CARAVANNERS

Like so many facets of modern civilization and industry, the caravan families have their roots in the distant past of the Suzerainty. Newly enlightened by the apkallu, the iaret connected their rising cities with carefully surveyed and stone-paved roads through the teeming jungle. A class of professional couriers arose, swift-legged and independent, to deliver dynastic edicts from horizon to horizon. While most of these messengers were iaret, a surprising number of beastkin found their way into these ranks, due to their natural advantages in running.

Couriers were supported by waystations, mostly set up by their fellows, where food, clean water and shelter would be readily available for runners. Iaret law protected these stations and couriers, with terrible punishments decreed for interfering with the word of the Suzerain and dynasts.

This network soon expanded from carrying messages to carrying packages. For a time this was confined to dynastic heirs, then to favored citizens or those with influential connections, but the creeping decadence even in those ancient times meant that soon enough the service of couriers was for sale to anyone with the coin. Single runners were no longer able to meet the demands for delivery and transport, and became teams of couriers selected for strong backs rather than just a swift stride.

Such developments had a darker side as well. The independence of couriers diminished with teams needing a wealthy and influential patron for support. Free citizens hurrying about on the vital business of the Suzerainty were replaced with coffles of beastkin porters laden with goods and luxuries traded between cities.

When the Suzerainty expanded beyond the Sea of Riches, however, this brought a new era for couriers. New lands required administration, and the delivery of messages again came to the fore. Distance granted renewed freedom from the meddling of patrons, and many couriers became wealthy on their own merit from new markets and commodities. Patronage was still necessary to maintain such long supply lines, charter or build ships, and ensure safe passage but this more and more manifested as support of the courier system rather than of individuals. No longer were couriers across the Sea of Riches at the beck and call of iaret dynasts in Akhet.

Contact with humans only accelerated these changes. With humans came the widespread use of beasts of burden, which were more suited to the great western and southern colonial expanses of the Suzerainty than its jungle homeland. Never subjugated like beastkin, humans approached the courier trade with their usual independence and pragmatism. Better armed with knowledge of the local areas, humans forged new roads, banded together to eliminate dangerous wildlife and banditry, and replaced enslaved or indentured porters with skilled drovers. While there had traditionally been a family component to the profession, with parents passing on their skills and routes to their children, human clans cemented this aspect. Pooled resources of extended families supplemented or even replaced increasingly distant iaret patrons. The Great Khet and the Wars in the South may have snuffed out some networks and couriers, but there was always a need for their services, and enterprising newcomers would take their place.

History marks the Retreat as the birth of the great caravan families. Even as the Suzerainty contracted, the routes established by the courier families remained to tie together far flung settlements. Trade became their primary business, with true caravans of wagons laden with food, goods, and supplies traversing the roads from the Keizai, to the Utter Ice, to the Sea of Riches and beyond. Caravan families would play important roles in the development of the Baltine States, bringing wealth and fortune to budding magnates and encouraging the economic ties that would bind the nation together.

As civilization and the sciences advanced, the caravans were not left behind. Travois dragged by gillermoi gave way to oxen teams and wagons, which gave way in turn to wind-sail, coal-fired or spindle-spring crawlers. While slow and requiring sturdy and flat roads, trains of these machines could haul many times the load of their animal forebears. Caravanners became tinkers, smiths, magewrights and mechanics as their chosen modes of transport required. Even today small clans might operate such crawlers or even animal teams on minor trade routes through the hinterlands.

The advent of the rail caravan represents the current pinnacle of bulk transport. Tracks of heavy steel now criss-cross the wilderness, traversed by mighty steam-powered locomotives pulling heavy loads faster than a horse can gallop. Families band together to lay rails, and share these routes amongst themselves, sometimes dividing loads and destinations according to their specialty.

While some Baltine States have supported or subsidized the construction of rail lines, many families are wary of political entanglement. The Mercantile Wars saw coercion and commandeering of caravans for military maneuvers and despite the stated goals of the conflicts, this was bad for business in the eyes of the great families. Many families now chose routes through poorly controlled territories, such as the Keizai, to avoid the expense and trouble of negotiating treaties for unfettered travel.

In modern times, families tend to prosper based on their specialties. Some have levered long-standing treaties with ozrut smiths and craftsmen to gain market advantage with sturdy and impeccably maintained engines. Others offer passengers old-world luxuries and service that even an iaret dynast wouldn’t disdain. Still others boast monopolistic treaties on certain goods or routes.

The modern caravanner is mechanically skilled, worldly, fearless, independent and proud. Theirs is a life lived in one nation one day, and another the next, with the night passing in rushing wind and clattering rail wheels. Their profession has seen the expansion and retreat of an empire, and risen beyond their origins to bestride the world’s land trade routes.