The Crimson Caravans

This page is part of the world information. In fact, it's a snippet of economy and trade - trading outfits and centers

The Crimson Caravans


Short overview and history:

The largest, most prestigious merchant house inside the NCR is, without a doubt, the Crimson Caravans.
When exactly the Crimson Caravans were founded has simply been lost in the chaos of the first years. Some claim, that the carts of the first merchants that joined ranks and became this company, were all painted red, which would explain the name.
The Crimson Caravans became famous (and also infamous) by taking any job in their first years. Especially those that were too dangerous for others. They commanded high prices, but also paid generous hazard pay to their guards and merchants – and the customers knew, that one could depend on the Crimson Caravans.
This led not only to an ever returning clientele, but also had the effect, that the Crimson Caravans were usually the first to enter a new area and therefore also the first to economically develop it. In 2161 (the year in which the Vault Dweller greatly shaped the world) the Crimson Caravans were employed to deliver water to Adytum and to Necropolis, but also maintained relatively secure trading routes, for example to Junktown, Shady Sands or to the Brotherhood of Steel.
The whole organization was organized, more or less anyway, from the Hub. However, the order of the day was continuous improvisation.
As the Republic was declared in 2196 in Shady Sands, the Crimson Caravans were ecstatic. Of course they understood, that a true government would enact taxes – but a true government would also make good, sensible, use of those taxes. Streets that were more than a familiar strip in the dirt or the pitiful remains of a pre war highway, soldiers that secure those roads and simplify trading, maybe even the return of true currency. The Crimson Caravans recognized the potential and stood firmly behind the young republic and helped it grow.
And the young republic proofed loyal, The Crimson Caravans not only profiteered from streets and security: whenever the government would conduct a procurement procedure, nearly every time they would get at least an offer from the Crimson Caravans, that were by now preferred alone for the fact, that they have yet to disappoint. In 2247 the Crimson Caravans are concentrating on trading finished goods – the raw products from which they are produced are only of peripheral interest. The array of products they sell contains everything, from clothing (the cheapest imaginable clothing up to the newest fashion by Sweet & Cubana from New Reno), to tools, guns and ammunition. As pertains the interior market of the NCR the Crimson Caravans are experts in getting the lucrative jobs offered by the Republic. Among others, they supply the NCR Rangers barracks in the city states with food and uniforms, as well as some of their technical gear.

Structure, size and organization:

The nearly anarchistic organization of the early years made room for more thoughtful methods, especially in the first years after the founding of the Republic. Instead of one or two people sitting in an office, taking on the jobs, organizing the caravans and hiring new guards, while the rest travels all across the wasteland and gets to have all the fun and excitement, they decided to create clear structures and work in a much more planned way.
The Crimson Caravans of the past were a loose group of traders, that had simply banded together out of comfort. The first order of business was to create the structures, that would decide how the future structures should be created.
The traders, the office personnel and the regular, firmly employed guards were given shares in the company. The shareholders voted about the next steps, where two guidelines were the first two be introduced: the majority vote is the decision and there would be at least twice a year an assembly of the shareholders, where at least 70% of the shares would have to be present. At these assemblies, the shareholders would decide over the management, after the management gave a report about the current development of the business and had to justify their actions in an open question round. Usually, those assemblies take place in February and August.

In 2247 the Crimson Caravans employ around 1000 people, from accountants and lawyers to storekeepers and stable hands, merchants and caravan guards. The Crimson Caravans have their headquarters still in the Hub, but their offices can be found in all large cities of the NCR as well as far beyond the Republican borders. Among others, their largest foreign office is in New Reno and there are smaller ones in Redding and Broken Hills.
The Crimson Caravans wanted to open an office in Vault-City, but the city’s government demanded large amounts of taxes from them, as well as the right to inspect their books at any time, a say in who the company would hire in Vault-City and much more, that the management of the Crimson Caravans saw as a direct attack on themselves, on free trade and on the Republic. Instead, they opened an office in Gecko, where the ghouls happily welcomed them and even gave them a share of their limited resources, until the whole needed equipment of the Crimson Caravans arrived there.
The Crimson Caravans had also tried, around 2240, to open an office in the north west, in Klamath, to discover routes up north, towards Seattle and even Canada. The Slaver's Guild out of the den however raided many of their caravans in that area, enslaved the merchants and killed most of the guards as a message to the Crimson Caravans management: up here, we organize the trading.
The Crimson Caravans bought back their surviving, enslaved, employees in that area, moved the rest back to Redding and opened a new bank account, with high interest rates, at one of the largest, Republican banks. An account that was immediately filled with 10,000 NCR Dollars, and which many announcements in the press advertised as being the bounty for Metzger, the Head of the Slaver Guild. Furthermore, since 2240 they began to build up trade relationships to the north from Seashore, shipping past the Slavers Guild by boat.

