Making a Railway on Golarion (Scenario)


Homebrew and House Rules


So a character concept I had for a game was a Kobold that in hoping to bring more prosperity to their tribe, and get enough good will with other races so that they don't get killed on sight; and so goes into the trading business.

… More specifically, investing in (if not outright building) an underground train system across the continent, with their tribe in the middle, so that as much trade as possible will go through them.

The problem I'm having is, there's a lot of details I'm not entirely well versed in for implementing a continent wide version of this in the Golarion setting (even if we quickly take the setting off the rails with such a project). Some of which include:

  • The most probable location for a Kobold tribe
  • The most relevant major nations
  • The largest cities IN those nations
  • Any relevant stopping points between the tribe and cities of the relevant nations

I originally thought I could simplify some of those questions by looking up where the major races have as their major settlements, but while that works for Dwarves (Five Kings Mountains), the other races make things much more complicated... According to the Inner Sea Guide, Elves have four favoured regions, Gnomes have 9, as do halflings, and humans live basically everywhere.

Which leaves looking up the most prosperous economic regions in the Inner Sea, which while more realistic choices, leaves a LOT of research I'd have to do in order to figure out which places would make good business partners to set up a railway through.

The one thing I am sure of, is that at least one of the cities such a line would need to have a stop at is a port city.

(Side note: I'm aware of airships as a suggestion, but I could make a whole thread on why that should come AFTER the train system is set up... Mostly for convenience.)

Liberty's Edge

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I'm not sure Golarion has the technical base (via either technology or readily replicable magic) for trains. Indeed, I'm pretty sure they flatly don't.

Now, that said, if you want to do this anyway, I recommend Northern Garund. Katapesh is actually cosmopolitan enough to be up for trading with Kobolds, a port city, and the largest trade mecca in the Inner Sea region. Not having to cross deserts would also be a very nice reason to use such a system.

The Mana Wastes are also super high technology for Golarion, while Nex is ridiculously high magic, so somewhere in the vicinity of those two is perhaps the most likely area for something like trains to be invented (and conveniently in the same general region).


Mathmuse wrote:
Kobolds of Golarion also said, "As meticulous as they are malicious, kobolds are highly organized, sophisticated, industrious, and inventive. Their natural talent for mining and gift for trapmaking are known and envied throughout the Darklands and beyond. Wise explorers learn to identify the hallmarks of kobold tunnels and find safer alternative routes around them." and "Kobolds are everywhere. That is to say, kobold lairs have been encountered in every conceivable part of Golarion."

Sounds like they're inventive enough to make a train system, and you could point virtually anywhere on the map and it would be reasonable for them to have an underground tribe there... That simplifies matters.

Mathmuse wrote:
Railroads in underground tunnels have a problem, though. A coal-burning or wood-burning engine would consume all the oxygen in the tunnel. Pathfinder has no rules about bad air, but it does have rules about smoke, so let's just say the tunnels will become filled with unbreathable smoke. This could be solved if the engines were not on the trains, by some kind of cable-car arrangement, or if the engines did not use combusion, by magic or Numerian technology.

I suspect that the smoke issue can be lessened by having some semi-frequent points of ventilation to let the smoke out, as well as stoppering the train carriage doors with rubber seals. As well as using air elementals occassionally to freshen up the air either inside the carriages, or clean out the air in the tunnels.

That's assuming something with smoke, as you said though. And to be honest, I've kind of been working on the assumtion it would probably be powered by something like what powers the "Alchemic Dragon" airship; but a much simpler solution might be to just make the engine basically a Golem (or rather, an Animated Object).

But yeah, Numerian Technology would make a great investment... Its just very difficult to get hold of that while Numeria is still run by the Technic League.


Have you ever read the Eberron books from DnD? They have an elaborate network or “trains”, airships, and the like. They used trapped wind and air elementals to create wind currents to propel the vessels. So you could use that as inspiration. It would solve your pollution/bad air problem. Remember its a world of magic. Everything is possible


Deadmanwalking wrote:
I'm not sure Golarion has the technical base (via either technology or readily replicable magic) for trains.

I'd like to think you're right, but Golarion does have a two-man submarine capable of operations as deep as 900 feet.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/a-b/apparatus-of-the-cr ab/

We're trying to defeat a plot by space aliens in the playtest adventures.

What I'm curious about is why implement trains when you could have Learjet-equivalent Wind Walk flying carpets or even permanent teleportation gates.

Liberty's Edge

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Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
I'm not sure Golarion has the technical base (via either technology or readily replicable magic) for trains.

I'd like to think you're right, but Golarion does have a two-man submarine capable of operations as deep as 900 feet.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/a-b/apparatus-of-the-cr ab/

Sure, as ridiculously expensive one-off items. There is definitely the magic in Golarion to make a train. Singular. What I'm skeptical of is the technical base to make a railroad (ie: one with several trains and a steady schedule), costing any less than several million GP at PF1 rates (the much smaller submarine mentioned is 90,000 GP in PF1). Even a single train seems like it could easily cost hundreds of thousands of GP.

Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
We're trying to defeat a plot by space aliens in the playtest adventures.

This is sort of not relevant. They aren't aliens whose technology can be taken and used (or not without going mad, anyway) and thus aren't really relevant to Golarion's technical base.

Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
What I'm curious about is why implement trains when you could have Learjet-equivalent Wind Walk flying carpets or even permanent teleportation gates.

Neither are common, and the first can't carry much freight (the stated purpose in the OP is trade, not transporting people).


