Printable summary

The way I am going to post these is in this format:
Rules, then summaries. Feel free to use either or both.
Most people
find the rules too heavyweight, but use the summaries

I am going to start with the walking speed rules:

1.) I am using the official map scale of 1" = 800 miles.
As I measured it, the Scavenger Sons seeeeeems to have a 1
1/2" = 800 miles.

2.) My research comes from the historical journeys of
Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus. It also comes from
Marathons (26.2 miles), Ultrathons (50 mile, 100 mile and
1000 mile) and the Trans-America Foot race (2880 miles
from East to West Coast U.S.).

4.) This is not incredibly realistic. According to Marco
Polo's travels, his caravan traveled an average of 7.3
miles / day. This makes the optimistic assumption that
they did not travel on Sundays. If they didnt, and
traveled steady (they didnt) it would have been somewhere
around 4.45 miles / day. Obviously, if you want more
realism you would need to account for terrain and weather,
stride length, etc.

5.) This is set with 2.5 MPH being the average walking
speed of the average human being, which is not
uncontested. I have seen stat of 2.5 - 3.3 MPH. I'm going
with 2.5. It's easy.

6.) The system: get your Stamina + Endurance pool. Divide
by 4, and add 2. This is your walking speed. Note that I
am using Sta+End throughout, not Dex+Ath, or Dex +
anything. Walking and long distance running are slow
twitch, endurance based activities. Sprinters are not
marathoners.
To repeat, the formula is [(Dex+End) / 4] + 2 = walking
speed in MPH. This means "Jed", the average peasant (2
Sta, no End) would be [ (2+0) / 4] + 2 = 2.5 MPH. How
about that! On the other end, "Burning Soles" your Solar
Zenith distance runner (5 Sta, 5 End) would top out at
[(5+5) / 4] = 4.5 MPH.

7.) You can walk at your walking speed for 4 hours without
fatigue. After 4 hours roll your Sta+End. The success are
how many more hours you can walk before starting to
accumulate fatigue. If you exceed this amount of time, you
accumulate a -1 penalty per hour of movement, until you
rest and eat. Example: Jed walks for 4 hours at 2.5 MPH.
He has gone 10 miles. However he needs to push on to get
to his village, so the ST rolls Sta+End (2 dice) for him.
He gets 1 success. So Jed walks on for another hour
without fatiguing. Unfortunately his village was 20 miles
from his starting point, so he walks for 3 hours after
that. By the time he gets to his village, he is suffering
from a -3 penalty. He needs to rest and eat before his
penalties go away.
8.) You can increase your speed to double. This is called
your double time, appropriately. You can run for 1 hour
before needing to roll Sta+End. Each success adds 1/2 hour
before fatigue sets in, as above. Example: Burning Soles
is running from the Wyld Barbarians. His double time is 9
MPH. He runs for an hour, then rolls Sta + End. He gets 6
successes. He can run for another 3 hours before fatigue
starts to affect him.
9.) The next step up is triple time. Speed is tripled,
obviously. You can triple time it for 30 minutes before
the Sta+End roll comes. The successes only add 15 minutes
per success. Example: Jed is running from Fair Folk. He is
running at 7.5 MPH. He scores 2 success, and manages to
run for hour. He is then eaten by a hobgoblin going 10.25
MPH.
10.) After accumulating more penalties than your current
wound levels, you start to take bashing damage. Example:
Burning Soles is down to 6 wound levels. After running
doubletime in the above example, he runs for a total of 12
hours. He is at -8 penalties and takes 2 levels of bashing
damage. Your call as to whether or not each -1 subtracts
1/4 MPH.

And here are the summaries:

Here are sample walking/Horse riding speeds based on a 6
hour day. If you wish to change things see rules above.
These are not perfect, but they work pretty well for those
who do not wish to do the math.

