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We don't really comprehend distances very well. I was doing a little research the other night, wondering how far could the player characters expect to travel from the center of Setak?
In reality, the city of Tacoma is about 32 miles southwest of Seattle. A trained marathon runner could run that distance in, say, three to four hours. The average person, without carrying a heavy burden, could walk that in about ten hours—so traveling to Tacoma on foot is effectively a day's travel, and you wouldn't return the same day unless it was a really pressing matter. I tried to find out how far a horse can carry a rider in a day, but it turned out to be surprisingly difficult to track down a clear answer. It seems that a horse can be expected to travel about 30 miles in a day, maybe double that if it's well-trained and the roads are good and fairly flat, or even a bit more if you really push it but you'll probably exhaust and hurt it.
Now consider that modern Seattle itself is somewhere around 18 miles from north to south. Traveling from Lake City to West Seattle on foot would itself be a significant portion of the day, basically all day if you have to return. That means the settled and relatively secure area of Setak would be fairly compact, right around the current center. It's something worth considering in developing the setting.
In reality, the city of Tacoma is about 32 miles southwest of Seattle. A trained marathon runner could run that distance in, say, three to four hours. The average person, without carrying a heavy burden, could walk that in about ten hours—so traveling to Tacoma on foot is effectively a day's travel, and you wouldn't return the same day unless it was a really pressing matter. I tried to find out how far a horse can carry a rider in a day, but it turned out to be surprisingly difficult to track down a clear answer. It seems that a horse can be expected to travel about 30 miles in a day, maybe double that if it's well-trained and the roads are good and fairly flat, or even a bit more if you really push it but you'll probably exhaust and hurt it.
Now consider that modern Seattle itself is somewhere around 18 miles from north to south. Traveling from Lake City to West Seattle on foot would itself be a significant portion of the day, basically all day if you have to return. That means the settled and relatively secure area of Setak would be fairly compact, right around the current center. It's something worth considering in developing the setting.
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