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Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Ok, having a trans-continental railroad run by a single tribe of kobolds would be rather significant. Given that gun'slingers exist, it certainly wouldn't be hard to imagine the ability to have some sort of steam engine that might be able to work to drive such a train. I think it would be easier to imagine a train connecting a pair of points, or such points and a few waypoints between, rather than a whole network.

As far as smoke goes, it is a reasonable concern. However, it might also be something that might explain why it is Kobolds doing it. Perhaps there is a type of coal that the Kobolds have access to that a particular tribe of kobolds have no issue breathing.

This would help make the trains safer, as many creatures can't easily survive the environment, meaning the emissions of the train help to protect the kobolds.

While implications are that there could very well be caverns connecting points of the continents, most of them are interconnected in numerous ways, so the existence of a cavernous path from point A to point B isn't hard to imagine, but for it to be safe for a train track to exist and not be bothered by other subterranean creatures, and it be a really long distance is the harder piece to imagine.

Kobolds are often associated with dragons, what if there is a patron dragon involved... who wants to insure a path between key points stay open, used only by themselves, and their favored 'children'. This might be believable.

If the smoke filled tunnels caused even as low as a d6 smoke inhalation damage per 10 minutes, and caused everything past 10' to be concealed due to the smoke. Within 30' of the train, the damage occurs every minute instead, while the train is running, and the distance to concealment changes to be anything past 5'. Kobolds of the specified tribe may be able to breath the smoke as if it were fresh air, and their darkvision ignores the concealment.

Suddenly this gives this Kobold tribe a severe advantage to utilizing this tunnel that has the trains running through. The conditions would mean passenger travel might be an issue, unless something, potentially magical is done to allow the passenger car to be supplied with breathable air.


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I can answer the reason to build a railroad. Since I moved to the Finger Lakes area of New York, I have occassionally read up on the Erie Canal. Construction of the canal began in 1817 and was finished in 1825. It cost $7,143,000 (equivalent to $112,000,000 in 2018) to build. But by 1853, the Erie Canal carried 62 percent of all U.S. trade and it made New York City the major port city that is still is today.

The American Northwest Territory, now divided into Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, had a fortune in timber, furs, and minerals. As it was settled, it developed farmland, too. All these goods needed to go to market beyond the Northwest Territory itself. And in the other direction followed the manufactured goods needed by the lumbermen, miners, and settlers.

This level of trade cannot be handled by flying carpets. Those are much faster than trains, but they cannot handle the weight of major shipping. Teleportation has weight limits, too, and wizards have easier ways to earn wealth than trading.

For the kobolds, simply find two countries that need to trade with each other, but have neither a seacoast nor a navigable river between them. Being divided by a mountain range would be ideal, since kobolds are known as mountain creatures.

The comparison of the kobold railroad to the Erie Canal made me realize that the kobolds could construct an underground canal system instead of an underground railroad. The first canal tunnel was the Malpas Tunnel in France, finished in 1679. That is only one century later than the 16th-century technology that serves as the usual upper limit of technology on Golarion, and tunneling is typically much easier in fantasy worlds than in real life. Furthermore, a kobold underground canal system could evolve naturally over centuries: one giant cavern could have an underground sea and the kobolds gradually built canals off of it until they had a network that crossed from one side of the mountain range to the other side.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Sure, as ridiculously expensive one-off items. There is definitely the magic in Golarion to make a train. Singular. What I'm skeptical of is the technical base to make a railroad (ie: one with several trains and a steady schedule), costing any less than several million GP at PF1 rates (the much smaller submarine mentioned is 90,000 GP in PF1). Even a single train seems like it could easily cost hundreds of thousands of GP.

Well, 45,000 GP to make and the item wouldn't have to depend on a network of rails. Though admittedly, it wouldn't act like a train without rails. Maybe it would lay track ahead of itself and pick the track up on the backside, kind of like a cartoon. :)

You're right about scale. They'd have to start small and grow. It sounds like of like the old Railroad Tycoon game.

Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
We're trying to defeat a plot by space aliens in the playtest adventures.
Deadmanwalking wrote:
This is sort of not relevant. They aren't aliens whose technology can be taken and used (or not without going mad, anyway) and thus aren't really relevant to Golarion's technical base.

I was suggesting it establishes that surrounding technologies are influencing Golarion. Wasn't there an AP with a crashed spaceship? Was it Iron Gods? (I've not played it.) Of course, you're free to ignore it. No harm done.

Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
What I'm curious about is why implement trains when you could have Learjet-equivalent Wind Walk flying carpets or even permanent teleportation gates.
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Neither are common, and the first can't carry much freight (the stated purpose in the OP is trade, not transporting people).

Oh, I did forget about trade and was thinking of passengers. Good point. Teleportation Circle (the 9th level spell) are pretty expensive -- 33,000 GPish, right? Nations, or a characters who recently completed an AP could afford it. A TP Circle would handle bulk goods so long as they could be carried by the people triggering the teleport.

I'm not sure I understand your point about it being common. Elon Muskbold wants to establish a service ahead of its time. If the technologies were common, he wouldn't have a vision for an emerging market. He'd just be making something that others have done, which probably won't make the Kobolds special.

But okay, its not common. He's working on a concept and some spit-balling and brainstorming seems apropos. Viability is ultimately in the eyes of the DM, but the rest of us can have a little fun kicking it around.


Mathmuse wrote:
Teleportation has weight limits, too, and wizards have easier ways to earn wealth than trading.

Once the TP Circle is permanent, no Wizzy required. You do have to be able to divide up the bulk goods into man-portable chunks to carry it through the circle, but there is no limit to the number of trips. So yeh, they're not going to transport lumber that way.


Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
This is sort of not relevant. They aren't aliens whose technology can be taken and used (or not without going mad, anyway) and thus aren't really relevant to Golarion's technical base.
I was suggesting it establishes that surrounding technologies are influencing Golarion. Wasn't there an AP with a crashed spaceship? Was it Iron Gods? (I've not played it.) Of course, you're free to ignore it. No harm done.

Yes, that was Iron Gods: Pathfinder Adventure Path #85 Fires of Creation, #85 Lords of Rust, #87 The Choking Tower, #88 Valley of the Brain Collectors, #89 Palace of Fallen Stars, and #90 The Divinity Drive. Some of the aliens in Valley of the Brain Collectors were also species seen in the Playtest scenario Doomsday Dawn. The country involved was Numeria, so the alien technology is sometimes called Numerian technology.

Paizo made special effort to make sure that the alien technology did not spread past Numeria:

1. The technological items are frequently more expensive than their magical equivalents. For example, Eyes of the Owl grant low-light vision for 4,000 gp. The Numerian equivalent is veemod goggles with a gray veemod strip: 1,000 gp for the veemod goggles and 6,000 gp for the gray veemod strip.

2. Technological items are either single use or consume charges. A 1-pound battery for recharging costs 100 gp for 10 charges. Recharging a battery requires a generator and those are artifact-level items and frequently immobile. The robots are an exception, but apparently the robot's independent power source dies with the robot.

3. Most technological items are timeworn, causing them to occassionally glitch and preventing recharging.

4. Most technological weapons require exotic weapon proficiency: firearm, heavy weaponry, whip, or bastard sword.

5. The powerful Technic League has a monopoly on technological items in Numeria. Anyone else using alien technology is an outlaw in their eyes. They oppose exporting alien technology outside Numeria and stop smugglers if they learn of them.

My players had ambitions with the technology, so I loosened the restrictions for my Iron Gods campaign: Going Wild with Technology.


Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Mathmuse wrote:
Teleportation has weight limits, too, and wizards have easier ways to earn wealth than trading.
Once the TP Circle is permanent, no Wizzy required. You do have to be able to divide up the bulk goods into man-portable chunks to carry it through the circle, but there is no limit to the number of trips. So yeh, they're not going to transport lumber that way.

Teleportation Circle costs 1,000 gp in material components. The duration is only 10 minutes per level, but permanency costs only 22,500 gp. That is a great bargain. The price was probably set cheap because those circles serve plot purposes in the modules and novels.

The hard part is finding a 17th-level wizard in order to cast the circle and make it permanent. The rulebook says, "Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells," but surely one can be contacted in a foreign country. Most sucessful adventure paths create some 17th-level characters.

The only question remaining is: why don't cities already have those permanent teleportation circles? They are existing magic.


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Mathmuse wrote:

The hard part is finding a 17th-level wizard in order to cast the circle and make it permanent. The rulebook says, "Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells," but surely one can be contacted in a foreign country. Most sucessful adventure paths create some 17th-level characters.

The only question remaining is: why don't cities already have those permanent teleportation circles? They are existing magic.

I suspect it's less about not being able to find a 17th level wizard and more about not being able to find a 17th level wizard who doesn't have anything better to do than go around making permanent teleportation circles. I mean yeah, it pays the bills, but at 17th level how many bills do you actually have left to pay?

Liberty's Edge

Mathmuse wrote:
Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Mathmuse wrote:
Teleportation has weight limits, too, and wizards have easier ways to earn wealth than trading.
Once the TP Circle is permanent, no Wizzy required. You do have to be able to divide up the bulk goods into man-portable chunks to carry it through the circle, but there is no limit to the number of trips. So yeh, they're not going to transport lumber that way.

Teleportation Circle costs 1,000 gp in material components. The duration is only 10 minutes per level, but permanency costs only 22,500 gp. That is a great bargain. The price was probably set cheap because those circles serve plot purposes in the modules and novels.

The hard part is finding a 17th-level wizard in order to cast the circle and make it permanent. The rulebook says, "Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells," but surely one can be contacted in a foreign country. Most sucessful adventure paths create some 17th-level characters.

The only question remaining is: why don't cities already have those permanent teleportation circles? They are existing magic.

The 17th level Wizard might have some but they sure as Hell do not want anybody to know about it. Let alone have it as a kind of public service anyone could use


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I don't see why this wizard wouldn't want to spread it around. I mean, there's already a nebulous blob of L17+ yahoos who lack nothing better to do than filling magic item shops with wish/miracle scrolls in local metropolises if we're going to be diving down that particular rabbit hole.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Mathmuse wrote:
Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Mathmuse wrote:
Teleportation has weight limits, too, and wizards have easier ways to earn wealth than trading.
Once the TP Circle is permanent, no Wizzy required. You do have to be able to divide up the bulk goods into man-portable chunks to carry it through the circle, but there is no limit to the number of trips. So yeh, they're not going to transport lumber that way.

Teleportation Circle costs 1,000 gp in material components. The duration is only 10 minutes per level, but permanency costs only 22,500 gp. That is a great bargain. The price was probably set cheap because those circles serve plot purposes in the modules and novels.

The hard part is finding a 17th-level wizard in order to cast the circle and make it permanent. The rulebook says, "Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells," but surely one can be contacted in a foreign country. Most sucessful adventure paths create some 17th-level characters.

The only question remaining is: why don't cities already have those permanent teleportation circles? They are existing magic.