Business practices:

The Crimson Caravans are primarily a company of traders and transactors. They have other branches of business, too, but their main branch is still the organization of trade routes and the use of those routes.
Their merchant groups belong to the best equipped of the Wasteland. None of their groups use wheelbarrows to transport their wares and pack brahmin are nearly all gone. The average trading group of the Crimson Caravans is composed of one merchant with one or two brahmin carts or wagons, pulled by at least two brahmin each, escorted by three to five well armed caravan guards. Of course, the armament, number and quality of guards varies a lot between the routes. On the main roads of the Republic, between the Angel's Boneyard and Shandy Sands, trading groups are often comprised of only two carts and three persons: the trader and two guards, one of which drives the other cart and comes along less as a guard but more to be a maybe needed replacement and general “girl Friday”. With two carts and 4 to 8 brahmin traveling as a group of three is much nicer.

The payment by the Crimson Caravans varies of course by position – especially as pertains method and quality. Caravan guards are paid in NCR Dollars, usually 50 $ a day, with another 50 $ bonus for each day involving combat actions. The exact amount varies of course by danger rating of the route and experience of the guard. Payment is usually handled half at the start of the travels and the rest and possible bonus payments when they arrive at their destination.
The traveling merchants get a smaller salary from the company: 30$ a day. Since there are no really fixed prices for the wares and haggling is the order of the day, the basic wage is consciously set low. The traders get 3% of the profit of their trading group (after taxes and customs duties) – so they have a natural incentive to haggle well. Furthermore, they get a provision for negotiating a new contract with large customers.
As already mentioned, a loose alliance of a handful of traveling salesmen and a few guards needs neither very large offices, nor very efficient ones – especially not, when they can easily dispense with many positions, that similar companies would have needed before the Great War – when there are no taxes or other harassment by the state, one surely needs no host of tax accountants and lawyers. Those times are however barely a memory for the Crimson Caravans now and their greatly grown organization has now quite different job openings than it had just a few decades prior.
The Crimson Caravans as a company own so many brahmin and horses, that, should one somehow assemble one all of them in one place, the herds of most ranchers would look small next to them (the Rancher’s brahmin herds however are used for meat, milk and leather production, not for transport). This necessitates stables at each field office of the Crimson Caravans. That necessitates in each stable some stable hands. Most field offices of the Crimson Caravans fill such openings with workers, whose contracts would probably have led to armed riots by labor unions before the Great War: the workers commit themselves to work for a certain period of time (usually three months or six months) to work for the company. The contract stipulates an exactly defined salary, usually around 350 NCR Dollars per month. The hitch is: payment is due at the end of the contract. Since most people, especially when they do back breaking, hard work for 10 to 12 hours a day, occasionally like to eat and drink, they of course get those needs satisfied by the Crimson Caravans, but this is subtracted from their pay. They get a bed in a dormitory and even, if necessary, work clothes and even medical care – which is all subtracted from their pay. As are any damages that happen.
It’s not uncommon to receive little more than 100 $ at the end of the 6 months period. In fact, several people have managed to have to sign another, new contract with the Crimson Caravans, because they were owing the company money for the work they did.
Such work contracts of course work only for unqualified laborers, that work hard in the stables or the storerooms. The office personnel of the Crimson Caravans would never let themselves be exploited like that. A person who knows the tricks of tax evasion or knows how to smartly plan caravans and their load-out and all those things, wants to be paid differently and better – after all, the school where they learned this, was expensive.

