The Ferry DnD 5e One-Shot Adventure – Level 3 Mystery (PDF)

One boat, one family, three generations, and a crossing fee that has to be exact because Marl Vance has never once made change.

This spring the fee started refusing coin. Not foreign coin, not clipped coin - ordinary money that crossed this water without comment last year. He turns it over in his hand, hands it back, and does not explain.

There are nine carts on this bank and four on the far one, and the boat has not moved in three days.

WHAT HE IS HIDING IS NOT A CRIME. Marl Vance is going blind, has been for two years, and the exact-fee rule is the entire architecture that has let him keep working - he knows the old coins by weight and the new ones defeat him. Every person on both banks respects him. Telling them is the one thing he cannot survive, and getting across tonight means deciding what you do with that.

WHAT YOU GET - 34 pages, and nothing left for you to invent
- 5 scenes, every one written out in full: read-aloud text, what happens if they fail, what to do if they skip it
- 2 battle maps in three versions each - DM, player, and no grid. 70 px per 5-foot square, aligned for Roll20 and Foundry
- 4 ready-to-play 3rd-level characters. No session zero
- 11 secrets, tables and printable handouts, plus written help for when players go sideways

OPENS BY SHOWING IT TO SOMEBODY ELSE FIRST. The table watches a carter get refused before it happens to them, which is the whole reason the scene works.

PART OF THE SALT ROAD. Sixty miles, sixteen stops, each a day apart. Every one of them has noticed the same thing and not one of them has said so out loud. This adventure stands completely alone - it needs nothing from any other - but a table that plays four of them starts comparing notes without being prompted.
THE FILES - four PDFs: A4 and US Letter, each in colour and in a printer-friendly build. The printer-friendly version is the same book in pure white, nothing removed. Plus 6 map images.

Compatible with Fifth Edition. Instant digital download - nothing is posted.

Made with AI assistance: the text and maps of this adventure were written and generated with AI, then edited, checked and laid out by hand.