The postal system is inspired by the mail in World of Warcraft: you write a player’s name, and what you send finds them. It is used all the time. Auction houses send back unsold goods with it, commissions pay their rewards with it, and players send each other gear with it.

The difference is that Bestia’s post lives in the world. A parcel is carried on a real road, by an NPC coach or by a player who takes the job. Carrying the mail is paid work for masters and their Bestia.

The Promise link

A parcel always arrives. Only the time can vary.

When you send a parcel, the post office tells you its latest arrival time, for example arrives by 18:40 at the latest. That time is a promise. A player courier can make the parcel faster, but never later, and in nearly every case never lost. The post keeps the promise with a spell: the seal.

A post nobody trusts is a post nobody uses. So the risk of the road lies with the courier, not with the sender.

Pigeons link

Words and coin weigh nothing, so a pigeon carries them. A pigeon is instant and finds the player wherever they are. It follows the mana bond, like chat, so it only finds masters.

Letters link

• Write to a player’s name. You never need to know where they are.
• Write and read anywhere. A letter does not need a post office.
• A letter waits. It reaches a player who is offline and stays in their mailbox for 30 days. That is the difference to chat: chat reaches only who is online right now and is gone afterwards.
• A letter costs 1 gold, so nobody fills a mailbox with spam.
• Writing letters needs Basic Skill Lv. 2, the same as whispers.

The game’s own notices come by pigeon too: a sold auction, a commission reward, a parcel that has arrived, a parcel that was robbed.

Gold by Pigeon link

A pigeon cannot carry a bag of coin, so it carries a post note. You hand the coin in at a post office, the pigeon takes the note, and the recipient cashes it at any post office. The post office keeps the coin in between.

  note_fee = send_amount * 0.015
  

Like every fee, the note fee is rounded up to the next whole gold.

Dispatches link

A broker, an auction house or a trade post has no mana bond, so a pigeon cannot find it. An order to a place goes as a dispatch, by road:

• A dispatch travels like a parcel that weighs nothing. It leaves from your home post office, rides the next coach or a courier’s sack, and has a latest arrival time.
• It never arrives at once, even in its own town. It always waits for the next coach.
• It costs 1 gold. The answer comes back the same way.

Words to a person are instant. Orders to the world are not. Most dispatches come from the companion app, and this keeps its rule that a player who is there always beats a player with a phone.

Parcels link

Items have weight, so they travel by road.

Sending link

At a post office you name the recipient, put in the items and pay the freight fee. The office then shows the latest arrival time.

• A parcel weighs at most 10 kg. Bulk freight is work for Transport commissions and for players hauling goods for profit, not for the post.
• A parcel to a player whose home office is the office you stand at arrives at once.
• Coach only. Tick it, and the parcel never rides with a player courier. It cannot be robbed, but it never arrives before the coach. Use it for something you cannot afford to lose.
• Cash on delivery. Set a price, and the recipient pays it when they collect. The payment comes back to you by pigeon, minus the note fee. If the recipient refuses, the parcel comes back to you at no extra cost.

Your Home Post Office link

Every master has a home post office. Every parcel addressed to you goes there. At the start it is the post office of your start town. You change it at any post office you stand in front of, for free.

You collect at your home office, or at any post office within 10 km of it. Your mailbox at any post office shows every parcel you have: where it is now, and when it will arrive.

When you have moved on, a parcel may wait in a town you have left. Press Forward here, and it is sent on to the office you stand at, like any other parcel: with a fee and a latest arrival time. A parcel already on the road when you change your home office still goes to the old one.

Auction Mail link

What an auction house owes you, the coin of a sale or goods that did not sell, needs no coach. It is in your mailbox at once, and you collect it at any post office.

Fees link

  freight_fee = 10 * road_km * weight_kg
  

road_km is the length of the way along the roads, not the straight line. Where the way leaves the road, every km counts double. Like every fee, it is rounded up to the next whole gold, and it is at least 1.

The post holds the fee until the parcel arrives. Then 60% goes to the player courier who carried it, and 40% returns to the world reserve. When the coach carries it, the whole fee returns to the world reserve. No gold is made and none is lost, see Currency.

Uncollected Parcels link

A parcel waits 30 days at the recipient’s home office. Then it goes back to the sender’s home office, for free. If the sender does not collect it either within another 30 days, the post sells it in the start towns' auction house, and the money returns to the world reserve.

The Sack and the Coach link

A parcel does not leave at once. At the post office it goes into the sack for its destination office. The sack waits for the next coach. Until then it hangs on the post office’s route board, where a player can take it instead.

• The coach leaves on a timetable, every 2 to 6 hours, by the office’s level. The post office shows when the next one leaves.
• The coach is slow on purpose. It takes twice as long as a master walking the same road. That leaves room for a player courier to take the job, rest, fight on the way, and still arrive first.
• The coach is under the post’s protection. It is a real wagon on the road, but nobody can attack it. This is what makes the promise hold for every parcel nobody else carries.

  coach_hours   = 2 * road_km / 14.4          (a master walks about 4 m/s, or 14.4 km/h)
latest_arrival = time of the next coach + coach_hours
  

For an office with a coach every 3 hours:

A broken road or a flooded bridge makes the way longer. The office already counts that in the latest arrival time when you send. If the road breaks after you sent, the seal still keeps the promise.

