[So i went to see if any mods had responded to a tech post, and it turned out Reddit (or more likely my crappy vacation wifi) made it go poof. So here's a weeks old tech post. I did miss a tech post in that time, too, so hopefully that will be enough of a punishment.]

As the years went on in Arath, the devastation of the great droit and locust swarms combined faded from recent memory into myth and legend. Still, the tensions that had sprung up, while settled, were by no means resolved.

One of the things deemed necessary in the wake of the drought was establishment of a proper census. While many chiefs had informal records of various towns and farms, it was no means complete, and entire families appeared seemingly out of nowhere to collect water rations. This work was delegated primarily to the Seekers, as anywhere large enough to tax would be visited by at least one seeker. Combined with the detailed maps the Arathee already had, few people escaped on the margins. While the primarily pastoral Arath'a did not stay in one place, they at least tended to stay in defined groups, so reasonable accuracy was achieved with them as well.

It was with some surprise that the total of Arathee and Arath'a populations was calculated to be in excess of two million, by a comfortable margin.

Refining silver from lead was a dirty process, requiring heating in large ceramic trays for extended periods of time. While lead was soft and easily malleable, it was regarded as dirty and impure by those who could afford better. The much prettier silver, on the other hand, was highly sought after, and so uses were found for the lead. One of the primary uses was for sling bullets, where their impurity was thought to cause sickness in those injured. Silver was thought of as the essence of purity, and it's similarity to the stars made if a favorite for small jewelry and earrings. After centuries of this process of separating Galena into silver and lead, improvements were made in both types of ore selected for the process and in discerning the the raptures at which the various metals that composed Galena melted. This knowledge of Cupellation made the process of separating out silver more efficient.

A great deal of building was done not just expanding infrastructure, but rebuilding areas that had fallen into disrepair after the paired famines. In many of these cases, there was ample stone already there, it only need mortar and to be restacked into walls or reset on roads. It was through these reconstruction efforts that significant advancements in technology of Pozzolan-Lime mortar that it would be better termed as Cement. A number of interesting discoveries were also made about various small adaptations to improve different qualities of cement. One small village, which had a number of followers to an otherwise small religion, had poured significant amounts of blood into the mortar for their shrine. While the residents of the village had all either died or moved out during the famines, the shrine was strangely resistant to frosts that had damaged the rest of the village. Clearly, offerings of blood brought appeasement from whatever caused the frosts, and while their was much disagreement on what that was (the origami deity having no followers remaining), the fact of its success meant that something was being appeased. Following this discovery, intentional experimentation led to the addition of horse hair to cement, as the long strands helped to prevent cracking.

Another invention that greatly assisted the Arathee were Cassions. Four boards, made into a watertight open ended box with beeswax and glue, were lowered into a river. Once it was firmly settled on the bottom, the water inside was emptied by bucket. Stones were then layered with cement to form a pillar. This allowed for bridge supports to be built in water, and to dry before the boards are removed. This design allowed firm pillars to be built in rivers, such that even the widest of rivers could be crossed by bridge. It didn't take long before it was discovered that water hardened cement (rather then prevent it from hardening, as was the case with clay mortar), meaning that the cassions could be removed as soon as the last stone was placed, and the structure would be set instantly.

After centuries of roadbuilding, some of the highly travelled roads began being upgraded from cobblestone to the far more comfortable flagstone roads. While this had been done in cities for some time, the labor required made it impractical for proper roads. The labor required was offset both by the additional taxes gained from the use of the census, and from labor deals with the Vraichem. The new cement also greatly increased the time a road could go without being repaired. As for the roads themselves, stones were selected and shaped to have a wide, smooth, side, before being set in either the gentle horizontal slope of a drained road, or the short terraces of a stepped road.

In the elite of the Arathee clans, pigeon racing had been a minor pastime for over a hundred years. Despite how impressed people were with the ability of these birds to find their way home from literally anywhere, it took quite some time before someone came up with the idea of using them for messages. Part of this was likely due to earlier attempts at giving messages to Falcons, but once it was first suggested, the idea took off, in every sense of the word. Birds not only flew faster then a man, but they were unaffected by mountains or ravines. An enterprising seeker was able to train a bird to sleep in one area, but expect to be fed in another, allowing a two way flow of information without the otherwise necessary step of having a rider or cart go back and forth with caged birds. Still, Falcons and bows were the two favorite methods of hunting on Arath, and while most knew better then to shoot down a messenger bird, they were by no means the most secure method of communication.

Steals

The Vraichem practice of Coinage was adapted as part of the road deal, as it made payment of distant workers far more doable. Coins were minted with an impression of twin peaks, with hills to either side and stars above. The exact pattern of the stars was used to determine the original mint of the coin, a subtlety often missed by foreigners. In addition to the obvious size and composition of a coin to determine worth, different phrases were printed on the backs of the coins.

In addition, several textile improvements were adopted from the Vraichem. Warp-Weighted Looms allowed much larger pieces of cloth to be made more efficiently, and Mordants made much brighter dyes.

An ingenious Radeti invention that was carried back by traders was that of the Single Tube Seed Drill, which allowed for seeds to be planted much faster, especially in hard earth.