I tend to agree for much of its length, although the parts near Pavis may have been better once.
Peter Metcalfe:
> It is shown as a major road on the trollpak map, meaning that it
> is as good as the road between Aldachur and Jonstown and better
> than from Herongreen to Alone.
On the Dragon Pass gameboard, the very same road from Jonstown to Torkan's Last Fort is a secondary road, in civilized area. I doubt it gets better out in the Plaines of Prax.
The Nomad Gods gameboard map makes it a secondary road which passes north of Tada's Tumulus rather than south (as the Troll Pak maps show).
Besides, the Pavis Road shown in Troll Pak avoids both Dwarf Knoll and the Obscure Plinth. Either site would have been meaningful for the travelers of the EWF era, and likely on the course of that era's road (or the course of a Golden Age road of Ronance Pavis might have reawakened to shuttle in settlers - he was at the Paps later the same year after establishing the first works on the city walls, after all, healing Waha. This may also have been the occasion for Joraz Khyrem to gain his oracle for creating the Zebras and the Zebra tribe.)
> Since those were magical roads
> made by the Kings and Princes of Sartar, I feel that the Pavis
> Road should be similarly magical.
In that case, Terasarin wouldn't have needed to continue the road from Dangerford to Aldachur...
Pavis was not a hero of roads and trade, and the Flintnail dwarfs were busy building the city. IMO the superior dwarfen work morale was more than made up for with the small numbers of dwarfs available. Even so projects which would have taken centuries to finish for humans alone were complete mere ten years after the founding of the city.
>>The highway between Adelaide & Perth was a 2 lane dirt road up until >>1973 at least.
> Ptooey. Flintnail mostali are not Aussie consruction workers on smoko.
They aren't road workers, either. If anything, they would have excelled at bridges and viaducts, although I see little call for either most of the way. Rivers in Prax other than the Zola Fel usually can be "forded" without even your mount getting wet feet.
Even assuming that there was a stone road during the heyday of Pavis (and logically within and throughout Dragon Pass), most of it will be covered by dunes by now. Aerial archaeology might discern the Pavis Road as well as the older Golden Age roads of Ronance, but little physical evidence will be available to the normal traveler.
I'm not sure the construction of a "Roman Road" in the middle of nowhere, without reliable supplies of water, would have been possible. The magic required for a creation without construction crews would have been on par with that of the Building Wall...
Ian Thomson:
> I do tend to disagree with other Ian's idea that it is currently just a
> trail. Having lived most of my life in Britain where bits of Roman Roads
> are still walkable after well over 1.5 thousand years, I see no problem in
> the Lunar Government enforcing that a reasonable decent road be built.
Britain is no steppe subject to shifting dunes and highly abrasive whirlvishes. If the Lunars had such a road built, they would have had to occupy several regiments for just guarding the supply trains to the work site from hungry nomads, first and foremost including their Sable allies. Huge amounts of water would have to be transported, in addition to food and fodder.
> From Roman History at UNI (and only comparing Lunars and Romans in the
> sense of building roads) it was -essential- that good roads were built, to
> resupply and move armies. Without the roads invasions and occupations were
> crippled from the word go!
It wasn't the case that much military traffic went through Pavis. The only case was the naval assault on Karse, which was a fairly small force.
The Roman Roads in the Near East don't seem to have lasted as long as those in Britain.
> Certainly it makes sense that the road is not so large or as
> well-maintained as the paperwork in Glamour might indicate. Also, since the
> abandonment of Prax as a route to the sea (in 1619 with the invasion of
> Heortland?) the maintenance on the road would drop. I still think that the
> road would have been swiftly and well built by the Lunars in the 1-3 years
> immediately after the invasion of Prax, when their plans to reach the sea
> were still bouyant (he heh!) :), and they envisaged immense traffic use.
There is a useful secondary road to Moonbroth, leading through the most fertile parts of Prax. After that, terrain gets ugly.
I guess part of Pavis being a "Pavis Post" for Lunar soldiers are the difficulties in rotating the forces. Once stationed there, you are likely to remain there for some time. It doesn't help that the commanding officers seem to be stuck to that place, too...
> Good roads are the arteries of an empire (school history this time I think)
True, but who needs an artery to the little toe? Speciality trade - like Handran purple - is handled just fine by mule (or sable) caravans. Wine trade is unlikely to get to great volume by this route, as are grain (even after the conversion of Queen Hendira, Pavis imports no grain from Esrolia, despite occasional shortages) or Seshnegi iron (made obsolete by recent discoveries in the Redlands anyway).
The sea route is risky, anyway, with the Wolf Pirates on the Threestep Isles. If the Pharaonic fleet which crushed the Alatan pirates was unable to even stand in their way, how should the Lunars with no naval tradition beyond Sweet Sea or riverine penteconters stand a chance?
Keith Nellist:
> I am not argueing about what 'could' have happened, I don't disagree that
> settlers 'could' have come from the EWF across Prax, but what seems more
> likely given the evidence in published articles.
The published articles don't present Pavis as some sort of Karakorum, i.e. a city of horse nomads. Pasture inside the walls makes eminent sense to farmers without the necessary mounts to raid back their cattle and other lifestock from distant beast rider tribes.
> I also think that having a
> more unusual culture makes for a more interesting place. Having Pavis as
> 'just another' old EWF town/ruin seems a bit dull.
The interesting bit about Pavis is that it is a EWF city which "survived" the downfall of the EWF, and more importantly the True Golden Horde and the Dragonkill.
Much of the old EWF was plundered shortly after the murder of its leadership in 1043 by a joint raid of Carmanians and Dara Happans. (IIRC the kingdom of Saird had ceased to exist already by this time.) Pavis suffered the same fate by nomads (when the EWF magics still were available to some extent, though) and trolls, but by trolls who chose to settle there. This makes Pavis richer in magical treasures than most EWF ruins, although with the added difficulty of taking the stuff from trolls.
Powered by hypermail