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Hi all,

Any ideas on how to implement 'caravans' as an alternative to the Singing Merchants? (also see this thread viewtopic.php?t=11460)

Would they be regular humans or another Kin altogether?
Who would they worship? An existing God or a brand new one?
Where would they come from? What would be their origins?

I would think that the Rust Church would see them as unwanted competition and would like to get rid of them.

PS - I'm preparing a new campaign (FL) for my friends after a rather long TTRPG hiatus and I like this lore but I'm still brainstorming about some things.

I think I'm going with this:

There was once a village that suffered some kind of calamity during the era of the Blood Mist and to avoid further disaster the villagers prayed to all kinds of gods and beings for help. Something answered the call and blessed them with protection on the condition that they always took their homes with them. Over time their (wooden) houses started deteriorating and crumbling and they couldn't build anything new (this was probably the doing of their newfound 'benefactor'). So they migrated towards a caravan village with what they had. Now they can only live like this - on the move - and they never ever leave something behind that is structurally part of the village.

I'm considering giant snails or something as the animals they use to pull their caravans but that might be a bit much.
Other villages interacted with them for trade but these people noticed that sometimes used materials would go missing.

There might even be wagons that haven't been opened for a while but noises can be heard from the inside...

The Singing Merchants are, or were, traders during the era of the Blood Mist. There were also plenty of other trading caravans which managing to travel during the Blood Mist, according to Legends & Adventurers. The Rust Guild mentioned appears to be a commercial arm of the Rust Brothers, so they would probably tolerate other traders as a trading resource and, more importantly, as a source of information.

What I think you are describing is a nomadic people, created and driven by a terrible “bargain” they made to survive. Which is a very nice idea, especially as they are transporting the consequences of their decision with them (the sealed wagons), having to carry the fabric of their village with them (why?) and being compelled, it would appear, to keep travelling despite the end of the Blood Mist.

It reminded me of "Inverted World" by Christopher Priest. Especially with the idea of strange snail-like beasts slowly dragging the village carts. Your nomad-village is on a journey driven by reasons which are not fully known or understood by the villagers' descendants, very much like the novel.

Could the snails be a source of income for the nomads? The secretions they emit, the crafting of the snail shell material (how to work it being a closely guarded secret) and the oddly changed herbs growing in the snail tracks?

How are you thinking that the protection they have would work? A slow moving nomadic village would seem an easy target for bandits, orcs or goblins, etc., until the protection manifests.

A single village doesn't constitute a nomadic culture, but the family and clan relationships and history of the Bedouin and the Mongols are a rich source of inspiration for nomadic community behaviour and history. I'm fond of using historical sources for inspiration in RPGs. History being truly strange, wonderful, terrible and often so weird that you could not possibly make it up yourself. As your caravan village is trading with other villagers you could look at real world peripatetic nomads for inspiration; who offer their crafting skills, labour (harvesting, clearing ditches, hedgeing, road work, etc.) and/or trade to the settled populations among whom they travel. Either the Fantefolk or the Romani are a good source of inspiration.