Some of what I have written are straightforwardly helpful in obvious senses. Things like the natural world, the realm of politics, and the variety of religious beliefs in Evanoch are fairly obvious in terms of usefulness to most campaigns; each of these define large and overarching parts of one's everyday experience in the setting. But more granular details are not necessarily less important. Rather, things as specific as common sayings, styles of home décor, and even the tiny detail of tattoo art trends can be colorful additions to games that actually reveal larger cultural identities and values. In my mind, no element of everyday life is too small or insignificant to consider in depth for your homebrew world. For this profile on my homebrew setting, I'm choosing something somewhere in the middle of that spectrum: transportation. How people get from point A to point B in Evanoch can be important, especially in campaigns that involve moving between locations. Sure, it's possible to simply say that the party walks or rides around the countryside. But why not try to go deeper? I fondly recall playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for the first time and being floored by the amazing silt striders, massive and long-legged insectoid creatures that are piloted by directly manipulating its organs. This was the game's elegant and interesting solution to the game's implementation for fast travel. So why not try to inspire our players with something similarly intriguing? This guide will explain the methods of transportation available in Evanoch.
Cheaply Available Travel:
Like most fantasy settings, Evanoch is host to many classic forms of transportation. Many people walk from place to place, sometimes with the addition of tools like carts and wagons to haul cargo. Others utilize riding animals such as horses and ponies as well as other trained animals, which allows for greater speed, comfort, and distance. Others still use strong animals like horses and oxen to pull carts, wagons, and stagecoaches for increased comfort and style. As Evanoch's geography is mostly accessible via land travel, these are the commonest methods of travel.
However, water travel is not uncommon. In the marshy lands of the Lathien Islands, small watercraft such as canoes are also common for transportation, especially in order to protect travelers from the wildlife found in the waters there. Especially in these confusing and mazelike islands, navigating correctly and safely can be a challenge, and many people visiting the islands choose to employ an experienced canoer to help them travel. Because of the size of the open water in the islands (fairly small corridors between the dense mangrove trees there), vessels larger than canoes are not legitimate options for travel, and so larger groups tend to utilize small fleets of canoes rather than larger boats.
Outside of the Lathien Islands, water transportation is common when moving between continents (such as Fanin to the north and Dalton and Ramsey to the east), and these voyages tend to employ larger ships. Larger sailing vessels are also utilized for trade purposes around the coast of Evanoch--the major cities of Torga, New Dalton, Finiel, and Talon Gorge all rely quite heavily on sea routes for shipping and receiving goods. New Dalton also notably sends considerable amounts of goods and resources back to the home island of Dalton far to the east. Because sea trade is such an important part of the Evanine economy, learning the trade of sailing is considered a reliable and respectable profession for many in these port cities.
It is worth noting that there are spectrums of comfort and efficiency even within this relatively cheap tier of transportation. Travel by land vehicle can range from a mule pulling a simple, rickety cart to a team of trained and decorated horses pulling finely-constructed coaches with comfortable covered seating with a professional driver. This can be the difference between a few copper pieces and several silver pieces for a short journey, which is a relatively large divide for Evanoch's poorer citizens. Similarly, sea travel can range from a few copper pieces for passage in cramped quarters with little comfort on a shoddy barge to as much as a few gold for luxurious private quarters on a fine ship. There is also a spectrum of what options are available given the location--smaller towns and settlements generally have much fewer possibilities for travel than Evanoch's larger cities, where travelers may be able to find dozens of different routes from one place to another in a variety of levels of comfort and speed.
Intermediate Travel:
Evanoch is large--traditional transportation like horses or boats would take at least two weeks to get from one edge of the continent to the opposite side, and a traveler on foot would need at least a month to traverse the landmass's breadth. For travelers with less time to spare and more funds available, there are faster options. One relatively recent addition to the transportation market is a variety of flight options.
In terms of flight, the costs and comfort of travel varies less than the method of achieving flight. For those with a taste for the mechanical, flying machines offer several ways to lift off, move through the air, and land via inventiveness. Most flying machines, ranging from hot air balloons and zeppelins to an array of airplane-like models to even the increasingly popular "gyrocopter," are the inventions of Evanoch's gnomish population. These models tend to use a natural fuel source, often in the form of small engines, to generate the power required to move. There is also the noteworthy hielicon, which was engineered by half-elven inventor Petunia Illinel to mimic the way that birds and other flying creatures achieve flight--it has massive cloth wings stretched over a strong but flexible wooden frame, and these wings are manually manipulated so that they flap and steer by angling. Compared to the gnomish designs, the hielicon is harder to master the use of, but many of Evanoch's people find the more "natural" way of achieving flight to be more reassuring than trusting an engine that they don't fully understand.
