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[Fearless Son]

So something odd happened in my fortress this evening. 

A human caravan arrived!  My first for this fortress, and I was eager to see what they might offer.  So I had my dwarfs haul the goods I have been saving for exchange to the depot.  But halfway through the process of filling the depot, I noticed the dwarfs start hauling good the other direction.  Puzzled, I examined the depot and it said that no merchants were trading right now.  Looking out, the caravan was still on the map, still moving, but they were passing by the fortress entrance rather than going in.  They just continued moving until they went off the map. 

So, what happened?  Were they just "passing through"?  Is this a thing that happens?  I know for a fact that my depot is accessible (it reads as such on the screen and a both dwarven and elven caravans arrived earlier and unloaded there.)

[Fleeting Frames]

At a guess, something spooked them and they decided to turn around and leave. Caravans are very skittish.

[Fearless Son]

Must have been.  I noticed something odd on the side of the mountain after they left, and found a stack of forbidden general trade goods, including some "large" wearable items.  It looks like the kind of stack that would come off a wagon, but there were no bodies or evidence of violence. 

Thinking back, a warebeast appeared some months ago in game time, just as a wave of migrants were arriving.  I shuffled the migrants into the fortress and sealed the entry, one of the livestock animals pastured outside was killed, another disappeared.  But after nothing else happened and a while passed, I opened the fortress again and could not find the warebeast.  I thought maybe it wandered off or reverted to normal, but I could not find whatever it transformed into. 

What if it is still waiting out there and spooked the caravan? 

[Staalo]

Probably one of the animals pulling the wagon got spooked and ran off, scuttling the wagon. Are there any old corpses or corpse parts nearby? It could be just about anything; literally a single goblin tooth hanging from a tree branch, left over from some long past siege, can reliably kill wagons year after year.

[Merlota]

It is also possible that two wagons collided and crashed.   Once I have time I usually make portions of the map inaccessible to the trade depot with dug channels so caravans come in through a closer cleaner path.  If trees are a recurring problem I even build a couple roads.

[PatrikLundell]

I pile of junk generally means a caravan member scuttled the goods. It might have been either a wagon or a beast of burden doing it, but when it happens the whole caravan generally just heads out, and the only indication is a panic exclamation mark over the heads of those merchants that were affected.
As mentioned, half a goblin tooth is sufficient to spook them, but the corpse (part) has to come from a sapient: a mountain of 50 decaying giant elephants will have no effect. They can also be scared by animals (which is sort of realistic, given how easy it is for horses to panic).

Weres are transformed for about two days. Once they transform back they try to flee and leave the map, so they'd only remain on the map (in their non were form at that) if they got stuck somewhere and failed to leave (in my case usually in a cage). Also, weres are stealthed until detected, but I suspect their native forms are not (unless they're kobolds, or gremlins), and so ought to show up in the other units menu (but I've never had a case where I know I have a were about but haven't actually seen it before it transforms back).

[Fleeting Frames]

Given a werebeast is only revealed on announcement, I think they remain stealthed even once the moon wanes, given the messages of "The naked human TotallyNotDangerous has Come! A Medium-Sized creature of great ambition.". I don't think they can restealth without retire-unretire, though I've never went out of my way to test.

[Fearless Son]

I suppose it could be any of those things.  I know the mountainside I am dug into is not the most wagon-friendly terrain, what with it being up against a dense forest.  I was intending to make a nice road coming in, but I have plans for a suspended causeway to a minaret-style tower, to ensure the fort entrance is narrow and protected.  I just have had higher short-term priorities to deal with. 

Speaking of short term priorities, I had to seal the entrance because I know how dangerous werebeast bites can be, and my military was not outfitted properly at the time.  Fortunately the mountain is rich in limonite and dolomite, with plenty of trees for charcoal, so I was able to get steel production ramped up and I now have a small military squad with top (non-candy) tier weapons and armor, so if it (or a similar threat) shows up again we would be better able to deal with it.

[vekar]

What happened was they arrived, saw your engravings and rightly decided to mosey on down the road.

Like others said: something spooked them, maybe a wild animal spooked a horse/ox, usual culprit.

[Fearless Son]

What happened was they arrived, saw your engravings and rightly decided to mosey on down the road.

Ironically, I have no engravings, yet.  My reasoning is twofold.  First, I want experienced stone carvers, so I try to get a bunch of more-idle-than-not citizens to do a lot of smoothing, then I can pick a few really good ones, deactivate the labor on the others, and use the experienced ones to make awesome engravings.  Second, engravings boost fortress wealth, and I actually try to keep that low early on.  Hard experience has taught me that getting too much wealth too quickly can attract the wrong sort of trouble, trouble which the fortress might not be ready to handle yet.  Value-low, functionality-high is the name of the early game for me, until I can make my fortress entrance an effective static defense and I can get some well-equipped military squads ready to project force. 

[Nagidal]

I had once a caravan which got spooked by a pile of dead enemy corpses after a siege. There may have been the one or another megabeast as well among them.

[Thisfox]

I've had a caravan wagon destroyed by an upward-headed tree at least once. The result is the rest of the caravan leaving, and a pile of forbidden trade goods. Another time I found the cattle we'd used for our wagon back when we'd arrived up a tree. Pretty sure that the tree had grown under them too. Also, dead bodies, skeletons or body parts can and will spook some caravans.

The caravans usually do return a year or two later. Try to have paved roads to the edges of your map for the wagons to approach over, as trees can't grow under paved roads and send the wagons rocketing skywards....

[Libash_Thunderhead]

Something they don't even enter the map.
Maybe it is similar to those hello-n-goodbye sieges.

[Fearless Son]

I've had a caravan wagon destroyed by an upward-headed tree at least once. The result is the rest of the caravan leaving, and a pile of forbidden trade goods. Another time I found the cattle we'd used for our wagon back when we'd arrived up a tree. Pretty sure that the tree had grown under them too. Also, dead bodies, skeletons or body parts can and will spook some caravans.

The caravans usually do return a year or two later. Try to have paved roads to the edges of your map for the wagons to approach over, as trees can't grow under paved roads and send the wagons rocketing skywards....

You know, that might actually be exactly it.  The area is thickly forested, and I tried to cut down the trees nearest my fortress entrance to get the wood hauled in quickly, to clear lines of sight, and to make it easier to open up the spot for wagons to path to.  In fact, the caravan passed over some spots where I had previously felled trees.  That would certainly explain the issue. 

I do try to build paved roads, both for functional and aesthetic reasons, but I tend to wait until a few years have gone by for reasons of shepherding my wealth generation.  I can task my architects and masons with building roads and defensive fortifications, but if I do the former before the later I am just making it easier for sieges to walk right to my undefended doorstep.  Better to do the later before expanding the former, even if it costs me a few caravan visits. 

[anewaname]

What I often do is, cut 3-wide tunnels through the soil layer from the trade depot to about 20 tiles from the edges of the map, then build a single 3x3 paved road at each exit (to ensure a tree doesn't grow and block that entry point).  The caravans will often use one of these tunnels because the straight line is faster than wriggling through the trees. This method would avoid the wealth increase from long surface roads and the need to mow the lawn occasionally.