OK, for those who want a simple shortcut for how many
miles per day for their party:

Joe Genero, Average Peasant/Merchant/Extra: 13 miles /day
Militia Soldier: 16 miles /day
Infantry Soldier: 18 miles /day
Elite Soldier: 24 miles / day
Heroic Mortal: 24 miles /day
Exalted: 28 miles / day
Mounted on regular horse: 21 miles /day
Mounted on warhorse: 27 miles / day
Mounted on Marukan swift: 30 miles /day
Mounted on Marukan scout: 36 miles / day
Mounted on Marukan scout w/2 replacements: 72 miles /day
Guild Caravan: 6 miles / day

Horses have a dramatically different physiology than we
do. This comes from different evolutionary choices and
domestication. When it comes to traveling, there are three
main differences:
1.) Horses are fast runners. They are naturally a prey
animal, so they evolved for fast movement to get away from
predators. Most predators are also fast runners, designed
to catch fast moving prey. This means that horses, like
most prey animals, are inferior to humans when it comes to
endurance running. On the other hand, they are
tremendously quicker over the short haul. Humans top out
about 22-24 MPH. Horses can easily achieve 40+ MPH in a
sprint. For anyone who's interested, there is footage of
Jesse Owens outrunning a horse, til about 10 yards. Then
the horse gets it's legs under it and blows him away. But
horses are fast runners, rather than endurance runners.
2.) Like most prey animals, horses can run themselves to
death. If frightened or directed, they will keep a pace
that will kill them. This means that the rider must be
cognizant of this and allow for it. If not, he or she may
be stranded out in th middle of nowhere without a mount.
This means that you can push a mount, but you must allow
it to rest afterwards. There are endurance races that
are "100 milers". Horse and rider will do 50 miles a day.
Afterwards, they rest the mount for quite some time.
3.) Horses are much more terrain sensitive than humans. A
horse can do 30 miles per day in grasslands, but only 5-8
miles in mountainous terrain.
Here are my rules for horse travel:
A horse's walking speed is [ (Sta+End) / 2 ] +2 MPH. A
horse may travel for 4 hours before making the Sta+End
roll, as above. The differences are:
a.) The ST can assign a difficulty penalty for terrain.
When the horse has starts to fatigue (see above), he will
suffer a -2 penalty per hour. When this reaches above the
horses Stamina + Endurance, the horse will suffer Lethal
damage instead of Bashing.
b.) The horse must rest for at least double the time
ridden, and eat. You can alleviate this problem with
replacements. A human is a heavy burden for a horse to
carry. By switching out the horse you are riding, you can
up to double the time before a horse fatigues. A Russian
Cossack named Mikhail Vasilievitch Aseev made over 65
miles per day with this technique. For two horses, fatigue
will start at 6 hours, for 3 horses 8 hours. Realise that
the second horse must be carrying very little for this to
work.
c.) If you are a cruel and heartless bastard, you can get
incredible times out of horses if you are willing to ride
the horse to death. There was a fellow who bet that he
could ride from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Independence,
Missouri in eight days. He did over a 100 miles per day,
and killed 3 horses and two mules in the process. I think
the guy was an asshole, to put it bluntly. But there are
plenty of valid reasons in myth and fiction to ask all of
a mount. There are also plenty of villians willing to put
their own needs first. You'll need to do a Ride check, and
probably a Conviction roll.

I am now posting the travel speeds for horses and horse
riding. I have finished my research, such as it is. I am
not claiming to be an kind of authority on horses, horse
breeding, equine physiology or psychology. I do know that
I now know more about horses than I ever expected to. Most
of this is drawn from the Complete Horse Book, and the
Encylopedia of Horses, and Horse: A History. I also used
http://www.endurance.net for trail riding and endurance
racing. Another great help was
http://www.thelongridersguild.com, which deals exclusively
with riding for over a 1000 miles.

Here is an addendum to my riding rules. I realised that
all the horses listed in the book do not have Endurance
ratings. So I have changed it. Below you will find my
altered horse stats:

Type: Str/Dex/Sta
Ath/End Walking Speed Maximum Speed
Regular Horse: 4/2/3
3/0 3.5 MPH 50
yards/turn
War Horse: 6/2/5
4/1 5 MPH 54
yards/turn
Marukan Rider: 4/2/3
3/1 4 MPH 50
yards/turn
Marukan Dray: 6/2/4
3/1 4.5 MPH 50
yards/turn
Marukan Swift: 4/4/4
5/2 5 MPH 66
yards/turn
Marukan Battler: 6/3/5
4/2 5.5 MPH 58
yards/turn
Marukan Scout: 4/2/5
3/4 6.5 MPH 50
yards/turn
Marukan Finest: 6/4/5
5/4 6.5 MPH 66
yards/turn

