Santharian Development

Name - Remusian War-Horse

Overview - a horse especially bred for war by the Remusians for use in their icy climate.  Remusian War-Horses were originally Kev'Lor horses that wandered far up north, and were captured and trained by the Remusians.  They are a little shorter than their Kev'lor cousins, but are faster and heavier, and have become especially accustomed to their cold habitat.

Appearance - The Remusian War-Horse has larger and stronger muscles than the ordinary Kev'lor for carrying the armor and the knight himself.  It stands at 5 1/2 fores tall, and weighs an increble 250 hebs, and its snout is a tad bit larger and more stout.  Its tail and neck hair are silver in color.  The War-Horse also generally have silver fur on their forelegs, but it varies from horse to horse.  The War-Horse has short, velvet black fur and a large layer of fat to keep it cozy.  With the armor on, the only thing that is exposed is the backs of the stallion's legs.

Special Abilities - None, except for the fact that the Sor'moson can run up to nearly 70 sph (stral per hour), and can withstand extreme cold.

Habitat - The Remusian War-Horses are especially bred to be able to withstand extreme cold.  It can easily trek through a few feet of snow and on top of ice without slowing down in the least.  Generally live with other Remusian Horses to keep warm and breed (with the males).

Diet - Generally lives off of dried Alth'ho grass, varying fruits, and/or a mixture of grains and oats.

Behavior - The Remusian War-Horse is a gentle horse, but only through friendship can one hope of bringing its full-potential in battle.  With proper training, the horse will keep a cool head in battle, and can kick and jump upon the rider's discretion.  The males are harder to keep focus, thus giving bored trainers/riders more of a challenge.  Because of the males' short attention span, many riders prefer the mares.

Mating - The Remusian War-Horses usually mate with the mares once every 2nd-3rd year.  The stallion picks a mare, and stays with her for life.  If one should die, the other will simply choose another soul mate.  Remusian Mares give birth to one baby at a time.

Origin - about the year 10,000 b.s., a large group of Kev'Lor's wandered far into the north, and were discovered by the Remusians.  They saw the potential in the Kev'Lor's, and bred them specifically for battle, and the Kev'Lor's slowly became less and less like Kev'Lor's, and more and more into the Remusian War-Horses today.  The process took about 2,000 years, until the War-Horses became probably the best war-horse in the land, because of ability, and immunity to the cold.

Edited by: Koji Maelstrom at: 8/4/02 7:05:19 pm

erm... a couple notes:

Quote:

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stallions to keep warm and breed

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the word stallion means male horse. males can't breed with other males.

sorry hon- can't help but laugh at that... but here are a few more serious questions that you might consider....

* are the war horses ONLY male? and if so- where are the females kept? (and what are they called?)

* what are the size and weight differences [if any] of the horses?

* birthing periods/cylces? how long is the gestation period? ( you say here:

Quote:

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The Remusian Stallion usually mates two-three times a year

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so they have 2 to 3 foils a year? what is the infant death to live rate?)

* where are the horses popular? in what region did they originate?

*

Quote:

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Generally lives off of specially imported grass and fruits like apples, pears, whatever

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so- would i be correct in assuming that they are kept by nobles/the abnormally rich? i'm sure if they eat only imported food they would become rapidly an expensive mount. (also- might want to check out the veggies and fruits that are around here somewhere.. not sure if we techincally have apples/pears- but i could be wrong  )

enough for now i think...  just some things to think over...

"If you gave me a choice between a Northern man, a Northern woman, or a Northern rat - I'd have to pick the rat..."
Anaea- on the north in general

Ahh, Koji, theres a couple problems here. First of all you should fix Anaea's things (I don't want any gay horses), then the appearance, the northlands are... well, COLD. I'd make them smaller, and with somthing more like fur. Change their diet, these arn't only owned by the rich. Make them eat somthing less expensive. Remusia isn't a very rich country. I think that's the only problems I see. But for the most part good.

Timeras of Remusiat, lord of the White Citidel. "I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally." - W. C. Fields (1880 - 1946)

Okay, I had no idea. Originally it was going to be War-Mustang, but Stallion sounded better.  The mares are kept in stables in the castles.  They are basically used only to breed.

Stallions are about 20 lbs (or whatever that equals in Sorren.  I forget) heavier and are about 3 inches (or whatever that equals in Sorren.  I forget) larger than the mares.

I really don't know that much about horses.  I'm going to change to birthing cycle now that I've got more info.  The gestation cycle takes about 2-3 years.  The death:life ratio is about 1:3 because of illness and/or weakness (Remusians only use the best horses).  The birthing cycle takes several months, afterwhich the foil is born.

They were originally Kev'lor horses, but were kept and bred to the Remusian's arctic climate.