By and large, the Crimson Caravans stayed true to their name and have little interest in changing that. They buy, transport and sell wares – and they collect provisions for bringing together business people, that usually produce wares. That is their business. The Crimson Caravans have no interest in building factories that build this or that – or research and development centers, that find new, cheaper way to build this or that faster or better, to keep one step ahead of the competition.
That doesn’t mean that the management is so shortsighted, that they do not know that systems can change – after all, the Crimson Caravans has supported such changes in the New California Republic already. Sooner or later, everyone knows that, the methods of transporting wares will change.
The Crimson Caravans invest a, to be fair, rather small, part of their profits in other branches of business. Mainly and as a result of their labor contracts, they have founded the second oldest bank of the Republic. Due to the large number of beasts of labor and transport carts they established the Crimson Caravan-Essentials Company in 2220, a standalone company with about 40 employees, that build both several kinds of carts as well as the corresponding leather wares, from saddles to bridles. This company mostly builds for the needs of the Crimson Caravans, but also entertains many private people and smaller caravan companies as customers – many of them just for the thrill that everyone that can afford it, loves to buy the equipment used by the real professionals.

The Crimson Caravans are a company that works after an economical viewpoint. Everything that interests the management is money. They have a responsibility towards their shareholders – and only if they do their job well in their eyes, they get a majority of the shareholders to authorize their bonus payments when they wish to retire. Like with every other large company, it’s in the interest of the Crimson Caravans to remain a large company.
The Crimson Caravans fall under the jurisdiction of the New California Republic – and even though their personal commitment to the Republic is less shaped by a desire to help their fellow men, they are for the Republic and it’s expansion. They pay taxes and wouldn’t even try to too many tricks, even if the Republican tax collectors wouldn’t keep a close eye on their books. That does not mean, that they miss even one legal trick and that they do not cross occasionally into grey areas of legality.

The Crimson Caravans would never bribe a senator or a representative – but a bit of lobby work and brown nosing isn’t forbidden in the NCR. After all, election campaigns cost money, that not everyone has available. One could therefore see it as a kind of service to the Republic (which is what the small, but hardworking PR department of the Crimson Caravans tells everyone that even looks like asking a question about that). If a thusly elected senator therefore advocates for issues involving the Crimson Caravans, that’s certainly not due to the money – no, he simply decides based on solely patriotic considerations. After all, secure trading is good for everyone, right?

As pertains the competition, the Crimson Caravans were special in that, like many other caravan companies from the Hub, even before the founding of the Republic, never would have tried to take out the competition using violence. Free trade is something the Crimson Caravans take serious. Hiring mercenaries, that hunt the competition would not only be illegal and amoral: it would go wrong. Sooner or later, it would be noticed, people would arm themselves better and start shooting at the first sign of violence and very soon, the streets aren’t safe, but a war zone and a large part of the trade breaks down – a catastrophe for the Republic and even if the Republican law system would never find out who was responsible for starting it all, it would still lead to record losses for the Crimson Caravans.
Instead they steal the larger competition, like the Far Go Traders or the Gunrunners as much of their customers as possible and other legal tricks are also applied. Of course, the others do the same.
Small competitors are usually ignored by the Crimson Caravans. A brahmin cart and four young people fond of traveling, are no real competition, even if they move a bit of freight. Especially competent, fond of traveling young people, who also show up often, are rather recruited and their business bought to a really fair price respectively. Good help is hard to find.

Current situation and plans for the future:

The Crimson Caravans are in the best shape they’ve ever been in and it seems as if nothing would be able to change that in the foreseeable future. The trade routes inside the Republic are rather safe and with few dangers, even if one does not earn too much delivering tiny towns and villages. The trade routes outside the Republic are extremely lucrative. The NCR produces much, that can easily be sold – and there is much that is needed in the NCR that is much cheaper outside of it’s borders.
It’s the main objective of the Crimson Caravans to expand and improve the outer trade routes. The office in Klamath failed because of the Slaver Guild, but there are considerations of using small small boats to go up the coast to Oregon and Washington and open trade routes there, maybe by opening an office in Seashore.
Less problematic it seems, would be to expand east and south, into the areas that were once known as Arizona and Mexico and where the Crimson Caravan has already sent the first, mostly expeditionary, caravans to explore future possibilities.