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Im just curios. How do people communicate on Golaron? homing pigeons? smoke signals? the Pony express? Roman roads with military posts and horses?
Would people use magical spells? which ones might they use, and how commonly would they use them?
Im sure different parts of Golaron have different levels of sophistication.
what are your thoughts? thanks
One of the first things the players in my kingmaker game did was to purchase carrier pigeons trained to travel to Restov, and then to train some to travel to Oleg's. This has significantly reduced the turnaround time on orders.
It seems a reasonable mthod of communication for short, non-critical messages (there are just too many hazards to trust it for important stuff).
I am presuming that the standard method is via private messengers. the more impact you are willing to give magic in the politics/economy, however, the more likely that magical means are used.
As a side note, we've decided that the standard message size for the paper slipped into the message band on the carrier pigeon's leg is 140 characters...one tweet.
Carrier Pigeons would likely be the domain of military or other high-level individuals/groups/organisations.
For most people, being able to send the letter along with the new trade caravan heading out of town in the general direction, although a guild that focused solely upon message and small item delivery would be quite valid.
1 2nd level Expert with a focus on Riding Skills and Feats and a pair of Light Horses would make an interesting encounter. Most of the 'cargo' would be letters to loved ones, small items like jewellery, keys, small toys, etc.
Ran this 'Guild of Messengers' in an old homebrew, they controlled most non-government interests in passing along messages and small items, held a strict 'no involvement' policy with thieves guilds, assassin societies, evil cults and spy-rings, were very neutral (with good leanings) and were sworn to never open their cargo unless lives were at stake.
Had a cunning PC who was tired of the goods he was sending back to his mother being stolen by unscrupulous merchants () and contracted one of the Guild Messengers to take a rather plain pill-box with the note "stitching pulling out, could you please take care of it" inside the box. His mother received it a few weeks later, opened the pill-box, poked at the padded lining and found a small golden key.
PC had also contracted a friendly wizard to help make a chest for him. Had powerful illusions that made the contents look like plain, ordinary clothes, and a protective enchantment that made anyone who managed to open the chest without the key in hand take on the appearance of a Lemure for and loud, painful wailing sounds would emit from the chest, both for about a minute. If the chest was discarded from the place it was put without the correct command word being spoken, it would teleport back into place a few hours later, displacing whatever was in the square it had occupied. Cost him a small fortune, but in his own words, "!@#$%^& worth every copper piece!".
A few weeks later, some extremely frightened merchants and some very skittish pack-animals came into town, dumped the chest at the character's mother's doorstep and begged her to take the 'God-Cursed Chest!'. She made them haul it inside, bid them farewell as they ran to the local Shrine to beg for mercy from the Gods and then proceeded to send the PC a letter saying that he was a very, very evil person and she loved him very much.
Wispering wind, message, animal messenger come to mind.
However, if I were a person of means (or a caster) I would entice/enslave/encourage small air elemental to deliver messages. 100 feet per round perfect fly speed plus elemental traits (never gets tired). If memory serves they're at least smarter than animals and can speak auran. The latter makes them trainable and you can talk to them in auran. Teach them a few locations and you're good to go.
If they're familiars via the improved familiar feat then all the better. I can see a government /guild keeping a few fifth level mages with improved familiar around to pass messages to and from imortant officials. Of course if my familiar was being used like this I'd get it a ring of invisibility ASAP.
Hell, a mail guild could probably make a fortune with just a few mages.
Also if the message was compromised (meaning dead familiar) the Mage would know it even if it was farther than a mile away.