In preparing Hoard of the Dragon Queen for play, I am thinking through all the why questions. This helps me present a believable characterization of the entire plot and its characters. One question keeps plaguing me, though…
As the crow flies, Greenest is nearly as close to the Well of Dragons as it is to Baldur’s Gate, let alone the Mere of Dead Men. Why haul the loot all that way, creating more opportunity for siphoning or detection?
Who’s idea was this? Why did they think it was a good idea?
So, here's my take on this, not trying to sell you on the idea, but it's how I've come to terms with the same question.
Who's idea this was is fairly easy to guess. The NPCs that are frequently encountered but never confronted until the end.
Think about this like money laundering or moving illicit curbside pharmaceutical products. If you were to raid/loot/pillage your local gas station, and leave a trail of carnage straight to your garage, the 5-O would have no real issue figuring you out. Especially if you didn't conceal your face, someone sees you in broad daylight, and you're a familiar person in the area anyways. So, why not hire some no-names from different towns with their trained spider-monkeys, have them do the deed and then you conceal the trail that takes off with the purpose of misdirection. Funnel it all through the equivalent of your nearest Amazon Sort Facility to confuse the good with the bad, then spit it out on a Fed Ex truck headed to the actual destination. Now apply that same logistic chain to several other gas stations in your state/region/country with the intent of muddying the waters with volume of goods and multiple directions, and you get to amass your hoard without using brute force to guard it. Particularly since you don't have enough brute force on hand to guard it, because almost everyone you have employed is either hitting gas stations, or driving FedEx trucks.
The organization that is trying to pull this off is miniscule, compared to the volume of people that can be brought to bear to track it down. Each attack on a village or town is in the hundreds, but a couple of towns worth of militia or mercenary enlistment could easily rally into the thousands by the 3rd or 4th town. Each attack that the organization takes also diminishes the forces that they have which further tips the scales. They have to employ guerilla tactics and not engage in a fair force-on-force encounter. They use every tactical advantage they can muster, even in the attack on the first town. They set an ambush to remove the strongest group from the battlefield, if only for a few moments. One of the main aggressors of the adventure even uses a delaying tactic to allow the main force a clean opportunity to escape without an immediate tail.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I think there's another two factors to this as well...
First of all, the path to the Well of Dragons by foot is incredibly perilous. It's not something that you can send a caravan of wagons through safely or reliably. It involves a lot of mountain travel in areas with no roads or pathways.
Secondly, the Cult members aren't just hiding the location of their hoard from the authorities, but from each other as well. It's a recurring detail throughout the adventure that lower ranked members of the cult have no idea where this gold is going, or even the next step in the path beyond where they currently reside. They're deliberately kept out of the loop so that they can't reveal that information if captured, which they often are. If everyone involved knew about the Well of Dragons the whole thing would get found out almost instantly.
In preparing Hoard of the Dragon Queen for play, I am thinking through all the why questions. This helps me present a believable characterization of the entire plot and its characters. One question keeps plaguing me, though…
As the crow flies, Greenest is nearly as close to the Well of Dragons as it is to Baldur’s Gate, let alone the Mere of Dead Men. Why haul the loot all that way, creating more opportunity for siphoning or detection?
Who’s idea was this? Why did they think it was a good idea?
Jormund Edgebeveller in Amphail Adventures
So, here's my take on this, not trying to sell you on the idea, but it's how I've come to terms with the same question.
Who's idea this was is fairly easy to guess. The NPCs that are frequently encountered but never confronted until the end.
Think about this like money laundering or moving illicit curbside pharmaceutical products. If you were to raid/loot/pillage your local gas station, and leave a trail of carnage straight to your garage, the 5-O would have no real issue figuring you out. Especially if you didn't conceal your face, someone sees you in broad daylight, and you're a familiar person in the area anyways. So, why not hire some no-names from different towns with their trained spider-monkeys, have them do the deed and then you conceal the trail that takes off with the purpose of misdirection. Funnel it all through the equivalent of your nearest Amazon Sort Facility to confuse the good with the bad, then spit it out on a Fed Ex truck headed to the actual destination. Now apply that same logistic chain to several other gas stations in your state/region/country with the intent of muddying the waters with volume of goods and multiple directions, and you get to amass your hoard without using brute force to guard it. Particularly since you don't have enough brute force on hand to guard it, because almost everyone you have employed is either hitting gas stations, or driving FedEx trucks.
The organization that is trying to pull this off is miniscule, compared to the volume of people that can be brought to bear to track it down. Each attack on a village or town is in the hundreds, but a couple of towns worth of militia or mercenary enlistment could easily rally into the thousands by the 3rd or 4th town. Each attack that the organization takes also diminishes the forces that they have which further tips the scales. They have to employ guerilla tactics and not engage in a fair force-on-force encounter. They use every tactical advantage they can muster, even in the attack on the first town. They set an ambush to remove the strongest group from the battlefield, if only for a few moments. One of the main aggressors of the adventure even uses a delaying tactic to allow the main force a clean opportunity to escape without an immediate tail.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I think there's another two factors to this as well...
First of all, the path to the Well of Dragons by foot is incredibly perilous. It's not something that you can send a caravan of wagons through safely or reliably. It involves a lot of mountain travel in areas with no roads or pathways.
Secondly, the Cult members aren't just hiding the location of their hoard from the authorities, but from each other as well. It's a recurring detail throughout the adventure that lower ranked members of the cult have no idea where this gold is going, or even the next step in the path beyond where they currently reside. They're deliberately kept out of the loop so that they can't reveal that information if captured, which they often are. If everyone involved knew about the Well of Dragons the whole thing would get found out almost instantly.
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