Message – RPGaDAY 2025 Day 4

RPGaDAY 2025 day 4 has the prompt “message”.

It’s easy to forget in these days of email, text, instant message, and social media, just how much effort it was to send a message in the mediaeval days which are the pattern for classic fantasy.

So how can your characters and the people in their world send messages?

See all my RPGaDAY posts here.

And yes, I know it’s the 5^th now. Back at work, and other commitments, so I will probably lag from here on…

Mediaeval messages

In town, the easiest way to send a message would be to find some sort of messenger. An urchin in the classic tropes, passing on a message for a coin or two. Or a friend or acquaintance who might be passing the recipient. Or maybe you leave the message with a stallholder or shopkeeper that you know the recipient will be visiting.

It helps if you can read and write. In D&D 5^th edition, PCs are assumed to be fluent in multiple languages, but in the Basic set, a PC with below average intelligence was not great at writing:

• 3: Has trouble with speaking, cannot read or write
• 4-5: Cannot read or write Common
• 6-8: Can write simple Common words
• 9-12: Can read and write Common and the Alignment tongue
• 13-15: Can read and write one additional language
• 16-17: Can read and write two additional languages
• 18: Can read and write three additional languages

Surprisingly, given how prescriptive Gary Gygax was, in AD&D there is nothing about not being able to read and write, and even a character with 8 or 9 intelligence could learn an extra language, and a character with 18 intelligence could learn an additional seven languages.

In mediaeval times, I believe reading and writing was unusual (though I’m not a historian), and the common folk would pay people to do their writing and reading for them. So messages had to be passed by word of mouth, with all the inherent risk of forgetting, mis-presenting, mis-hearing and so on.

Even if you can read and write, you have to get the message to your recipient, and that takes trust. If you pay for delivery, that should give you some assurance that they will actually deliver, and if you pay a reputable messenger or company, they have their reputation at stake if your message goes missing.

But the message can be read, even if it does get delivered, and can fall into the wrong hands.

So the post used to be mostly “pay on delivery” – i.e. the recipient pays, and the messenger doesn’t get paid unless the recipient accepts the delivery.

And missives would be sealed with sealing wax impressed with a (hopefully recognisable) seal, so the recipient would know who it was from, and had at least a passing chance of detecting if the message had been tampered with. (Of course, there are many stories which rely on methods of unsealing messages, reading them and sealing them back again; how common this was in real life, and how easy it was to detect tampering, I do not know).

Of course, even if your message was delivered perfectly and un-tampered with, it would not arrive instantly. It could only travel as fast as the speed of the messenger. Checking the travel pace, a fast travel is 4 miles per hour or 30 miles per day. That assumes an 8-hour travel day. You could go further by pushing yourself, but each hour risks exhaustion. This is why messengers would work in relay, each one doing a stretch and then passing the messages to a fresh messenger while the first one rested. If you want that sort of service, expect to pay through the nose!

If you can only afford for your message to go on more mundane transport, expect it to take longer – maybe 10-15 miles per day if you’re lucky?

By boat, a galley, which requires a crew of 80, can manage 4 miles per hour. A longship, with a crew of 40, can manage 3 miles per hour. Since both of these are propelled by the muscles of the crew, presumably the 8-hour day applies, with exhaustion a threat beyond that. A sailing ship, with a crew of 20, can manage 2 miles per hour, half speed into the wind, but can travel all day and night (if the crew know the waters and are willing to take the risk of travel in the dark).

So in my campaign, it’s 120 miles from Akorros to Darokin City. That’s 4 days at fast pace, probably 5 or 6 days. From there to Corunglain in the north of the country is another 192 miles – 7-10 days. Through the Broken Lands to Trintan in the south of Glantri is another 120 miles. 5-8 days, and you’d better hope the humanoids don’t raid the caravan and steal your message. Finally, from Trintan to Glantri City is another 72 miles – probably another 3 days. A total of three weeks if you’re lucky. And then the same to get a response. My player was surprised that he hadn’t had a reply to his message in a week…

Having said that, apparently well-trained carrier pigeons could cover 500 miles in a day, so if he had sent his message by carrier pigeon (and had sufficient pigeons trained to travel that distance, and sufficient additional pigeons trained to travel back again), and the birds of prey had not eaten all of them, the message would have taken about a day in each direction.

Magical communication

But our characters don’t live in the mediaeval world. They have other options available to them. What magical methods of message sending do they have?

Well, there are spells. If you’re within 120’, you can use Message. Want to communicate further apart? Use Sending for a single (short) message, which works anywhere (though it has a 5% chance of failure if the target is on a different plane), or Rary’s Telepathic Bond for up to an hour communicating with up to 8 friends, or Telepathy for a 2-way multi-media link which works anywhere on the same plane, and lasts 24 hours.

Animal Messenger has the same speed restrictions as a retainer – 25 miles in a day, or 50 if it can fly.

Teleport is a way to take things a long way, but unless going to a known teleportation circle has a chance of failure. I could imagine a company having a network of teleportation circles, and offering quick message/item transportation. It won’t come cheap, though…

What about magic items?

A Broom of Flying can be sent up to a mile, but still has the 50’ Fly Speed limitation.

A Helm of Telepathy has a 30’ range; a Helm of Teleportation has the advantages and limitations of the Teleport spell.

A pair of Sending Stones allows you to communicate with the person holding the other one using Sending, though this is only once per day.

In our campaign, we also have flying letters – write a message on it, fold it up, and it will fly to the recipient.

Visual messaging at a distance

Update Dec 2025 – one of my readers reminded me of the DiscWorld clacks and the real-world semaphore they were based on, so I’ve written an update.

Conclusion

Communicating at a distance requires more thought than we have to worry about, and is very seldom instantaneous. Remember this the next time your players want to just “send a message”.

See all my RPGaDAY posts here.