I took a train today, for the first time in a year. It was great! In fact, I am writing this table on said train.
To celebrate this moment, here is a “worldbuilding” table that tries to help you, DM, answer the crucial question: how do people get around in your world? How are people and information crossink large distances?
How fast things and people travel is one of the main discriminants between high and low fantasy settings… are wizards zooming around portals in their guilds in every city? Or is information as slow-traveling as oxen wagons?
My first encounter with absolutely bewildering travel in fantasy was playing Morrowind at a friend’s house as a kid, walking up to a huge, terrifying insect with long legs expecting to be killed… only to find a dude in front of it offering you a ride! Wild.
This table generates a transport service/trade network/information highway running between cities in your world. I have refrained from airships, but i’ve put some whacky ones in. Roll 1d10 per column!
| Dice | Means of travel | Operated by | Additional detail |
| 1 | Carts and wagons travel in underground tunnels dug by a long-lost race of giant earthworms | Specialized knights, employed by the kingdom, travelling fixed routes | The service was disrupted not long ago by a mysterious series of abductions |
| 2 | Long-distance travel is exceedingly rare. People travel from town to neighbouring town and back lead to information and goods spreading, if very slowly (think ancient silk road) | An informal “relay” of merchants covering short distances of the main route, moving between towns to sell local goods | Due to extreme seasonal weather (cold winter/monsoon season/earthquake season etc), travel is only possible in part of the year. The rest of the time, regions are isolated |
| 3 | Enormous turtles, thousands of years old, migrate in fixed patterns, seasonally. People and goods can travel on their back. Cities and kingdoms naturally evolve around their routes | Guilds of wizards of specialists have sprung around this. The secrets involved in this enterprise are passed down in families. | The routes cross treacherous mountains. Those who do travel often arrive too scarred to tell the stories of what they have seen along the way. One can tell a traveller from its quiet demeanor. |
| 4 | People have managed to exploit the natural magical fields running along the earth. Secret rituals are available to the rich and powerful for travelling and trading goods and information | Criminals have sprung around this transportation network. They control who travels and when, as well as intimidate anybody trying to compete with them. | People can use this to send things once a week, but transporting people is a lot harder |
| 5 | For as long as people remember, small things may be left, together with a gift, at the feet of special kinds of trees. If the tree is left undisturbed, the next morning the item will be transported somewhere else. Rumor has it that sylvan people can use this too… | People from all walks of life can use or run this trade. It is considered a lowly job, because anybody can do it and it is risky. | The travel network crosses countless villages whose economy revolves around it. Brave young adventurers escape the villages by hitching a ride along the transport network |
| 6 | A special breed of oxen is used to pull wagons. They can carry enormous loads, similar to a modern day trains, but will only do so when properly fed. And they eat entire fields worth of wheat. They travel slowly and very rarely, but are extremely effective. | It is a rite of passage for the youth to operate as “runners” in this network for a year of their life before being considered as full adults | There is a tight control over what can travel. Spies and informants control the letters, rumors and things that can move along this network |
| 7 | People have trained small birds to carry messages for them along great distances on fixed routes. In big cities, large birds are available to transport noblemen, although this is so rare most commonfolk are not aware of it. | The expertise for this travel is mastered in some distant land that is more technologically or magically advanced. Only those who have come in contact with these foreign people can operate with very low risk. | Swamps, steppes or other specific terrain types have long been avoided by travellers because of mysterious beasts lurking in them |
| 8 | Land travel is extremely difficult. Most information, items and people travels on ships across seas or along rivers. Moving on land is limited to local travel | Specific non-human creatures | Travel is frequent, which has enabled the rise of some large cities. However, any disruption carries severe consequences… |
| 9 | Cities are connected by a network of merchants carrying goods and services on horsecart. | A group of rival trade companies control and operates the network. They hold a lot of political sway. | While travel is infrequent, it is reliable. People have developed all sorts of tricks to avoid the dangers |
| 10 | Rumor has it that some archmage is developing a special catapult to launch things across hundreds of miles… but who would believe such a thing? | Only people with enough money to purchase specific equipment can do it. This has created an upper class “merchant” group | There is a community of people and creatures living in the wilderness that is endangered by this trade network |
Random table of the week 