Yes, Remusian Stallions are expensive to maintain and have, and thus only high knights are allowed to ride them.  I'll edit my previous post for the updates.  Is that good?

I would say yes, much better except the Remusian word for "war-horse" would be... somthing along the lines of .... Sor'moson ? anyway thats as close as I can get so use that. Otherwise very good.  

Timeras of Remusiat, lord of the White Citidel. "I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally." - W. C. Fields (1880 - 1946)

Needs to be longer, more detail. I saw that in those other two creatures (one's off what was the dual post, and should be reposted in it's own right), too. Yea, they're horses... but still. I'm sure there's more you could do. Sorry if I'm not real helpful, short on time.

Tarquet Galbar,
BeastMaster Of Santharia
Creator of Weavers
Chronicler of the Rahaz-Dath Mercenaries

This shows much the same problem as the other thing. Why make it? The Kev'lor would suite just fine. The north is already cold, so the Kev'lor would probably be just fine with Remusiat. So why make a Kev'lor v2.0 entry that just has a different name and is shorter?

And if you don't think the Kev'lor would withstand the cold, just have a sentence put in to the Origin on the Kev'lor that says "Some fleeing soldiers on their Kev'lor found their way farther north to the Remusiat, however, where the Kev'lor was bred for colder conditions and the bloodline maintained their great stature and bulk." or something. It would serve the same purpose.

Tarquet Galbar,
BeastMaster Of Santharia
Creator of Weavers
Chronicler of the Rahaz-Dath Mercenaries

War-Stallions - sounds impressive, but in practice humans have found that stallions are too easily distracted.  Mares   may whinny when in heat, but won't go chasing off to round up every other horse of the opposite gender at unpredictable times!  

Stallions are generally kept solely for breeding, (and then only a few - most are castrated and become geldings, gentler and more reliable mounts) and mares are preferred.

Any actual horsemen out there who would like to comment?  This is at the minimum what I've read as historical fact, but don't know about in practice....

Don't know for sure but stallions were kept for bred.

Stallions might be also have been used as real warhorses (as horses trained to kill people on the battlefield) because of mentioned temperament.
That would be the Middle Ages.

But I guess in "modern" cavalry units (18th century) most horses were either mares or geldings(?) because you needed calm horses that would ride in formation of dozens and were "schußfest" (not running away from gunfire).

At least that much of fragmentary history I have in my head from my sister (who is a rider) and some of her books.


For the entry I'd suggest to take either Icelanders(The Scandinavian horses) or Mongolian ponies as reference. Maybe you find some infos about them.
They were sturdy horses ith high endurance, used to live in cold and harsh regions.

Koldar Mondrakken, Knight of the Moonlight
--Santharian Master of Disaster--
One day I'll be the greatest of all Jedi!!

Ok, so just no one listen to me then, great.

Tarquet Galbar,
BeastMaster Of Santharia
Creator of Weavers
Chronicler of the Rahaz-Dath Mercenaries

Well Tarquet, the only thing I see wrong with the Kev'lor is they are noted as being highly prized, therefore expensive. The Remusians do not have knights persay, so the average cavalrymen would not be able to afford a Kev'lor, and I severly doubt that myself, (as the Lord of the city) would take money out of the state treasury, to pay for a overly expensive horse for the average soldier. That why I had koji do this, to make a less expensive breed for the common soldiery. As for the horse gender comments, ??? I know almost nothing about horses, so I leave that to someone who knows what they're talking about.

Timeras of Remusiat, lord of the White Citidel. "I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally." - W. C. Fields (1880 - 1946)

They're expensive in the area that was once the Mynian Kingdom, which is where they used to be. If some Kev'lor made it up north and they were bred for the cold and in great numbers, they wouldn't be that expensive. I'm not saying present day, but back when the Mynian Kingdom fell.

Tarquet Galbar,
BeastMaster Of Santharia
Creator of Weavers
Chronicler of the Rahaz-Dath Mercenaries

Hmmm, didn't consider that they were bred in great numbers... Well koji, mybe you should just modify the Kev'lor... I guess I have to think about it.

Timeras of Remusiat, lord of the White Citidel. "I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally." - W. C. Fields (1880 - 1946)

Stallions can be jerks. And if you take too long to geld ( essentially neutering them...) then they'll be jerks without the equipment.
Properly fixed males can STILL be a hassle in breeding season. Females will be in heat, and they will be agitated. Naturally, males will be Males, and will be curious... and FORGET a lady riding a Stallion, especially at her time of the month.
Seriously, male horses can be mean. They can be trained, but they are still animals which have the Prime Natural Directive programmed into their genes.

*pokey de Viresse* - character descriptions moderator
The Santharian Dream - Home sweet Home...

