>How do Sartarites build roads?
>I've been reading King of Sartar, and was struck by the descriptions of
>the roads built by Sartar and his offspring: marvelous spans leaping
>across impossible ravines etc. However, it was unclear to me whether or
>not these roads were produced by mighty magics, or by human hands (coupled
>with some lesser magic). The description of how one of Sartar's
>descendants stole the knowledge of building towers from the dwarves
>might imply that the Sartarites were using sound building ideas coupled
>with hard work, but this doesn't really fit with the feeling I have for
>their largely wild and barbaric culture. Of course, knowledge/technology
>itself can seem like mighty magic when viewed mythically, but in
>Gloranthia, something described in terms of magic is perhaps more likely
>to be just that.
I don't recall this part of KoS, and maybe it is magical. But it may also be a matter of relative scale. If all they had before was muddy cowtracks, and now they've got nice smooth gravel roads, they will be very impressed. We would look at it and complain "god-awful bumpy gravel track! Can't they build a proper six lane divided limited access superhighway?"
In other words, a rope bridge can be mighty impressive, if you've never had _any_ bridge before. This lowers the level of technology required (or the amount of magic, your choice).
Ed Tonry
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