Note: I've been re-reading a load of Fritz Leiber, and since this posting have been reading Stardock - wherein our heroes dare a fearsome mountain climb in the hopes of winning fantastic gemstones at the top. Prior to the climb, they dig a cairn, and bury their heavy gear there for safekeeping: swords, helmets, armor, and supplies for the hoped-for return trip. In short, a traveler's horde.
Why should there be treasure hoards just waiting to be ransacked, guarded or not? History helps with this, actually: there's plenty of reasons for treasure to be gathered together. I assume a few things first: banking in Ardis is primitive, where it exists at all. It's mainly confined to the great coastal cities south of the Teeth of the Gods. In Vladria, there's banks in Valdosk on the shore of the Black Sea but for the rest of that vasty place there is no banking as we'd recognize it. So those who have money have to keep it safe themselves. For the Volods, this is an easy matter: they have a keep, and soldiers to guard it. Such merchants as there are have their wealth in their wares, and have strong rooms in their shops to keep their valuables safe. Peasants don't have much wealth, but what little they have must be hidden: their shacks are easy to break into and plunder.
There's support for hoards being left by merchants traveling in dangerous places. Villages would hide their valuables when threatened by attack by invading armies, or raiders. Historically, such hoards would be protected only by secrecy. In a world with magic, there might be charms hiding them more completely. A particularly valuable hoard might have some manner of trap to protect it as well.
And since we posit a world fairly thick with adventurers, we can assume that they themselves hide a fair amount of loot. Most are wanderers and have no homes to speak of: where do they keep all their gold when they go adventuring? Bors the Bold has some hundreds of silver and gold from his last venture: does he schlep it back underground with him the next time he goes delving? If he doesn't drink it, or spend it on weapons or women, he's going to have to hide it somewhere. And supposing he dies in his next adventure? There that gold will sit - until it is found.
Think of Beowulf's dragon: the singer tells us that the hoard was left by the last survivor of a defeated people, and that the dragon finds the hoard afterwards and settles there to guard it. Now, a dragon isn't going to show up for some merchant's buried strongbox, or an average delver's plundered coin. But other critters might! Leprechauns, for one; No less authority than W. B. Yeats ascribed their wealth to "treasure-crocks, buried of old in war-time" and found by the gold-loving small folk. Ghosts and other undead types might guard in death treasures buried by them in life.Certainly, many of the man-like monsters can be counted on to dig things like this up to add to their own treasure.(More on this, later.)
Then there's burial hoards. On one end of the scale are vast tombs of ancient kings, priests or wizards: these can be elaborate affairs, thick with traps, magics and votive treasures, and guardians both living and dead.Egyptian tombs make a fine example, but think also of viking ship burials, Tolkien's barrow-downs, and the like. Think too of the burial-places of travelers, or adventurers. Looting a buddy's corpse is not cool! One might expect to be burned, or buried, with one's possessions - especially if no known heir existed. Such a grave might well be haunted by the adventurers' ghost, or invaded by a ghouls, or dug up by beasts!
The undead guarding a funerary hoard, or even a traveler's hoard, are a natural development: the monster's motivation is tied to the death of the previous owner.
Many monsters guard treasure as part of their nature: dragons, for example, are notorious for jealously guarding treasure: they guard treasure until their greed is outmatched by their hunger, and when that is sated, they return to their hoard.
Many "mannish" monsters assemble hoards as well: Ogres are downright vulgar in their acquisition and display of wealth. Trolls and giants usually have something in the way of treasure, though it tends to be incidental to their hunting. Social monsters like goblins and orcs gather treasure and display it to show their power; within their tribes they take from each other: the stronger have more because they take it from the weaker; the weaker will give tribute to the strong for protection.
Beastly monsters - giant spiders and so forth - may have treasure, but only in the sense of "leftovers from victims." The same with demonic creatures: they have little use for gewgaws: if a demon has a treasure, it is probably something that the demon has been bound to protect: a powerful talisman or other such.
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