Andrew - The short form is that through a bit of divine intervention (by a minor trickster god) one of the characters won the deed to an old shell keep on the borders of the Wild Wood in a poker game. It included a bit of land and a couple of grant rights (Mill & millpond, cider pressing). With a bit of research they found that the keep was from a time when the humans had built a line of small forts to keep the creatures from the wild out, several hundreds of years ago. With the taming of the wood by the high elves and establishment of the Elven border the forts were unneeded and mostly abandoned. This particular grant area had been overrun and depopulated, but the fort had survived the wars until decommissioned. The land had been granted to an Imperial Knight, but the steading was never reestablished and the deed unregistered.
As very junior traders, newly attached to a reestablished house (Everdark Trading Company, a story or two by itself) the players were hungry to make deals and help the house succeed. So they gathered gear and supplies and went exploring. They located the valley where the road to the keep had been, then spent days clearing the way for their wagons. What they didn't know is I'd stocked the upper valley with a hybrid goblin tribe who rode wargs ;-) Figuring I'd twist their brains I took the Elfquest type elves (wolfriders) and had a couple of gate-lost low elves settle in with the goblins due to the wolf bonding/short/semi-feral natures both had. The tribe is small and hides from the High Elves, who think they're abominations ;-) So now I had strong, tough wolf-rider Goblins with a shaman who made some potent potions, just to add some surprises... or so I planned.
As they reached the area of the shell keep, the goblins started harassing the party. Arrows from the bushes, rocks rolling down hills and similar. The Goblins didn't want anybody near the hiding place but didn't want a stand-up fight they might loose. So the party finally made it to the abandoned shell keep through a hail of arrows and annoyances. Rather than explore the old keep (in very good shape due to preservation spells when it was mothballed) the group camped in the small courtyard. The walls gave protection from the arrows - so they decided to BBQ (players had declared bringing chickens and foodstuffs as a planned feast).
The Goblins sat outside, frustrated and by now hungry. They'd travelled light and expected the group to have turned back as all the others had done. The roasting chickens filled the air with delicious scents. Cynth (Bill's Hobbit character) had taunted them earlier by going outside, protected by a large shield and AC. He'd gathered enough Goblin arrows to use as kindling for the fire. So he decided to up the game, and started singing Hobbit feasting songs.
The Goblins decided to break out the beer they'd brought along and started singing drinking songs... Eventually Cynth and the Goblins started bragging over the wall about how good the food was verses the beer. They arraigned a truce to swap beer for roast chicken to see who had the best. This is the part where the story gets sideways on the GM's plans ;-) The quality roll on the beer (I'd let Bill make it) was 100%, followed by a couple of the other players rolling in the high 90's as counter checks. Damn, that was great beer! Meanwhile, the Goblins were thinking that roast chicken without fighting was a pretty good idea... and deals were made.
So the party set up a beer distribution operation (Wild Wood Brewing), with the Goblins warehousing the kegs in a dugout warehouse in the side of the nearby hill. The beer gets picked up periodically and empties brought back along with delivery of food supplies and raw grains, etc. The teamsters never see who makes the brew, the Goblins are happy and very well fed and the party got a nice bonus with periodic income from their share.
This took several game sessions and was about 10 years ago.
It's been very profitable until recently. As part of the major political upheaval I'd engineered to shake up things (called Massacre Day) I tipped the apple cart over. One of the villains made his getaway as things fell apart by hijacking the caravan of beer wagons. The players got involved again when the warehouse manager mentioned the low beer stocks and the Teamsters Guild rep came around asking about a missing crew... but that's a different story ;-)