I'll be honest.  I don't know dittly-squat about horses, and only picked stallions because I thought it sound best when combined with "War".  Since most people say to go with mares, I'll do that, but since its essentially Timeras' horse, it's up to him.  I'll add some more about the horse and how it came to be.

War-Horse. That sounds fine. It really rolls off the tongue.

You are Cordially invited to the place of

Hey, works for me.

I aggree with the other guys, do you really need to make your own horse. You could just use the Kev'lor.

Edited by: Talos Fargarin at: 7/20/02 11:34:24 pm

Talos, weve already astablished that that could be done, but id prefer some uniqe qualitys, were esentilly modifying the kev'lor to fit these needs, and yes everybody else ... War-horse would be better

Edited by: Timeras at: 7/20/02 11:36:51 pm

Take some real world example like Icelander and ponies, get a horse book (steal it from your sister if necessary and look it up) some races were esspecially bred for cold regions and would fit very well.

For the Kev'Lor thing: ???
That is quite a distance and you need less than 5 centuries to create your own line of horses, many distinguishable horse races today are even only few centuries old. When man breds animals for a purpose there can be a swift change in appearance, stamina, etc... very quickly.

And what is it that suddenly people have something against beast entries?? I better get go back learning programming, BAH!  

Koldar Mondrakken, Knight of the Moonlight
--Santharian Master of Disaster--
One day I'll be the greatest of all Jedi!!

Well it's going to take quite a bit more than this to be it's own entry. For one, the stuff under habit doesn't really fit there. So it was bred for cold and can travel through snow, that's not really a habit. And saying 'inches, or even a few feet' doesn't makea  whole lot of since either. Any horse can travel through tall snow, they'd just get real cold, and it would take a while. But why mention the inches if it can go through feet? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Could use some more under behavior. And if they're trained for war, them going wild wouldn't make a lot of sense, no matter what bond there is. Being trained for war means that they're trained to stay calm, because otherwise they would go wild anyway because of all the noise and commotion.

And why are the necks and tails different colors from the rest? With horses, any odd coloration is splotches and spots. If it is descended from the Kev'lor it's coloring should be the same, or at least have a difference that makes sense, not a section of color instead of random patches or something.

Tarquet Galbar,
BeastMaster Of Santharia
Creator of Weavers
Chronicler of the Rahaz-Dath Mercenaries

Odd coloration? There are various races marked through the coloring of their neck and tail. (First I think of is the "Hafflinger" a Alpine mountain horse)

Spots are only normal among American mustangs and maybe ponies which were explicitely bred to have spots!! A normal horse has one or two main colors and these are split up between body and the more wiry hair of neck and tail.
Coloring a horse really doesn't take long!

But the lack of detail and  consistency is still true... so some further research on the topic and there should be much detail found about them!  

Koldar Mondrakken, Knight of the Moonlight
--Santharian Master of Disaster--
One day I'll be the greatest of all Jedi!!

See updated post at top!!

I changed the color a little bit because of 2 reasons: a)The colors would randomly change anyways, and b) to make it more unique.  I'll change it as to how you suggested.

The colors would randomly change? How do you figure?

Tarquet Galbar,
BeastMaster Of Santharia
Creator of Weavers
Chronicler of the Rahaz-Dath Mercenaries

yeah, what do you mean by that?

You see, unlike humans, horses' skin/fur color change unpredictably, whereas a human sticks straight to one of their parent's hair color.  A foil can have parents that only have black skin/fur, and turn out to have brown with white spots, or white with black spots...  It's really unpredictable, but pretty cool.  Unfortunately, that's why a horse is really prized to be one pure color (at least, you know, like back in medieval China, or whereever....), because it's hard to get it one color.  Or at least, I think they were valuable for one color...  Anyways, it the horse good?

....Where did you hear this? It's wrong, whoever told you. I grew up with horses and my dad is a vet, I know what I'm talking about. Genetics simply doesn't allow it. There may be a recessive allele for a certain coloration, and both parents could only exhibit the dominant allele while being a carrier for teh recessive allele, and the child inheriting the recessive allele from each parent. But they don't randomly change color.

Tarquet Galbar,
BeastMaster Of Santharia
Creator of Weavers
Chronicler of the Rahaz-Dath Mercenaries

Well, Tarq apparently knows a bit more about horses than me, but I have heard about genetics a bit in school. And I KNOW that things don't randomly change colors. A horse has just about as much chance of it having a different hair color than its parents as a human, but if you look back at its grandparents, and so on, you'll probably find a few of that color. One of my friends has red hair while all the rest of her family has darker hair (brown and dark brown) and she didn't get it randomly. Its not too uncommon...

Stormcrow

Psychotic Wizard-Type