What To Know
You are posing a moral dilemma to the players using a natural and literally god-given resource (The lily pads of Tethys, a goddess of peace, which are commonly used to cross the Tethys River) which a collection of people are using to profit off of by threatening violence against anyone who does not pay them to access the lily pads. This group of people, or bandits, are willing to fight people who would try to stop them, and are prepared to kill, but not to die. If they are in danger of dying, a bandit will run away and leave the others behind. For some people this will be a very simple problem to solve, but may be more difficult for some who have never thought about this sort of thing. There are one fewer bandits than there are players.
What To Do
Describe the following scene, or read the following aloud. Do voices for the bandits if you want to. It will make the players distance the bandits from you more, as well as doing a lot to humanize the bandits more as people (even if they're bad people) than as an obstacle.
"You are all travelling together on foot, down hill in the distance from you, you can see the Tethys River. You'll have to cross the river by riding or rowing one of the giant lily pads grown there by the goddess Tethys. The river appears to be guarded by a collection of heavily armed individuals. As you get closer, you can over hear them speaking, and it becomes clear that they are extorting travelers by charging money for passage across the river. You hear them speaking to a merchant."
"One of the armed individuals says 'Hand over the money, or walk until the land meets. Its only another 30 miles, right? What'll it be, at least another two days travel, or a few coins? The fee is probably less than you spend on food in that amount of time anyways, I mean look at you.' The others who are armed laugh. The merchant does not laugh. The merchant looks scared. The same armed person addresses all of you as you approach. 'How about you all? Just 5 gold each to cross the Tethys.' You each have 8 gold, which is quite a bit of money."
If you are asked a question, answer to the best of your ability. Each of the bandits use the same rules as listed on the Players' page.
"You are all travelling together on foot, down hill in the distance from you, you can see the Tethys River. You'll have to cross the river by riding or rowing one of the giant lily pads grown there by the goddess Tethys. The river appears to be guarded by a collection of heavily armed individuals. As you get closer, you can over hear them speaking, and it becomes clear that they are extorting travelers by charging money for passage across the river. You hear them speaking to a merchant."
"One of the armed individuals says 'Hand over the money, or walk until the land meets. Its only another 30 miles, right? What'll it be, at least another two days travel, or a few coins? The fee is probably less than you spend on food in that amount of time anyways, I mean look at you.' The others who are armed laugh. The merchant does not laugh. The merchant looks scared. The same armed person addresses all of you as you approach. 'How about you all? Just 5 gold each to cross the Tethys.' You each have 8 gold, which is quite a bit of money."
If you are asked a question, answer to the best of your ability. Each of the bandits use the same rules as listed on the Players' page.