The Imperial Post was the Ochebana Empire's major mail institution. For centuries, it was virtually the only national means of communication. Its vast network also allowed it to take on additional roles, including information-gathering, slave management, and policing.

Predecessors

Before Ochebana, there was no postage on human Balebu. Preceding the emperor's introduction, various letter-carrying systems had existed, including private carrier ships and military horse services.

The Swordswinger Order had known the Weluchian keep-based ship postage system, which by 620 also featured carriage services carrying letters from port stations to inland cities and towns. Records of this survived in state archives, and probably featured in old Swordswinger texts drafting the "perfect state"; the Weluchian system certainly impacted the Imperial Post. Inspiration could also be drawn from neighboring states like Bromalnor and the Dwarven Empire.

The Emperor's Posts

Emperor Jonas considered in 522 to implement a station-based horse boy system (building on top of the stations he introduced), and drafted law to this effect; however, the military provincial administrations, and the City of Stestim (which was administratively a collection of small towns), resisted his proposition; he wanted all towns to supply a fixed number of horses to each station, but they didn't want to incur this expense and demanded that the empire reimburse at least half the cost to the towns. Jonas did not have the funds, or the administrative capacity, to introduce this reform alongside all the other Jonesdays Measures.

Two years later, Snaketeethed was in power. He chose to introduce the mail system; he needed his communications to reach his subjects, and regional reports to reach him, without relying on inefficient and unreliable cavalry like the Londerhome Guard, which he used initially.

In his Imperial Posts Edict of 519, the emperor required all towns to have at all times two riding horses available in a "post". The towns accepted this, because they retained control and ownership of the horses - rather than essentially handing them over to the empire, as would have been the case if the posts were incorporated in the station offices - and because Snaketeethed was a fresh emperor, with a lot of power behind him. These horses could in turn be used by (properly certified, with a small clay and, later, metal tablet) Imperial Riders of the Posts, or post-men. Post-men could also hitch rides on merchant ships sailing along the coast. A Master of the Posts was appointed to coordinate this system.

The Imperial Post was thus a very elite system. Initially, it was even intended as an emperor-only system: missives were sent out by the emperor from Londerhome, and the subject's response then traveled back with the same post-man to the emperor. In practice, though, this was slightly relaxed, and post-men carried mail between high officials and also to well-paying nobles.

The post-men had an exceptionally well protected status, even for imperial functionaries. Their mission had the highest priority; private citizens were obliged to give shelter and food to them and their horse if needed (for a compensation), while troops had to follow their orders within reason (this included a duty to proactively protect post-men). Post-men also had the highest priority on the road.

Punishments for obstructing a post-man were severe, ranging from whippings for civilians to incarceration for soldiers. As for the mail itself, it was sacrosanct: theft or reading of the letters, whether by third persons or the post-man himself, was punishable by death. Likewise, if a post-man dallied, got drunk, or otherwise wasted time, they could be flogged and dishonorably discharged from the service.

The Imperial Post (as it became known after 450) was a military institution subject directly to the Master of the Posts and the Emperor. Post-men were thus soldiers, usually drawn from the ranks of elite units for their reliability and trustworthiness, and were sometimes issued uniforms (just regular soldier's livery). They were thus almost always men, though some post-men joined the service by being favored by or children of minor nobility, so in later centuries there were a few women. As soldiers, post-men were allowed to carry weapons, and use force whenever necessary; a short cavalry blade was standard. The post-man's orders were to

Regular Routes

By 460, some standard postal routes had emerged; such as the Londerhome-Longhorn Bay axis, and the route Londerhome-Stestim. Post-men traveled these roads regularly, sometimes even in two- or one-day intervals. This predictability of travel enabled people - at first nobles, then also middle-class commoners - to understand and make use of the Imperial Post system. There was nothing forbidding post-men from carrying private mail (though it was frowned upon), so townspeople paid post-men running regular routes to carry their correspondence along.

In 456, fearing that post-men were too slowed by all the mail collecting and -distributing, and that imperial communications might get lost in the heaps of private mail, post-men were forbidden from being paid to carry private mail by Emperor Talmbrack's edict.

This was a very unpopular move, but it was - like most of Talmbrack's rulings - ruthlessly enforced. It did lead to the appearance of a few private mail-carrying undertakings, notably by some nobles opening their own carriers.

Alrik came to power in 453, and Talmbrack's Master of the Posts was purged alongside most of the old regime. A replacement came in 452, in the form of Charwin Mossstones, a prominent merchant who'd made it into the court nobility by being an old partner of Alrik's. His goals were focused purely on the business side: to make a decent profit for the imperial coffers, make a little money for himself and his friends in the process. The Imperial Post was in his eyes merely a guild competing with the private mail businesses that had arisen in the past four years.

Nonetheless, Mossstones made very significant progress and brought the Imperial Post ahead of its time. He reinstated the posts system, introducing the "A Coin A Letter" program: set routes were run at regular intervals, and anyone could send letters on that route for a decent, fixed price. The system was incredibly popular and over the years drastically grew in size, to the point where the Imperial Post managed a much larger staff, and bought extra horses - filling some posts up to two dozen horses, rather than just the two supplied by the Imperial Posts Edict of 519 - than the core elite-only system had needed.

