Umbroli delivery service

[Atenek]

Greetings fellow users. If I may take a bit of your time and ask you to consider the following :

An Air elemental is able to hold items with total size equal or less than their strength. So even the weakest among them should be able to hold a case with a scroll.

They can also fly and move about as quick as a horse. Though they neither tire nor need to eat or drink, which means they will travel even faster.

I believe this allows Orlanth worshippers to send messages across vast distances much quicker than others. 

Consider the following :

Using a binding enchantment a thunder voice of Orlanth has captured an air elemental. His temple is in Alda Chur. He has a friend in Boldhome. He wants to check up on him, so he writes a letter, puts it in a case and releases the air elemental simultaneously casting command cult spirit and extending it to last a week. - He then commands the elemental to fly to Boldhome , deposit the case at his friend's door, wait there for a day, accept any return letters and then come back into the binding item. 

Now time for some (very)rough math.

Assuming that a horse moves 50km per day (I'm using the royal roads travel speed - since the elemental is flying) and then we double it because the umbroli doesn't sleep or rest and can go full throttle all the time .

A total speed is 100 km (62 mi) Now using a rough measurment I'm going to guess that the letter is going to be there in 1.5 days.Response will be recieved after 4 days.Safe and fast delivery at the cost of 5 rune points.

Would that work ?

Alternatively ,a spirit may be given one command, which it will carry out and then be released. It might be possible to give such a command to have the spirit deliver the letter and then return. Something like : Return to your binding after delivering this case to such and such building in Boldhome.

[Brian Duguid]

From the RQG Bestiary:

"Most elementals lack INT and are not truly sentient. They are capable of being controlled by spells, but when left on their own, they will simply do whatever is natural: fire elementals burn flammable materials within reach, water elementals flee to the lowest possible spot, earth elementals sink into the soil, darkness elementals flee light, and air elementals breeze around."

I can't speak to anyone else's game, but in my game, an air elemental can't read a map, it does not know what you mean by Boldhome, and it certainly has no chance of finding a specific person at a specific door.

Edited June 12 by Brian Duguid

[DucksMustDie]

A priest of Orlanth could order a flying Wind Lord to deliver the message ? 🙂

[M Helsdon]

14 hours ago, Atenek said:

Would that work ?

No. There's a huge number of implied commands as you'd have to monitor the elemental continuously, and issue commands to keep it on course somehow. The elemental would be buffeted by other winds so simply telling it to keep to a constant course would be impractical. It would end up who knows where. You'd have better luck with a trained pigeon, which is more intelligent and aware than an elemental, and would find its way home.

[David Scott]

Just send a Herald - W&E 50 at 5L/ week of travel. Note that 5 RPs are effectively worth 100L, that's the equivalent of 20 weeks travel... 

[PhilHibbs]

On 6/12/2024 at 9:30 AM, Brian Duguid said:

I can't speak to anyone else's game, but in my game, an air elemental can't read a map, it does not know what you mean by Boldhome, and it certainly has no chance of finding a specific person at a specific door.

If you take Summon Elemental to be a variant of Summon Cult Spirit, then I think I would allow a cult elemental to seek out a major place of worship like a temple. So no you can't send messages out into the middle of nowhere, and I think the and-return-to-me command is a bit much as well.

[Shiningbrow]

I agree with the others - it lacks the INT to be able to accomplish the task....

However, for an extra RP, you could summon a Thunder Brother, and there wouldn't be any issues in getting it done 😁😁😁

[Akhôrahil]

Regular Air Elementals are kinda stupid, but smarter spirits, Allied Spirits, Awakened birds and so in make excellent couriers.

Edited June 16 by Akhôrahil

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I agree with the others - it lacks the INT to be able to accomplish the task....

However, for an extra RP, you could summon a Thunder Brother, and there wouldn't be any issues in getting it done 😁😁😁

Looking at some of the Storm gods, I am not quite sure that a Thunder Brother would be a guarantee for intelligent service.

[French Desperate WindChild]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

Looking at some of the Storm gods, I am not quite sure that a Thunder Brother would be a guarantee for intelligent service.

you can remove "intelligent" and your sentence will be exact too 🙂

 

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

you can remove "intelligent" and your sentence will be exact too 🙂

 

Hey! Violence is always an option!!!