Trade Caravans

Trade Caravans are a form of transportation used to transport goods long distances on land. While they have existed for much of history, they are mostly used by two nations: The Kingdom of Man and the Gnomish Grand Duchy.

Gnomish Caravans

The Gnomes were the first to use this method, attaching large wagons to camels to traverse long stretches of the desert with their goods to trade with nearby civilizations like the Elves, Draconians, and even for a time the Goblins and Exilés.

Erkur Cragspear by Jarhed

It was the only way the Gnomes could trade, and really the only way they could travel in the Uncharted Desert for long stretches. Otherwise, they would be trekking the desert on their own feet, likely succumbing to heat and exhaustion while being able to carry very little in terms of goods to trade.
Camels were a dependable animal that did well in the desert, and therefore was the perfect solution.
Trade caravans, however, were not very common purely because the Gnomes did not get much trade, especially before the arrival of Humans onto Totania, who the neighbored the Gnomes and became their closest trade partners.
It was a dangerous profession, being a merchant, but the Gnomes needed imported goods to survive.

Human Caravans

The Humans of the Kingdom of Man would take this idea, tweaking it to suit their needs in more grassy areas as opposed to the desert.
Human caravans were often pulled by horses instead of camels, and traveled mostly within the Kingdom of Man to traverse the long distances of the nation and transport goods and people to other settlements.
Often other people would be riding horses on the outskirts of the caravan to guard them or scout ahead for dangerous weather conditions or enemy forces.
One such enemy force was the greatest threat to trade caravans: The Cragspear Bandits.

The Cragspear Bandits

The Cragspear Bandits were a group of bandits led by Erkur Cragspear, a human man who intended to rid the world of slavery.

Kathleen Ramone by masob the wise wizard

The Humans used trade caravans for slavery, with their major use during the Age of Plague and Age of Unrest being to transport slaves, the operation masked as a
The Cragspear Bandits took over a fortress at the center of the Kingdom of Man, bottlenecking trade in the nation for over a decade in hopes that they would convince the traders to stop.
However, all it did was unite the slavers against a singular figure. Erkur Cragspear was a divisive man, though in truth all he did was kill slavers. Still, many nobles tried to paint him as a horrible villain, and therefore his reforms never went through on his own merit.
It was then Kathleen Ramone, who trained under Erkur Cragspear, who rid the Kingdom of Man of these slave caravans. She had knowledge of trade caravans from her mother, Kennedy Ramone, a former slave who became a weapons merchant. Kennedy participated in non-slave caravans, but knew of how they all worked, and informed Kathleen.
Kathleen then worked to dismantle them during her training at the Magic College, supposedly destroying the entire business and instilling enough fear in the merchants that they gave up, even killing the leading figure Romaf Skullbluff.
King Timar Forestarm would later ban the use of trade caravans for trading slaves, but he would not ban slavery. This would only come as the result of Kathleen Ramone's actions and the legacy of Erkur Cragspear. Only then would people and caravans be free to help others rather than harm.