You Want to Make a Fantasy World - Part XXXI: The Most Powerful Items Ever Created
You might think I'm joking, but I was in the infantry. Light infantry. We would disappear into the woods for a month, and you could walk by a biv site without even noticing us. I've literally had people step 2ft from my head during escape and evasion without noticing. And that was before modern cam. When I was in, CADPAT was considered a national secret.
men, (lowercase men, as in adult Human male), are designed to carry weight on their shoulders.
Women have more pronounced hips and less pronounced shoulders, so they are S-O-L.
Before modern nylon, we didn't really have anything that was both good and adjustable. So, you had to pick one, and backpacks go on the shoulders.
There was a Fallout Mod that added backpacks, and it was basically a game breaker. How powerful are backpacks?
Death Stranding uses realistic weight limits.
A lot of Death Stranding is based of real Japanese porters, called Bokka.
Which are directly referenced in Death Stranding 2.
The backpack carries the weight on the shoulders, allowing you to walk normally, maximizing the power you can use for moving.
If you are an adventurer, and you don't have a cart of packmule? Guess who's carrying your stuff. You are. This is also because RPG's rarely let you have minions without taking Leadership. Like a cart with one driver would save you SO MUCH trouble.
That said, backpacks are much better over rough terrain.
The yoke is designed to let things hang from your shoulders. Before nylon, only silk would have been strong enough, so it would either be leather or wood.
But wait, there's more. In the long, long ago, animals pulled with a cord wrapped about their necks. Now, you might think this is a really stupid idea, but if no one had invented the yoke, yet, then it's really the best one you have.
The yoke allows animals to pull carts without strangling themselves.
The wheels and axels were created by skilled artisans, while the rest was often built by the peasant, themselves, from whatever materials they can get their hands on. And this is the best way to carry loads over not so great distances. This is how your farmers brought their produce to market. This is how reddle merchants walked from town to town. This is probably how you brought your firewood in, so you don't freeze over winter.
