Messengers and Mail in Fantasy Worlds

[Kid Charlemagne]

One well-established feature of my campaign world is the Messenger's Guild. The main purpose of the Guild is the delivery of mail from point to point. I've never had to go into any detail about how this all works, but one of the PC's in my game has joined up with the Guild as an elite messenger, delivering high-priority messages, so I want to develop this further.

I've also been reading The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, where many of the characters correspond via mail (in the 17th century), and this has gotten me thinking further about the subject. My game is set in a Renaissance-ish time frame, with gun and all, so its somewhat applicable as an inspiration.

How would you assume such an organization would work? I've been working it as close to the PHB as possible (cost=1cp/mile, IIRC) and assuming mail is brought to a Messenger Guild drop-off point, etc. and then delivered on from there. That works fine for the regular stuff, but I need to work out how the high-priority stuff works, or else the PC's Guild affiliation will be just window dressing.

At some cost point, magical messaging becomes practical, but not completely (Sending requires you to know the person you're sending to). For a high priority message, does boosting the price up to 1sp/mile make it worthwhile for a higher level PC to get involved? I'm envisioning a PC who is already on the way from Point A to Point B to stop by the Guild Office in A to see if anything is going to B, and this gives them a way to pick up a little extra cash. Assuming that price, what percent should go to the Guild, and what percent to the messenger (I'm leaning towards a 25/75 split). There might be a bonus for getting a message delivered in faster than normal time (in Quicksilver, the messenger gets an extra bonus for each day he beats the normal delivery time).

High-security messages are protected in several ways (besides the usual glyphs, wards, and traps). Depending on the importance of the message, the scroll tube becomes more ornate (so anyone can tell an important message from an everyday one); the "top end" is a gold tube with the Guild seal. The gold has the extra added benefit of blocking detect magic on the scroll within. The Guild seal is complex and not easy to forge, and once you open it, you have the actual message, with its sender's seal. The main security is the skill of the messenger in not being fooled. The Guild of course has strict rules about its messengers tampering with the messages, which is not to say it hasn't happened.

Any other ideas? Other methods of sending messages? Other things the Messenger's Guild could get involved with?

 

[Wystan]

Okay, here is an idea:

1. position each guildhall to keep a 250 square mile are around it, with other guildhalls intersecting.
2. Have each guild hall have a permenant teleportation circle to 2 other guildhalls.
3. Create a loop of such circles and any message can be delivered in a short time period.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Huh. Never noticed how simple and inexpensive it was to set up a permanent Teleport Circle. Assuming you have a 17th level wizard laying around, of course. That's definitely an option for the very biggest cities, although I don't know if I'd use it for everyday mail. It might be neater for the Circle to be in the control of a Wizard College (another feature of my campaign - there are 12 of them) and have the Messenger's Guild pay for their use when necessary.

 

[Wystan]

Huh. Never noticed how simple and inexpensive it was to set up a permanent Teleport Circle. Assuming you have a 17th level wizard laying around, of course. That's definitely an option for the very biggest cities, although I don't know if I'd use it for everyday mail. It might be neater for the Circle to be in the control of a Wizard College (another feature of my campaign - there are 12 of them) and have the Messenger's Guild pay for their use when necessary.

I think it might just be more expedient to pay for all the guild halls to have the circles as a one time expense and then up the cost for anything over 250 miles. Maybe 1cp per mile up to 250, 1s for 251-500, and 1g for 501 and up.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Homing pigeons!

You would have pigeon stations, and would "farm out" the pigeons to nearby cities. When a message arrives at City A, saying go from City A to City C, you get a City B pigeon you have in City A and give it the message. It travels to City B. Someone at City B looks at the outside of the message, sees it's supposed to go to City C. They get a City C pigeon and send the message there. You could send a message quite far that way; but you'll need to send many, as pigeons can get lost, shot down, eaten, etc.

You would want to write important messages in code, as pigeon handlers could be spies.

Palladium has a spell called "Magic Pigeon" that does this with more reliability. It's faster than a regular pigeon, I think, and doesn't need to sleep. It can't get lost, it probably won't get eaten, but it can still be deliberately shot down.

 

[Umbran]

Any other ideas? Other methods of sending messages? Other things the Messenger's Guild could get involved with?

If protection of the message is in the hands of the guild, the sender is already accepting that the guild members can be trusted with the contents of the messages. So, rather than the pain in the neck of trying to send a physical message and keep it protected, why not get rid of the middle man - have each guild hall with one or more Crystal Balls. Each ball is manned by a scribe, and the messages copied. Then you only have to worry about prottecting the physical object from tehguild hall to it's final destination.