First off I'd just like to inform everyone that this is in fact my first campaign and as such I lack any first hand experience.
On to my problem, my campaign has gotten to the point where my pc's are fighting against primarily a secluded cult of radical Luddite druids and the animals that they have magically charmed to attack the nearby towns. The main problem I have encountered is a lack of suitable wealth accumulation for the players. The druids abscond from any material possession (in fact they don't even where clothing, they use a magical lotion to cause grass and fungus to grow from their skin to allow for a substitute for clothing. Some of the higher ups use a magical mushroom with rock hard chitin as a form of armor) and as do not carry anything and attack solely through magic or natural attacks. The animals do not fair much better. What are some viable ways to ensure the players are properly wealthy at their levels as the campaign progresses. I have put a few of my ideas below but are not very satisfied that they are sustainable.
Some of my ideas
1. The players would be receiving extra payment for any pelts they obtain as a bounty against the rabid animals. I dislike this one as later one I will have to pay players upwards of thousands of gp per pelt, which feels unrealistic.
2. Players will be payed for the heads of any druid gained. This however makes the employers seem bloodthirsty which is a little out of place with my current campaign.
3. Players would merely be paid at the end of each mission for a job well done. This one seems boring however.
4. The players would find items from the druids' victims. This would be confusing as to how druids weak enough to fall to the players could defeat warriors who would have items more powerful than the pc's.
If you guys have any suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.
You might occasionally have something appear in the body of the animal itself. For example, in From Shore to Sea a particularly large animal has swallowed an important artifact and it now lies in the beast's gut. Or actual parts of the animal might be magical. A fang might prove to be a +1 dagger or a pelt might actually work as a cloak of resistance.
I'm not saying you want to do this all the time. Too often and it might feel gimmicky. But alongside a few other sources it might be a flavorful option.
Have you seen the prices in china for bears gallbladders?
Instead of doing something easy, you could write up your own Monster Hunter gear crafting mechanic, where the PCs use the animal pelt/bones/ect to have gear made by a crafter in the "home base".
Or you could do that, but just have the pieces combine and yield a random loot roll of a specific category.
Another idea is to have the big monsters eat previous adventurers and leave the gear in the poo or stomach.
The only new advice I can offer is to combine everything that's been suggested. Use various lesser dragons' body parts for upgrades, sell off rare animals' organs, have NPCs reward them for saving farms, that sort of thing. Variety helps.
Or, if you're not overly concerned with moral ramifications, use souls for crafting and sale. Animal souls are usually worth fairly little, but higher-CR beasties would probably be worth more, and you could make the supply of souls lower if you want to justify the higher value.
The Druids have a storehouse of contraband items they mean to destroy. Also, killing animals stops being heroic after a while. You should research some evil fey.
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Druids can certainly take down opponents bigger than the PCs, and yet fall to the PCs. Druids have a lot of ambush spells that can be used as a force multiplier if they're the ones hunting people, so they can take people above their own level. However, if the PCs take them by surprise, the druids might not be all that powerful themselves.
Also, people hiring the PCs might offer rewards other than money to motivate them, especially if the PCs seem less than excited by the money. Noble families might have a lot of spare magic weapons lying around from their own adventures, that they eventually stopped using because their favourite weapon is even better.
Maybe the druids don't destroy everything; although they don't like "techy" weapons, they can't deny their power, so they've kept a few in reserve, in case of extreme emergency.
Alternatively, some of those techy items could just be hard to destroy properly; if smashed with brute force the evil inside would just be released to do more harm. This works well with semi-cursed weapons; powerful but with a (manageable but noticeable) downside.
And the druids might have their own nature-made equipment that's actually pretty cool. Take magic items and then re-imagine them as if they were made by druids. Same game effect, different appearance.
#4 works well. Previous victims may have been caught in their sleep, overwhelmed by a bunch of druids and minions, or just failed an inopportune save.
Just a thought: awakened animals. Hear me out
1. The druids, in trying to further corrupt and pervert nature awakens some of the animals, making them anthropomorphic and intelligent.
2. The sentient beasts now begin to operate independent of their masters; some remain loyal to the cause, some work for the druids for mutual convenience and some simply go rogue.
3. As the awakened creatures begin to develop lives of their own, they give into some of the sins like greed, wrath and sloth. Now the awakened beasts have begun amassing wealth to hoard or are equipping themselves and slaves with items both mundane and magical.
Now you have not only a good way to give the animals treasure but more developed enemies. Right off the top of my head I could imagine worgs leading goblins on savage raids and equipping them with the spoils; Tengu controlling swarms of vultures or crows and symbolizing death; minotaurs seizing armories and enslaving the defeated mortals to build him a hedge maze in the surrounding woods.
Wow, I think I just found the hook for my next adventure...
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Rewards from nearby villages to save them to a ferocious beast. (Knowledge Local) Or reward from the local good druid to correct an 'imbalanced predator case'.
His lair (like the trolls in The Hobbit) may have some goods from dead adventurers/victims or even collected as 'shinny stuff'. (Knowledge apropriate for the type of creature to figure out this). I had a dog that collect things, 'Fera' had a lot of foot of a pair of shoes.
Some parts of animal can be harvest for sell later. (Crafting or Knowledge or even Appraise) Or carft porpuse
Itens inside of an animal or attached to it (like a necklace in the fur).
Have one of the encounters be a merchants wagon or even caravan that the PCs have been moments too late to save. With all the owners having been killed by the druids they could, with mininal guilt, take the caravan goods as well as the items of the unforunate defenders as their own.
This of course isn't a complete fix but a reasonable way to get things back to where they should be if there is a huge gap.
What level are the PCs?
Maybe there is a lost or secret room in the druid lair?
Maybe there is a way to make items from the animals? I played in a heavy animal campaign, and we made dire bear jerky that was equivalent to potions of cure light wounds.
Maybe instead of lots of common animal pelts, there is a rare albino pelt?
Maybe a big mean animal has a +1 weapon still stuck in it?
Maybe some amber or pearls?
They're level 5. I think that I will be going with some of your suggestions, such as the cache of contraband Ciaran Barnes suggested or the traps pan suggested.
Thanks everyone