Need your help writing my players’ next campaign. Why would Kenku criminal organization set their sights on Triboar?Triboar is detailed in STORM KING’S THUNDER. Triboar’s Lord Protector is a Harper, and it has a Harper haven (safe house). Because of this and because of its strategic location where two major trade routes meet (so it’s a caravan and ranger resupply point, and the home base of…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 27, 2018
2)…many prospectors, hunters, and guides), Triboar is home to more than a few Zhentarim spies. Many caravans trade cargoes and repack their wagons in Triboar, as well as resupplying their provisions (water is seldom a problem on runs in the Sword Coast North) and making…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 27, 2018
3)…repairs to wagons and harness. All of which makes Triboar ideal for smuggling, slipping contraband and “hot” stolen goods into wagons and receiving it out of wagons, bribing caravan merchants to deliver messages or vials of poison or stolen keys and documents or…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 27, 2018
4)…counterfeit goods (or, for fees, offering to hide such things for pickup later if someone already carrying them fears being searched). Moreover, someone who’s good at lurking on rooftops by night can overhear a lot from the rather careless local Zhentarim spies. Some kenku…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 27, 2018
5)…are interested in all of those things, and when you add to the possibilities the opportunity for the kenku to act as “sly hands” for crooked Waterdhavian wine-merchants desiring to steal good wine during its overland journey and substitute their cheap plonk for it, who’ve…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 27, 2018
6)…selected Triboar as the best place for the swaps, and who would love to employ someone (the kenku) whom they could plausibly deny any connection at all with, if the kenku get caught (as many humans would mistrust anything the kenku attempted to claim or assert),…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 27, 2018
7)…Triboar begins to look like a rich, ongoing buffet for a kenku criminal organization: a place to flourish, and enjoy dwelling in, to boot. Add to that a sideline in spying on wounded or exhausted prospectors and hunters returning to Triboar, who could be ambushed outside of…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 27, 2018
8)…town, and its hopelessly overworked, too-few authorities trying to keep order amid all the comings and goings of caravans and expeditions and far too many drunken brawls, and Triboar begins to look well-nigh ideal (at least to THIS kenku ;} ).
Hope this helps!— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 27, 2018