Quest idea: Escort Caravans

Basic idea... merchants in various cities and towns need some sellswords/spellslingers to escort wagons and caravans. The player escorts the wagons/oxen/ect from one town to the next, getting paid in gold, gems or other miscellaneous goods for their services. This would be much like the quest Darla gives, but can be run multiple times, not just once.

Each town or city could have one, or several merchants who needs goods delivered to or from a town. At lower levels, a player could expect to find work escorting a single oxen with goods for a bit of gold, or maybe even just a simple package they can carry in their inventory. Higher level characters could expect to have their reputation gain them contracts to escort larger, more profitable goods.

The player would needs to defend the wagon/oxen/ect from not only the usual baddies encountered between the towns, but also a chance of an orchestrated bandit attack.

Some merchants could possibly require meeting a courier somewhere between the towns; the courier would spawn in random places along the trade route. The player could escort the courier to his destination to ensure the goods get there, or go back to the merchant for the pay (with a risk that the courier was waylaid on his way back to his own destination as determined by a percentage... the more value the package has, the higher chance bandits have heard about the transaction and will be looking to make a quick profit)

For caravan/oxen/wagon runs... the player earns gold per wagon/oxen that arrives at the destination intact.

This could be a nice way for lower level characters to make some gold without "full on combat", but rather just a chance of combat (to fend off bandits, and other misc. baddies between routes). How much they could make could depend on how much skill they have in say, appraise (knowing how much what they're delivering is worth and expecting appropriate pay), persuade (grease the merchant's palm for a bit more), bluff (exaggerating the condition/value of goods they deliver) or intimidate (cut throat business practices, but all perfectly legal... no need to talk to the local town guard about it, friend).