Is an animal-powered railroad too tech for fantasy?

Between SGG's Krazy Kragnar's Used Chariots and my own efforts, one of the things I've run into is the possibility of an aurochs-pulled string of wagons along a set of rails. I've been told this is actually a historical occurrence, but would it throw a monkey-wrench into the suspension of disbelief engine? Another part of the deal could include a special carriage for the local lord, created using Create Construct that drives itself along the rails as the lord surveys his (or her) lands.

My son loves the idea of Wild West meets King Arthur - but has made me promise that any self-propelled wagons or carriages will NOT be intelligent or named Thomas...

Thoughts? Opinions?

As for the horse draw one, it was historic but I would say it would be something only short ranged. Like from a mine to the smelting shops or stuff like that. But I would say go with what ever fantasy tech you are ok with and your group enjoys. I have played in games from very basic tech up to Victorian age level of tech and it is all fun.

It would depend on if it fit the setting or not. I run a 3.5 D&D game that has steam powered trains and everyone is fine with it because it fits the campaign setting that I'm running in. It may feel out of place for traditional sword and sorcery fantasy, but that doesn't mean it still isn't fantasy and still can't be a lot of fun. the odd quirks might even aid in immersion based on how the creation of such tech is explained in the story.

I'm getting feedback from my players on this - they have taken to the idea and are running with it, developing an entire new setting. Now *I* have to do some research on variant magic systems. I love a good brainstorming session that just spontaneously erupts.

Eberon Had trains. I know this may be "Blasphemy" but World of Warcraft has a train.

I'm not entirely sure what constitutes "steam Punk" but they might have trains.

Another thing to consider is the level of technology. Different parts of your world may have different levels of technology.

One civilization may have elemental powered air ships, trains, and self propelled vehicles ( like eberon) and other areas of the world "less civilized" might have stone castles, and others may live in Grass huts.

Have fun with it. IF your players are happy and enjoying it why not.

Animal powered "trains" are indeed historical. I would not think such a thing would interfere with suspension of disbelief. It wouldn't for me. Rome had plumbing (the word for "plumber" comes from the latin word for "lead" which is what Roman plumbers used for the water pipes in the city).

My current campaign has a lord who is interested in astronomy and he has a number of devices which are mostly historically accurate, if magically enhanced, and I have no worries about suspension of disbelief. It's all in the presentation, I think.

By the way, one of the most commonly used explanations for how the Egyptians built the pyramids is essentially an animal powered train system.

Assuming the railway is in common use it would disrupt my suspension of belief due to the nature of the steel used for the rails and the train wheels.

Come up with a way to hand wave that away and it would be fine.

The alternative is to use canals, which also used animals to pull the boats(? is that the right word?)

Yeah, the steel use is my biggest issue, so I'm looking pretty carefully at options there. It is very refreshing to see my "crazy idea" isn't something that would be rejected out of hand. ;) And interestingly, one of my players suggested canals as being an appropriate alternative/adjunct to the railroads.

I think several of us are going to start working on some serious hashing out of what this is going to look like - because it seems to be growing into a full-blown world.

I really like the canal idea. I used it one of my campaigns, but it was mostly an urban campaign, so the PCs rarely, if ever, left town to see the grand canal projects. It was Venice meets Perdido Street Station.

I like the idea of aurochs and maybe even other megafauna used as beasts of burden. Maybe some could have magical "horseshoes" of speed, collars of endurance, and other means of magical aid. Dolphin or minidrake pulled watercraft would be cool, like knights on ski-doos.

At the speed and weight animals could pull a "train" iron tracks would work, I imagine good wood would work. other than the wood not holding up due to weather over the long run.

Canals, such as the Erie Canal, had paths alongside it that horses, mules and oxen were used to pull barges. I kinda like that idea for a port city especially. Fantasy settings also have the option of some sort of domesticated swimming creatures as barge-pullers.

It's true that steel is not quite easy to make and that you need tons of long and straight smithen steel. So what? If you apply realism to dragons, they are either very fragile since they need very big wings in comparison to their body and hollow bones like birds have or they suffocate in our atmosphere like wales do from their own weight (and flying would only be possible by magic).
I'm planing a campaign about pirates who can breathe in space and use lightsabers and santeria magic and bene gesserit mind tricks. There are some movies and animees with crazy steam technology like escaflowne or last exile. Just apply the rule of cool.

