It makes it all look more aesthetically pleasing? Maybe some additional way stations, built along the path to make it safer?
So, for the meritocracy thing. The Arthrynite Games was my idea, assuming we decided to go for meritocracy at all. Various competitions to decide whose the best warrior? They are in charge of training warriors. Who knows the stories and teachings of the goddesses best? Those are the people in charge of teaching it to the next generation. Who can better lead a group of Catclaws against another group of Catclaws in wargames of various types? That person is in charge of doing that. Which person is better at solving the issues of the past, based on how things went then? That person is in charge of doing that. Set them up as competitions from the villages at first, and work up until contestants come from all over the people's lands to decide who is actually the best at the thing. The person who wins each competition is then put in charge of whatever that was for. With winners at lower levels being put in charge of lower level areas. Make sure there is a loser's bracket as well, so you don't end up with the second best getting beaten by the best at the very beginning and getting kicked out of the competition early even though they they'd totally wreck everyone else (aka martial hero getting beat by martial genius). Put people who are better at different things in charge of doing well in those things. As the scale of the competition increases, increase the scale of the issues they have to solve. Catclaw wargame leadership starts with a 5 on a team, moves up to 15, then 60, then 200, and so on as the competition increases in size. Have similarly more difficult tests of stewardship, how to make sure that you feed the entire People based on different grain incomes or the like. And the first person to come up with a workable plan gets points for doing it faster, but also someone who does it slower, but has a more robust plan also gets more points, and set up different values for such things. I mean, it'd be complicated as hell. But it'd be interesting for sure. Especially with communal raising of children hopefully keeping us away from children taking after their parents jobs even if they aren't suited to it.
