A noble and worthy task, and one I hope you keep up...
> Silk, object d'art, and technical innovations come from Kralorela;
> metal, mounts, and mercenaries go the other way.
There's someone in Sartar or Heortland _exporting_ metal? I thought they only did that by first inserting it in sharp format into each other? ;-)
> During the Closing, all this trade had to happen overland.
> The north route, through Pent, was controlled by the Lunars and had
> well-organised caravans crossing the plains. Unfortunately, they ended
> up near Bliss in Ignorance. Not so good for trading.
Nevertheless, I think this is the more important route. Ignorance is likely to have little compunction about trading with anyone and everyone. (Equally, they have little compunction about incorporating anyone and everyone into unnecessarily messy sacrificial rites. Them's the breaks...) Once inside Ignorance, goods can difuse into Kralorela proper more easily than through a direct, guarded frontier with the outside world like the Iron Forts.
> However, the
> more fertile lands, the many populated oases, and the more fragmented
> nature of Praxian politics meant that large, non-stop caravans were not
> as feasible. Instead, staged caravans were the norm.
Even formalised staging would take a lot of organising. I tend to think of most trade happening not on the basis of someone in Kethaela conducting a trade with someone in Kralorela, with those in between simply doing the donkey-work, but rather, a series of local trades for purely local reasons, which have the net effect that occassionally certain goods pop into Kralorela or Dragon Pass, having started out in the other, having been 'horse-traded' (pardon my language) across a thoroughly zig-zag route.
Cheers,
Alex.
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