The Trial of Nibbles the Goat

On Pressing Day all of Nettlecombe carries its apples to the great cider press in the barn with no door. The first cask always comes from the Old Queen, the oldest apple tree in the valley, and Agatha Alderton has picked it herself for sixty years.

This morning the Old Queen is bare. Four hundred apples, gone in one night. Under the tree, fast asleep in a ring of apple cores, lies a small white goat called Nibbles, who belongs to a nine-year-old girl from the other family.

The trial is at sunset. If Nibbles is found guilty, she goes up to the high fells and does not come back. In Nettlecombe every judge is somebody’s cousin, so the judges will be you.

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🍎 WHAT HAPPENS

A goat tied to the court table, eating the Reeve’s hat. An orchard where the oldest tree in the valley was stripped in one night, and the snapped twigs are far higher than any goat could reach. A chewed rope in a farmyard. A very old woman by the goose pen who sees everything over the hedge. And at sunset, beside the great cider press, the whole village waits for the verdict.

There is no fight in this one. The heroes are the judges, and the evening is spent finding out what really happened, and then deciding what is fair.

🎲 A 37-page family one-shot for D&D 5e, written for children from 7 to 12 and the grown-up running it — 2-3 hours, 4 players, level 1.

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👨‍👩‍👧 MADE FOR A FAMILY TABLE

▪ No combat at all: no hit points to count, nothing scary, nobody gets hurt

▪ A one-page card for young judges to hold: say what your hero tries, throw the big die, add your number, and how a good judge decides

▪ A note for younger players in every scene: how to give every child a turn, and how to keep it funny

▪ The youngest player gets to bang the wooden spoon and call the court to order

▪ A real question at the end with no right answer, that children love to argue about: what is fair, once you know the truth

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📦 WHAT YOU GET

▪ 5 scenes, every one written out in full: read-aloud text, what happens if they fail, what to do if they skip it

▪ 2 painted 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. They are optional: notes for running it with your own party are included

▪ 3 printable handouts and 3 roll tables, including what Nibbles eats next

▪ 11 secrets, and clues at three different costs: one free, one rolled, one earned

▪ 6 people with portraits, each with a voice, a want and a secret

▪ Written help for when the party goes sideways, and a section for your first time running a game

▪ 7 paintings of the adventure to show your players

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✨ THIS IS FOR YOU IF

▪ You want to run dnd for kids who would rather solve a puzzle than fight

▪ You want a first game for your own family with nothing frightening in it

▪ Your table loves arguing about what is fair

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

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🗓️ SET IN LOWMERE

The valley of The Lowmere Year. This adventure stands completely alone and needs nothing from any other.

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📄 THE FILES

▪ A4 — 37 pages, colour and printer-friendly

▪ US Letter — 40 pages, colour and printer-friendly

▪ 6 map images (2 maps × DM, player, no grid)

▪ 7 paintings

▪ 2 table-scale battle map PDFs, A4 and US Letter

🗺️ The battle maps also print at table scale: two extra PDFs 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.

Five downloads: the adventure in one zip (both paper sizes, colour and printer-friendly), the map images, the paintings, and the two table-scale map PDFs.

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, maps and paintings 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.