Courier Service

The Courier Service is a transportation network within Njombia and Palan and starting to be established in Sila.

Unlike the governmental Postal Service in Vericum, the Courier Service is a guild.

Couriers deliver messages or packages to recipients both within a city and across larger distances. The Courier Service guarantees delivery by acting as a trustee - the sender will bring his message or package to the nearest Courier Station and sign a Courier Request - offering a payment of his choice for delivery to a specific address. He deposits the payment at the station. Couriers will pick up deliveries from the station. Those with a higher payment will receive priority while lower-paid deliveries often wait around until a courier can bundle them up with several other deliveries to the same or nearby destinations.

Delivery is proven by the use of Courier Tokens, which are available at every Courier Station. Those who expect deliveries will pick up a token at the station, and those who get deliveries regularily typically have a number of them ready. The courier will be paid when he brings the token and the Courier Request paper to the nearest Courier Station.

This simple system has evolved into a long-distance postal service where couriers often bring a delivery only part of the way, and then sell it off to another courier who will undertake the next leg of the journey. Since deliveries pay a fixed sum, couriers treat request papers and delivery tokens as if they were a form of currency.

Trivia

The concept of the Courier Service is heavily inspired by the book The Wandering Inn.