Well, there is the potential that perhaps overuse of teleportation circles can cause some sort of burnout. So general use would be permanent and safe, but perhaps use of it for mass transit consistently may be known to (or rumored to) cause instability and potential danger. Perhaps a well known transport circle that was known in the past, which became heavily used for transport of goods en-masse may have blown up destroying the city it was known to supply in the past. Even if the destruction was potentially not the true fault of the teleportation circle, the simple rumor might be enough to keep most of the wary from allowing more than a select few to be allowed the use of the teleportation circles that they know of.

Perhaps it might even be a known limit. After teleportation so many pounds of materials in a certain amount of time, it runs the risk of causing it to stop functioning for a time. The more often that occurs, the lower the threshold comes down, and the longer it may tend to malfunction and not trigger. Simply make the amount large enough that normal 'privileged' use isn't likely to trigger the limit, but attempts to mass market it would quickly trigger the issue.

Liberty's Edge

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As others note, there are a number of reasons Numerian (and other alien) technology have not spread on Golarion.

Telportation Circles are a slightly different matter. They absolutely do work to transport bulk goods from Point A to Point B. No lesser form of teleportation does this, but Telportation Circles do.

There are several logistical hurdles to doing this on a large scale, however:

1. 17th level Wizards are rare. And not all of them even have the spell. I actually figured out some population demographics for what level people are in Golarion. They put 17th level people at no more than 1 in 100,000 (possibly less). Then, you have to ask how many are Wizards, Sorcerers, Witches, or Arcanists with Telportation Circle. We'll call it 1 in 20 people of 17th level or higher (this number is probably overly generous, the number of people who could get it is maybe as much as twice that, but the number of people who have it is not). That's 1 in 2 million people who can do this.

The best population estimates for the Inner Sea Region are in the 40 million people range. So there are maybe 20 people who could theoretically do this in the whole Inner Sea Region.

Now, who are the people who might do this? Well, until recently, 7 of them were Runelords, two of them rule Geb, another is the Whispering Tyrant, another was the ruler of Irrisen, and another is Razmir. None of those people seem the sort to provide anything for free (or, in many cases, at all), or indeed without a hideous markup. and that's about half of the people who could.

2. Telportation Circles are great for trade, they are unfortunately, however, relatively easy to destroy (compared to the difficulty of creating them), since all it requires is a DC 38 CL check (and there are many ways to boost CL for such checks, especially if all you need is one check) and Dispel Magic, and more importantly very tactically disadvantageous to a country's defenses. Small groups of powerful people (ie: adventurers) can get through them and suddenly be right in the middle of your country and ready to wreak havoc. That's a tactical weak point many governments will not be willing to accept just for trade advantages (especially when the spell is provided by someone untrustworthy like the above examples).

3. Teleportation Circles are self sustaining. You set them up and, unless destroyed, they last forever. An entrepreneurial Wizard is sabotaging themselves by making any, since they can get much more money by working as a courier with lower level spells, even if they only do so very occasionally.

None of this means nobody has ever set up a Telportation Circle network, people surely have, but probably only ones internal to a specific nation or empire, and only ones set up by the government, not private entities. Azlant may well have had such things, for example. No nations in the Inner Sea at the moment are large enough to make the downsides worthwhile and also have the resources (ie: high level casters) to do this.
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Also, for purposes of this thread, Teleportation Circles would not serve the purposes of those wanting the trade stuff (ie: the kobolds), since they want to give people an ongoing reason to deal with them and Teleportation Circles are, as mentioned, self sustaining.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Now, who are the people who might do this? Well, until recently, 7 of them were Runelords, two of them rule Geb, another is the Whispering Tyrant, another was the ruler of Irrisen, and another is Razmir. None of those people seem the sort to provide anything for free (or, in many cases, at all), or indeed without a hideous markup. and that's about half of the people who could.

Back when I ran Rise of the Runelords, I assumed that 6 of the 7 Runelords were already dead. I suppose Return of the Runelords disproved that (I have not read it), but I would still not count them among the 20 17th-level wizards of the current generation.

On the other hand, in my world I count the spellcasters from my campaigns. Corvin (bard 1/wizard 19), nicknamed Runelord Corvin by the inhabitants of Xin-Shalast, has an interest in intercontinental travel because his girlfriend Ameiko Kaijitsu now lives in Minkai on continent Tian Xia while he is busy in Varisia on continent Avistan. Or Ameiko could get her friend Arc (arcanist 17) from my Jade Regent campaign to make Teleportation Circles. In my Iron Gods campaign, the arcane spellcaster was a magus, so he can't cast the spell. But he now rules the Technic League and is perfectly willing to export not just the alien technology, but also technology less dependent on batteries.

Campaigns reshape Golarion. That is part of the fun.


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Mathmuse wrote:
Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Mathmuse wrote:
Teleportation has weight limits, too, and wizards have easier ways to earn wealth than trading.
Once the TP Circle is permanent, no Wizzy required. You do have to be able to divide up the bulk goods into man-portable chunks to carry it through the circle, but there is no limit to the number of trips. So yeh, they're not going to transport lumber that way.

Teleportation Circle costs 1,000 gp in material components. The duration is only 10 minutes per level, but permanency costs only 22,500 gp. That is a great bargain. The price was probably set cheap because those circles serve plot purposes in the modules and novels.

The hard part is finding a 17th-level wizard in order to cast the circle and make it permanent. The rulebook says, "Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells," but surely one can be contacted in a foreign country. Most sucessful adventure paths create some 17th-level characters.

