Mail and Letters in Aviandria
Last week, I shared some love poems that seemed like something you could find in Aviandria, and that just made me think of love letters, which made me consider how letters work in Aviandria.
How you send a letter in Aviandria will depend a great deal on who you are and to whom/where the letter is going. The ruler of Aviandria probably has the easiest time getting their communications to where they need to go. They can simply request a rider to take it there by roc. That way, whatever letters they need to send can get there within a few days’ time. If it isn’t overly urgent, the rider may also see if other important government officials have letters they would like to send to the same place, or somewhere that would be on the way back. This isn’t always possible, however, so often other government officials will still have to find other means to send their mail.
The only other person who has unlimited access to the riders would be the General of the Aviandrian military. He can send a rider out to deliver military orders at any time as well. Colonels in Aviandria may request a rider to deliver as well, and it is usually granted, but it is a request, not an order. If a rider delivers a message to a leader in another city, the leader has the option of sending communications back with them. The rider will usually agree to take communications as long as it doesn’t take him out of his way back. Most other military leaders will have to rely on messengers. There are limited numbers of horses in the Aviandrian military, and many of the divisions posted in larger cities will be able to send more urgent messages with a horse messenger. Smaller outposts will have runners who can get to larger cities relatively quickly. If the messages aren’t urgent, usually they are held until there is a division going in that direction. Anyone in the military can choose to send letters this way, but it can sometimes take quite a while for letters to get to the intended recipient.
For regular civilians, there are also some options. It will depend greatly on the amount they want to spend, how fast they need the letter to get there, timing, and who they know. The least expensive way to get a letter somewhere would be to find a person who is already traveling there and get them to agree to take it for you. This is the preferred way to send a letter since usually the person taking the letter is a friend and will simply do it as a favor without charge. However, if you need to send a letter, and you don’t know anyone who is going in the right direction in the near future, there are private delivery services that will deliver messages for a fee. Usually, these take time as well, since they collect letters until there are enough to make a trip worthwhile. If you want to get it there faster, you would have to hire a special messenger, and that gets very expensive, depending on the distance. There is one other option that falls somewhere in the middle. There are some merchants who will charge a smaller fee to take letters to somewhere they are already going. However, like having a friend or neighbor take the letter, this depends on whether or not you can find a willing merchant heading in the desired direction.
Mail in Aviandria isn’t easy. It usually takes a long time to get mail from one place to another. It takes patience. In our modern world next day shipping and priority mail, it seems crazy to have to wait weeks or even months for a letter, but that is all the people in Aviandria know, and it is what they expect. It’s not perfect, but it’s worked for them for centuries.
If you somehow went to Aviandria, would there be anything you would suggest to make their mail system more efficient?