Well-maintained roads with regular signs and mile markers to navigate by are a luxury that most travelers take for granted until they head out into more remote territory. But even less manicured routes, from small country lanes to dirt tracks that are little more than game trails, still need some kind of distinctive marks to let you know you're going the right way and still on the path at all. Out here they have:
1 Geometric patterns of cuts and chops that are easy to gouge into tree trunks and rock. They're simple to read once you've learned the code.
2 Bright neon spray paint blazes, all marked at a kid's eye level.
3 Bunches of rags, streamers, and ribbons tied to tree branches. The pieces are longer and more numerous as you approach towns.
4 Strings of glass beads and round glass suncatchers hanging from the forest canopy. They are always blue. Do not follow any other color.
5 Continuous lines of twine, wire, plastic tape, rope, or cable strung through the woods tied around trunks and branches. Locals can tell you what the material should be. If it changes or the line breaks turn back immediately.
6 Faces carved into tree trunks and boulders. They come in sets of two with one looking each way down the path. Some locals swear they change expressions, it's just too slow to notice easily.
7 Stumps and boulders that have been carved into deceptively comfortable thrones. Ask politely before sitting.
8 Precisely-stacked cairns. Anyone caught building a false or unauthorized cairn is stoned and buried during the construction of a new, properly-placed one.
9 Petroglyphs of the local animals, some long extinct, all depicted facing away from town. They're re-etched every year to keep them fresh and lichen-free.
10 A series of menhirs and standing stones. They weren't placed to mark the road, the road grew as people traveled to visit them.
11 Large table-like flat slabs of stone set beside the path. Their surfaces are all around waist height, perfect for setting down a burden for a quick rest.
12 Polished white stone plates set in the center of the path that reflect the sun and moonlight.
13 Brass tags nailed to tree trunks and convenient boulders, each stamped with the trail name and a mile mark.
14 Thin wood stakes with scraps of fabric or ribbon tied around them and stuck on either side of the trail like boring slalom gates. Sometimes the stakes break and are replaced with whatever random sticks are at hand.
15 Chest-high 3" square cedar posts that are set exactly 3 miles apart and sturdy enough to securely hitch horses and livestock. Their surfaces are charred to weatherproof them, then painted with horizontal white stripes.
16 Round poles, usually between 8' and 20' tall, made of wood, stone, brick, or metal as local resources allow. There's no code regulating their design so some are richly decorated, some simple, some dilapidated and almost falling over, but they're always placed properly along the road.
17 Life-sized statues of figures in archaic costume pointing the direction of the road and making gestures warning about upcoming hazards. The gesture code is highly stylized and ancient with some of it being centuries out of date.
18 Knee-high statues of the imperial dancing goat carved from local marble and set on concrete plinths. Their poses vary by province but the front hooves always point towards the capitol.
19 Man-sized stone lanterns spaced half a mile apart, each with a constantly-burning gas flame that illuminates the road and roadside for several hundred feet. The fuel reservoirs are buried 12' below each lantern, fed through a black iron pipe and topped off every few weeks.
20 Small artesian wells placed just far enough off the road to stay free of dust. Most have basins lined with hammered copper or light blue glazed tile, but some are thought to have healing water and made with unworked white stone.
21 Flowering crabapple trees that are pruned into distinctive unnaturally angular shapes. They're relatively short-lived by tree standards so their successors need to be grown in overlapping cycles. This means the active markers shift a short distance east along the road every 80 years or so once the old tree dies.
22 Albino oak trees that only grow within 30' of the trail. Their acorns won't germinate if you try to start them anywhere else.
23 Freestanding stacked stone archways. There's not always an obvious beaten path between them, just the ritual doorways that mark the way.
24 Clusters of bronze sleigh bells hung from the tree branches. They're traditionally mid-range tones, never high and tinkling or low and resonant.
25 Holes bored into the cliffsides that whistle like pipes when the wind blows.
26 Colorful long-tailed box kites tethered with lightweight steel chains that fly hundreds of feet in the air. Sometimes they break loose or get hit by lightning and cause minor havoc before eventually being replaced.
27 Ceremonial middens that started as haphazard piles of broken cart wheels, ruined gear, and other trash discarded along the roadside. Over the centuries they've developed into a formal ritualized system with travelers contributing material for luck when they pass.
28 Head-high columns with prisms set on top that shine beams of light in each direction down the path. The prisms seem like they're made of glass but are almost impossible to scratch.
29 Animated skeletons bolted on to iron posts. They're able to give directions and answer basic question but can be rude.
30 Swarms of magic lights that appear and harry you back to the trail if you wander off-track. Completely blind their targets to everything except the way back.
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