Beetle Routes

The Beetle Routes are a series of interconnected tunnels and road ways which can be found at and between most major dwarven mountain homes. These rods are ridden by the so called beetle riders who ride cave beetles, that transport goods and people from one place to the other. 
Each beetle is capable of carrying four riders, excluding the driver. The quality of the ride depends, the cheaper Beetle Routes will have almost no support for your butt and its quite easy to fall of the back of the beetle. Especially inexperienced riders are prone to falling of during a ride. The higher quality, albeit more expansive, services will have seats akin to saddles on a horse installed on top of the beetle. Increasing the comfort and safety of a ride. The tunnels of the routes themself run deep underground, connecting important parts of a dwarven home to each other. Riders are usually stationed around the corner and with the ring of a bell a new beetle is summoned ready for transport to any other part of the city. Of course the Beetle Routes are also used for more that just passenger transportation within dwarven forts. They're also used to transport cargo all around the place, from furniture to a new development to raw ores which are to processed, in turn the processed ores are also transported via the routes. Beside that some routes run long and far even going to other locations. The Beetle Routes while useful generally tend to get slowly replaced by a system of minecarts in more developed dwarven homes. Often with the old Beetle Routes tunnels being reused and filled with track, instead of beetle dung. 
Not all Beetle Routes survived the ages, with some tunnels collapsing due to lack of maintenance or other occurrences. A major route that was lost were those to Othlest Zefon, the place were Cave Beetles were first discovered. The dwarven home lay abandoned after a series of incidents with a dwarven necromancer. With the collapse of a series of tunnels leading there the location of Othlest Zefon and the home of the Cave Beetles was therefore lost. 
Category:Alex
Category:Dwarves