D&D General Travel In Medieval Europe

[Faolyn]

So, yes, tautology for the win.

So... you think that traders wouldn't work to make the trade routes safe?

 

[Tonguez]

I think that's what he's getting at. How connected Egypt (and every Mediterranean nation) was in the ancient and classical world, to the point where a city in Egypt (+ a couple dozen elsewhere) was named after a man from Europe.

Macedonia.
Personally Ive always thought the Levant needs to be recognised as its own region distinct from Europe, Asia and Africa.

 

[cbwjm]

Macedonia.
Personally Ive always thought the Levant needs tobbe recognised as its ownbregion distinct from Europe, Asia and Africa.

It kind of is, though it isn't separated via continent, it is often referred to as the Levant, Asia Minor, or nowadays, the Middle East.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Walking is awesome, and congrats on losing the weight.

Thank you. If only I'd have kept it off, but the damn pandemic really threw me, and I'm happy to be back down to around 260. For now. Working on it. It gets harder every year.

I don’t doubt you can walk 6-7 miles at 4-5 mph. The difficulty would be doing that four times in one day with only a 30 minute break in between. Then waking up the next morning and doing it again and again and again.

Absolutely. Like I said way upthread, I was roughly 1 mph too high when speaking about a day of walking. How rough the terrain is, how many breaks you take, what/how much you eat, and the weather, will all modify how long you can keep up the pace you set when you first set out.

There is also a big difference between a 7 mile walk and a 14 mile walk, or a 21 mile walk and it isn’t simply double or triple the effort. The impact of the distance is not linear. It increases as soreness and fatigue sets in. I was lucky (unlucky) enough to do four days hard walking 17-20 miles per day as part of an expedition when I was younger and even then when I was pretty fit it was exhausting. There was no way I was doing anything past the first two hours at more than 3 1/2 miles per hour.

Sure. I will say, though, that I knew people who trained for long distance running, and regularly hiked, but also drove most places they went for fun, who got tired walking all day faster than I did, or my one friend who also walked everywhere. Not by a huge margin, but noticeable. Less noticeable than how easily they could smoke me in a footrace, of course. Also hiking sucks more than walking on relatively even ground, for me, ever since I got hit in the hip by a (thankfully fairly slow moving, relatively) car, so I can't really speak to hiking at various speeds.

I figure it's like boxing vs swordfighting. Similar movements, still different muscles, and learning to box after years of swordfighting is still very tiring, much more tiring than the same amount of boxing training/practice/sparring in a given day is for a boxer with years of experience.

It kind of is, though it isn't separated via continent, it is often referred to as the Levant, Asia Minor, or nowadays, the Middle East.

Or Southwest Asia, which often gets grouped with North Africa culturally.

 

[briggart]

I think that's what he's getting at. How connected Egypt (and every Mediterranean nation) was in the ancient and classical world, to the point where a city in Egypt (+ a couple dozen elsewhere) was named after a man from Europe.

Ah, I see, makes sense! My bad!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But, really? Now we're saying that the Sword Coast is so pacified that a lone traveler could walk from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate regularly?

Can you point out what specific post in this thread makes you think that is anyone's position?

Is that what's seriously being suggested here? PC's must be the absolutely most unlucky people in the world.

Or, random encounters are an abstraction included to make the game more fun for people who enjoy lots of combat, that you can RAW just....not use, and they aren't part of the game's worldbuilding assumptions.

Oh, and apparently the church of Waukeen can employ thousands of workers for decades (what it takes to build a road that would go from Paris to Athens or Toronto to Miami) and then maintain that road.

And the churches of other gods involved with travel and commerce, and the merchants guilds, and the governments of the places the roads go through, to, and from. I mean, roads get built IRL, and have done for a few thousand years. In a world with no magical ability to move earth, no druids you can politely ask to move the trees out of the way so you can put a road in without disturbing them, no magical sources of healing to help keep people productive, no magical weather control to make construction more reliable, etc, etc.

Despite there being absolutely no mention of it anywhere in any of the source material.

There's no mention of who paid for the wall around Waterdeep, either. But there is a god of commerce whose clergy hire themselves out as caravan guards to keep travelers safe, a god of wanderers whose clergy basically live to protect and help travelers and wanderers, and functioning well traveled roads that people use for trade often enough that news moves from place to place without the use of spells, and goods can be found from far off lands in pretty much every major settlement.

What there IS mention of in the source material is how many freaking monsters, hostile humanoids and various other threats there are to any traveler on the Trade Way. Again, there was a DRAGON living a couple of miles from Phandelin.

Not really. There are mentions of monsters, sure, but nowhere does it say that they are cricket thick by every roadway and byway in Faerun. And dragons tend to not just eat every single traveler that comes around, and said dragon was a terrible new develop that people were worried about and that needed to be dealt with quickly if at all possible.

