The Salt Auction D&D 5e One-Shot Adventure – Level 4, 4 Players (Printable PDF)

The last real market before the border, five hundred people, and one bell that is rung exactly once per lot and has never in living memory been rung twice.

This week the lots have been selling under weight and the scales test perfectly clean. Nobody has worked out why, and there was never going to be time.

At the third lot of the afternoon the floor of the Long Store drops eleven feet with nine people standing on it.

Then the bell goes twice, and every person in this town knows what that means without being told, because it has never happened before.

NO CREATURE ANYWHERE IN IT. The danger is eleven feet of collapsed floor, five hundred people trying to help at once, and a building that is still deciding what else it is going to do. Every hazard is written out with its own numbers.

WHAT YOU GET - 38 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
- 4 ready-to-play 4th-level characters. No session zero
- 11 secrets, tables and printable handouts

FOR A TABLE THAT LIKES A CLOCK. Everything in this one happens while something else is also happening, and the adventure tracks it for you.

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.