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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Unwise" data-source="post: 5820226" data-attributes="member: 98008">First off, I very much like the idea. Have your read the Westmarches blog?I would like to echo S'mon'S (extra capital in the interests of palindromes) comment that money is not a sustainable motivation. What if this route were like a silk road through Asia. Finding a better way, would make them very rich men. Consider the acclaims and titles that could flow too. By the end of it, they could be like Marco Polo etc. Consider too, giving them some personal buy-in to the success of these trade routes. Maybe they are from merchant families or noble houses that want to pave the way. Maybe the paladin's religion has pilgrimages that take this route and many people die every year on the way.A few of quick ideas:- Some PC has ancestral holdings in the now lost areas of this land. Their family has a hold there which is probably overrun. For generations they have been sworn to protect this land, before being almost wiped out a couple of generations ago.- Some PCs are adopted sons of a merchant prince who wants to see this place opened up. His own son is a lazy, entitled brat who he really loathes. So he has given this opportunity to the PCs. He has given them next to nothing and told them to forge their own way in the world. If they do, they will be his heirs and they can profit from this trade route. What is the son going to do about this?- They discover evidence of old roads. Why did they become disused? Why does this old road go around that area rather than take the direct route through? If this trade route has been open so many times in the past by different cultures, why does it always close down and leave the place scattered with ruins?- Like the Romans, some old civilization made lots of forts along the old roads (now buried). This gives nice places for monsters to live and ties in will with any history you want to put in.Finally, as written D&D does not lend itself well to money motivation at all. After all, for the price of one epic level arrow you could hire a mercenary army and buy a small town. The economy is unapologetically gamist.I would suggest not giving a cash value to magic items at all. This works well in a low-magic setting. They are rare things that people don't generally consider selling, so there is no standard pricing at all. That way you can make prices that make sense in the context of the world. Is a level 18 sword really worth as much as a map of this trade route?</blockquote>

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