The only question remaining is: why don't cities already have those permanent teleportation circles? They are existing magic.

I think this is mostly one of those things where something isn't done simply because it would alter the setting too much. As you said, a permanent teleportation circle is an absolute bargain for what it does. Absalom would probably have at least one to each major trading city. It'd probably pay for itself in one shipment. Get exotic goods from far away quickly and safely. No expensive ships to maintain, no pirate or bandit raids, no weather related accidents, fewer laborers to employ etc. The only real downsides are finding a mage who can do it and potentially it being used as an invasion route. The first shouldn't be too hard for the biggest cities, because that mage can get a lot of money and power for a small amount of work and the invasion risk can be reduced with security measures like the teleportation circles being located inside heavily fortified buildings with choke points and guards. Ultimate Wilderness also introduced the Portal Oak. 45k for a pair of them. They provide a permanent point-to-point teleportation that works in a 1 mile radius. Sounds perfect for a mass transit system within a city. And only CL 9, so much easier to get someone who can make them. Ring gates would make a great postal system for important documents. Or one of my favorites, the Bird Feather Token combined with the Chest Feather Token. Store your low-bulk high value goods in the extra-dimensional space of the Chest token, attach the key to the bird and send it off to your trade partner at the target location. Discrete, fast, relatively cheap and low-level magic that can be great for smuggling, transporting high value, low bulk goods like spices or gems or even just mail. 8GP for the set, 1st and 3rd level items.

But if there were permanent circles between major cities, it would change the setting from the pseudo-medieval one it is currently. No need for major merchant fleets, little place for pirates, no concern about sea monsters. It just wouldn't be the same kind of setting, and removes a lot of RP potential. So it's just not done. It's similar to why are castles still a thing? Magic and flying creatures can render them obsolete much like gunpowder artillery did in the real world (and that's not even taking into account aircraft). At the very least they should probably be more like early-modern Star Forts. But castles are medieval, and the genre is pseudo-medieval. It would change the setting too much, so it's just not taken into account (or when it is, it's dealt with by using more magic).

I do think the feather token postal system has a lot of potential to add rather than take away RP opportunities. There can be Bird Pirates on flying mounts with nets and some magic detection hunting for Key Birds.


By the way, Kobolds of Golarion PDF is available in the Pathfinder 10th Anniversary Humble Bundle. I now own a copy.

The Humble Bundle is open for about one more day.

Liberty's Edge

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Mathmuse wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Now, who are the people who might do this? Well, until recently, 7 of them were Runelords, two of them rule Geb, another is the Whispering Tyrant, another was the ruler of Irrisen, and another is Razmir. None of those people seem the sort to provide anything for free (or, in many cases, at all), or indeed without a hideous markup. and that's about half of the people who could.
Back when I ran Rise of the Runelords, I assumed that 6 of the 7 Runelords were already dead. I suppose Return of the Runelords disproved that (I have not read it), but I would still not count them among the 20 17th-level wizards of the current generation.

The demographics generally include everyone, rather than being 'per generation' or something like that. It's possible being in suspended animation does make one not count, though. Even not counting them, the number of high level people who I'd trust with building something like that is quite low.

Mathmuse wrote:

On the other hand, in my world I count the spellcasters from my campaigns. Corvin (bard 1/wizard 19), nicknamed Runelord Corvin by the inhabitants of Xin-Shalast, has an interest in intercontinental travel because his girlfriend Ameiko Kaijitsu now lives in Minkai on continent Tian Xia while he is busy in Varisia on continent Avistan. Or Ameiko could get her friend Arc (arcanist 17) from my Jade Regent campaign to make Teleportation Circles. In my Iron Gods campaign, the arcane spellcaster was a magus, so he can't cast the spell. But he now rules the Technic League and is perfectly willing to export not just the alien technology, but also technology less dependent on batteries.

Campaigns reshape Golarion. That is part of the fun.

This is absolutely true, and I'd in no way dream of discouraging it. I'm stating reasons why people would not have done this already, not why PCs wouldn't do it if they felt like it.

However, that's specific to individual people's campaigns rather than something that applies to the 'default' version of Golarion.


Funny thing about the Teleport circle thing, I found myself imagining someone taking hours to just go back and forth through the circle, trying to get across even ONE ton worth of stuff in an hour... While a train to the same location could carry several hundred tons of stuff in the same time, and also stuff that none of the people could actually carry across... Like a clockwork tank.

Speaking of clockwork stuff, a clockwork train sounds interesting.

Another point to consider with Teleport circles is that they're essentially an express line that skips all the areas that while less important, are still places that can benefit from having people visit.

In order for a teleport circle network to do the same work as a train, you're going to need to have one teleport circle for not only every major city, but every minor city as well, and even every minor "not even worth mentioning" frontier towns.

In fact, even if you do create a train line in a straight line between two points rather than snaking around through all the minor stops, you can still have some stops that cater to those areas in the middle of the line that just exist to transfer to another trader to send it to those minor settlements. Those stops would themselves become trade hubs, and often, they'll serve as nodes off which to make branching lines to said minor settlements when they begin to grow.

Needless to say, if Kobolds want to make their OWN place a trade hub, every town they can connect their line to will increase the available trade that can reach them.

As for cost of such a network... Its more fitting to calculate the cost of the distance between stops rather than the cost as a whole; at least when comparing to a teleportation circle network. Though by that point, the first thing people would advocate for doing with the train system would be transportation WITHIN the same city, as it would be cheaper to instate than any magical travel.

