The Tollhouse

Everything that travels this road pays the same toll: a coin, and a pinch of whatever the cart is carrying, into a barrel by the gate.

Three generations of Farrows have taken that pinch and written the cart in the ledger. The gate has never once been forced.

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🍽️ THE SITUATION

The Farrows will not discuss it, will not open it, and will feed you an excellent supper while not discussing it.

In the morning the barrel is emptied the way it always is, and whatever is in there goes wherever it goes.

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🔓 THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE LOCK

It is that these people took you in.

There is no villain here and no crime worth the word — what is in the barrel belongs to nobody, and asking has already failed.

What the party does tonight is break into a house that is feeding them, and the adventure is honest about what that costs.

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🧂 THE FLOOR IS THE ALARM

The barrel room drips brine. It is never dry.

And everybody who lives here knows exactly which board is loud.

🎲 A 41-page one-shot adventure for D&D 5e — 2-3 hours, 4 players, level 1.

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📦 WHAT YOU GET — 40 pages, 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 a copy with no grid. 70 px per 5-foot square, so it drops straight into Roll20 or Foundry already aligned

▪ 4 ready-to-play 1st-level characters, finished — ability scores, armour class, hit points, attacks, spells and gear. Hand them out and roll

▪ Every character in it, player and NPC alike, has a drawn portrait

▪ A plain-English glossary of the basic rules words — DC, saving throws, advantage

▪ A section for your first time running a game

▪ A summary up front listing every scene with its page and how hard each fight is

▪ 11 secrets, tables and printable handouts

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🗣️ WRITTEN FOR A FIRST-TIME DM, AND FOR A TABLE THAT LIKES TALKING

The read-aloud text is already written. So is what happens if they fail, and what to do if they skip a scene entirely.

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🧂 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.

Sister Wren is in this one, and in five more of them.

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✨ THIS IS FOR YOU IF

▪ You want a dnd one shot that fits in an evening and finishes

▪ You would rather run a heist than a dungeon

▪ Your table likes talking its way through a problem

▪ You are new to running games and want the read-aloud text already written

▪ You run on Roll20 or Foundry and want maps that import at the right scale

▪ You want to hand out finished characters instead of spending session one building them

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📄 THE FILES

Four PDFs, plus the maps.

▪ A4 — 41 pages, colour and printer-friendly

▪ US Letter — 45 pages, colour and printer-friendly

▪ 6 map images

🗺️ The battle maps also print at table scale — two extra PDFs, A4 and US Letter, lay every map out at one inch per five-foot square across numbered sheets with a cut line. Print them at home, tape them together and put miniatures on them.

The printer-friendly build is the same book in pure white, nothing removed.

⬇️ Instant digital download. Nothing is posted to you.

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📜 THE SMALL PRINT

Compatible with Fifth Edition.

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.

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🕯️ ONE GOOD EVENING

Games for a table, and for a chair by the fire.