For maxiumum speed I used [(Dex+Ath) X 4] + 30 yards /
turn. For MPH multiply the score by .681.
I changed the Marukan Swift stats, because I believe that
a racing horse should go faster than a war horse. For
those who are interested in what I think the different
Marukan breeds equivalents are:
The Marukan Rider is most like the Lippanzer. The Marukan
Dray is either a Hackney, Clydesdale or Morgan. The
Marukan Swift is closest to the Thoroughbred, and also the
Arab. The Marukan Battler is a Percheron or Fresian. The
Marukan Scout could be either a Quarter Horse, Cleveland
Bay, or Tennessee Walking Horse. The Marukan Finest is the
usual ideal "Fantasy Horse" that is found so often in
Fantasy stories. These are all IMHO, of course. Let me
know what you all think.

Sailing and boat speed:

I have finished my research into sailing and boats. Might
I say, wow! This is an incredibly complex topic. The
physics defy a simple realistic model. There are too many
variables involved. So as per my above posts, I have gone
with a semi-realistic model.

For my research into sailing and boating, I used The
Complete Beginners Guide to Sailing by Drummond, and Speed
Sailing by Jobson & Toppa. I also used many web sites,
such as www.sailnet.com. The info on Triremes comes from
history buffs home pages (too long to list), as well as a
project to build a recreation of a trireme over at
http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/trireme/ . I used
Columbus' voyages, as well as Magellan's for historical
significance.

I have designed two models. One is simpler and easier to
figure. The other takes more into account of the boats
speed rating. I have made certain assumptions about
Exalted sailing vessels, per Savage Seas. They are not
supposed to be especially efficient when it comes to
catching wind. They do not heel in the wind (heeling is
when your boat tips to one side while reaching or running.
It allows for greater speed in many situations.) Like real
world vessels, they like a gentle breeze best. In a gale,
they are only doubling in speed from a gentle breeze, due
to reefing sails. All this is found on pages 24-26. This
uses the Beaufort Wind Force Model, found on pg 26 of
Savage Seas.

Model 1:

First figure out your ships speed rating. Next figure the
Wits + Sail of the person in charge. Have that player roll
Wits+Sail. Add in the ships speed rating as auto
successes. Each success is 5% efficiency of wind strength.
Then add 10% as a baseline speed. Finally, consult the
chart below. For example: Dera is the captain of a Blue
Water Merchant. She is sailing in a gentle breeze going 8
knots. Her Wits + Sail is 6. Her player rolls 5 successes.
Her ships speed rating is 3. 5 + 3 = 8. (8 X 5%) + 10% =
50%. 50% is less than the maximum efficiency of 60%, so
her speed is 4 knots. Example 2: Dera is trying to sail in
a gale going 40 knots. She rolls 6 successes. 6 + 3 = 9.
(9 X 5%) + 10% = 55%. Unfortunately, she can only go 35%
at wind force 8. So she is sailing at 14 knots, and having
to make Wits + Sail rolls as detailed in Savage Seas, pg 25

Wind Force Max. Efficiency
1 (1-3 knots) 40%
2 (4-6 knots) 50%
3 (7-10 knots) 60%
4 (11-16 knots) 55%
5 (17-21 knots) 50%
6 (22-27 knots) 45%
7 (28-33 knots) 40%
8 (34-40 knots) 35%
9 (41-47 knots) 30%
10 (48-55 knots) 20%
11 (56-63 knots) 15%
12 (64+ knots) 10%

Model 2:
The second model is very similar to the first. There are 3
differences:

1. The ship has a maximum speed, equal to the speed rating
X 3. This in knots. Thus a Small Coaster cannot go over 9
knots per hour.
2. The ST can increase difficulty if you need to tack into
the wind. For example, if you are trying to flee the
Lintha pirates and you need to beat into the wind, your ST
could increase the "base difficulty" by 3-4 on your Wits +
Sail roll.
3. The sail boat's speed rating determines Maximum
Efficiency. See the table below:

