Walking

W is for Walking in our twenty second edition of the Deepest Sea, A-Z.

Walking, riding, and other methods of leg powered locomotion over land are always critical function of travel, particularly so in the Deepest Sea where navigable rivers rarely cross the Rim.

In the D&D rules, a character has a maximum movement rate per day of standard move/5=miles.  A standard move of 100 feet per turn is equivalent to 20 miles per day. Roads add 50% to that amount, "forcing" the march adds another 50% per day.  Using this information, we find that the max rate of movement for a man on a horse on a road on a forced march would be 240/5*2=96 miles per day.  That is some pretty serious traveling!

Random walking facts:
Marathon (26.2 miles), fastest time is just over 2 hours. 
Horse walk speed, 4mph
Roman march, was 24 roman miles with a load in 5 summer hours.
Roman league was 2.2 km, or half as much as a man could walk in an hour.
Cattle can be driven 15 miles per day and not lose weight, or 25 a day at fastest.

In the Deepest Sea, as mentioned above, walking is the main mode of transport for the majority of the population.  Carriages exist for the very rich, moving between close cities, but in general the people walk, and nobles ride. 

Dwarves often use trekking poles when walking, which allows them to keep pace with the longer limbed humans or elves.  Dwarves occasionally make use of pack goats and female Dwarves sometimes have riding goats.
Elves are able to keep walking for much longer than a human, and can jog for very long stretches of time.  Before horses were introduced, the Empire maintained runners stationed 30 miles apart for communications, and whole legions would march at a quick step to distant parts of the Empire.  Elves still use riding cattle (mostly steers) for non-military travel.
Orcs do not commonly ride horses, and instead use forest elephants with two Orcs mounting each elephant. When Havlings travel in the company of orcs, many can be mounted on a single elephant.

Thursday, more Deepest Sea A-Z with Xenophobia.