Roads in Sartar

From: Richard, Jeff <jeff.richard_at_...>
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 15:53:43 -0800

Howdy. I never thought I'd get into the issue of transportation financing in a fantasy world, but here we are. For what it is worth, I do public financing law (amongst other things) for a living and am currently writing local option transportation financing legislation package for Washington State, so this is a curious crossing of profession and hobby. Bizarre. Nick, has this ever happened to you?

I personally see the royal roads being maintained and expanded during the "good old days" of the House of Sartar by an (annual or periodic) tribute of labor and specie by the tribes and city-rings. Similar to the "Tarshgeld", this tribute (I suggested the Anglo-Saxon Heahwaggeld, although it isn't as pithy as Tarshgeld - maybe just Roadgeld. Then again, what is Anglo-Saxon for "road"?) would be in lieu of tolls or other payments to use the roads and is the sort of clever, informal and consensual arrangement that the House of Sartar was rightly renowned for. The city-rings contribute specie, the tribes labor.

However, with the Lunar Conquest, this arrangement collapses. During the decade without even a Prince, the Kingdom of Sartar collapsed into a bad combination of anarchy and despotism. I don't think that the roads were maintained (except perhaps by the odd tribal king) during that period. Maybe some local Lunar commanders would impose local tolls across bridges to pay for maintenance or more likely to extract more money from the locals, although probably the tolls were only for personal enrichment - not for maintenance. Personally, I don't think the administration of Euglyptus the Fat had any idea how to administer Sartar on the long-run, hence Starbrow's Rebellion.

Under Fazzur and Temertain, there is at least some effort to pay attention to Sartar's impressive road network. Nonetheless, it is a haphazard effort and many roads are in disrepair and plagued by bandits.

Jeff