Oh and you might want to take a look on the Deadlands RPG. Western with steam punk elements, zombies, tentacle monsters and magic using dandies. It gots the savage world system but I'd really like to see a pathfinder adapation

How high a level of magic do we have to work with in our suggestions? Depending on how much you allow magic to do you could have "trains" that don't look like trains at all.

Also (borrowing from what Eberron did) you could have the constructed tracks be something other than steel bars (the Eberron magic train rode on top of an electric current projecting between tiny pyramids).

Riffing off even that dispense with constructed route altogether and have your "trains" follow the naturally-occurring magical ley lines (of course this assumes your world has anything equivalent).

I was thinking on using primarily wood for the wheels and rails. There's an example not too far from me of an *old* water (I think) pipeline made from bored-out wood, so it holds up well enough to weather - hard use, however, is another story!

Once upon a when, I designed an arena for Car Wars that included an aquabike "jousting field." That would be hysterical to see knights doing it on dolphin-back!

K, I actually considered Deadlands, but since I don't own it, I couldn't. I want to avoid a straight-up Old West ripoff, but achieve more of a blending of frontier spirit with the more traditional fantasy style. Hopefully it will achieve the aforementioned Rule of Cool. ;)

Smilodan, "transport magicks" will definitely have to be developed. ISTR some stuff developed for a WotC product specifically for animals... now I have to dig them out.

Something to keep in mind is how access to such transportation could change the face of society - and how much society is *allowed* to change. More on that later.

The Erie Canal system can be an excellent source of inspiration. It can make some previously small towns big boom cities. In a fantasy setting, you don't have rely on just mules or cattle to do the pulling.

But wooden rails and wheels can also benefit from ironwood spells. And there might even be druidical factories that use rituals to make large amounts of it. They figure it's better for the wood of a single tree be used for 100 years than 100 trees be used for 1 year each.

I may actually have to rip this idea off for my campaign with the druidic Vatican/wild weird west....

Big magics are gonna be ritual, for sure. And I was looking at Ironwood, but hadn't decided for sure if I wanted to use it - but I like your justification.

Yeah, I can see large riding lizards like the Dewbacks from Star Wars being used to pull flatboats along the canals. :thumbsup: (or elephants)

Druidic Vatican/wild weird west? That has potential...

Wow, people are actually saying that animal powered trains would not work because STEEL is not available in the fantasy setting?

First of all, steel did exist in medieval times, it was just a very closely guarded secret. Second, our fantasy realms are overflowing with metals that are superior to iron, including adamantine. Third, asking a wizard to cast "enchant iron" as a blacksmith makes rails to make the iron as strong as steel seems to be a pretty obvious spell that a blacksmith would pay someone to research, so magically enhanced iron (that is essentially steel) should be prevalent in a fantasy world.

Also, iron would be more than strong enough to handle the load of wooden wagons.

Finally, the "trains" that the Egyptians are thought to have used to haul the massive stone blocks from the quarries to the pyramids actually had wooden rails, so if wood can haul 20 ton stones, I think iron can handle wooden wagons and their loads.

A small part of me remembers worrying about any tech ruining the supposed reality of my games, but then I also remember how much we all loved "Barrier Peaks." Anyway, I never question it anymore so long as there is historical precedent of any kind.

I remember a discussion holding up a game as to whether a dark ages inspired town should have so many buildings with glass windows. Well, the Romans had glass windows. But not everybody knows that. So I guess what I am saying is you run the "hi-tech" risk anytime you are playing with at least one historically ignorant person. Which is probably most of the time.

Nowadays with guns and trains and steam power such accepted fantasy tropes, I don't worry about this stuff anymore. But if it makes you feel better, about six years ago I threw a huge warwagon at my PCs, that was driven by teams of ogres turning cranks inside,sort of like one of those DaVinci tanks. Everybody loved it.

Really, people have been clever since there were people. There's not a lot new under the sun that has not been dreamed up by somebody, sometime.

