Communications & Correspondence

Letters & Couriers

The oldest and still most common method: write it down, seal it, and pay someone to carry it.

Hired messengers are available in virtually every settlement large enough to have a tavern. Rates run roughly 1 Sovereign per 10 miles, though you'll pay more for dictation, discretion, speed, or routes that pass through anything exciting. Noble houses and merchant concerns maintain their own dedicated courier staff, identifiable by livery and the somewhat superior expression of people who know their employer will make trouble if they're delayed.

Sealing wax is considered a minimum courtesy for anything private. Those with means use stamped wax bearing a house or guild sigil; breaking such a seal without authorization is technically actionable in most kingdoms, though enforcement requires catching someone in the act and finding a magistrate who considers the matter worth his time.

Ōvlīan's devotees maintain the most reliable private courier network in Ilhdeinia. His third obligation, to maintain distant correspondence, and his prohibition against leaving any message unanswered means his clergy generate and receive more letters per head than any other group in the known world. The Temple of the Unbroken Word in Bairora operates its own courier lines connecting affiliated scriptoriums, libraries, and chapter houses across the continent; scholars who need something delivered to another scholar can often arrange passage through this network for a modest donation. I have found this route notably more reliable than the alternatives, the Ōvlīan devotees being constitutionally incapable of not delivering a message.

The one drawback is that they will sometimes correct your grammar in the margins before forwarding it.

Lāprel Post

For those willing to keep their messages brief, Lāprels offer the fastest common-route correspondence available. These compact blue-grey birds, domesticated over many generations from the wild cliff-nesting lāprels of the coastal highlands, are maintained by Rīōnne's temple network along established routes between major settlements. A message rolled and sealed into a leg-tube arrives faster than any ground courier can manage, assuming clear weather and that the recipient is somewhere near a registered coop.

Lāprels are temple and guild property, not personal pets. You pay for the use of the route, not the bird. The coops themselves are typically found on elevated ground near Rīōnne's open-air hilltop temples, the priesthood considers lāprel tending a form of devotional practice, and Rīōnne's devotees wear their birds' shed feathers alongside their own carried ones.

Some things to know before trusting your correspondence to a lāprel:

  • Messages must be short enough to roll tight into a standard leg-tube. If your letter requires a second page, hire a courier.
  • Lāprels fly registered routes between paired coops. You cannot send a lāprel to a recipient who isn't near a coop on the established network. Rural senders often ride to the nearest coop town first.
  • They do not carry anything heavier than parchment. Coins, small objects, and the like require other arrangements.
  • A lāprel that loses its tube mid-flight will return to its home coop anyway, bringing you the exciting news that your message is now somewhere on a hillside.

Errant Stones

The premium option, and, when it works correctly, the most remarkable piece of everyday enchantment in common use.

An Errant Stone is a palm-sized piece of lapis lazuli, worked under the joint patronage of both Rīōnne and Ōvlīan: Rīōnne lends the stone its ability to fly, to navigate wind and weather, to find its way without a route; Ōvlīan binds the spoken message into the stone's substance and seals it there until the intended recipient releases it. It is, in this respect, a rare example of cooperative divine working, the theologians at the Temple of the Unbroken Word have written extensively on what this implies about the relationship between the two gods, none of which I have read in full, though I understand the debate is ongoing.

To use one: hold the stone, speak the name and general location of your intended recipient, then speak your message. The stone will hum once, briefly, and launch itself from your hand. From there, its behavior depends on circumstance:

  • If the recipient is within a few miles, or outdoors and findable, the stone will locate them directly, come to rest nearby, and play back your voice in full, at which point the recipient may speak a reply and send the stone back.
  • If the recipient is distant or inside a building the stone cannot easily enter, it will fly to the nearest Errant Loft, one of the relay stations maintained jointly by Rīōnne's and Ōvlīan's clergy, where a ground courier will carry it the final distance.
  • If the location given is vague or the recipient has moved, the stone will wait at the nearest Errant Loft until claimed, sometimes for several decāds.

The Errant Lofts themselves are worth a brief note. You'll find them near every major settlement, usually close to Rīōnne's hilltop temples, with an Ōvlīan scriptorium somewhere nearby or attached. Rīōnne's devotees handle the physical work: routing, tracking which stones are in transit, and maintaining the enchantments that keep the lofts recognizable to arriving stones. Ōvlīan's devotees manage the administrative side: registration of recipients, transcription services for those who cannot speak their message clearly, and records of what was sent and when.

Operating hours vary by location but most Lofts handle sending during daylight and delivery throughout the day and into evening, since stones do not respect convenient arrival times. A small staff of ground couriers, usually contracted rather than clergy, handles last-mile delivery within the town itself.

For public use, stones are leased rather than owned. You pay for a single message and return, and the stone goes back into rotation. Wealthier households, merchant concerns, noble families, anyone conducting sensitive correspondence, purchase bonded pairs: two stones tuned to each other and registered to a fixed address. A bonded stone knows its home and will always return there. It bypasses the public loft queue and carries messages directly to the registered household's receiving alcove.