Letter-Knowers

Long before the great expansion of the Axial empire the people who lived across the Raivanni south were many and disparate. Groups of humans, goblinkin, feykith, beastfolk, and dwarves dotted the plains and riverlands below and interaction between them was as complex as the languages they spoke. Seeking to ease the lives of everyone, a brilliant woman living in a small settlement in the southwest began developing a language that bridged the divide between the folk of the south. 
She built connections with leaders and traders throughout the south, and slowly her new language began to spread. Those who championed this new speech described it as an axle upon which all trade in the south would turn. Though it took many years to spread and grew and changed as it did so, eventually the trade tongue of the south would come to be spoken by most folk to some degree and was known as the Axis language.
Now while the language was developing, there were those particularly among the traders based in larger settlements who wished to keep written records of their business. This was easy enough to develop, with now so many contributing to the growth and spread of Axis, but writing spread far slower than spoken word. To facilitate greater adoption of written Axis a new profession grew, that of the letter-knowers. These educated individuals traveled across the south helping to document that which needed be written down and where they went they taught writing to the people they met. 
For years the role of a letter-knower became vital to the community, acting in a sense as librarian, postmaster, and educator for their communities. As knowledge of writing became commonplace, particularly after the uniting of the Axial empire, the position of a letter-knower changed until it had broken into multiple professions as we know them today, but as we see even in the very name of the empire the legacy of language which helped unite such a diverse land remains.

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Public Services