Heh, I know for *me* it's a matter of aesthetics and just general "wow" factor. My players are used to modern-day trains. But what about fantastical trains? "They should *look* different" is the common attitude, one with which I tend to agree, but I can play either way. Wooden wagon-wheels were standard and wooden pipes were as well. So why not use wood with magic? Some cultures are more likely to use metal for rails - like a dwarven outfit. I see the choice of material used to be set-dressing used to differentiate the users. Dwarves refuse to use wood because metal is obviously superior, while elves refuse to use metal because wood is more natural/renewable, etc. It is all in the salesmanship, I think.

If you use the old Wildwood Crafter class Monte Cook came up with for 3.0, you have the crafters automatically making all the wood they craft as strong as ironwood, since they double the hardness of wood and later stone items they make. There's also the 3.5 "Hardening" spell that can be used to the same effect.

Be more useful than iron rails anyway, since a rust monster won't wreck your rail system.

Eberon Had trains.

You have not lived until you have had a running battle on the roof of a runaway lightning rail.

ElyasRavenwood wrote:

Eberon Had trains.

You have not lived until you have had a running battle on the roof of a runaway lightning rail.

Sounds awesome!!!

Reminds me of a d20 Modern battle in a private jet. 3 unarmed PCs vs 3 armed NPCs with a dead pilot and dead co-pilot and only 2 parachutes (one NPC was also a pilot, but none of the PCs had any such skill). The battle mat was 1 square by 8 or 9 squares. It was actually a pretty dynamic battle, especially given the cramped quarters.

Sounds awesome!!!

Reminds me of a d20 Modern battle in a private jet. 3 unarmed PCs vs 3 armed NPCs with a dead pilot and dead co-pilot and only 2 parachutes (one NPC was also a pilot, but none of the PCs had any such skill). The battle mat was 1 square by 8 or 9 squares. It was actually a pretty dynamic battle, especially given the cramped quarters.

It was, and likewise. Action points were burned, spells were cast, gaps between carriages were leapt ...

SmiloDan wrote:

Sounds awesome!!!

Reminds me of a d20 Modern battle in a private jet. 3 unarmed PCs vs 3 armed NPCs with a dead pilot and dead co-pilot and only 2 parachutes (one NPC was also a pilot, but none of the PCs had any such skill). The battle mat was 1 square by 8 or 9 squares. It was actually a pretty dynamic battle, especially given the cramped quarters.

It was, and likewise. Action points were burned, spells were cast, gaps between carriages were leapt ...

Sounds like the truck chase through the jungle with fencing and leaping from truck to truck in Indiana Jones 4 (the only good part about that movie!).

This is making me want to GM again....

You may want to look at Cabinet of Wondersfor some ideas of magi-tech to supplement this new direction for your game. Best of luck, and keep us informed.

Heh, I've been taking large numbers of random setting notes. I haven't been this excited at taking on a new project in quite some time!

Animal powered "trains" are indeed historical.

Historical yes, but they were of very small capacity and extremely short range only. There's both a practical limit to what a animal can drag an how many animals you can hitch up to pull a payload. Also keep in mind that food for that many animals is a lot more bulky than wood or coal would be for an engine.

My answer is bigger animals. Domesticate dinosaurs.

4 triceratops in harness would be an awesome sight...

LazarX - Nosering of Sustenance seems like a viable approach. But if not that, how much and how often do oxen eat? By following the RAW on overland movement, a given train can only travel 8 hrs a day and will, if fully loaded, cover 24 miles. Therefore the railroad will have way-houses every 24 miles (give or take) where the train stops for the night. These tend to turn into notable villages. This way, the trains won't have to carry large amounts of fodder for the oxen. Does that seem viable?

I've wanted to see a fully fleshed out world that uses the system as a baseline and follows everything out to its logical conclusion. Eberron definitely goes down that path, though it doesn't seem to go the whole way.

If you look at the basic building blocks, take the standard array (13, 12, 11, 10 , 9, 8) for any humanoid. Two-thirds of those stats are 10+ and thus qualify for spell use. Because of that, any average person is going to have a massive incentive to just be a spellcaster. The only people that ought to be commoners are people with an 8 and 9 in their Intelligence and Wisdom. Everyone else, out of sheer convenience, ought to eagerly move to a path of low level arcane study or follow a god.