Wind Force Max. Efficiency
1 (1-3 knots) 10% + (Speed rating X 10%)
2 (4-6 knots) 20% + (Speed rating X 10%)
3 (7-10 knots) 30% + (Speed rating X 10%)
4 (11-16 knots) 25% + (Speed rating X 10%)
5 (17-21 knots) 20% + (Speed rating X 10%)
6 (22-27 knots) 15% + (Speed rating X 10%)
7 (28-33 knots) 10% + (Speed rating X 10%)
8 (34-40 knots) 5% + (Speed rating X 10%)
9 (41-47 knots) (Speed rating X 10%)
10 (48-55 knots) (Speed rating X 10%) - 5%
11 (56-63 knots) (Speed rating X 10%) - 10%
12 (64+ knots) (Speed rating X 10%) - 20%

So for example, Dera from the examples in Model 1 is
trying to outrun the Lintha Pirates. She is in a Blue
Water Merchant. She is trying to head directly away from
Bluehaven, but the winds are not cooperating. She has to
beat into the wind (12 knots) to escape. The ST assigns a
base difficulty of 3. Dera's player rolls 4 successes. 4 -
3 = 1 net success. 1 + 3 (speed rating ) = 4. (4 X 5%) +
10% = 30%. This is less than the Maximum Efficiency of
55%, so her net speed is 4 knots. Unfortunately the Lintha
Pirates are in a Fast Courier, with a Water Aspect at the
Helm. He is assessed an increased difficulty of 2 (Fast
Couriers can tack closer into the wind). The ST rolls 6
successes for him out of a Wits + Sail of 9. 6 - 2 = 4. 4
+ 5 = 9. (9 X 5%) + 10% =55%. This is easily below the
Max Eff. of 75%, so his net speed is 6.6 knots. Time to
get out the old daiklave. Example 2: Dera has killed the
Lintha DB and stolen his ship. The Lintha God Blooded in
the Bireme has called up a Hurricane to sink her to the
bottom. Dera at this point is running straight from the
wind. She rolls 9 successes (call it desperation). 9 + 5 =
13. (13 X 5%) +10% = 75%. Unfortunately, in a Hurricane
going 80 knots, her Max Efficiency is 30%. So her speed
should be 24 knots. However, this is over her Maximum
Speed of 15 knots. So she manages to survive the storm
with a few broken spars and a broken mast. She has still
outpaced the Bireme by quite a bit.

On Triremes & Biremes:
Triremes are powered mainly by rowers. Most historians
agree on a rate of 7 knots for a crew rowing for distance.
In battle, to properly use the ram they would accelerate
to 10 knots. Biremes do not have as much speed, but they
are not as heavily covered. So figure 5 knots traveling, 8
knots maximum. I might come up with a system that
differentiates between "regular" and "elite" crews, but that is for later.

And here is the summaries for ships:

Under sail, the amount covered in a day is obviously
proportional to the amount of wind. The stats I am using
depend on these assumptions: 24 hour sailing time (i.e. no
putting into port at night. Halve this amount of miles if
you are dropping anchor every night). In a gale, speed is
only doubled. I am using Columbus and Magellan's averages
for an average 3 dot speed sailing vessel. Please note
that everything is in nautical miles. For those wanting
conversion multiply the mileage by 1.15.

Speed Average miles Wind Speed
1 dot 74 miles / 24 hours Gentle Breeze (8 knots)
2 dot 85 miles / 24 hours Gentle Breeze (8 knots)
3 dot 100 miles / 24 hours Gentle Breeze (8 knots)
4 dot 112 miles / 24 hours Gentle Breeze (8 knots)
5 dot 130 miles / 24 hours Gentle Breeze (8 knots)
1 dot 150 miles / 24 hours Gale (32 knots)
2 dot 170 miles / 24 hours Gale (32 knots)
3 dot 200 miles / 24 hours Gale (32 knots)
4 dot 230 miles / 24 hours Gale (32 knots)
5 dot 260 miles / 24 hours Gale (32 knots)
This covers everything except for Triremes and Biremes.
Now an ancient Triremes average "travel" speed was 7
knots. Under normal circumstances you cannot work a crew
for 24 hours. So I figured work the crews for 12 hours,
then sail for the rest. That gives us:
Ship Average miles Wind Speed
Bireme 108 miles / 24 hours Gentle Breeze (8 knots)
Trireme 132 miles / 24 hours Gentle Breeze (8 knots)
Needless to say, they do not row during a gale. Use the
wind, eh? Now this assumes a regular crew of rowers. If
you are using the dead or Fair Folk leavings, realise that
you can use the "combat speed", which for Triremes is 10
knots and Biremes is 8.5 knots. So a Trireme staffed by
zombies can cover 240 miles a day on average.

