

The player has to get through the Old Road to reach Hamlet. It serves as a tutorial on how to progress/find your way into a dungeon, along with tutorials for battle and curios investigation.

Reynauld and Dismas
On the Old Road, the player will always begin their adventure with these two characters: Reynauld (Crusader level 0) and Dismas (Highwayman level 0).

Reynauld is a crusader. He possesses the combat skills Smite, Zealous Accusation, Stunning Blow and Bulwark of Faith. He has the quirk Warrior of Light, which is really useful at the beginning of the game. But he is also God Fearing and most importantly, Kleptomaniac, which mean he can steal some of the loot the player gets. It's advised to interact with curios and loot (battle rewards) with Dismas instead of Reynauld.

Dismas is a highwayman. He has the combat skills Pistol Shot, Grapeshot Blast, Tracking Shot and Open Vein. He possesses 2 positive quirks, Hard Noggin and Quick Reflexes and also 1 negative quirk, Known Cheat, which is not troublesome for the dungeon.

These features are not randomly generated. The player will always begin the game with these 2 characters, and their skills/quirks will always remain the same at the beginning.

Map and content
The Old Road is the easiest dungeon in the game. There are only 2 rooms: the entrance room (where the heroes begin) is directly connected to the last room. The player has to pass through one corridor to do so and complete the first quest: reach Hamlet alive. But that could be harder than it seems.

Halfway through the corridor, the player will encounter one Brigand Cutthroat, and the combat system will be explained to them. This fight is relatively easy, the Cutthroat has low stun and bleed resistances and also low health.

Just after that, the player will find the first curio (with tutorial): a Traveler's Tent, which will more likely give loot than stress for the first time (not sure). In the New game+, the Traveler's Tent is replaced by the Transcendent Terror which, instead of any loot, brings +100 stress, and a resolve test on the character used to investigate the curio, making one begin their adventure with an afflicted hero.

After passing through the corridor, the player enters the room which is a Battle Room with a chest (a Trapped Strongbox). They will meet a Brigand Bloodletter (1st and 2nd position) along with a Brigand Fusilier (3rd position). They have to be killed in order to finish the quest.

Strategies
The Old Road is definitely the easiest dungeon in the game, but that doesn't mean that it will be without danger. The fact that the player only has 2 heroes without any trinkets equipped, that both Reynauld and Dismas don't have any healing abilities (in the beginning) and that the heroes can be surprised (even by the Cutthroat) makes even the easiest fight potentially deadly. Having to deal with an afflicted hero in New game+ just makes it more difficult. As a matter of fact, it's not rare to lose one of the 2 heroes in this tutorial and to having to restart from the beginning because, once the player reaches Hamlet, this death prevents them from having a correct team of 4 for the first quest into the ruins.

So, to have a good start, it's advised to put an end to the fights as quickly as possible. Finishing the Cutthroat with 2 attacks is possible and one can ignore the Fusilier to focus the Bloodletter before he performs a bleed attack that could bring the heroes to a fast death. Stunning him is possible, but you have a 50% chance to fail (Stunning Blow is at 100% but the Bloodletter has 50% resistance). There is nothing more the player can really do, except pray not to be too unlucky.

Quest Reward
After beating the Bloodletter and the Fusilier, you'll have completed the quest and the game will propose you to go to Hamlet. Don't open the Trapped Strongbox before quitting! After that you'll get the quest reward: 5000 gold as a starting financial base to buy the provision for your first quest, along with the loot you got. Then, you'll reach Hamlet and begin your adventure.

There is also an achievement of the game which request you to make Reynauld and Dismas survive until the very end, and bring them on the quest to defeat the final boss within the Darkest Dungeon. This achievement is one of the hardest to get, considering they can even die in the tutorial.