Inns and outs

From: bethexton <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 21:12:25 -0000

This past weekend I finally picked up Barbarian Adventures, while partaking of our winter festival. Now I've also had a chance to finally skim through it.
(As an aside, it worked out perfectly, where we connected to
the "snow-bus" to the ice slides was a block from my usual gaming store. I walked in, they had two copies prominently displayed on their new products rack, I grabbed on and was on my way in under a minute, before my pre-schooler could even find mischief to get into. How often does game distribution work that quickly?)
(as another aside: I'm sure Heortlings must sled on their abundant
hills in winter, and for that matter use horse drawn sleds for transport and hauling in the winter, something that has yet to be adequately described!)

Now, BA makes it very clear that there are no inns in Sartar. Yet King of Sartar states that on the royal road built by Sartar there were periodic widenings (not clear, but I think this specifically meant while passing through the Quivini mountains) for use by temples and inns.

We could just say "Inns were Gregged" and forget it. I prefer to take a seeming contradiction and use it drive creativity. Presumably the writer in KoS was in error about the widenings being used for inns, and I can hardly imagine the roads being so busy as to support wayside temples. But being in error about the widenings being there sounds doubtful. So what are they there for, and what is along the road?

Wayside shrines seem completely likely. To Orlanth and Ernalda, to Mastakos the Mover, to Sartar (after his death), even to local daimones/ devas/ godlings/ whatchamacallits. Of course, since the lunar occupation many of these may have been replaced by shrines to Lokarnos, the seven mothers, etc. Anyway, easy slip of terminology between shrine and temple.

What would make the writer thing there had been inns, however? Based on our recent discussions, I'm wondering if they were one of Sartar's famous new things to deal with old issues. We've discussed local clans and tribes and their attitudes towards roads. When Sartar built them, surely everyone would have wanted to charge tolls and get rich, but Sartar saw that this would defeat the purpose of the roads. However, what if he made places, ever so far (conventiently one per tula passed through, or possibly one near each end of tulas that lie along the road) where the local clan could build a stead to deal with travelers. Somewhere that the clan could show their hospitality, and of course receive appropriate reciprocal gifts from the grateful travelers?

If you consider that the average tula is 15 to 20 miles, maybe larger in the wilder areas, travelers would be looking to stop every tula or two for the night, but wouldn't want to have to treck far from the road to the chief's stead. This works for the clan, they get enriched by the road, and have a legitimate place to screen travelers. It works for the travelers, they are not unreasonably charged, they don't have to detour, and they have some place to stay. Yet it uses existing Heortling traditions, just in a slightly new way. It just seems very Sartar-ish to me. The result could also seem something like an inn to a traveller that expects to find inns.

Any other ideas?

--Bryan