Travel in Eretald
From Almeopedia
Though Eretald is a much less mobile society than our own, travel is common, and can even be considered an industry. As just one indication, the Seminary of the Gods at Lake Como, a favored place of pilgrimage for pagans, registered 553,867 visitors in 3479, of which 42,814 were women.
This page discusses some basic facts about travel within Eretald (and its littoral), highlighting aspects which may be unexpected to modern terrestrials.
Contents |
The travelers
Who travels in Eretald? There are many classes of traveler, but the largest are these:
- Pilgrims. Both Caďinorian paganism and Eleďát have their favored destinations: on the pagan side, Žésifo, Aránicer, Lake Como, Ožnëa the birthplace of Ervëa, Maranhë; for the Eleďi, Avéla, Nëron Pavel in Benécia, the iliu ruins at Boḣtundu in Kebri, and the ruins of Eleisa. Irreanists undertake a tour of Flora.
- Merchants, for whom of course travel is business, and who wander far abroad from Eretald.
- Ambassadors, spies, princesses being shipped to their arranged marriages, and others on official business.
- Nobles and rich bourgeois seeking education, diversion, or information. It is customary for a young noble to be sent abroad for a year or more to get to know other peoples and systems of government, to learn languages, and to express youthful spirits in regions where his future reputation will not be harmed. Older gentlemen find travel to be invigorating, and may hope to acquire knowledge which might be of use to their countrymen.
- Students attending a university or seminary are a special case, perhaps better described as temporary immigrants (though a good number become permanent ones).
Since the invention of printing there has been explosion of travel guides and memoirs; merely to have visited someplace off the beaten trail, or a sufficient number of places on it, is all the qualification needed to be considered an authority. There is little perceived need to revise books; some of the most popular guidebooks are more than a century out of date.
Difficulties
Crime
In American iconography, the city is a crowded, crime-ridden horror (think Batman), and the countryside is peaceful and happy. Eretald, like almost any pre-industrial region, is the opposite. The only safe place for a traveler is the city. The countryside is poor, nearly devoid of amenities, and dangerous. Even a small armed group is at risk; gangs of bandits may include several dozen men. (Indeed, the Verdurian word for 'gang', bort, derives from the Caizu word for 'forty (men)'.)
Expense
If danger is likely, expense is a certainty. Travel costs a fortune. Inns, food, and tolls aren't cheap, and these costs are multiplied if one hires guides, guards, porters, boatmen or horses, and personal servants. A savvy traveler carries a few trunks of extra clothing and food, as not all locations allow resupply. Travel is also expensive because it takes so much time— it can easily take a month to travel from Verduria city to Aránicer, a distance of only 850 km. Money is usually carried in the form of gold, sewn into one's clothes; but where possible travelers make use of letters of credit from brokerages or temples.
Merchants can save if they have family or other connections abroad; as a corollary, certain clans, guilds, and temples with locations scattered across Eretald often develop trade as a sideline.
There are certain pilgrimages which ease the problem for pilgrims: charitable foundations provide food and lodging for free. On the other hand, getting to the pilgrimage point isn't subsidized, and only a few pilgrimages have such helps available.
Hostility
Cosmopolitan cities like Verduria city welcome visitors, at least if they're bearing money; but many towns distrust outsiders. Barakhina, for instance, allows visitors to walk about only accompanied by town guardsmen (who must moreover be paid for this service). Port cities in Kebri are open to outsiders, but access to the interior (except Boḣtundu) is restricted. Many cities do not allow strangers to go armed in the streets. Azgami allows visitors only to the capital, Saikn; and Mútkün allows travelers only on the Selen Road that parallels the Eärdur, and even this is so beset by restrictions that many travelers take the Nämbo and Balal roads through Célenor and Curesi instead.
Other times the problem is leaving one's native land. Citizens of Ctésifon, Ismahi, and Barakhún, among others, must obtain licenses to go abroad; these require an approved purpose, are limited in time (one or three years), and prohibit entry into certain lands.
Language
The traveler faces a good deal of linguistic difficulty. There is not much familiarity with other dialects and languages, and innkeepers, boatmen, town guards, and the like almost never know any speech but their own. There are generally guides who speak Verdurian; even more usefully, cities often harbor a small community of expats, all the way from a house to an entire neighborhood. (E.g. an Ismaîn town will have a gonŕe or Kebreni settlement; the same word refers to the Ismaîn neighborhood in Verduria city and Avéla.)
Merchants generally use Verdurian everywhere in Eretald. (In some backward regions, such as Barakhún and Caizura, even the local merchants are Verdurians.)
Educated people learn Caďinor, and this serves as an interlanguage across Eretald (except in Flora), though it can be frustrated by local pronunciations. The Kebreni are said to be the worst speakers. The people of Ctésifon consider themselves the best; outsiders often praise the fluency of Svetlans in the language, though this is perhaps because their Verdurian is so hard to understand.
Conveyances and routes
Given an equal distance to travel by land or by water, the experienced traveler will invariably choose the water. Water travel is cheaper, allows greater luggage, is far safer, and on the whole is faster. Only officials, with relays of horses available, can count on outdistancing a boat; and even so, unless their escort is large, they might still prefer the water.
As a corollary, the great corridors of travel are the rivers and seacoasts; regions far from an navigable water (such as Kalimantan or Kešvare) are considered very remote, and what looks like a quick jaunt on the map (e.g. Žésifo to Ožnëa, or Šerian to Irvesi) may be a long journey in practice.
Long-range commerce and naval power increasingly make use of the sea, but for everyday commerce and travel ships still hug the shore. To go from Flora to Kebri, for instance, one almost never takes the direct route across 300 km of open ocean; instead a coastal route twice as long is followed.
The Caďinorians were known for building wide stone roads, and many of these lasted, though less used, through the Dark Years. Verduria believes in good roads as well; the Reďreo i soî Ďitelî (Ministry of Roads) is a key government agency. Kebri and Érenat have fairly good roads, though these almost always parallel waterways. Few other states of Eretald bother to maintain the old roads, much less extend them.
Neither roads nor streets are normally labelled— another reason a local guide is usually necessary. In the largest cities, street plans are now printed, though they rarely offer enough detail to allow a traveler to proceed entirely on his own. Syxesteer is notable for color-coding its major streets. Verduria city is relatively easy to navigate thanks to Mëranac 1e cutting broad boulevards between landmarks. Dobray and Raizumi are reputed to be the most infuriatingly formless large cities.
Travel outside Eretald
(Xurno considered more civilized)
| Incomplete | Zompist is still working on this article; best to leave it alone till it's done. |
