Long-Distance Communication

[Dominique]

In fact, gievn malleable time, your couriers could just as easily arrive a decade before you gave them the letter.

. . . Well, there's a plot hook.

[Strahdsbuddy]

I think the idea of a mail line is great, but i have to disagree with the use of the Old Svalich Road. Barovia has that sense of a dead zone, plus the ring of fog over a little portion of the Road could be prohibitive. I could see the two lines as running from Borca to Lamordia or Martira Bay, then a second across Darkon to Arbora. Or possibly Toyalis.

The Falk line makes a great deal of sense also.

Backwater lands, like Tepest or Verbrek or Valachan would have little use for the service, and individual couriers would probably be in more common use between the rare citizen taht would need them.

Barovia just seems to me like that brooding predator, astride the quickest route through the Balinoks but people wonder if it is worth the risk.

[Paladyn]

In more civilised regions informations could be transferred via line of semaphores. It would be most important "state" news, but still it counts.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

In more civilised regions informations could be transferred via line of semaphores. It would be most important "state" news, but still it counts.

I can see that for ship-to-shore communication, but I'd think civilized domains would have much better resources for overland.

Regarding the messenger birds of Falkovnia, I was thinking the hawks would not be using homing instincts, but would instead be the subject of animal messenger-type spells from the Hawkmasters.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I think the idea of a mail line is great, but i have to disagree with the use of the Old Svalich Road. Barovia has that sense of a dead zone, plus the ring of fog over a little portion of the Road could be prohibitive. I could see the two lines as running from Borca to Lamordia or Martira Bay, then a second across Darkon to Arbora. Or possibly Toyalis.

These all seem reasonable. Wonder what the fatality rate is among couriers? Writers try to get the best of both worlds by saying certain areas swallow visitors by the handful, then saying that (for example) the Twins have written several books almost completely through correspondence. It's a train wreck of contradictions waiting to happen.

Backwater lands, like Tepest or Verbrek or Valachan would have little use for the service, and individual couriers would probably be in more common use between the rare citizen taht would need them.

I agree about Tepest and Verbrek, but Valachan has an elaborate system for shipping food to other domains. Presumably messages could be passed through state couriers associated with this system, at least internally. Not much harder to link it up with other lines.

[impworks]

While researching an article on possible low fantasy communication for Valkyrie that wasn't finished before Valkyrie stopped being publication I came across a couple facts that might be of interest. A carrier pigeon could carry a piece of lightweight paper large enough for about 130-150 characters to be written on it.

Using microfilm significantly longer messages can be sent but this requires technology developed in the real world around 1840. An early microfilm that could be carried by a pigeon might have space for 24,000 characters. By the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 a pigeon could be carrying a microfilm reduction of up 16 microfilms each consisting of up to 3000 sheets.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Using microfilm significantly longer messages can be sent but this requires technology developed in the real world around 1840.

Or an enlarging spell. Cast it on a tiny slip of paper, write what you want, let the duration wear off so that it slips back into tiny form and shrinks the writing with it. Only someone with similar magic could read it.

[impworks]

Using a size changing spell is an excellent idea. I'd been thinking of this as something that might emerge from Lamoridan laboratories. A special, pigeon sized variation on a bag of holding a tube of holding would be another magical way to do this.

[Baduin9]

In the Holy Roman Empire the post was operated as an Imperial Fief by princes von Thurn und Taxis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurn_und_Taxis

"Ruggiano de Tassis founded a postal service in Italy. And later in Innsbruck, on 11 December 1489, Jeannetto de Tassis was appointed Chief Master of Postal Services. The family held its exclusive position for centuries. "

http://www.thurnundtaxis.de/
http://www.eurohistory.com/site/thurn.html

"Frederick III knew that without effective communication it would be impossible to govern the expanding Habsburg lands. With this task in mind, the emperor offered a communications monopoly to the Thurn und Taxis family, which had already proved its efficiency in providing support to the empire's communications. It was then that Franz von Thurn und Taxis obtained the mail monopoly over all the Habsburg lands. For the next three centuries the name Thurn und Taxis was synonymous with transportation and communications. It was also synonymous with wealth as the Thurn und Taxis prospered greatly from their services to the Habsburgs.