If you look at the 0-level cantrips and orisons, they cover almost everything one would need to live in the world. Clerics in particular only require you to worship them and follow their tenets, which in game terms is so vague and evidently liberal that one could easily farm food most of the time, but kick back the rest of the time with all of the conveniences of low level spells.

Beyond simply handwaving/imposing the NPC classes on the wider population, there isn't any logical reason why anyone would have an incentive to be one. So if you let that go then the whole world becomes quite different if you have 0 to 2nd level spells getting cast daily in the life of a typical town.

Lay aside the abstract and illogical prices for items and fees for services and the whole economy is built around creating magic items. People would spend their feat on scribe scroll or brew potion and just crank those out on a daily basis.

In my last sandbox game I took this assumption. The players were on the edge of civilization, going out into the wild frontier because back in the civilized lands life was incredibly dull. With an economy built on a vast amount of magic consumables, with free physics defying power sources coming from the arcane or divine, people lived out their lives in the kind of comfort that we experience in the modern world.

The civilized world would however look quite different from our own, because there wouldn't be a need, and in fact would be divinely admonished, to extract a great deal of natural resources. Because the arcane and divine are powering most of the conveniences, the natural resources only become the molds that house what is being powered. That drastically reduces the strain on the natural world.

Golarion has some seriously scifi and steampunk areas in it, so it really depends on what everyone wants. There's aliens, dirigibles, and magical deadzones, pretty much whatever you want to have is fair game.

4 triceratops in harness would be an awesome sight...

LazarX - Nosering of Sustenance seems like a viable approach. But if not that, how much and how often do oxen eat? By following the RAW on overland movement, a given train can only travel 8 hrs a day and will, if fully loaded, cover 24 miles. Therefore the railroad will have way-houses every 24 miles (give or take) where the train stops for the night. These tend to turn into notable villages. This way, the trains won't have to carry large amounts of fodder for the oxen. Does that seem viable?

Just note that Oxen aren't exactly speed demons. A train powered by oxen would move at just about walking speed.

How about using golems?

I've wanted to see a fully fleshed out world that uses the system as a baseline and follows everything out to its logical conclusion. Eberron definitely goes down that path, though it doesn't seem to go the whole way.

If you look at the basic building blocks, take the standard array (13, 12, 11, 10 , 9, 8) for any humanoid. Two-thirds of those stats are 10+ and thus qualify for spell use. Because of that, any average person is going to have a massive incentive to just be a spellcaster. The only people that ought to be commoners are people with an 8 and 9 in their Intelligence and Wisdom. Everyone else, out of sheer convenience, ought to eagerly move to a path of low level arcane study or follow a god.

IF they can. There's a difference between an adventurer and the common person or aristocrat. They've got the STUFF, that intangible quality that separates them and puts them on a path to destiny. That Stuff expresses itself in different ways, an attunment to magic, a pathway to the divine, an understanding of arms simply not found in the ordinary man.

May people may want to be a wizard or a sorcerer, but if they don't have the Stuff, the Gift, or whathaveyou, it's not going to happen.

Animal powered trains are too tech for fantasy? What? Animal powered trains are like animal pulled wagons/chariots/coaches/carriages that spent their days eating glue - it's exactly the same except you have to waste your time building rails to limit where they can go.

Why not just use steam powered trains? Or, you know, magic if boiling water leading to turning gears blows your mind. Come on, who wants to soul bind something to an engine.

Just note that Oxen aren't exactly speed demons. A train powered by oxen would move at just about walking speed.

Aurochs base move is 40' - faster than a walk. Fully loaded (heavy encumbrance) drops them to 30' which they can maintain for 8 hours. For a Large animal with a STR of 23, that's a max-load of (600x3=) 1800# and a drag weight of 5x that, 9,000#. If you consider a loaded wagon to be "favorable conditions," then an aurochs' max load is 18,000#. Now, by A&EG standards, you divide the weight being pulled by 4, so that effectively makes a max load of 36,000#. Per aurochs. I'll take the trade-off of 18 TONS *per animal* moving at a walking pace.

As for golems? I'm still working on that. :-/ I need to revisit the newest animated object rules from the AP to see what I can work out. However, I *think* that on a cost per pound basis, the train of herd animals wins. But I plan to revisit and verify.

