become bustling frontier marketplaces Merchants set up their tents, receiving local traders and striking deals, taking on new cargoes, or just dispensing objects they bring with them Stalls are opened to sell extraneous goods while cook-fires are lit Idle caravan workers arrange games and sporting events and otherwise relieve themselves of their pay in squalid, unseemly activities Caravan Beasts Every caravan relies upon its beasts of burden Thakal most often haul cargo either in enormous pack trains or in smaller carts suitable to their size Thakal not work well in teams, but can be beaten into cooperation if necessary Thakal masters often walk alongside their animals, whipping them to more effort or shifting their attention to take a different track than the one preceding them The enormous cargo wagons are hauled by the dangerous trisaurs, the three-legged dragon-kin found in the deep wastelands Trisaur harnesses lash to the beast’s sides and put its powerful hind leg to use pulling its load Never domesticated, trisaurs must be captured in the wild This dangerous process involves drugging a wild beast into passivity with enormous foot-long darts Deaths always occur when securing a new trisaur and breaking it for use, so these tasks often fall to unskilled and expendable slaves Never fully broken if alive, trisaurs often turn on their drivers viciously; as a result, trisaur drivers are well paid, and only the toughest make a career of it Elephants and colossadants are also common in caravans, even far from their native equatorial grasslands and forests Difficult to harness, these massive animals instead bear howdahs fitted to carry passengers or freight or enormous nets stuffed full with crates, amphora, and boxes Elephants and colossadants tolerate each other well, but hate the smell of thakal Handlers keep the thakal downwind from them whenever possible Disturbed elephants and colossadants are sometimes difficult to control, and may stampede if subjected to thakal smell for too long The dimwitted thakal remain indifferent to the other beasts around them unless attacked A caravan’s many animals leave behind a trail of excrement that, in turn, attracts a variety of carrion Scavenging creatures follow in the entourage’s wake, drawing a variety of hunting carnivores The normally silent wastelands teem with life along the return trail of a large caravan Caravan Wagons & Vehicles Any vehicle might be found among the varied caravans on Khitus, especially when encountering those fleeing adversity of any kind Most caravans, however, 112 adhere to using those proven most useful, effective, and durable for travelling the swiftly changing Khitan terrain These include thakal carts of varying sizes and trisaur-drawn “mahuuth” wagons or the rolling palaces called “shavinants.” Simple thakal carts are commonly made of wooden frames with treated leather covers, using only a sparing amount of metal for axles or hitches One cart and its thakal can normally carry six to eight blocks of weight, the cargo always roped down to keep the load in place over the difficult path A single-chamber mahuuth hauls massive raw materials in wooden wagons reinforced with dragon or trisaur bones Loads can be as much as 40 blocks of material at a time (or roughly ten tons) The top is open so the entire wagon can tip over for rapid unloading; slaves general load the single compartment from a ramp or other specially prepared place that can overhang its gaping maw The interior lip has locations for two archers at each corner who enjoy the protection of reinforced leather shields The entire structure rolls on two enormous wooden axles and four wheels that often need repair or replacement Three-chambered mahuuth are similarly built and protected, but they have covered roofs to protect cargo from scavengers, birds, and bad weather Separate ramps and entrances provide access to the front, center, and rear compartments Three distinct cargoes can be hauled without them mixing along the journey Shavinants are boastful luxuries reserved for the richest merchants and dignitaries Their many-cushioned compartments serve only the conspicuous pampering of their owners and their guests Their kitchens prepare fine meals served in audience chambers large enough for elaborate entertainments even while on the move All their surfaces smell of spices and fine oils Guards grace their bannered exterior battlements and slaves walk behind in chains None approach a shavinant uninvited, as guards always erect and man a perimeter of pre-fashioned stockades when caravans are at rest to keep the curious or dangerous at a safe distance Caravan Followers Caravans draw all manner of undesired followers Anyone moving along behind it without direct employment is tolerated but rarely afforded any guard protection and never allowed to directly share in its profits upon conclusion of the journey Many wives and families travel along so, as usurers, brewers of every sort of liquor, gamblers, women of ill repute, and all manner of unsavory characters The moving caravan attracts every vice it does not already host itself