These flying machines are not standardized in any way, and even two plane models that look similar might use drastically different methods of operation. Because the flying machines differ so much from inventor to inventor, the operators of the devices are usually the inventor themselves or a trusted associate. Thus, travel by flying machine is quite different from cheaper methods of travel in that the market for the flying machines is reduced not only to those who can afford it, but also to individual designs by specific inventors. While essentially anyone with a wagon and an animal to pull it can convince a traveler to trust them with transportation, not just any inventor can convince a traveler to climb onboard their invention. As a result, flying machines require a greater level of salespersonship and attention to public perception than just about any other method of travel.
Another less idiosyncratic method of flight is the use of trained flying animals. For centuries, orcish tribes from Grob Island and the Dakor Peninsula to the north have used selective breeding to develop a cross between the native stork and pelican and to increase its size and docility to domesticate it. In the modern day, these hybridized and enormous birds, called horrucks by the orcs who developed them, are capable of carrying up to three full-sized passengers without significant issue. Caring for and piloting the horrucks is a skill that takes a great deal of care to master, and horruck tenders and pilots are well-respected in orcish society and beyond. In the last century, horruck travel has expanded from the orcish lands to Evanoch at large; people across the continent have come to regard the massive birds and their passengers passing through the sky above them as fairly unremarkable and commonplace. Passage on a horruck means that someone can cross Evanoch from end to end in about two days including rest time, which the birds require every few hours when carrying a passenger.
Another method of trained animal flight that has come into fairly common use is the harnessing of flocks of smaller birds. In the depths of the rainforests of the southern part of Evanoch are hundreds if not thousands of species of birds, and clever halflings have utilized trapping techniques to capture and harmlessly tether the wide array of smaller birds in these forests on long strings which allow the birds to move fairly unimpeded around the rainforest. When it comes time to travel, the halfling with the tethered birds gathers the strings and shortens the available line until the collected birds form a cloud; the lines are then attached to a small basket similar to those used for hot air balloons. The most difficult element of this form of travel is getting the variegated flock of birds to work not only as one unit, but also to move in the direction desired by the pilot. To achieve this, the pilot of the "flock ship," as the united birds and the attached vessel are called, uses a combination of bird calls and manipulation of the strings attached to the birds to guide the journey. This procedure is incredibly complex and requires years of apprenticeship to achieve; knowledge of the flight patterns and natural abilities and tastes of the birds involved is required to safely pilot a flock ship. Some pilots spend a great deal of time harnessing a great many of the same type of bird to simplify the flight process; others devote their energy to learning about many types of bird to limit their time assembling a flock. It is more an art than a science, and the cargo hauled by a flock ship must be relatively light to be feasible, so this method of travel is not realistically available to all travelers, but to halflings and gnomes, light cargo, and individual travelers, a flock ship is a method of travel that is quick (only two or three days to traverse the continent depending on the flock) which provides its own form of fascinating entertainment to the passenger--the act of piloting a flock ship is captivating to even those quite familiar with it.
Expensive Travel:
For those travelers who cannot spare time but for whom money is no object, there are magical means to transport people and cargo across the land. Because magic is not a tool available to just anyone--it requires inborn magical energy, intense study, or powerful pacts with otherworldly beings--the ability to use magic to get somewhere in a hurry has relatively limited supply. Even then, finding a spellcaster who is willing to use part of their limited magical energy on any given day to help a traveler even further complicates the process of using magic to travel. But the simple fact is that magic is, practically speaking, the only way to get anywhere in Evanoch under serious time constraints--hours or even an instant--and so the premium price is worth it to some travelers. There are, by and large, two approaches to magical travel, each of which has two further subtypes. Broadly speaking, one can use magical enhancement of another type of travel or teleportation to achieve Evanoch's fastest journeys.
