Gary Gygax’s Living Fantasy
For example, assuming that a moderate-sized state, one
just a bit larger than the size of England, 60,000 square
miles in extent, has the following land transportation ar-
teries:
Turnpikes: 600 miles
Highways: 1,200 miles
Roads: 1,800 miles
If this seems extensive, draw a map with a scale of 300
miles north-south and 200 miles east-west. The area cov-
ered is thus 60,000 square miles. Locate the capital inland
in one quadrant, and randomly place seven port or border
cities/towns around the edges of the map. Then locate nine
additional inland towns in the four quadrants of the map.
Now connect all 17 urban communities to the capital city,
and secondarily to each other. Six hundred miles of turn-
pikes should serve to connect the capital to perhaps two or
three other major trading centers; use red to indicate such
toll roads. Now connect the other major communities to
the capital with orange lines representing highways. If this
does not bring the total to 1,200 miles, connect major com-
munities together with highways. At this point there will
be many towns that have no direct road connection to oth-
ers of like sort. Fill in those places with yellow lines repre-
senting roads. You will have a spider web of land trans-
portation arteries but many areas will be quite trackless.
Remember that the network referred to assumes an ad-
vanced state of the fantasy world, one where not only com-
merce but also commercial travel is common. Many areas
of the world are not so developed, but in developed states,
roads and wheeled vehicles are common.
Toll Roads and Toll bridges
The cost of using a toll road can be established along the
following basis, (based upon a 10-mile length):
Four-wheeled vehicle: $1
Two-wheeled vehicle: $0.50
Each draught/riding animal: $0.25
Each person walking: $0.10
Each large animal driven along (cattle, horses): $0.10
Each small animal driven along (goats, etc): $0.05
Travel by Commercial
Wagon and Coach
For purposes of this work, wagon conveyance will be di-
vided into two sorts, common and passenger. Also, for the
sake of the fantasy milieu, two separate versions of the
commercial carrier coach are presented, the stagecoach and
the express coach.
The word “coach” stems from the Hungarian kocsi. The
town of Kocs is where coaches first appeared in use in the
15th century. Stagecoaches first appeared in England in
the 16th century.
Common Wagon: This is a passenger vehicle consisting
of a 10’ long bed (driver’s box seat not included) that is 6’
in width. The bed has four rows of bench seats, so that up
to 12 persons can ride in the wagon. It might have a cloth
cover shading the passengers, or it might be open. Any
luggage carried must be held by the passenger. It is drawn
by a single horse at an average speed of 3 miles per hour.
Such a conveyance is used for local travel only. Cost basis
is $1 per mile of travel, plus toll share if applicable.
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