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View Full Version : Caravan info and tips needed, please



conaniscool
2011-05-06, 12:39 AM
I'm starting an adventure where the PCs are traveling with a small caravan. I just need some information like:

-Do caravans have like a head honcho who runs everything? What's his title?

-What kind of horses are used for pulling wagons?

-How far would they be able to travel per day? How many stops, etc...

-Anything else that would make the caravan seem realistic and lively.



Like I said, the caravan would be small, not a super long train. Nothing extravagant is being transported, just normal goods and merch. The roads are dangerous so people would want to band together for protection.

Thanks.

Aux-Ash
2011-05-06, 01:23 AM
From what I understood caravans tended to have a master that owned it, paid all the wages and was in charge of the goods. He needn't be with it, but could send a representative instead. He would always be a merchant hauling the goods. Keeping his maps, tricks and roads a secret since that is his competetive edge. The master had absolute authority on the road, just like a captain on a ship.

Wagons? Most trade-caravans don't use wagons. The roads are usually too unreliable to count on a wagon making the journey intact. Instead they'd have a couple of hundred animals (i've read anywhere from 100 to 300) separated in a number of "trains". As for what kind of horses/animals. Small, tough and cheap (to maintain). Nothing big that eats it's body weight every day. Mules, ponies, camels, dromedaries.

Marching speed is 20-30 km per day (and slower in difficult terrain) stopping every fourth day to rest and resupply. A caravan would move slower but not have to stop every fourth day (since they bring their food).

Other fun things... let's see. The master/rep will keep a small chest with him at all. In it is his contracts and money for tolls. Without that the caravan is doomed (since it won't be allowed into cities/caravanstops).
Every "train" or wagon if you insist on having them will be controlled by a man responsible for them. Losing a single animal is not an option.
Caravans don't travel straight at their target, but stops with regular intervals to restock. Allowing them to carry less food/water and more goods.
Every animal/wagon will have some space which is rented out to travellers/journeymen/smalltime merchants hoping to make a living elsewhere.
The guards and the cooks will not outnumber the rest of the people in the caravan. They'll at most be 10 % of the people on the journey.

Oh... and noone hauls cheap goods long distances.

Bobby Archer
2011-05-06, 01:28 AM
Disclaimer: my knowledge comes from having read various travel times rules for various systems and settings as well as some extrapolation I've used/seen used before. I know little to nothing of real life caravans.


Do caravans have like a head honcho who runs everything? What's his title?
There usually is someone in charge of the caravan unless it is the smallest, most ad hoc thing. The logistics of moving goods across great distances are pretty formidable and even for a small merchant caravan, someone needs to be in charge, typically someone in the pay of the merchant(s) or guild(s) involved.

Caravan Master is a good general term, although I have a sneaking feeling there are some pretty nifty terms for the job I've heard that I'm just forgetting right now.


-What kind of horses are used for pulling wagons?
Strength and stamina, not speed, are the qualities looked for in horses in this case. They'll likely be slightly shorter, noticeably stockier, and very calm. Other beasts of burden known for strength and docility, like oxen could also be used.


-How far would they be able to travel per day? How many stops, etc...
A caravan won't be moving much faster than a person can walk and will probably only be moving about 8 hours a day, so somewhere around 24-28 miles a day is a reasonable average. Depending on climate and conditions, the caravan will need to stop a few times during the day to rest and water the horses and take care of other minor tasks - maybe 2-4 times for about a half hour each time - with a longer stop around midday.

A caravan will likely try to start moving soon after first light to get an early start (which means everyone will be getting up, breaking camp, and getting ready to leave about an hour before dawn). They'll try to find a reasonable spot to camp for the night long before nightfall (~2-4 hours before sunset). This will give them ample time to set up camp and tend to any necessary repairs that couldn't be handled during a break before they lose the light.

