Dear fantasy author who will remain nameless

[lederhosen]

It is great that your world-building acknowledges the importance of trade, providing a reason for people to brave hellish dangers in order to travel from $RURAL_TOWN to the land of the Totally Not Arabs Because This Is A Fantasy World people.

That said, when the five trade goods that matter in your fantasy world are clay, wool, metal, grain, and timber, I tend to go "Hmmmmmmm".

(Also, when travel is horrifically dangerous, people should probably be concentrating on shipping portable manufactured goods rather than raw materials.)

Comments

[vito_excalibur]

Oh LOL.

IIR my history C, though, people shipped raw materials when they had the technology available to ship in bulk whether it was dangerous or not! No?

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

If only half your cargo is getting through, raw material might be a better bet than manufactured goods because they're more versatile? And harder for bandits to carry off. Although a fantasy world's hellish dangers are probably just going to eat the merchants anyway.

"The duke is *importing* timber? But what of the massive forests on his lands, just outside his castle walls?"

"The notorious outlaw Robin Hood has been preventing the royal lumberjacks from collecting any timber there for nigh on seven years, now..."

[lederhosen]

Yeah, it's an "eat the merchants" issue. Every night, demons come out of the ground and attempt to anybody who's not protected by magical wards; you can bring portable circles etc. but something as trivial as a leaf falling on one of the symbols will get your entire expedition killed.

So to my thinking, bulk is bad because it increases the perimeter you need to maintain. The only option for transport seems to be horses & carts along roads (maybe the author hasn't bought Seafarers?)