MAJOR ROADS OF THE SUHNDI

Much of the Suhndi lands cover desert; there is no natural motive or place to cross,
so it is only to the existence of their highways that much of this area is populated
or prosperous. Ironically, these roads prevented the culture from becoming nomadic,
as once the road was in place, a city could be built where otherwise only sand or a
small oasis existed. They are a firm testament to a public-minded civilization that
willed itself to survive in an orderly fashion on the heels of a terrible catastrophe--
and the ideal project for a government that could not abide the idea of its people
wandering off of prescribed lines.

A look at the map will confirm that many of these highways serve as the borders
between Zyiphates; there is an unspoken reason for this. The Zyiphs are well aware
that the highway traffic is sometimes illegal--cargoes frowned upon by strict
interpretation of the tenets of the religion, but crucial to the survival of their
cities and, truly, therefore to the expansion of their faith. For how can the temple
fund the increase of the faith without tax revenue from merchants? And merchants
are famously repelled by searches of their property--even when they have nothing to
fear. Still, no Zyiph can allow known impious activity to occur on his watch--
so it has been arranged: the highways are often the borders between states to ensure
that no one is entirely responsible for their governance. Buck-passing is thus
instituted. This is not to say there have been no instances of search and seizure--
even hundred-mile purges of caravans, followed by on-the-spot executions--but the
arrangement has generally secured the continued flow of commerce.

THE HIGHWAYS

The highway connecting Hella to Memsemet is the oldest in Suhndi, completed in 477.
It is known as the Numyrian Road, was fully paved by 546, and remains the most heavily
trafficked route in the world.

The Ercab Highway was built by order of the Zyr of Memsemet in 538-564, to connect
to the then-small oasis town Hakaw, and was paved by 612. As the Zyr planned, its
existence justified his request that Memsemet become its own Zyiphate, which came
to pass in 559, long after his death. Numyrians are rightfully proud of the 400-
year-old engineering feat which brought about the existence of their Zyiphate.

The Al-Mashqi Road began at the sea in 670, the project of a group of private
investors who wanted their own seaport (Ba'Dan) connected to the increasingly
prosperous Hakaw 300 miles inland. By 672 they'd reached more than 100 miles inland,
but their funds ran out. Not wishing to dismiss the construction crew, however, they
paid just enough to keep them at camp, thereby accidentally founding the city of
Al-Mashqi. In 675, construction resumed, but not for long; the road reached only
another 20 miles before funding again dried up, and this time the investors quit for good.
The baton was picked up by other merchants, however, over the years, and by 700 enough
of the road existed in bits and pieces that merchants began to use it with some
regularity; in 705 the Zyiphs of Saraca and Zalazar took an interest and funded it
as a joint state project. It was completed in 709.

The Emshi Highway was built by order of Caliph Qasir Basir, and was the most ambitious
project--and the most controversial--in the four centuries of Suhndi history since
the Cataclysm. The order to build the Emshi was given in 904; construction took
until 927, but when it was open for business, the world gasped. A magical system of
conveyance, every mile of it infused with arcane power, carts weigh practically
nothing on the road and can be whisked from one end to the other by unencumbered
horses and mules--even by people pulling them as rickshaws. The wizards responsible for
this feat are famed throughout Suhndi. But Caliph Qasir Basir, an old man as the
project neared completion, began to fret that his critics had been right all along--
that the Emshi would open pure Suhndi country to who-knows-what corrupting influence
from the strange Midlands. Thus, perhaps, his 929 destruction of the highway-straddling
Ba'Dan.

The Moush Kedah was cut across the desert by the earliest merchants, who wished to
trade on the other side of the Contego Mountains but found the seas too dangerous--
because of pirates but also because of their own Suhndi navy, which in the 200 years
after the Cataclysm spent much of its time interdicting all ships not registered
with the temples. That early on, however, the state had no means to patrol the
far southern desert--thus the Moush Kedah. Interestingly, parts of the road were
the remains of an older road--the effort of some unknown, long-gone civilization--
so it fell to the contraband merchants mainly to connect the pieces. However, the
Moush Kedah has never been a safe route; its existence still not officially
acknowledged by the church, at no point is it patrolled. Monsters and highwaymen
are sure to beset any traveler, and south of the inlet known as Cutlass Wound it
is entirely lawless, as the surrounding countryside is under no semblance of control.
Terrible pirates often put to shore here, and rumors abound of a vicious, cave-dwelling,
spider-worshipping race of Elves.


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