I've been wondering how caravan wagons and regular riders handled night time travel. Did most people avoid it and camp at night for fear of not seeing where they were going well enough and potentialy harming their horses? i always thought that lanterns would give poor illumination for road travel. Also i wanted to know what kind of protection different counties or kingdoms offered merchants who travelled. Were the merchants solely resonible for their own safety or did they get compensation for lost goods stolen by bandits. And would caravan guards owe a guild house for taking contracts or be paid outright by the merchant himself?
Nighttime travel on an open road poses little risk to livestock as long as there is moonlight and you aren't running the animals. The question of bandits, however, is a more serious one as it is much more difficult to spot an ambush in moonlight than it is in the middle of a sunny afternoon. Travelling along a dark forest path, for example, would suffer all the above negatives and be nearly impossible for any traveler unless they were simply walking (themselves or their horses) and carrying lanterns.
As to your other questions, it really depends upon the nation and the individual noble's land within each nation. In Medieval times, there really was no such thing as insurance. In fact, paper money was invented after checks. Checks derived from a note written and signed by a manager of a bank in one city and carried by the merchant to another city where he would give it to the manager of a bank in that city in exchange for that amount of money in coins or credit. This method was specifically designed to prevent bandits from being able to steal large amounts of cash in coins since they couldn't cash the note without being able to copy the merchant's signature, for example.
Merchants who were members of a guild might be able to more easily acquire credit to replace lost goods, but they would have to pay for the privilege (actually, an early type of insurance). Otherwise, there was no governmental guarantee of safety in any Medieval society that I am aware of. Caravan guards could be hired individually or as a group. They could be affiliated with some type of guild or another or not. You are free to do as you like in your own campaign without fear of being too unrealistic in this matter. :)
I don't think a typical peasant or merchant would drive through the night, except in emergency situations. For any trip that couldn't be done in a day, someone would often be smart enough to open an inn along the route to cash in on the travelers. Hell, a lot of towns have there origins as layovers for weary travelers en route to somewhere else.
Of course in game terms, sometimes DMs want to have players “drive through the night”, in order to get at certain encounters. Although personally I find the typical caravan encounters some of the least interesting, because they often do little or nothing to advance the plot, and have little or no reward. "Roll d12. Oh great, low-level bandits we'll cut down in 4-5 rounds. And they have little or no money. Can we skip this and move on now?" _________________ The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. - Bertrand Russell
As the previous replies have said, there would be no real penalty to travelling by road at night but given the need to rest guards and animals alongside the difficulty of spotting ambushes, most caravans would. As well as this and again, as has largely been said before, in civilised nations you could expect an inn at least roughly every day's travel from the last or from the last town or village so that stopping for the night was altogether more comfortable.
As for government protection, there would be nothing directly and certainly no replacement of goods but it is in the interests of the realm to keep its own roads as safe as possible through patrols and garrisons etc. The movement of goods literally keeps medieval nations alive since at its most basic level, towns and cities need to have markets full of livestock and food staples if the population are not to starve. It is reasonable to assume that, adventure hooks to kill the local bandits aside, the area within a day's march of a town or city is safe enough for a farmer to drive his herd or cart to market without being routinely set upon by bandits so caravans should have no real issue.
Wild beasts, monsters and rogues that do appear would be hunted down without mercy to keep the food supplies flowing (enter the PCs).
I concur with Flint, that any community will have a vested interest in securing it food supply, and will ruthlessly eliminate any sustained threat to it. Further, in civilised lands, there would be ample incentive to open waystations at least a day's travel apart from each other, which in turn could create villages around them. Kind of the old ink blot effect I mentioned in a post on a similar topic several months ago.
Another issue with driving through the night is that eventually you ahve to pay for it. Wether you surge men or animals (or in the real world machines) their is always a price... usually people have to rest more, and the animals are likely to injure themselves. The old (and very underrated) Wilderness Survival Guide attempts to address this (pp 64-5, 88).
As far as the danger of an ambush, using visible light to travel through the night dramaticly increases someone's ability to spot you. Thus while the lantern may illuminate everything within 60', people and creatures miles away may be able to see you long before you can see them.
