
The best-known adventures of the Crandel Caravan - the Goblin lair in Harken, the Rescue at Rivenroar, the long journey to the Thunderspire and back - have all been small-scale, fairly private expeditions. However, it is not usually the case that the Caravan travels with a single cart and small load of cargo. It's actually much more common for the Crandel Caravan to conduct trips as a true
caravan: several wagons loaded with both goods and people. Such journeys are the only reliable way for non-adventurers to make their way from one town to the other in the Nentir Vale, as the roads are significantly less dangerous to larger groups of people.
It's such a journey that your boss, Jebediah "Jeb" Crandel, is currently organizing. The destination is two days away: the farming community of Harken (that's right, the site of your first major adventure). You've spent the last week posting flyers around Fallcrest advertising open seats for passengers (200 gold per person; not exactly cheap, but realistic considering the state of the roads lately), and gathering up outgoing cargo from various familiar merchants.
It is now the night before your departure. The four of you plus Tanya and Jeb are seated in the taproom of the Silver Unicorn Inn, your usual residence in Fallcrest. There's a good-sized crowd in the inn, as a fairly well known half-elf lutist is playing tonight.
Jeb's filling you in on the finer details of the trip you'll be departing on in the morning. In particular, you're looking forward to hearing about the passengers - Jeb typically handles the arrangements for passengers directly, and hasn't yet told you about who's coming along this time.
"Alright, y'all, I know you been dyin' to hear about what kinda passengers we got comin' with us. It's gonna be four people - two pairs of two, really. First two are..." *Jeb coughs loudly* "...a couple o'dwarves. Little bit uh, unusual lookin' for dwarves y'see, but they paid a lil' extra so it ain't no trouble".
Most of you would get the gist of what he's saying - there are frequently "unusual looking" people trying to travel through the Vale, and if you turned all such people away, your group wouldn't have two coppers to rub together.
"Much more interesting is our second pair of passengers! Hoo boy, am I looking forward to this trip. Ya see, one of them is an old friend of yours, Tanya!”
Tanya looks up from a bowl of stew and tilts her head in confusion. “...old friend?”
“Sure! Someone you haven’t seen in a looong time. Well, if you don’t know who it is, it’ll just have to be a surprise! Isn’t that excitin’!”
Tanya frowns and furrows her brow. It appears this is one of the rare moments where she's genuinely perplexed by something. "Old friend? Really, who could that be...?"
Jeb relaxes a bit in his chair, and takes a generous gulp of ale - he seems to be more or less done briefing you on tomorrow's trip. "Well, glad as I am about all that, I was hopin' we'd have more than just four passengers. After all, we're the only caravans headin' south, with Pendergast and Locheed heading east and west this month. Ah well, can't be helped at this point."
[RP your contributions to the conversation. Also, give Wisdom checks.]