Of course... Kobolds being Kobolds, able to live practically anywhere... I wouldn't be surprised if they just made their own trade towns every 10 miles or so just to be able to say they're making as much use of the rail system as possible. And with how quickly they can build up a population from nothing... Well... Hmm.


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I just feel the need to point out that an animate, clockwork train that lays its own tracks might be a bad idea.

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Luna Protege wrote:
Funny thing about the Teleport circle thing, I found myself imagining someone taking hours to just go back and forth through the circle, trying to get across even ONE ton worth of stuff in an hour... While a train to the same location could carry several hundred tons of stuff in the same time, and also stuff that none of the people could actually carry across... Like a clockwork tank.

So I am imagining a training facility for Kobolds to act as haulers. You start with an 18 strength but -4 racial penalty. Add in Alchemist mutagen for +4 strength and an Ant Haul extract.

Heavy load for 18 strength = 300 lbs
Reduced to 3/4 for small size = 225 lbs
Tripled from Ant Haul = 775 lbs
One Ton divided by 775 lbs for number of trips needed through the teleport circle = 2.5 trips = 4 tons a minute*

*Assuming the Kobold starts their turn next to their maximum heavy load, picks it up as a standard action walks 10' through the portal and drops the load as a free action and walks back through the portal with the remaining 10' of movement.

Sure, an 18 strength before racial bonuses is a little min/maxed. Lets look at 10 base strength, for a Kobold Wizard. 60 heavy load from 6 strength(after racials) * 75%(small size) * 3(ant haul) = 135 lbs heavy load = 14.8 trips. So about a minute and a half to transfer a ton of material, not hours. In fact, in "even ONE" hour, a regular Atomie (diminutive 6 str fey) with nothing special at all is transporting over 4 TONS of materials.


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The underground canal is certainly plausible; construction just requires one of the myriad creatures that dig. Add water and boats and you're good to go. You can even recruit creatures to pull them rather than needing steam engines.

The real problem is defending this enormous piece of infrastructure. It's a ready-made habitat with food that comes along regularly carrying treasure. It could be held to ransom by threatening it with leaks, flooding, blockages and so on.

But if you can control it, it's obviously a great way to move goods and armies a long distance without people seeing you.


Firebug wrote:
Luna Protege wrote:
Funny thing about the Teleport circle thing, I found myself imagining someone taking hours to just go back and forth through the circle, trying to get across even ONE ton worth of stuff in an hour... While a train to the same location could carry several hundred tons of stuff in the same time, and also stuff that none of the people could actually carry across... Like a clockwork tank.

So I am imagining a training facility for Kobolds to act as haulers. You start with an 18 strength but -4 racial penalty. Add in Alchemist mutagen for +4 strength and an Ant Haul extract.

Heavy load for 18 strength = 300 lbs
Reduced to 3/4 for small size = 225 lbs
Tripled from Ant Haul = 775 lbs
One Ton divided by 775 lbs for number of trips needed through the teleport circle = 2.5 trips = 4 tons a minute*

*Assuming the Kobold starts their turn next to their maximum heavy load, picks it up as a standard action walks 10' through the portal and drops the load as a free action and walks back through the portal with the remaining 10' of movement.

Sure, an 18 strength before racial bonuses is a little min/maxed. Lets look at 10 base strength, for a Kobold Wizard. 60 heavy load from 6 strength(after racials) * 75%(small size) * 3(ant haul) = 135 lbs heavy load = 14.8 trips. So about a minute and a half to transfer a ton of material, not hours. In fact, in "even ONE" hour, a regular Atomie (diminutive 6 str fey) with nothing special at all is transporting over 4 TONS of materials.

Okay, then we get into some very specific calculations on the kind of haul a train would need to have to be worth it. Just scale up from a reasonably conservative estimate; after all, if we don't want to break the bank on paying them for being overly experienced, we're going to want workers without character levels.

A 14 strength Kobold, no levels seems to be able to carry a little over 130 pounds. Within a minute they can carry a little over half a ton in the manner you describe... Within the same time as an hour long train trip, they could carry a little over 35 tons.

For the sake of as close to a one to one cost comparison, lets double it to 70 tons on the assumption of having two kobolds do this; as there's usually two people running a steam train, one to operate the controls, and one to shovel the coal... Though for a more modern train this would not be necessary.

Based on what I can find on train hauling weights, there are freight trains close to a mile long that can carry close to 9000 tons... A more reasonable length of 150 meters or 160 yards would still carry 900 tons.

… This would make this "reasonable" train roughly 12.86 times more efficient than using manpower and teleport circles. So in order to get a comparative amount of haul in the same amount of time, you'd need 26 kobolds working simultaneously; assuming each kobold is getting paid for this (could go either way, "for the tribe" and greed seem like valid motivations for individual kobolds), then that's a significant amount of extra gold being diverted to labour.

Of course, I haven't taken maintenance into account, because A) this system typically doesn't pay much attention to wear and tear, and B) if it did, both trains and teleport circles would undergo SOME form of wear and tear, making them roughly comparable in one way or another. Notably, wear and tear on a teleport circle would require reapplication of the spell, while wear and tear on a train or train tracks only requires maintaining the section in question.


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Unskilled labour is really cheap in PF (1-3 sp/day) and raw materials are expensive (1 tonne iron: 2200 sp). Where it's available a teleportation circle is going to be the most efficient means. If there's no uberwizard available and there is an inventor with a team of engineers prepared to make their ideas reality available then a train might work.


avr wrote:
Unskilled labour is really cheap in PF (1-3 sp/day) and raw materials are expensive (1 tonne iron: 2200 sp). Where it's available a teleportation circle is going to be the most efficient means. If there's no uberwizard available and there is an inventor with a team of engineers prepared to make their ideas reality available then a train might work.