What makes a stopping point suitable will depend heavily on setting. But shelter from the elements, high ground, grass for the horses, and good sightlines (especially a view of the road) are pretty universal. An experienced Caravan Master should usually be familiar enough with the route to know where such areas are and will usually plan their trek going from stopping point to stopping point.

Along common trade routes or major highways, common stopping points may spawn small towns or have way stations built upon them. Way stations typically consist of a few buildings (usually stables and maybe a flophouse of some kind). Who maintains these and how depends on the guilds and governments in the area.

conaniscool
2011-05-06, 02:06 AM
Thanks for the replies, they were both very helpful.

So, is caravan even the right term? I wiki'd it and it seems to refer more to giant trains traveling long distances. I was thinking something smaller traveling city to city, with a few decent merchants, some travelers bunching up for safety, etc etc...

The adventure takes place in a loose commonwealth of various city-states and small kingdoms. The spaces in between would be home to typical fantasy dangers such as bandits and monsters.

Bobby Archer
2011-05-06, 02:13 AM
I think caravan is often, in the real world, assumed to be the "large trek across terrain" definition. I think it is still technically accurate for what you're describing. If nothing else, it's what I understood you to be describing when I responded.

"Convoy" might be a more accurate term, but I'm not sure if it's not anachronistic. As long as your players understand what you mean by it, you should be fine.

Knaight
2011-05-06, 02:47 AM
I think caravan is often, in the real world, assumed to be the "large trek across terrain" definition. I think it is still technically accurate for what you're describing. If nothing else, it's what I understood you to be describing when I responded.

"Convoy" might be a more accurate term, but I'm not sure if it's not anachronistic. As long as your players understand what you mean by it, you should be fine.
Caravan is a better term due to modern implications with the word, convoy has a very military feel that is utterly inappropriate to the situation described.

Bobby Archer
2011-05-06, 09:36 AM
I thought of convoy because it's used by groups of long-haul truckers drafting one another, but it does have the military connotations you mentioned.

genmoose
2011-05-06, 09:58 AM
The first campaign I ran in 3E was a caravan game and it worked out pretty well.

I like the idea you’ve got of a small group, and I think that would work best between cities or towns in a semi-civilized area. One that allows you maybe two or three days between stops so those turn into your ‘rest and recoup’ locations. Plus you don’t have to carry along large amounts of food.

I thought of a few tips or fun plot hooks:

1. I’d think that small groups like this would merge and split with other merchants as it traveled from one city to the next. These ‘new’ people could be good fodder for introducing new enemies or plot points. For instance, let’s say you pick up a wine merchant in one town, and he might provide ample reason why your caravan would be targeted by a band of drunken bandits.
2. If it’s a semi-civilized area bandits would probably be your main organized threat, but there are ways around that. If the main road was closed due to a flood or a lost bridge, you might have to detour onto more dangerous and less patrolled roads. Also one of your temporary companions might try to get the group to detour to drop off or pick up specific goods.
3. Chances are most everyone in the caravan would walk most of the way. While the idea of riding on a cart sounds a lot nicer, it’s much more profitable to use your mass to carry more goods. So while one person per cart might ride to control the animals, everyone else would walk, and that would limit your speed and range to something around 2 to 3 miles an hour and maybe only 16 to 20 miles a day. It all depends on terrain (well kept roads are better than rough trails), and weather.
4. In addition to hauled goods (grain, booze, ore, tools, etc), caravans may also transport livestock. Since there is no refrigeration, people will have to slaughter their animals close to where they plant to eat them. So you might have to lead a string of cows, goats, or any other kind of large animals that can walk for a distance from farms to cities. This introduces new challenges, such as having to hunt down lost animals ‘off the trail’, or the smell of the animals may bring large predators.
5. Most caravans try their best to avoid traveling empty. So each stop will normally involve selling one thing and buying something else. Routes will be set up specifically to get a good rotary exchange going (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade). For instance you may buy tools and other manufactured goods at a city, then sell them to a farm in exchange for grain or other food, which you then bring to a mining town in exchange for raw metal that you bring to the city.
6. Another fun option may be to facilitate trade between otherwise hostile groups. So if your campaign setting has elves, dwarves and orcs that don’t like each other, the caravan may be a neutral third party that can trade goods from one camp to the next for a high profit. However this could lead to trouble if group A hates group B and they find out you’ve been associating with their enemies. Maybe they think you’re spies, which maybe you could be for even more money.
7. Another fun option that seems somewhat realistic is to run contraband along with your normal goods. Maybe you have a pile of swords buried under a few tons of grain, magic scrolls tucked into hollowed out lumber, or small Halflings hiding in barrels of wine.

