Caravans are a tried and trusted trope of the fantasy genre which date all the way back to Robert E Howard's Conan books, whether your group are raiding one or (more usually) protecting one as hired muscle. The merchant or merchants in charge are normally depicted as being overweight, draped in silks, beringed with precious metals, and generally not very dynamic or inspiring figures.

But are we overlooking a rich vein of adventuring potential by relegating caravan adventures to mobile above-ground dungeons? Adventurers in fantasy worlds regularly come into large sums of money, looted from the lairs of dragons or hauled out of the burning towers of evil wizards, which creates an unusual economic situation.

Back in the middle ages and earlier there really wasn't all that much to spend large amounts of money on except land and in some places, titles, both of which would bring obligations such as protecting the peasantry and paying taxes to feudal lords or kings. Absentee landlords weren't looked upon favourably either, as such practices tended to encourage corrupt stewards to abuse the common folk and steal for their own profit.

In some game systems gold will get you experience points, but you still have all the gold afterwards; or there may be high ticket items worth purchasing, but in most cases a pile of gold deep enough to swim in creates as many problems as it solves, including jealous nobility or other adventuring groups that fancy their odds of stealing your hard-earned hoard.

Pirates didn't bury their treasure for the fun of it!

So why not invest that money into a trading caravan and multiply your wealth while creating a mobile adventuring base that you control, complete with warriors and skilled tradespeople to help keep your wagons rolling? It's not even neccessary for characters to stay with the (usually slow moving) caravan all the time, allowing them to rove out for days or weeks on different quests, although it's a good idea to have some means to stay in contact with the caravan. It also creates a good incentive to visit strange and faraway lands.

Exploratory trading caravans into unknown lands can be even more exciting, blazing a trail and perhaps securing exclusive trading rights which can be bartered for political influence, even more money, or magical items. The possibilities are endless, but most groups aren't really interested in doing the accounting or keeping track of the minutae of inventory, so here's a useful set of straightforward rules to determine the success or failure of your trading mission.

01-05: Complete wipeout, the caravan's value is worthless. This may be because of a glut of your goods in the intended market, spoilage, a curse, infestation or legal problems.
06-10: Bad result, that caravan returns only a third of what was put into it.
11-20: Bad result, that caravan returns only half of what was put into it.
21-30: Poor result, the caravan breaks even.
31-60: Average result, the caravan makes a 10% profit.
61-80: Good result, the caravan makes a 50% profit.
81-90: Very good outcome, the caravan makes double what was put into it.
91-00: Excellent outcome, the caravan triples its value.

For each 10 over 100, add another multiplier to the profits returned, so a combined roll of 125 means the caravan makes five times what was put into it.

Modifiers for this table are:

Members of the caravan:
A low number of guards and workers might reduce costs, but will increase the risks of being pillaged along the way.

• Low security and supporting tradespeople: +5
• Moderate security and supporting tradespeople: -
• High security and supporters: -5

Distance:
The further away you go, the higher your profits will be. Distance is usually measured in the speed a normal caravan travels.

• Up to one week distance: -30
• One week to two weeks distance: -15
• Two weeks to one month distance: -
• One month to two months distance: +5
• Two months to four months distance: +10
• More than four months distance: +15

Competition:
More competition along a particular trade route may adjust the chances of making a profit.

• Strong competition: -10
• Moderate competition: -
• Low competition: +10

The GM can add other modifiers due to trading skill rolls made by characters, the season, their willingness to try a caravan run through dangerous or enemy occupied territory (which might be called blockade running in some circumstances), smuggling goods to evade taxes or legal restrictions, the season, wars breaking out, or any one of a great variety of other challenges.

Player creativity should be rewarded - if they hear about a rebellion against a wicked tyrant and decide to transport swords to the rebels, give them a +10 if they make it in one piece, assuming the rebels don't take the weapons without paying. Picking trade goods that characters know for an almost certain fact are in scarce supply elsewhere (like a certain kind of gemstone) should add a +10 to +20 to profitability rolls. Similarly figuring out a way to preserve goods whcih normally have a short shelf life will usually net very good returns.

Making a caravan run over winter-frozen mountains swarming with ice trolls might add a +15 to profitability rolls (on top of a +10 for low competition), but should be roleplayed for the many dangers which will be encountered. Alternatively, if the characters are off on an adventure and their caravan gets hit by an army of goblins, they might lose it all or suffer 10-100% losses, depending on the severity of the attack.

A caravan can have a variety of goods in it which will determine its actual size, and some goods can be traded along the way. A group might decide to sell half of its goods after a month of travel, then sell the rest after three months. They can purchase more goods along the way, and keep track of the distance each block of goods have travelled.

The size of the caravan depends largely on what's being transported, bulk goods like grain or salted fish will need much larger caravans, as will herds of cattle, but a shipment of precious metals or finished leather might only need a few wagons. The disposition of the caravan should be discussed and agreed upon between the GM and the players.

The most important thing to keep in mind when running this kind of campaign is that the caravan's operation is secondary to the fun of having adventures along the way, so it's probably best to keep it in the background as much as possible. Once a trade route has been established, the group can leave it running in the background and move on to fresh challenges, which can be risky but frees them up without creating long term obligations, and if they lose it all - well that's another reason to keep adventuring!