Here's the last set of posts. In this post I am dealing
with river travel. This is drawn from several river
oriented websites, and several rowing websites. For long
distance rowing, I used the Atlantic Rowing Challenge as a
benchmark. Here are some things to know about rivers and
rafting:

1.) River pilots must use their eyes when traversing a
river. As a result, without magic they cannot navigate at
night. This cuts down on travel distances covered in a
day. Lamplight is not bright enough to go down a river and
catch sandbars, logs and other navigation hazards. For
someone who is crazy enough to try to navigate by the
light of an anima banner, increase the Wits+Sail roll by
diff 2.

2.) Rivers have speeds. This can either work for you
(downstream) or against you (upstream). A rivers velocity
is determined by how sharp the downhill angle, the shape
of the riverbed and it's consistency. Usually the river is
fastest at the headwaters, and when it is at a sharp
downward angle. It is slowest on the flatlands, and near
where it flows into the sea. Right at it's exit point, the
mouth of a river is subject to the tides, to a greater or
lesser extent. This will come into the model later.
3.) Rivers flow downhill. This seems intuitive, but can
trip some up. Rivers exit into the sea. They do not flow
from the sea to elsewhere, without magic. So the Grey
River flows from Rathess to Nexus, not the other way
around.
3.5) Most rafts and boats are considerably less efficient
than a trireme or bireme. This is because they have many
less rowers or polers. Also they are not going in a
straight (ish) line most of the time.
4.) Poling is much less efficient than rowing. However, it
is easier to use than oars / paddles, and can be used in
places where the river is too shallow for efficient
rowing. Paddles are less efficient than oars.
Here are the rules:
1.) Figure the average Str+Athletics of the rowers. The
equation is [ (Str+Ath) / 3 ] +.5 =MPH. This is for oars.
For paddles [(Str+Ath) / 3.5] +.25 =MPH. For poling
[(Str+Ath) / 4 ] +.15 =MPH. If the ST determines that
there aren't enough rowers for this, she can reduce the
pool (i.e. if there are only half the right amount of
rowers for this barge, she can reduce the rowers pool by
up to half).
2.) They can do this pace for 4 hours without chance of
fatigue. After that roll Sta + End. each success equals 1
more hour. After that they fatigue as stated in the first
post on running speeds.
3.) They can row faster than this, a "racing speed" if you
will. This is doubletime for rowers. They can keep it up
for about 1/2 hour before needing to roll Sta + End. Each
success counts as 20 min more before fatigue sets in.

4.) Due to the weight of water, there is no "tripletime"
for rowing.
5.) The ST needs to estimate the velocity of the river. In
the flatlands, this will be negligible. For decent
Mississippi river speeds, this can be up to 1.3 MPH. For
decent Amazon river speeds, this can be about 3-4 MPH. In
whitewater, the rapids can reach 10-15 MPH. In a flood,
this can be over 15 MPH. This velocity is added to the
downstream speed. If you are traveling upstream, subtract
half the speed of the river.
6.) The river pilot needs to roll Wits+Sail to navigate
the river. The ST needs to assign a difficulty for
navigating the river. For regular wide riverbeds, this is
standard difficulty. Add 1-3 for navigation hazards. Add 1
for twisty, narrow banks. Add 1-3 for high (over 5 MPH)
velocity rivers. If this roll is failed, the raft / boat
goes at a reduced speed (I use a 20% penalty per missed
success). If botched, it means that the raft hit
something. If someone is trying to raft at night without
light add +4 diff.