The Thurn und Taxis originated from the region of Bergamo in Italy. Their letters of nobility were granted by Emperor Maximilian I in 1512 in recognition for services given to the Habsburg family. Emperor Charles V confirmed his grandfather's granting in 1534. According to the Almanac de Gotha, the Thurn und Taxis family were made Barons of the Empire in 1608. Almost two decades later, Emperor Ferdinand II elevated the family to Counts of the Empire in 1624. They were made princes by the Spanish Court in 1681 in recognition for their services. Finally, the Thurn und Taxis received their princely title in the Holy Roman Empire in the 1695 from Emperor Leopold I of Habsburg.

No other enterprise could guarantee transportation and communications with the reliability provided by the Thurn und Taxis. By the end of the XVIIIth century it took five days for a letter to travel from Brussels to Innsbruck, while it took forty hours to travel from Brussels to Paris. It was a performance record that only the Thurn und Taxis system could match. The family used a horse relay system that allowed for uninterrupted travel from one European capital to another. "

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Or an enlarging spell. Cast it on a tiny slip of paper, write what you want, let the duration wear off so that it slips back into tiny form and shrinks the writing with it. Only someone with similar magic could read it.

For that matter, a spell like Item could be used to let a pigeon carry an object that, in its unaltered state, would be bigger than itself. It's not just a question of communication, that way: if you have to get a small parcel (e.g. a flask of poison-antidote for a dying noble) to its destination super-fast, that might be a workable option.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Someone posted a pretty cool idea for a postal service secret society a while back, and there's always the writ of communication from VRS:Doppelgangers.

I also recall a magical scroll that could copy documents it touched, and maybe even transfer them to other blank documents. That would be a good companion item for these writs, because that would allow a person to retain a hard copy, if desired.

In the same vein, which domains have printing presses? Which ones have moveable type?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Paridon was the first domain to have printing, and it's had that technology (and newspapers) since its creation. Movable type is a relatively recent development in the Core, however; we know Van Richten's books were originally copied out by hand, and only came out in a printed edition when the Twins released the compendia c. 756 BC.

My guess would be that Richemulot, Dementlieu, Lamordia, and Mordent all have commercial printing presses. They'd possibly exist in Borca and Darkon as well, but their use in those domains would be tightly controlled (if not 100% monopolized) by those in power. A very modest amount of printing might go on in Falkovnia, to disseminate government propaganda and produce standardized forms for identity-papers, conscription orders, etc.

Most other domains seem either too backward, too illiterate, or both, to embrace such technology.

[impworks]

I'm wondering which of the other ones might have the far older woodblock presses in use?

Darkon, Falkovnia and Barovia mentioned already might have them for printing official edicts and form. Nova Vaasa, Sri Raji and Sourange would also seem reasonable. Not sure about Tepest - is print a tool of the inquisition or something the inquisition fears?

I'Cath is another possible domain to have printing as the Chinese had a form of movable type long before Guttenberg although I have to confess its so long since I read the description of I'Cath that I'm can't remember how advanced a domain it is...

[Rotipher of the FoS]

At least in its original description, I'Cath doesn't have a population apart from Tsien and her undead servants. While she might know of printing, she'd probably write her spellbooks and diary (if any) by hand, and I doubt if her undead know how to read.

Good call on the woodblock printing for Barovia and Nova Vaasa, BTW! Official paperwork and propaganda-laced histories would be produced that way in Barovia, as would similar government documents (plus a lot of lewd chapbooks; Malken doesn't miss a trick where vice-based profit is concerned ) among the Vaasan.

Souragniens aren't very literate, OTOH -- the few books they do have are falling to bits from neglect -- and their numbers may not be great enough to support a print shop of any sort. Tepest's Inquisitors are about the only folks in that domain who can read, so they probably wouldn't bother to import printing, although they might send manuscripts to Darkon to be published. Kartakass might eventually acquire a small print shop for the dissemination of lyrics, but would still prefer word-of-mouth over text.

As for Sri Raji, it's at a Classical-era CL in Ravenloft, so it may not have printing yet, but its university-town is bound to adopt that technology from the Core as soon as it hears about it.

Oh, and the Churches of Ezra and the Lawgiver are quite bureaucratic, so they each probably have a printing press available.

[ewancummins]

In Hazlan and Nova Vaasa, the Church of the Lawgiver may well view printing as something best kept under tight controls. A free press could get to be dangerous to the social order, after all. In both domains the church may be actively working with the secular rulers to stamp on unsanctioned printshops.


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