WBJ2017 Day 27: Transportation
Most people walk wherever they need to go. It’s cheaper, easier, and doesn’t require any training. If you’re patient, you can walk from one side of Ishqua to the other in a couple of months. The average person, however, will only go as far as the next town over, which is usually less than a week away by foot. Unfortunately, it’s tough to take anything with you when you have to carry it on your back.
To get around this, most people either ride domesticated animals like horses, elk, goats, or large flightless birds, or use them to pull carriages or wagons. Aside from the non-standard mounts, they work pretty much the same as they do in our world. Warm-blooded herbivores are much more common, since they’re low maintenance and relatively safe to be around. Carnivores are harder to train and deal with, but they’re popular for anyone expecting trouble on the road.
Major inland routes tend to be along rivers, so boats are an easy way to get anywhere that’s downstream, and use animals to get back upstream. Larger ships can travel along the coast using the wind and sails. This is the closest that Ishqua gets to mass transportation, but a lot of trade good get from point A to point B by waterways. The capital city is built along one of the largest rivers that bisects the kingdom, and the merchants’ quarter is a major trade center across multiple nations.
Magic can be used for teleportation, but it has plenty of limitations. A mage might be able to teleport themselves a dozen feet, but taking anyone with you or going someplace you can’t see is asking to have your constituent parts scattered across the four winds in a fine red mist. That said, enchanted items like self-driving wheels, magic sails, and shoes of infinite stamina all make getting places a lot easier.
There’s a couple of non-standard ways to get around as well. People whose mutations let them fly will use air drafts to travel longer distances with minimal effort, but it’s much harder to take anything with them. The same goes for people who can swim, float, or dive in water, and many of these will work with riverboat crews as lifeguards and scouts. Those who can dig through the earth will create tunnels through mountains and hills to make it easier for the rest of the populous to get around.