At the speed and weight animals could pull a "train" iron tracks would work, I imagine good wood would work. other than the wood not holding up due to weather over the long run.

Worn and damaged stretches of track would make for great encounter/hazard possibilities.

Cartigan, I just want to assure you I've read your post, but I don't have time to respond right yet. Short form - "it's a flavor thing."

more later

Sounds like the truck chase through the jungle with fencing and leaping from truck to truck in Indiana Jones 4 (the only good part about that movie!).

This is making me want to GM again....

Never seen it, but I am sure I get the general idea. Our particular fight involved hirelings, summoned monsters, and a clockwork foe. On our side a cleric/radiant servant of the host, a rogue/inquisitor and a wilder out to save the train, the ambassador and the fate of five nations ...

How about using golems?

Cost.

SmiloDan wrote:

Sounds like the truck chase through the jungle with fencing and leaping from truck to truck in Indiana Jones 4 (the only good part about that movie!).

This is making me want to GM again....

Never seen it, but I am sure I get the general idea. Our particular fight involved hirelings, summoned monsters, and a clockwork foe. On our side a cleric/radiant servant of the host, a rogue/inquisitor and a wilder out to save the train, the ambassador and the fate of five nations ...

Talonne Hauk wrote:

How about using golems?

Cost.

Mitigated by the lack of need for food/ water and extreme "lifespan"

Also gets progressively more Blaine the Train from Dark Tower

Talonne Hauk wrote:

How about using golems?

Cost.

How about just using wagons? Hooking rail cars up to a dinosaur or something is immensely more expensive than just hooking a wagon up to the same creature.

This thread is not "What do you think about using animals to pull trains?" It's "I want animals to pull trains in my campaign world and want people to post they agree with me."

In NO practical way does using animals to pull rail cars make any sense. Even if you thought steam was too "Devil's magic!" for D&D, what about D&D magic instead? And if you don't want to do that, then you are wasting your time not using wagons.

Nosering of Sustenance seems like a viable approach.

Permanant floating disk or levitate items used as transportation devices might be cheaper, in the long run.

Now I'm seeing a repulsion spell based mag-lev train system. The repulsion rings are designed so that they can expand in front of the 'train' (weakening the repulsive force) and contract behind the 'train' (strengthenin the repulsive force, pushing the load forward).

Still, no matter how cool that could look, by the time one could make it, it would be vastly cheaper and more efficient to just make a teleport circle between point A and point B. That's the problem with magical technology, IMO, is that anything cool and adventure-hook worthy (raid on the lightning rail!) would be done cheaper and adventure-hook-free by another spell (teleport circle).

Dabbler wrote:

Talonne Hauk wrote:

How about using golems?

Cost.

How about just using wagons? Hooking rail cars up to a dinosaur or something is immensely more expensive than just hooking a wagon up to the same creature.

This thread is not "What do you think about using animals to pull trains?" It's "I want animals to pull trains in my campaign world and want people to post they agree with me."

In NO practical way does using animals to pull rail cars make any sense. Even if you thought steam was too "Devil's magic!" for D&D, what about D&D magic instead? And if you don't want to do that, then you are wasting your time not using wagons.

Who's maintaining the roads for your wagons? The local public utility district?

Fact is, rails make sense for certain settings. Mines are the main one. You have your dwarves mining iron ore and dragging the ore out of the mines via wagons pulled by ponies. At some point someone gets the bright idea of setting up a rail system, they crunch the numbers, and this is viewed to be cost effective. Putting the rails all the way to the smelting facility is also cost effective. If the smelting facility is in a desert and the ponies aren't as good for pulling the carts, then use camels or some form of riding lizard.

The believability of rail systems depends on the setting. In the River Kingdoms where there are ample waterways to get anywhere? No reason for anyone to build a rail system beyond a model train for some rich lord to use to move the salt around his dinner table. In the mana wastes of Alkenstar which have an old west feel? If there isn't a railway already, someone's going to build one very soon.

Who's maintaining the roads for your wagons? The local public utility district?

You think the Oregon trail was paved? Hell no. You hook wagons up to horses, oxen, or asses and haul them through anywhere without trees or rivers. Who is maintaining YOUR railway?