Well, that depends on how long one plans to have this railway run for. We're also not entirely sure how much the train itself will cost, but the difference between the cost of the train and the cost of labour can be measured in how long the saving of labour will take to be paid off. In theory, if its anything short of the lifespan of an elf, SOMEONE out there who lives their life as a dedicated businessman or investor will be willing to fit the bill for a cut of the profits.

For a rough estimate of the likely cost, I'm going to start with the cargo capacity of a Heavy Wagon and a Heavy Horse, and use that as a base cost per ton of carrying capacity... This isn't completely fair to the train, as a horse can move in any direction while a train is on rails; but at the same time a train is made of sturdier materials, so I'll go with it.

So, the carrying capacity of a heavy Wagon is 4000 pounds, which we'll round to about 2 tons. A Heavy wagon is 100gp and a heavy horse is 200 gp, making 300 gp. We'll half this to find the cost per ton carry capacity at 150gp (give or take).

Scaling this up it amounts to roughly 135,000gp for a train that carries 900 tons... This price is not outside the realm of plausibility, as the Alchemic Dragon that needs to be able to FLY in addition to carrying 20 tons is 100,000gp.

An Elf meanwhile, can live up to 750 years if they're lucky; We'll treat this as something of an upper limit of reasonability for an Elf investing in something for their own sake(and not doing it for the sake of their children who will finally get the profit). Otherwise we're going to have to look at the lifespan of dragons here.

So taking the difference between this "souped up wagon" and a teleport circle (111,500gp) and divide it by the 48 average silver per day of unskilled labour needed to carry the same amount in the same time... And we get... 636 years, under the absolute maximum lifespan of an Elf by about a hundred years. You can even add the age of adult-hood (110) onto that and you'll be almost tied with the maximum age, so its not outside the realm of possibility; its just pushing it.

Personally, I'd say that 135,000gp figure should include the rails to anywhere of note as well, but that might be pushing it. Alternatively, we could scale the train's carry capacity down so we don't have to have such an insane initial investment; such as 45,000gp for a 300 ton carrying capacity. It may take less labour to compete with that, but you'd still make up for the difference in cost by picking the train in less time at 368 years (roughly).


I don't mean to double post, but its much later that I'm realizing that if I went for the minimum Ton Carry capacity for the train to be more labour efficient than the Teleport circle, the train would cost only 15,750 GP using the 150GP per ton measurement standard, and choosing 105 tons as the target cost (to be on par with three unskilled labourers, as it only needs to beat two unskilled labourers).

… Technically cheaper than the Teleport Circle.

Edit: Also, someone reminded me that one would need TWO teleportation circles; one to get there one to get back; which would actually make the 300 Ton Train BARELY cheaper, as the pair of Teleportation circles would cost 47,000 GP.

Silver Crusade

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Mathmuse and mudfoot nailed it! All the people falling back on powerful magic, like Teleport and Flying, are missing the simple, low-cost, low tech ways of accomplishing this task. For inspiration your kobold wannabe railway engineer can look to The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind for approaches to finding clever cheap technological workarounds.

Resources required to build a functional underground long-distance cargo transport system:
* Lots of kobold miners
* A few smart kobald surveyors and map-makers.
* One cleric able to cast 3rd level Animate Dead and Channel Negative Energy to heal undead

Here's a cheap and dirty way your kobald can succeed:

* Dig the tunnels intending that they be half-filled with water to form underground canals. Canals accomplish the same task as rails at a tiny fraction of the cost. Sure, canals are slower, but the cargo still gets there.
* Build specialized cargo boats
* Power your cargo boats with undead skeletons. E.g. Hidden skeletons in a box turn a crank that powers a screw or paddlewheel. Instead of a [loud, stinky, noisy, unreliable, requires-constant-tending] steam engine employ a few hidden skeletal undead to provide the motive power. Skeletons should be completely hidden and can be cut-down to just essentials. It should not be obvious what powers the boat. Won't be fast, but will be plenty fast enough. Each boat thus requires a single casting of Animate Dead. Repair worn-out skeletons via regular Channel Negative Energy checkups.


Magda Luckbender wrote:

Resources required to build a functional underground long-distance cargo transport system:

* Lots of kobold miners
* A few smart kobald surveyors and map-makers.
* One cleric able to cast 3rd level Animate Dead and Channel Negative Energy to heal undead

** spoiler omitted **

Have we forgotten that Water = Death? Kind of masochistic to suggest Canals, yet everyone here is doing it.

The mere mention of canals is giving me flashbacks to two different versions of the same basic character that died to water; to the point it could be a running joke that their family tends to die that way.

Also, Animate Dead has limitations that make it unsuitable for scalability: in addition to requiring a spell, which on the service market is already kind of costly to buy from a wizard; but the wizard also has to remain on staff and paid, not as "unskilled labour" but as professional labour for as long as that undead remains working on the project. So rather than a daily upkeep of 4 silver for two people, its more likely comparable to an on staff Sage of 15gp/day.

Additionally, the other scalability problem is that they can only control 4HD of undead at a time. Even assuming a 4HD skelleton can even pull such a load, which doesn't sound right, that's only one vessel its pulling... Even a 1HD Skelleton per vessel limits it to a maximum of four vessels per Wizard, but the only thing I see them controlling is a gondola... The command Undead spell may be able to get around this, but that's still a maximum of 20 HD for a LEGENDARY Cleric; which would be more suitable as a single creature to pull a large load, but its still a limited number. Necessitating YET MORE Legendary Clerics.