In terms of travel enhancement, the philosophy of spellcasting is either to change the properties of the mode of transportation or to add accelerating effects to the mode of transportation. Changing the properties of transportation generally changes the weight or shape of passengers and cargo--for instance, a spellcaster may take a massive amount of goods and resources and shrink it in size or simply directly reduce the weight of it, which in turn allows normal methods of transportation to work in circumstances where it ordinarily would not. One common deployment of this is to take a large shipment of goods, shrink it to a tiny size, and hand it off to a courier who utilizes either flight or a speedy mount, who then races to the destination. At the destination, the cargo is returned to normal size. As a result, thousands of pounds of goods can be shipped across difficult terrain in a short span of time and with almost no difficulty. Some shipping companies increasingly rely on this method to transport large or heavy cargo or shipments that are likely to be targeted by bandits, pirates, or other marauders.
The other travel enhancement adds accelerating effects to the mode of transportation. In this model, the spellcaster might enchant a mount, ship, or even a mode of flight with spells that make it move faster. This method is more common when the point of transportation is to move a passenger rather than cargo, as passengers tend to be less comfortable with being shrunk than with riding an enchanted vessel. In the case of a sped-up mount, a traveler can move at triple or even quadruple speed for an extended period of time; with sped-up ships and flying machines, the acceleration effect can reach as much as ten times the base level of movement. A gnomish plane with accelerating magic, for instance, can cross the breadth of Evanoch in only a few hours; an accelerated horruck can make the journey in a similar span of time. When high-profile travelers, especially trusted couriers employed by the continent's elite, need to move from settlement to settlement urgently, this method can provide a solution.
But for some purposes, even a few hours is too much. When a rich or powerful person needs to get somewhere in a real rush but cannot themselves use magic, one solution is a network of professional spellcasters employed by a formal business called "From Here to There." This business, created and owned by dwarven entrepreneur Silas Gravelcrusher, employs reputable spellcasters willing to use their stores of magical energy to teleport travelers between major settlements. Initially, the business existed in the Big Nine, Evanoch's very largest cities; today, it employs spellcasters in 80% of the continent's most notable settlements, giving customers access to most areas of the continent with the opportunity for quick return trips. The main advantages of working with From Here to There include the facts that the business is available to anyone with the funds required (a steep fee of 20 gold pieces per one-way trip and 35 gold pieces for a round trip); the business offers its services at every hour of every day; and the broad development of the network means that only smaller towns aren't instantly accessible. But this means that getting from a small town on one side of the continent to a small town on the other end of the continent isn't instantaneous, which is sometimes a must.
In those cases, a private spellcaster willing to teleport a traveler is the best option, though admittedly the most expensive. Private spellcasters for hire, who make up a small but powerful industry in Evanoch, can be employed for most any purpose, many of which include far more complex and sometimes devious ends than transportation. But in a pinch, a wealthy traveler with connections can employ a private spellcaster to teleport travelers and cargo from anywhere in Evanoch to anywhere else in an instant. In this mode of transportation, there are effectively no limits on what a traveler can do--with a sufficiently powerful and cooperative private spellcaster, a traveler could visit dozens of locations across the known world in less than an hour, a journey that could take more conventional modes of transportation literal years to achieve. Some private spellcasters charge per spell (varying by the spell, but usually around 50 gold pieces per teleportation) or by time (ranging from 250 gold per day among the more modest private spellcasters to thousands of gold per day for the most elite and in-demand private spellcasters). Simply put, the difference between walking somewhere and having a private teleporting ally can mean the difference between massive amounts of time, comfort, and cost.
There you have it: a guide to a range of forms of transportation in my homebrew setting. The next time I DM in my world, I look forward to offering more interesting and varied options for getting around. As some readers may recognize from reading this profile, the range of options available offers a variety of strategic choices that the players must make. Can they afford a private spellcaster in terms of funds? Can they afford the time it takes to ride somewhere? Can they stomach the idea of riding a homemade flying machine or resist the temptation to fly on the back of a hybridized stork-pelican or being pulled by a flock of hundreds of rainforest birds? These are options I didn't have before I sat down to consider this element of my world, and I'm pleased that I have these options to offer my players now.
That's all for now. Coming soon: an original time loop adventure set on a space station, a guide to romantic and sexual relationships in my homebrew setting, and a profile on gender identity and roles in my homebrew setting. Until next time, happy gaming!
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