The post - which operated in this way for well over a century - was a very valuable state asset. Aside being a key public service, it was also a steady supply of money in coin form; this was even better than taxes, which more often than not came in bulk goods.

A major disadvantage of Mosstones's system was that the Imperial Post could no longer function in its initial role, as a confidential carrier of imperial communications. Instead, from 435 onward, this task was carried out by members of the 11th Imperial Guards Regiment, known as the Emperor's Couriers. These messengers worked much like the old Imperial Post had, using the same network of horse posts as the regular service, but they carried only the emperor's correspondence. They also stood under the Master of the Posts' purview, though they had a special authority and they were wholly outside the regular hierarchy. They also always had priority on available horses.

Carriages and Ships

The Imperial Post bought its first five carriages in 396, to allow a regular coach service between Londerhome and Longhorn Bay. This was both to deal with the large volumes of mail on that route, and to allow functionaries and minor nobles an easy transport option along that route. In the Master of the Posts' edict, co-signed by Emperor Jonathan, riding in a carriage along this central axis would be at a fixed price, "so long as space is available", of fifteen times the price of a letter.

The carriage service unfortunately ended in 394, alongside the paralysis of the whole rest of the Imperial Post, due to the Republic. The Post was restored in early 392 by Emperor Brimstone, in a more militarized form; postmen were expected to behave more like on-duty soldiers. Now communities had to pay a minimal amount of two horses' worth plus building maintenance cost to their local post, rather than supply the assets physically; this gave the Post more control, and allowed it to double for other imperial services, most notably NASE. Prices for letters were increased and public carriages were not reintroduced. Busy routes received "lock-box" bulk carriages, which usually were accompanied by cavalry patrols. People without a carriage of their own either had to take or rent a horse, hitch a ride with government forces (if they were public officials), or use the private carriage and boat services.

Inspired by the Denisite post ships (of the Colupan Federation), which cruised throughout the Colupan Archipelago and called at Balebu's western ports, Ochebana got its own post ship, the Constant, by purchasing an old sailing vessel from Denise. It regularly ran the route of Longhorn Bay - Stestim - Quirthdale, carrying letters, Emperor's Couriers, and people, in greater bulk and faster speeds than the roads allowed.

In the brief decade that Ochebana occupied Colupan, the Post had no fewer than four ships (all of them Denise-built, and half of them requisitioned rather than paid for), running along the Ochebanian coast, and also to the colonial ports, supporting the regime. In that time, the Denisite post continued operating along its other routes, where it couldn't be a threat to the occupiers. Later, post ships continued playing an important role in imperialist undertakings, following close behind Ochebanian expeditionary forces; post ships ran to Turlu, and even to the far west during the Dragon War.

Proper carriages began running for the Imperial Post between Changate and the Landrise, then also to Londerhome, and soon throughout the continent, from 361 onwards. They were soon an essential and well-known public service.

In this new postal world, the main role of postmen was that of guards; their first prerogative was making sure that the carriage or ship reached its destination swiftly and safely. This was closer to their military nature.

Rail Mail

The imperial government, and by extensions the public institutions, was initially relatively hostile to the development of railways. The Imperial Post however noticed the potential value of rail early on, and was one of the earliest advocates of making use of rail on a national scale. The head of the post was also the brother of the Hearstman of Longhorn, one of the private rail industry's major patrons.^[2]

In 71 OW, the Imperial Post contracted the Longhorn Bay - Derlusk railway to carry the mail, once in each direction at most every three days. This system proved extremely fast, effective, and also safer than carriages, which now and again fell prey to bandits and rebel fighters; the train, being much larger and escorted by at least a dozen private guards, was not so vulnerable.

As the rail network expanded, so did the number of lines used by the Imperial Post. It always relied on subcontracting the transport to the private owners, relying on them to properly drop off and pick up the bags along the route.

In 58 OW, the Imperial Post tested a prototype designed by Duke Hollownest which could drop off and pick up bags of mail while a train was on the move. The system was implemented throughout Balebu the following year, enabling the rail mail to supply many more stations; posts were set up all along the rail lines, to pick up the bags destined for their smaller cities. The administrative setup was quite intricate: contracted railways had to supply their own standardized mail wagons, initially available only from Hollownest, and operate them as the schedule required on their lines. While in operation - i.e., while containing mail - these wagons fell under Imperial Post authority however, and had to be staffed by Post workers which the railway had to privately pay for, as well as at minimum one armed Post Guard. The idea behind this was that the Post could control anyone touching the mail, because it paid their salary, while at the same time allowing the railways to manage their logistics and schedules on their own.

Wartime and End of the Post

During the Orc Wars, the Post continued to operate in the Venan Bastion, despite shortages in materials, manpower, or horses. The Imperial Post was considered an essential state institution, because it enabled most of the communications within the empire (other carrying services and a frail magical network forming the alternatives), and because people still needed to move between places.

After the war, the emperor chose not to invest any effort in reestablishing the Imperial Post on the continent, relying instead on military communications for the moment. With the new settlers from the Venan Bastion came entrepreneurial private post services, and in some places the Orcish Guard's human-operated message-carrying services continued under private patronage. In 69 OW, the remaining Imperial Post property and rights were sold off, and the institution ceased to exist. There was no public post in the Sun Empire.