Carrying the Mail link

Taking a Sack link

Any master can take parcels from a route board, and so can a Bestia that its master sends. You need no deposit.

• You see the destination, the weight and the pay. You do not see what is inside. Every parcel is sealed.
• You take as many parcels as you can carry. The rest stays for the next courier or the coach.
• The road must not be far above you. A route has a difficulty like a Transport commission, and a master below its lower bound cannot take it.
• A sack cannot be dropped, traded or stored. It goes to its destination or back to the post.

A Bestia can run the mail on its own, as a standing order. Its master is paid, and its master answers for it.

The Deadline link

Your deadline is the latest arrival time of the parcels you carry. Deliver them before it, and you are paid your 60% of their fees at once. A Bestia also earns its usual experience for travelling.

If you miss the deadline, the seal sends the parcels on, and they arrive on time anyway. You are paid nothing, and you are struck off: you cannot take post work for 1 day. Logging out does not stop the deadline. For a Bestia, its master is struck off.

If you are killed on the road, the sack falls to the ground. Somebody may pick it up, or its seal sends it on. You are paid nothing for it, but you are not struck off. Being killed on the road happens.

The Seal link

Every parcel carries a Postal Seal, an enchantment the post office binds to it. The seal is the guarantee:

• Nobody can open a sealed parcel, the courier included.
• At the latest arrival time, the seal sends every parcel that has not arrived to its destination, wherever it is: in a sack at the office, on the coach, or in a courier’s bag.
• When a sack falls to the ground, the seal starts to work. After 30 seconds the sack is gone, back with the post, and it arrives at its latest arrival time. Never earlier, so dying on purpose is no shortcut.

A Fallen Sack link

In those 30 seconds, anybody may pick the sack up. Picking it up takes over the delivery. The sack stays sealed, and whoever holds it is now its courier, with the same deadline and the full pay.

• A party member can save a fallen friend’s run this way, and so can a stranger who passes by.
• So can the one who killed the courier. Delivering the sack is honest work from then on. The kill already cost its honor.
• Taking over is not stealing, because nothing in the sack is opened.
• The rules of the route board apply: you must be able to carry it, the road must not be far above you, and you must not be struck off. Somebody who could not take the sack at the board cannot pick it up either.

Breaking a Seal link

The other way to use those 30 seconds is to rob the sack. A sealed sack on the ground can be hit with Dispel. The seal has strength 70:

  chance = Dispel base chance - 70
  

Only a Sage with Dispel Lv. 5 has a real chance, 30% per try. Dispel’s cooldown is 15 seconds, so one Sage gets two tries, about 51% together. A gang with several Sages gets more.

When a seal breaks, the sack opens and its parcels spill onto the ground. Taking them counts as stealing for every item, with the honor loss of its item level. The senders get a pigeon: their parcel was robbed, and where. The post pays back their freight fee in full, because no courier was paid for it. The goods are lost.

This is the one way a parcel is lost, and it takes a dead courier, a strong Sage, luck and a crime. A courier who carries valuable sacks on a dangerous road has a reason to hire an escort. A sender who cannot accept the risk ticks coach only.

Post Offices link

In Generated Settlements link

Every generated village and town has a post office at its market square. A hamlet has none. The office is run by a postmaster, one of the townsfolk, who takes in and hands out parcels during their working hours. Letters need no office.

In Player Cities link

A founded settlement gets a post office only when its players build one.

• It is a construction like any other building. Whoever may build in the settlement can put it up. A settlement holds at most one.
• The post runs it. When it is finished, the post takes it over and sends a postmaster. It has no owner and no owner fee. The seal and the promise must not depend on a player who logs off, and no player should set the price of a public service.
• An auction house needs it. Unsold goods and coin travel by post, so a settlement needs a post office before it can hold an auction house.

The city gains in other ways. Its residents can make it their home post office, couriers come for its route board, and it can hold a market.

The coach drives to every post office, also off the road. There every km counts double, for the coach time and for the fee. A city founded on a road gets cheaper and faster post.

Office Levels link

An upgrade costs materials, like the building itself. A higher level shortens the latest arrival time of every parcel sent from that office.

It does not make a courier’s work harder. The coach is still twice as slow as a walking master, so a courier always has one full walking time to spare. Only the wait for the next coach gets shorter, so a sack hangs on the route board for less time.

Losing an Office link

A post office is a building and can be attacked like one. When it is destroyed or torn down, the promise still holds:

• Sacks waiting there are sent on by their seal, through the nearest other office, and keep their latest arrival time.
• Every master whose home office it was gets the nearest office instead, and a pigeon to say so. Parcels on the way to them go there too.