D&D 5E Animal Messenger + Beast Sense = Telegraph Stations?

[Mistwell]

I've been thinking of creative uses for Druid rituals. They don't get a lot of rituals, but some of the ones they do get might be put to some interesting applications. If you can think of some, please feel free to suggest them here.

My first thought is Animal Messenger and Beast Sense. So you need a level 3 druid for this, with each of those spells prepared. They will be cast as rituals though, so no spell slots expended. 10 minutes casting time for each.

So let's say you have a wealthier city, and another wealthy city 10 miles away. For a variety of reasons, wealthier people and government officials might want to regularly communicate between the two locations. Normally they'd send riders between, or pay to use one shot spells to send a message.

What if instead they set up druid relay stations every 1.5 miles. So one station on either end, and five between the two cities, for seven total stations. Each station has shifts of two 3rd level druids.

Druid in City A casts animal messenger on a bird in a cage (10 mins casting time). Then casts beast sense of that bird (10 mins casting time). Bird is sent to next station down the line.

Animal Messenger says the bird travels 50 miles in 24 hours. So, in 45 minutes it travels a bit more than 1.5 miles. As it arrives, we have 15 minutes left of beast sense.

The next druid station down the way does the same, sending a bird back to the city. They do this every hour, each receiving a bird at about the same time.

Beast sense says you see and hear through the animal you've cast the spell on, and you cannot see or hear at your own body. It does not however say you cannot speak at your own body. So you can hear a message at a destination, and then speak that message at your own body.

By this means two people could have a near telephone call at a 1.5 mile distance. One side speaks, the other druid hears it, and vice versa.

But over the 10 miles, you have a longer delay, like a telegraph system. You send a message down the road, it's copied down, then it's sent down the road again, and so on until it reaches it's ultimate destination. I think it's roughly 6 hours to travel the 10 miles.

Now of course a rider system can run faster. But, can it run 10 minute messages? On a regular basis whenever you need it?

Maybe this isn't worth it, I don't know. I 'm just trying to play with how these two spells might synergize. Anyone have any thoughts on improving this system, or something else you might two combining these two druid ritual spells?

 

[Salthorae]

Creative... but expensive to maintain! If the stations are 1.5 mi apart you need 7 total so you’d have 7x 2nd level Druid working at any given shift.

It’s a shame that Druid share ritual spells with so many other classes. Like the water breathing and walking. I like those as Druid only.

Anyway, my games have druids setting themselves up occasionally as businesses. A Druid in a seaport charges sailing ships to get Water Breathing cast on crew just in case and most pay the charge because they’d rather jot drown if they go in.

Another city has races that cross their bay where runners have to contend with waves etc, Druids cast Water Walking on the participants. If you’re not fast enough you fall in and definitely lose!

More barbaric or Celtic feel area have Kong’s that employ druids to cast purify food and drink on their meals to negate any poison.

So I guess more practical application.

I’m also thinking if the fire tower alert system between Gondor and Rohan, but instead of that it is druids casting or using ritual Skywrite with a code word or shape or something.

 

[collin]

I like it.

Sounds like something that would be used in Eberron in the Eldeen Reaches.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I like it.

Sounds like something that would be used in Eberron in the Eldeen Reaches.

Actually, it was just this sort of "creative spell use" premise that had Keith Baker and the others create Dragonmarks for Eberron. While the actual spells themselves as written do not accomplish exactly what is necessary to create these kind of "sending stations", the game world itself goes into detail about how when you use dragonshards in conjunction with the magic you gain from dragonmarks, you can achieve this sort of extended magic system and get these logical "technological" advances. And House Sivis runs all manner of these magical mail systems within Eberron.

Whether or not you can accomplish this kind of thing in a game really comes down to just how by the book and by the numbers the DM runs spells in their game. If they treat spells as only doing precisely what they say they do, with no "story flourish" extra stuff, then creating these extended uses for magic probably won't go over. But if the DM is much more free-flowing with what magic and any spell can do... a world with an aviation "pony express" would most likely come into existence and make a lot of sense for the particular world.