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Lyth
2010-02-07, 12:31 AM
So, one of my players got separated by plot hook at the beginning of the campaign from the trade caravan he is leader of. A week later, he sends a message by pigeon for his "second" to the scheduled stop, telling them to continue along without him while he's stuck in the campaign. A few days later, the message is essentially "returned to sender" - the caravan is overdue by almost half a week, and no one's heard from it.

Now, I had an interesting plan as to why the caravan was late/missing. But then there was a small problem....I had confused the trade route, planned for south, rather than north, and now I'm stuck - the reason I had before was specific to that region.

So now I need an interesting reason for about 50 people who should have no problem traveling that particular route to have not made their scheduled stop - without killing them. There aren't really any bandits in this setting...the world has bigger things to worry about (like the mindless souls of ancestors bent on destroying all living beings), so I can't fall back on the whole "captured/raided" hook. You guys tend to have good imaginations, and I'm drawing a blank ><

Sinfire Titan
2010-02-07, 01:26 AM
A Basilisk decided to settle down in that region, and petrified the entire thing.

Dragons ate the caravan.

A Wizard did it. 'Nuff said.

That's just for starters.

Drakevarg
2010-02-07, 01:29 AM
Intercepted by a passing zombie horde, had to take shelter in a nearby town, where they've been holding out ever since?

faceroll
2010-02-07, 01:29 AM
Maybe the mindless souls of ancestors bent on destroying all living beings did it?

LurkerInPlayground
2010-02-07, 01:30 AM
Nymphs have taken all the men as servants. The men are all hopelessly smitten and are blissfully living in their service, Lotus Eater style.

The women got away but only straggle in disorganized groups to the nearest villages. Recovering them and rehiring new workers will be a pain. Running into them for information is not unlikely since they're all scattered about that region.

Magnor Criol
2010-02-07, 01:31 AM
There's always bandits. =p


-Brass dragons are "notoriously chatty" and sometimes force beings to chat with them using their sleep breath. "A creature put to sleep may wake to find itself pinned or buried to the neck in the sand until the dragon’s thirst for small talk is slaked." (Monster Manual description.)

So, the caravan happened upon a particularly chatty - and powerful - brass dragon who, while having no intention of harming the people, insisted that they hang around and chat with him for a while.


-Mother Nature's a reliable fallback. They're crawling through a mountain pass when the trail gives out from underneath them, they're wandering through the forest and a forest fire diverts them, they're crossing the desert and got turned bass-ackwards by some freak crazy giant sandstorm...whatever the terrain, there's always some way nature can go wrong on us.

Of course then you have to come up with why the countermeasures they'd naturally have brought with them also fail. Maybe that sandstorm was comprised of many tiny, tiny metal shards that screwed with compasses, for example.

Demented
2010-02-07, 02:31 AM
Something that was specific to the South has now moved to the North where it definitely shouldn't be. Chaos ensues.
(Basically the same plan as before, but with extra wrongness.)

greenknight
2010-02-07, 08:24 AM
The simple way to fix this is to assume someone grabbed the pigeon and sent back a false message. This could be done in an effort to divert the caravan leader from whatever he's doing.

If that doesn't work for you, then maybe there were a few traitors in the caravan who waited for an opportunity, and then made off with the caravan and all the people. Probably to sell them as slaves or offer them as sacrifices.

bosssmiley
2010-02-07, 09:10 AM
So now I need an interesting reason for about 50 people who should have no problem travelling that particular route to have not made their scheduled stop - without killing them. There aren't really any bandits in this setting...the world has bigger things to worry about (like the mindless souls of ancestors bent on destroying all living beings), so I can't fall back on the whole "captured/raided" hook. You guys tend to have good imaginations, and I'm drawing a blank ><

Mind-affecting travelling circus. They all ran away to join it as it careers across the landscape spreading fear and madness in its wake.
Resource rush. Everyone said "screw this pin money job" and decided to seek the big score.
The siren call of a buried crystal intelligence which has recently awoken and needs labourers to ???
Unexplained Marie Celeste event.
They're just lost and overdue. Someone was holding the map the wrong way up.

