The why of travelling carnivals

Life in a small fantasy town is pretty dull when you're not being menaced by monsters. Harvest the turnips, tend the sheep, laugh at Old Hob getting drunk and falling off a stump... but when the travelling carnival comes to town, there's some relief from all that.

The carnival offers spectacle and regrettable snacks, but peer behind the tent flaps and there's also intrigue, danger, mysticism and adventure to be found. (By PCs, that is. Those turnips won't wait.)

The first thing you notice is (1d6):

1. colourful silk bunting.
2. a tall tent.
3. whimsical music.
4. strolling performers.
5. big animals.
6. garish pasteboard signs.

Wandering the grounds you might bump into a:

1. clown performing pratfalls.
2. stilt walker.
3. juggler tossing pins.
4. fire eater blowing fireballs above his head.
5. barker calling customers to an attraction.
6. roustabout carrying armloads of equipment.

On the stage you could see:

1. acrobats.
2. knife throwers.
3. sharpshooters.
4. strongmen.
5. a stage magician.
6. dancers in risqué costumes. 

You could pay to ride:

1. a mechanical bull operated with pulleys and cranks.
2. ponies.
3. camels or other exotic animals.
4. well-fed (but muzzled) monstrous creatures.
5. a horse cart with seats that go up and down as the wheels turn.
6. a wooden ferris wheel powered by a donkey.

If you're hungry, there are:

1. honeyed apples.
2. sausages.
3. spiced buns.
4. salted pease with pepper and vinegar.
5. fried pickles.
6. dried fruit and nuts.

This carnival's pride is its:

1. menagerie.
2. calliope.
3. retired adventurer who tells the tale of his greatest venture with help from actors in monster costumes.
4. alchemical fireworks.
5. trapeze artists.
6. dwarven-made mechanical dragon.

Prepare to get cheated at a contest of:

1. arm-wrestling.
2. pitching axes.
3. target-shooting.
4. ducking a fool.
5. ring-tossing.
6. jousting with padded lances on wobbly carts.

inside this tent is a:

1. fortune teller.
2. freak show starring exotic humanoids pretending to be savage.
3. magical item rare enough to impress the yokels.
4. wizard's apprentice earning money for their studies.
5. burlesque performance.
6. medicine show.

The carnival's misfortune is:

1. a crowd-pulling act that quit recently
2. an apprentice that died in a training accident
3. a big booking that fell through
4. a new law that restricts travelling entertainments
5. illness among the draft animals
6. a debt they can't pay

and their secret is:

1. the ringmaster and other managers are doppelgangers.
2. one of the trapeze artists is the runaway child of nobility.
3. they're spies.
4. their monstrous humanoids are polymorphed people they kidnapped along the way.
5. they're revolutionaries against a tyrannical authority.
6. they're retired adventurers, but a good enough score might tempt them to take up arms and race the PCs to the prize.

(Thanks to Spwack of the Slight Adjustments blog for the generator code.)