Fact is, rails make sense for certain settings. Mines are the main one. You have your dwarves mining iron ore and dragging the ore out of the mines via wagons pulled by ponies. At some point someone gets the bright idea of setting up a rail system, they crunch the numbers, and this is viewed to be cost effective. Putting the rails all the way to the smelting facility is also cost effective. If the smelting facility is in a desert and the ponies aren't as good for pulling the carts, then use camels or some form of riding lizard.

It's not really even that good there. Maybe in tunnels where carts need to have a controlled and predictable pathing.

I would not see a problem with the following :

Wooden rails, shaped by Druid's using Woodshape spells. These are used as the rails. They could still be alive (which would make druids happy). This is a boon for the druids, they don't have to have people running through the woods chopping things down, the druids can mold the trains to fit the landscape and woods. On plains, switch to darkwood, which is very resistent to rotting. Have druids ride on the trains and check the rails for needed repairs.

Have the train cars be built of darkwood as well (druid shapped into all one piece, so they are light and strong). Use wood or clay golems to pull the trains. These are actually cheaper than animals since they can pull 24/7, take no food requirements, and don't get sick. Plus, you only need 4 to 8 per train, instead of needing to switch out teams every 8 hours. Wood golems have a speed of 30 feet, and an 18 strength. Clay golems have a 24 str and 20 feet of speed. So it's a tradeoff, fewer clay golems to pull a train, but slower, or faster but more more golems needed. Both are about 20K per golem. Again, that's a small price considering the costs of housing, feeding, paying for upkeep, etc on literally hundreds of aurochs or horses.

I have had Dwarven Minng clans use Eath & Fire eleamental and Bulette for minning and crafing for long time in my games for long time.

How about just using wagons? Hooking rail cars up to a dinosaur or something is immensely more expensive than just hooking a wagon up to the same creature.

This thread is not "What do you think about using animals to pull trains?" It's "I want animals to pull trains in my campaign world and want people to post they agree with me."

In NO practical way does using animals to pull rail cars make any sense. Even if you thought steam was too "Devil's magic!" for D&D, what about D&D magic instead? And if you don't want to do that, then you are wasting your time not using wagons.

I'm curious, based on your assertions, two things:

1) How do you explain the historical precedent of animal-drawn railways?

2) How do you justify the existence of modern real life railways, when you could just rely on trucks?

Cartigan wrote:

How about just using wagons? Hooking rail cars up to a dinosaur or something is immensely more expensive than just hooking a wagon up to the same creature.

This thread is not "What do you think about using animals to pull trains?" It's "I want animals to pull trains in my campaign world and want people to post they agree with me."

In NO practical way does using animals to pull rail cars make any sense. Even if you thought steam was too "Devil's magic!" for D&D, what about D&D magic instead? And if you don't want to do that, then you are wasting your time not using wagons.

I'm curious, based on your assertions, two things:

1) How do you explain the historical precedent of animal-drawn railways?

2) How do you justify the existence of modern real life railways, when you could just rely on trucks?

1) Animal drawn railways as methods of long distance travel and hauling?

At the speed and weight animals could pull a "train" iron tracks would work, I imagine good wood would work. other than the wood not holding up due to weather over the long run.

Iron wood? Im with mdt, think magical.

There is always the option of cultivating some kind of fantastical plant/vine that can act like rails in place of actual metal.

Dark_Mistress wrote:

At the speed and weight animals could pull a "train" iron tracks would work, I imagine good wood would work. other than the wood not holding up due to weather over the long run.

Iron wood? Im with mdt, think magical.

There is always the option of cultivating some kind of fantastical plant/vine that can act like rails in place of actual metal.

It doesn't even have to be all that fantastical. Druids can cast woodshape on living trees and shape them. There are trees that along the ground and merge with each other now (Cypress trees will grow together in the root system, and then merge above ground).

Just have the tree's grow roots sideways above ground, and make them grow in a bow, like a whale's rib cage, but upside down, so the 'spine' is the railings, and the tree's grow up and around where the train passes. This adds some protection to the rails as well. Like driving through a tunnel of wood.

EDIT : Come to think of it, I might just steal this idea for my homebrew world. I can see the Elves in my world working this sort of thing up for their country.