There's something to be said for transport systems where one can operate it without its creator being on staff; in that you only have to turn to them for repairs, and new acquisitions.

If we're going to use "technically a creature" to run the system; one can just turn to the Animated Object rules, and the clockwork template. The clockwork template can be applied to any construct, and Animated Objects are a construct; and boats/ships can be an Animated Object, so a similarly large object with a similar carry capacity or higher could be made into a clockwork "animated object". And... Apparently a Colossal Animated Object would have a carry capacity of almost a thousand tons; specifically 985.7 tons.

Using the cost of the cheapest "Colossal Vehicle" I could find, to be turned into an animated object; a 10,000gp Longboat (or Sailing Boat); just in terms of size, since we just want it to be big (stick wheels on a box); add the additional 19,000 for the animate object cost. I'm not sure if the clockwork Template cost applies only to the animation cost of the boat as well; but assuming both, the final cost (presumably not requiring actual spells to create), the final cost would be 43,500gp.

This would cover all of the weaknesses of an Animate Dead method, at what's essentially only an initial investment that will eventually pay for itself... Also technically doesn't need tracks; in fact, it can go literally anywhere overland, possibly over sea or in air too, depending on how you spend the construction points, but the best means of spending them is to simply use much of it on Speed and a little on Metal. Making it able to move at 31 miles an hour running.

… For our Kobolds however, we'll forgo some of the extra speed for additional movement type: Burrowing... So instead of having to make a bunch of people dig the tunnels by hand, the trains can dig their own tunnels. Which saves more on labour costs as well. And the most speed that you loose from this is only 4 miles per hour; to a max speed of 27 miles per hour.

Silver Crusade

@Luna Protege: Seems like we should asked you for a budget and a character level. If you have tens or hundreds of thousands of GP to throw around, and can buy enormous animated objects and pay for powerful enchantments ... well that sure makes things easier. My suggestion could be done on a shoestring budget, entirely by kobolds, without needing any rare, high level magic. The undead could be replaced by kobold muscle power, if it comes to that. At that point it's not a railroad, but does accomplish the exact same task.

The multiple suggestions for canals come from people who know the history of cargo technology. We're trying to answer your query with the most appropriate technology. Canals have been used for moving cargo for thousands of years, while railways are a new thing. Canals are drastically simpler, easier, and more reliable. They are the simplest and cheapest way to do the job as initially requested. It sounds like your PC has a psychological opposition to water, and thus canals are not the right solution in this case, which is fine :-)

What does "Water = death" mean?


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Magda Luckbender wrote:

@Luna Protege: Seems like we should asked you for a budget and a character level. If you have tens or hundreds of thousands of GP to throw around, and can buy enormous animated objects and pay for powerful enchantments ... well that sure makes things easier. My suggestion could be done on a shoestring budget, entirely by kobolds, without needing any rare, high level magic.

The multiple suggestions for canals come from people who know the history of cargo technology. We're trying to answer your query with the most appropriate technology. Canals have been used for moving cargo for thousands of years, while railways are a new thing. Canals are drastically simpler, easier, and more reliable. They are the simplest and cheapest way to do the job as initially requested. It sounds like your PC has a psychological opposition to water, and thus canals are not the right solution in this case, which is fine :-)

What does "Water = death" mean?

Addressing the paragraphs in order:

If the entire campaign is focused around building the thing; presumably it would be a... Long Campaign, starting with what I imagine would be a trek to find an investor (probably 1 to 5), followed by finding a guy to build it (probably level 7), so work on the actual project would start by level 8... And then likely have a bunch of side quests to make up the time it takes to complete, plus whatever gold is still missing... Considering crafting time is a long time, I'm going to say it MIGHT be done by 12th level.

Perhaps, but there's already a lot of canals in Golarion. There seems to be one that runs between Nex and the Mana-wastes. So ANOTHER canal is going to be excessive... Also, the size of the canal you'd need for anything like a Galley would be massive, while trains are thin in comparison. In addition, the water through the tunnel is a lot of mess to deal with when it will inevitably result in flooding the tribe itself if anything breaks; considering much of the living space for kobolds will continue to be built downwards rather than upwards. So the transit system will be a decent way above their home... Canals are thus a safety hazard; not to mention, the flow of water being one way is not as conducive to two way travel, at least, not without two separate tunnels with one for each direction, which if the wall between them is punctured will cause... Complications... And I'm sure any group of adventurers going up river on a skiff that's had a gang of Sahagun crawl up from under the water to drag the crew into the water will probably say canals tend to be full of... Unwanted life.

"Water = Death" can have a lot of facets... The millions of monsters that live in it, the chance of being swept over a water fall, the ease of falling off a boat and being unable to swim, being keel hauled by accident or intentionally, getting trapped under ice, being charmed into walking into the water to drown, being stuck on driftwood long enough to starve to death or death by dehydration (while surrounded by water, the irony)… Water is... Dangerous... Period.

Edit:

Magda Luckbender wrote:
The undead could be replaced by kobold muscle power, if it comes to that. At that point it's not a railroad, but does accomplish the exact same task.

In the short term, using labour to power things can work; but as I've been trying to demonstrate for much of this thread; the long view is to keep operating costs low, whatever that takes. Tens of thousands of gold is nothing compared to the inevitable march of time, even for a few silver a day, over a hundred years, it adds up to a few thousand gold... That and upscaling, operating costs after upscaling are a nightmare.

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