The Stable ยท Chapter 3
Riding
The Skill
Riding covers staying on, steering, and keeping a mount under control when it would rather be elsewhere. A Universe without a Riding skill uses Operate.
Survival covers calming, reading, feeding, and doctoring an animal when nothing is on fire.
No check is needed to ride a trained mount along a road.
Getting On and Off
| Action | Cost |
|---|---|
| Mount or dismount a Scale 1 or 2 animal | A maneuver |
| Mount or dismount a Scale 3 or larger animal, or a howdah | An action, or a maneuver if the animal kneels |
| Vault into the saddle and move in the same turn | A maneuver and an Average Riding check |
| Buckle or release a flight harness or water saddle | A maneuver more |
Who Can Ride What
A mount must be at least as large as its rider, and usually one Scale larger.
| Rider | Mount |
|---|---|
| A small rider (a child, or one of the small peoples) | Any Small Mount with no penalty. A Scale 2 mount with a small-rider saddle |
| A rider of ordinary size | Scale 2 and larger. A Small Mount carries the rider at double Carry and cannot charge |
| A large rider (anyone of a people with a large frame) | Counts 8 against Carry in place of 5. Cannot ride a Small Mount or a mount with Carry under 16 |
Carry
A rider counts 5 against Carry, a small rider 3, and a large rider 8. Add the Encumbrance of everything the rider wears and carries, the saddle, and the barding.
| The load is | Effect |
|---|---|
| Up to Carry | None |
| Over Carry | Speed is 1 lower, to a minimum of 1. Travel is halved. Add 1 Bane Die to Riding checks |
| Over one and a half times Carry | The mount will not move |
Flyers carry less in the air: a flyer over half its Carry cannot take off.
An example. A knight wears Full Plate (Encumbrance 6) and carries a lance (6), a sword (2), and a shield (2). With himself (5) and a war saddle (3) that is 24. His Heavy Warhorse has Carry 28. Plate Barding (8) takes the total to 32: over Carry. He leaves the barding off, or rides a slower horse into battle than he rode to it.
Speed
Speed is the number of range bands the mount moves with one maneuver. The move from Medium to Long, or Long to Extreme, counts as two bands, as in the core rules.
The mount moves on its rider's maneuver. A rider who spends a second maneuver, at the usual cost of 2 Strain, moves the mount again.
A rider on a Speed 2 mount crosses from Long range to Engaged in one turn. Nobody on foot does.
Control
A trained mount does what it is asked until something frightens it. Then the rider makes a Riding check as a maneuver.
| Cause | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| A sudden noise, a snake in the road, a strange smell | Easy |
| Fire close by, gunfire, a fight starting around it | Average |
| The mount is wounded, or attacked by a predator | Hard |
| A source with a Fear rating | Its Fear rating as the difficulty, to a maximum of Severe |
Add the mount's Temper as Bane Dice. A Battle-Trained mount ignores its Temper against the ordinary things of a battlefield: noise, blood, weapons, and other fighting animals. It does not ignore fire, a Fear rating, or its own wounds.
| Result | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Success | The mount obeys |
| Failure | The mount bolts, rears, or refuses. The rider loses the action this turn |
| Failure with 2 Bane | The rider must also make an Average Riding check or be thrown |
| Calamity | The mount bolts for three rounds in the direction it likes best |
A mount makes no Fear checks of its own. Its rider makes this check for it.
A mount that does not know its rider. For the first day, add 1 Bane Die to Riding checks.
Chases
A chase between mounts uses Riding in place of Athletics.
The side with the higher Speed adds 1 Boon Die to each check, and 2 if its Speed is higher by 2 or more. A mount with Swift adds 1 more. In a crowd, a forest, or a town, a mount of Scale 2 or more adds 1 Bane Die, and a person on foot does not.
A chase of more than five rounds is decided by endurance. Each rider makes an Average Riding check each round after the fifth, adding 1 Trial Die each round. On a failure the mount is blown: Speed 1 until it has rested an hour.
Travel
Travel is miles a day on a road, at a pace the animal can keep up.
| Country | Miles |
|---|---|
| Road | As listed |
| Open country, hills | Three quarters |
| Forest, desert, snow | Half |
| Mountain, marsh | One third |
A party travels at the rate of its slowest animal.
A forced march adds half again. Each rider makes an Average Riding check. On a failure the mount is lame the next day: its Travel is halved and its Speed is 1.
Remounts. A rider with two horses who changes between them adds a quarter to the day's distance. Couriers with relay stations double it.
Flyers ignore country. They stop for weather, and they rest as long as anything else.
Teams
An animal pulling a vehicle is harnessed, not ridden, and is driven with Operate. Riding is used only when the team panics.
A vehicle needs the team listed for it in Chapter 8. Count each animal's Draft rating if it has one. With a short team, the vehicle's Speed is 1 and its Travel is halved. A vehicle never moves faster than its slowest animal.