As far as the ambush itself, human bandits would be unlikely to make the attempt. Even when one can see in the dark, setting a night ambush properly is very difficult, even with modern night vision and communications equipment. Then of course, their is the fact that few caravans would travel at night, making the whole painful endeavor unlikely to result in anything except bug bites and a lack of sleep from the bandits point of view. Humanoids might be more likely to attempt as they have limited night vision, but 60' is still not that much. Finally, in any sort of night encounter, there is always the difficulty in telling one party from the other... smart bandits might prepare for this, but might also consider it a reason not to bother... after all, they want to spend the loot, not become a lesson in proper ambush setting.
An alternative night encounter would be bandits setting an ambush at a popular camping site. They would know terrain ahead of time, and possibly have nasty surprises planned. They would probably only use it on weak groups that would not arouse suspicion, and onily infrequently.. but perhaps the players fit the bill. Or, they could always do what the Thugee did http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee.
And then there is the always pervasive fear of the unknown. There's stuff out there in the dark, and of course I'm not just talking wild animal or bandits. It's the other stuff common folk would worry about the most would. A mountain lion is still just an animal, and bandit is just a man. An ogre or troll however...
Being among other people, and around a fire that provides light, warmth, and(perhaps most importantly) a sense of safety, is a rather large factor too.
And of course it is dangerous for horses and people to travel at night. Might not kill you, but a simple twisted ankle(for horse or human) is much more likely.
And night time is sleepy time.
These are all common sense reasons for not traveling at night. Slow and steady wins the race, so night time travel for merchants/common folk would be rare. Unless they live in a desert. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I think the correct response to the original question depends on where the travel takes place.
A quick glance at Wikipedia indicates that during the Roman Empire there were facilities every 12-18 miles. Are there any such road systems in Greyhawk with this level of amenities? I think the County of Urnst is noted for its roads. There are probably remnants of such a system in Nyrond and perhaps a corrupted version in the Great Kingdom (which had its magical dirnwain(check my spelling) roads).
The middle ages had its trade fair circuits and pilgrimage routes. Particular pilgrimage routes had regularly located stops and amenities for overnight stay. The interesting question for Greyhawk is what are the pilgrimage or trade fair routes that are popular?
Wilderness areas are a different story. Obviously along stretches of road well beyond settlement a caravan would need to take a defensive posture.
Ultimately, as DM, you must decide how much infrastructure for travel exists. Even more important is for you to decide why a particular route is important enough that resources are spent for improving the road, providing amenities, etc. The historical examples all had there own motivations. Roman roads existed to serve military needs. Pilgrimage routes were established as a result of devotion. The Silk Route came into existence to transport a rare and foreign commodity.
And last, but not least, there is magical travel. What is important enough to justify using/buying magic in order to speed or secure delivery? When does it make sense to create magical portals between points? Its the answers to these questions that will create the reason for adventures.
With respect to financial security, another brief view of Wikipedia indicates that a form of insurance/risk management was set out in the Code of Hammurabi with separate insurance contracts in 14th century Genoa (a maritime trading nation at the time). What might be interesting is adding magic. Geas, quest, curse, contingency and other spells might be used as part of risk management efforts. The mercenaries guarding the caravan might have to agree to being subject to such spells so they don't kill the merchants and take the caravan goods themselves. Lenders might be obliged to forgive loans if presented with testimony under the effects of a detect lie/zone of truth/divination spells that the caravan was attacked.
Actually, one has to wonder about whether or not there are caravans or road systems at all in a world with item/shrink item spells.
Last edited by A-Baneful-Backfire on Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:09 am; edited 1 time in total
Bandits thrive at night yes less people traveled at night because their was a great fear of the dark. Bandits would set ropes at a level to dismount people from their horses and even set them up to trip people on the road. So during thee day it was easy to see but at night it worked like a charm. The bandits could not see it the dark but develop a means of killing their targets and taking their goods hard to stop this as any light source is an attraction for these groups.
As far as magical transport I am never a fan of such things it takes away from the mystery of magic and makes it less fantastic. Magical transport would also be quite expensive. Besides Greyhawk is not a high magical world its more mid IMO. What would peasants do if magic replaced every thing they are used for? I see a very boring adventure setup if magic replaces labor.
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