Windemere: The Caravans

Not only do I need (okay, want) to get most of a small town in place using various rules I've picked up over the years, but to be actually useful, there needs to be adventure hooks.

I've been reading the Oracle Special Edition I picked up last year. These are beautiful books and PDFs with a good amount of useful info. I have a couple others but as I've not really started using them, I sort of fell behind. This issue deals with a salt mine and the characters that live in the nearby village. While the nearby village is not Windemere, it can be a small village a day or two to the south in the mountains. I need to think about the placement a bit as I do want some cross-over in the towns as there are some interesting characters and world building there.

So first, location, location, location! As you may recall, Windemere is on the Ocean Trade route. There are caravans several times a week going from the ocean to the interior plains to the west. There are caravans from the plains to the west to the ocean trade routes in the east. And there is the ill-named Trail of Lost Hopes that leads north through the Kalor Desert, past Ceawla (here, here and here) and on to the fabled city of The Elemental City of Athukthad (which we just passed on through but may be worth expanding a bit more at some point). Nestled between the Kalor Desert and the southern mountains, the old road to the dead city of Tuvano winds through the mountains. There are some small mountain villages along the way, including the one near the salt mines.

As a result of this location along the trade route, we have caravans. This location is a nexus of caravans, mountain adventures and the edge of the desert. We can play with some random tables for caravans to start. One thing to keep in mind is the economics of the caravans and Windemere: the growing town needs the caravans as they bring in good gold along. Some things may be overlooked, or maybe not. As with just about everything in life, follow the money.

Adventure hooks for caravans are many:

• there are an excessive number of guards - what are they guarding?
• strange passengers in the caravan
• the caravan needs more guards as some were killed in a previous leg of the journey
• passage is available if the characters want to go with a larger group to the next destination
• the caravan is encamped outside the city walls, and strange sounds come from it at all hours of the night
• there may be items for sale in Windemere, strange and wondrous or merely mundane
• Zesp's standard order of cigars is missing!
• One of Keze's errand Goblins is accused of stealing from the caravan
• brawls are a lot more common when a caravan comes into town - players could be hired as extra guards for Windemere or one of the inns
• strangers in town present ample opportunity for some nimble-fingered re-apportioning of gold
• caravan guards (or master) get rough with the locals. The characters can hear cries for help in an alley
• mysterious guards carry message to various town denizens from faraway places.
• the guards talk about strange structures they saw off in the distance that were not there on previous trips

I'll try and come up with more as I expand on the PDF (most of this will go in that perpetually updated document). I may either make another table, or simply a long list. I am not sure which is more useful. And of course, I need to read some of the various books I've bought to see what else I can throw in there.

Each day, roll 2d6 twice, once for incoming caravans and once for outgoing caravans.

2	across southern mountains
3	East to West
4	West to East
5	West to East
6	No caravans
7	No caravans
8	No caravans
9	East to West
10	From the North
11	To the North
12	Roll twice

 The we need the size of the caravan. Going from movies and books, a caravan will have a single caravan master who may just be the paid guide, or the owner of the actual caravan and goods. It will also have animals, camels, horses, griffins, to carry the goods or pull the wagons. There will be guards, and there may be passengers. There could be slaves, either as the servants or as the actual cargo. I'm not including that in the tables but feel free if your world has that (it is a common fantasy theme, but I usually keep it out of my fantasy worlds. Indentured servants though are a good possibility).  I've not actually played with these tables yet - going with this is an initial draft. And of course, what kind of goods do our caravans carry? That should be a d66 chart and the number of goods depends on the caravan size. The goods row indicates how many times to roll on the table. And it really should be different for the direction they are headed to, but we'll just ignore that.

In looking into the sizes of "real" caravans, upwards of 500 camels to even 12,000 camels were possible. Seeing as I like the small ship Traveller universe, I am also going with the small caravan universe in my fantasy world. There very well could be 1000+ camels or horses in the caravan but that would swamp my little trade town. I want player character sized caravans.

Small Caravans
Animals	1d6
Wagons	1d6-2 (may have none)
Guards	1d6-2
Passengers	1d6-3
Goods	1d6-4 (min 1)

 

Medium Caravans
Animals	3d6
Wagons	3d6-2
Guards	3d6-2
Passengers	3d6-3
Goods	3d6-4 (min 1)

 

Large Caravans
Animals	5d6
Wagons	5d6-2
Guards	5d6-2
Passengers	5d6-5
Goods	5d6-4 (min 1)

Trade Goods. Why yes, that table should look familiar! A lot will also depend on the type of world: high fantasy may have an abundance of magical items, low fantasy they may be a lot rarer and all the more precious. For those goods deemed high value, I'd probably at least double the guards.

1	1	Silks
1	2	Rugs
1	3	Liquors (Dwarven ale, wines, spirits, etc)
1	4	Woods
1	5	Crystals
1	6	Magic Crystals
2	1	Electrum
2	2	Copper
2	3	Armor plating
2	4	Copper
2	5	Silver
2	6	Gold (nuggets, coins, bars?)
3	1	Oils (heating, lamp, magical?)
3	2	Herbs (medicinal, magical, smoking, etc)
3	3	Cured meats, fish
3	4	Salts
3	5	Dried fruits, seeds for fruit trees
3	6	Potions (healing, magical)
4	1	Gems (mundane, magical, rough cut, finely crafted)
4	2	Mundane weapons (swords, axes, pole arms, etc)
4	3	Gunpowder (dragon dung for the Fantasy Trip)
4	4	Blades (enchanted, finely made, silver DM choice)
4	5	Smithing equipment (anvils, hammers, etc)
4	6	Mundane armor
5	1	Books (mundane, magic tomes, etc)
5	2	Scrolls (historical, magic scrolls, etc)
5	3	Magic trinkets
5	4	Riding beasts (horse, camels, hippogryph, dinosaur…)
5	5	Riding beast armor
5	6	Spices (mundane, magical, etc)
6	1	Magical contraptions
6	2	Mechanical wonders (geared golems, mining birds, etc)
6	3	Elven Weapons
6	4	Gnome Inventions
6	5	Dwarven Tools
6	6	Magic Armor

When the caravans come in to Windemere, we of course fill up the various inns. Obviously there need to be more inns than I've created yet. Part of that is the Spectacular Settlements book I rolled up on for this size of a town gave me only so many inns. However: there may well be camping spots outside of town for those without the coin for an inn. There is also at least one bathhouse, and one pleasure house, so my guess is they will also be busy. I need to do a bit of write up on those as well.