The Short Ledger of Coldharbor Ford
A ferry-warden's books show forty-one crossings that never arrived, and the Crown assessor will audit the ferry in nine days.
The antagonist
- Maud Testory, Ferry-warden of Coldharbor Ford and lease-holder of the only crossing for two days' ride in either direction. She keeps the ledger and the ferry rope. — Wants To keep the ferry lease by showing the assessor a balanced ledger before the audit.. Will She sells the names of people who cross on the night ferry to the Ardent Salt Company's factor, who puts them to work on the far-bank pans under contracts they can't read, and she falsifies the crossing counts to hide the gap. If the assessor's boat comes early, she will cut the ferry rope and let it drift onto the weir.. Limited by The Ardent factor holds a note on her debts. If she stops supplying labor, he calls the note and takes the ferry outright. She also cannot falsify the tally-stones on the near bank, which the town watches every dusk.. Full NPC →
Five beats
- Inciting event — At dusk the miller's son, Piet Garrow, runs to the party's inn yelling that his sister Hanne boarded the night ferry to visit an aunt across the river and never came back. The ferry-warden Maud Testory swears Hanne was never on the boat and shows a ledger that agrees with her.
- Investigation — The party can check the tally-stones on the near bank, where each crossing is marked, and find eleven stones with notches cut shallow and later smoothed over. Behind the ferry shed, a tin ticket from the Ardent Salt Company's far-bank pans is caught in the mooring post, stamped with a crossing number that matches Hanne's missing day.
- Complication — The far-bank salt pans' overseer, Gideon Rusk, offers the party a fee to leave the Ardent labor 'paperwork' alone and says the workers signed freely. A tired woman among the pan-hands, Sabeth Oyelowo, whispers that she came over on the ferry expecting a day's wage and was locked in a shed for six weeks.
- Climax setup — On the ninth night the assessor's barge is tied to the far bank, and Maud has the night ferry loaded with a third group of six from Coldharbor. The party must choose whether to stop the ferry on the water, reach the assessor before the audit, or go to the salt works and free the people already there.
- Resolution — If the party exposes Maud's ledger, the assessor closes the ferry, the near-bank families lose their wages, and the Ardent factor takes the rope and the lease. If the party covers the ledger for the town, the missing people stay on the pans and the shed doors stay locked.
Background hooks
- Criminal — You once ran a false tally for a smuggler in Coldharbor and you recognize the notching on the tally-stones. Maud knows you did it and offers to forget it if you help her buy time.
- Noble — Your family holds a grain-lease on the far bank that the Ardent Company wants. The factor offers to return your family's pans if you keep quiet about the labor.
- Folk Hero — Sabeth Oyelowo is your cousin, taken on the ferry two years ago when you were away. You have only ever heard of her through a letter the salt company sent to the wrong address.
- Acolyte — The chapel bell at Coldharbor Ford was cast from the same bronze as the ferry-chain, and the sexton says the bell rings when a crossing is sold. You have to decide whether to trust the sexton's word or the ledger's.
- Soldier — You served as a riverguard on the assessor's barge. Your old sergeant, Dorran Ash, is captain of that barge and will not wait past the ninth day.
Session one opens
The party is in the Lantern Rest inn at Coldharbor Ford when the miller's son, Piet Garrow, bursts through the door with the news that his sister Hanne boarded the night ferry and never reached the aunt across the river. Ferry-warden Maud Testory follows at a walk, opens her ledger on the bar, and insists the crossing never happened.