The_Werebear
2011-05-06, 10:14 AM
Other things for a caravan - Competition is going to be fierce, and profits might rest on a razor's edge sometimes. Mercantile competition might lead to targeted attacks on rival caravans, ranging from as large as killing them and stealing their goods, to as petty as slashing their harnesses in town or bribing their drivers away from them.

Another way to liven things up is to have multiple encounters per day on the road. Other groups who might want to trade, single travelers, wild animals, downed bridges, washed out paths. Even if the group travels a whole week without a serious threat to their health, but they should still be running into people, sights, or wild animals all the time.

To second what Genmoose said, the caravan wouldn't be static. People would probably fall in and fall out every few stops, either when they ran out of goods or money, or got where they were going. They'd probably have to pay in, though, and pull their fair share of the work. So, depending on the situation, you might have families walking in the wake of the caravan, trying to find new opportunities or flee from dangerous situations.

mint
2011-05-07, 07:12 AM
The Honcho:
In rural communities, people are wary of strangers. Any number of reasons. Outsiders can not be made to face social consequences of breaking a compact for example.
Given this I would give a caravan a head honcho for sure. And he requires a writ of trade from the law of the land to do his thing.
Just as an example, without such paper, bandits could travel the road to fence stolen goods etc.
A writ would be like a guarantee from the government to the populace that while these folk are leery outsiders, they won't burn your house down or steal your daughters away in the night.
There's probably some form of respect for a tinker as well, especially in a world containing magic items.

Horsey:
The type of horse you are looking for would be called a draft horse or a dray horse. Different words for the same thing. It is like the class of heavy workable breeds like the Percheron.
Horses are super cute and they make me squee but in a fantasy setting, please at least toy with the idea of some weird exotic beast of burden! Not doing so is like going to a Scotland and drinking only water! :3

Speed:
Human walking speed is about 4-5 km/h.
The slowest gait of a horse is the walk and it is about 6 km/h.
Next is the trot which is faster and has a broader range of speed. Average is about 13km/h. This is the working gait of a horse. It can be maintained for hours.
Up to 90 km a day maybe? I really have no idea.
As an aside, learning to ride trot is tricky but good and important. I am unsure of the language here but basically a trot makes you bounce on the horse's back. You need to not bounce because it hurts you and it hurts the horse. Once you learn it though, it is better for everyone involved. The wilder the trot, the harder it is to not bounce.

Stops:
Big stop for lunch and night. More than two small stops on top of that, even if it is realistic, might just feel annoying to point out.

Stuff:
There may be one or two "living" wagons in the caravan. If you have wagons you can sleep in, you don't need to set up and break camp proper every day. Saves time. Will feel more like you have a home if you make your living on the road day in and day out.
Now, space is important because cargo space is money. But if you live on the road, live there, and you sleep in a tent or in the grass every night, well you may get a little sick of that.
If any of the wagons contain an iron stove or similar you could do some of your cooking on the road as well.

Berths hung between wagons are pretty cool.

Being on the road is rough and kind of boring. Insert storytelling and music here.

Being on the road is dangerous. There is safety in numbers. Even people who do not travel to trade will pay to travel with the caravan for safety.