The Ledger at the Lantern Inn

Workshop · Quests

explore

The Ledger at the Lantern Inn

Lvl 3-53 to 560 to 90 minutes· easy

“A missing shipment, a forged paper trail, and a final choice about who gets left holding the risk.”

— Hook · explore

QuestgiverMara Evenhand

Explore

Other

Easy

Lvl 3-5

3 to 5

60 to 90 minutes

4 NPCs

3 encounters

The Opening

“The Lantern & Ledger Inn needs a discreet team before dawn. A shipment is missing, the paperwork does not match the crates, and someone is trying to turn a simple delivery problem into a public collapse.”
— Hook · explore

Set the Scene

Mara Evenhand lowers her voice as she slides a stamped token across the inn table. 'The shipment crisis started as paperwork, and paperwork can become war if nobody fixes it quietly. I need you to find the missing ledger, the missing crate trail, and whoever is trying to make honest people sign for a lie.'

Patron

Questgiver

Mara Evenhand

Quiet, professional, and slightly desperate. She speaks like a manager trying to prevent a small operational mistake from becoming a public crisis.

On the Streets · In the Books

Rumours

d4 · table

01
The missing crates were never sold, only moved.
02
Someone has been signing forms with two different inks.
03
The archive door only opens when two people turn the lock together.
04
The foreman seems more afraid of the audit than of the thieves.

Stakes

If the party fails, the inn and its trading partners lose trust, an innocent worker may be blamed, and the boss walks away with the power to control the next crisis.

Ticking Clock·The morning market opens in under an hour, and once the first buyers arrive the false story will harden into the official version.

Background Lore

The Lantern & Ledger Inn sits beside an old trade road where merchants, messengers, and tired crews swap rumors over stew and strong ale. For weeks, shipments to the nearby glassworks have arrived late, invoices have gone unsigned, and every witness tells a different version of the same story. Behind the paperwork, someone is turning a routine supply problem into a test of trust, coordination, and who is willing to carry the risk when a deal starts to break.

What the World Knows

A routine supply delay has started to damage the reputation of the Lantern & Ledger Inn and its trade partners. The party is hired to investigate the missing shipment, follow the paper trail, and restore order before the morning market opens.