But, apparently, there are no actual threats on the Forgotten Realms or the Sword Coast. It's as safe as 15th century Europe.

Again, hyperbole to the point of direct misrepresentation.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, yes, tautology for the win.

It's not a tautology to say that thing A is evidence of thing B because thing B literally cannot exist at all, ever, by any means, without thing A.

If I say that we know that things can combust because we know there is natural (not magical) fire, that isn't a tautology, it's just basic observational analysis.

Thing A requires thing B. Therefor we can assume, unless given a good reason to think otherwise, that thing B is present.

 

[Hussar]

So... you think that traders wouldn't work to make the trade routes safe?

Ok, let's dig down here shall we?

All of the major centers on the Sword Coast are on the coast. As you head east, there aren't too many major centers for quite some distance. Most of the trade goes north/south. Can we agree on that?

Now, I would certainly see road networks leading to each of the major cities. That makes sense. You'd have roads leading from whatever resource to Neverwinter or Waterdeep or Athkathla. Kind of a spider web network of roads leading to each center.

But, why would I need an overland route from Waterdeep to Athkathla? Or Baldur's Gate to Neverwinter? Any shipping is going to go by sea, which is far, far faster, easier and safer. So, the argument that traders are building this route and maintaining it doesn't make much sense. What traders? A single ship carries many times what a wagon can carry, carries it faster and safer. There's no reason to ship tin (as a random example) overland from Neverwinter to Waterdeep. Tin is mined (I'm picking a random example here) in the Ten Towns, shipped to Ironmaster, loaded on a boat and then proceeds south.

Why on earth would I try to go overland? In other words, I could see short roads leading east and west from inland communities, centering on the nearest large port where goods will then proceed by ship to various ports.

So, who is paying for these tolls that are maintaining a road that traders have no reason to use?

 

[Hussar]

Can you point out what specific post in this thread makes you think that is anyone's position?

Or, random encounters are an abstraction included to make the game more fun for people who enjoy lots of combat, that you can RAW just....not use, and they aren't part of the game's worldbuilding assumptions.

And the churches of other gods involved with travel and commerce, and the merchants guilds, and the governments of the places the roads go through, to, and from. I mean, roads get built IRL, and have done for a few thousand years. In a world with no magical ability to move earth, no druids you can politely ask to move the trees out of the way so you can put a road in without disturbing them, no magical sources of healing to help keep people productive, no magical weather control to make construction more reliable, etc, etc.

There's no mention of who paid for the wall around Waterdeep, either. But there is a god of commerce whose clergy hire themselves out as caravan guards to keep travelers safe, a god of wanderers whose clergy basically live to protect and help travelers and wanderers, and functioning well traveled roads that people use for trade often enough that news moves from place to place without the use of spells, and goods can be found from far off lands in pretty much every major settlement.

Not really. There are mentions of monsters, sure, but nowhere does it say that they are cricket thick by every roadway and byway in Faerun. And dragons tend to not just eat every single traveler that comes around, and said dragon was a terrible new develop that people were worried about and that needed to be dealt with quickly if at all possible.

Again, hyperbole to the point of direct misrepresentation.

Sorry, I don't do fisking. Can you boil down your point? And, possibly without the ad hominem attacks?

 

[Faolyn]

Ok, let's dig down here shall we?

All of the major centers on the Sword Coast are on the coast. As you head east, there aren't too many major centers for quite some distance. Most of the trade goes north/south. Can we agree on that?

Now, I would certainly see road networks leading to each of the major cities. That makes sense. You'd have roads leading from whatever resource to Neverwinter or Waterdeep or Athkathla. Kind of a spider web network of roads leading to each center.

But, why would I need an overland route from Waterdeep to Athkathla? Or Baldur's Gate to Neverwinter? Any shipping is going to go by sea, which is far, far faster, easier and safer. So, the argument that traders are building this route and maintaining it doesn't make much sense. What traders? A single ship carries many times what a wagon can carry, carries it faster and safer. There's no reason to ship tin (as a random example) overland from Neverwinter to Waterdeep. Tin is mined (I'm picking a random example here) in the Ten Towns, shipped to Ironmaster, loaded on a boat and then proceeds south.

Why on earth would I try to go overland? In other words, I could see short roads leading east and west from inland communities, centering on the nearest large port where goods will then proceed by ship to various ports.

So, who is paying for these tolls that are maintaining a road that traders have no reason to use?

Here's a map of the Trade Way taken from the FR Wiki:

Please note the number of towns and villages that are not directly on the coast or have a port. Now realize that there are probably dozens of tiny hamlets along that road that aren't listed on that map.