Communication

Mail System

Communication over long distances in Thadonia is facilitated primarily by two conventions. The first is just mundane letters. Every village, town, and city has a place for letters to be dropped off. In Rodos, these are then transported by ferry in lockboxes or chests. That transport is a matter of convenience, as whomever runs the settlement will pay the next ferry that comes by to take the letters. Smaller settlements may not acrue enough letters to warrent transport more than twice a moon, while larger cities will send and receive mail on a daily basis and sometimes need to charter a ferry exclusively for the transport of letters. Once the letters reach their destination, they're held at the same place where letters can be dropped off. Small villages will sometimes have a courier to deliver letters to people's homes, but for the most part people get their mail by going and asking if anything has arrived for them. Rodosian officials are required to hold letters for pickup for at least 28 days, but exactly how long they're held varies from settlement to settlement.   The Aspyan Enclave and Ascaria, having land more conducive to roads, use paid couriers to transport mail from one settlement to another. In Sentrim, there is no mail system. Bruim's mail is usually put on a boat that will then sail from one coastal settlement to the next. Likewise, Clailor, Vacretia, Escar, and Thiyya have locally adapted variations on the system. All of these countries use taxes to pay for, or at least subsidize, the cost of transporting letters. Packages are handled similarly, except that the sender will usually have to pay a fee. When it comes to urgent letters, it's not uncommon for the sender to forgo the public mail system and personally pay a ferry passenger or the ferryman to deliver a letter to someone's door. Obviously, this is a less secure method, but when the de facto couriers fulfill their promise, it is much faster.  

Magic Scrolls

The second convention is the use of magic scrolls. These scrolls are crafted in pairs and enchanted so that whatever is written on one appears on the other. Due to the cost, these are primarily used by the government to quickly communicate between settlements. However, larger business may have them to facilitate trade with distant suppliers and customers, and some of the wealthier nobles also have them for both personal and professional use. As the scrolls are finite in length, it's not enough to just purchase one pair. Major cities spend tens of thousands of eagles every moon on new scrolls to replace filled ones, and given the nature of the communications they also maintain a significant staff to archive filled scrolls, attend to the active ones, and keep all of them secure from prying eyes.

To read more about magic items, check out Magic & Spellcasting.