ZombieGenesis
2010-02-07, 09:30 AM
They discovered an abandoned settlement on their route and were besieged by the mindless undead. Falling back to this well enforced settlement these 50 people have formed a small community, relying on the stocks of the caravan and the storehouses they can find.
Or maybe they just got greedy and sold the damn thing?

Makensha
2010-02-07, 09:45 AM
They're just lost and overdue. Someone was holding the map the wrong way up.

That's stupidly simple yet totally awesome.:smallbiggrin:


-They were forcefully drafted into a military.
-There goods were forcefully taken by a tired military unit.
-An evil mage knocked them out and is now playing his own version of Saw.
-One of the caravaneers is working for evil forces and shooed the bird away before anyone else saw it.

Melamoto
2010-02-07, 09:51 AM
They lost the map, and decided to go by instinct. They are currently lost deep in a forest that nobody has even discovered yet.

Darcand
2010-02-07, 10:11 AM
A rival merchant bought the caravan out from under the absentee owner

Kislath
2010-02-07, 10:47 AM
-A forest fire forced them to flee in a new direction, and they've been running from it for days.

-a weird rift in time and space swallowed them whole, but they never even realized it, and now they've re-emerged from it and have no idea that they are even late.

- abducted by aliens. Probed. A lot.

ScIaDrd
2010-02-07, 11:58 AM
-Captured by nomad barbarians/wild desert elves/Formians/whatever.
- had to cross throught the newly emergeged bandit kingdom or a warlord state, are stalled by grossly incompetent and inefficient bureaucracy.
-They accdentaly trepass into a sacred area of a druid coven or a cult (evil or otherwise), hilarty ensues.
-two wordsflash flood (http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/desertsurvival7.htm)
They saw a sandstrom coming, holed themselves up in a nearby village or an abandoned castle to wait it out, got ,snowed in' by the sand and now have to get out and survive in hostile environment while their supplies are gradually growing thin.
-They get kidnapped by abberations/ fair folk/an epic level mage/a dragon/something else and forced to prticipate in sadistic games. The PC(s) should be able to join them smehow and naturaly they are the only ones who can get the caravaners out- Combine this one with a glided cage in the form of a oasis/masion filled with various creature comforts, for extra fun. Also throw in a tracherous host who plans to kill them later on.
-and lastly +1 to the evil circus idea:smallcool:

DragoonWraith
2010-02-07, 12:03 PM
-The player bought the caravan from Brad Pitt playing a crazy Irish gypsy, it lost its wheels, and through a crazy turn of events Pitt ended up having to fight in a series of illegal underground bare-knuckled boxing matches for an increasingly irate gangster who wants him to throw the fight, but he never does. Chaos ensues. There's a diamond the size of a fist, bizarre British slang, and a "sneaky ****in' Russian" involved somehow too.

ArcanistSupreme
2010-02-07, 07:39 PM
-The player bought the caravan from Brad Pitt playing a crazy Irish gypsy, it lost its wheels, and through a crazy turn of events Pitt ended up having to fight in a series of illegal underground bare-knuckled boxing matches for an increasingly irate gangster who wants him to throw the fight, but he never does. Chaos ensues. There's a diamond the size of a fist, bizarre British slang, and a "sneaky ****in' Russian" involved somehow too.

For some reason it seems like I've heard this somewhere before :smallwink:

Maybe one of the carts did lose its wheels and this accounted for the why nobody had seen them when the message was "returned to sender". They then continued happily on their way and are now back on schedule.

Eon
2010-02-07, 07:46 PM
hmmm....
rare business opportunity
road construction
detours?
Eeeevvviiiillll dark elf gives wrong directions...

Jothki
2010-02-07, 07:59 PM
The player was captured by Mind Flayers a while ago, and everything with the caravan has been a forced hallucination while they perform horrific experiments on him.

BRC
2010-02-07, 08:00 PM
A group of Fey decided to have some fun with the Caravan, filling part of the road with mists and leading the caravan in circles.

DragoonWraith
2010-02-07, 08:01 PM
For some reason it seems like I've heard this somewhere before :smallwink:
I will never, ever, hear the word "caravan" without thinking "wha'd'f'k d'I wan a car'vin 't's got n'f'king wheels?"