Our party is about to embark on a trip pretty much all the way up the
Smoke from Stirling in Caithness to Craine in Megalos. They're
transporting a warhorse, a riding horse, a knights full complement of
equipment, and the various bits and bobs that adventurers insist on
taking wherever they go.
My only experience with low-tech water travel is with canoes, but I'm
sure you can't put a warhorse in a birch-bark canoe without him wearing
it. Even a 20-footer.
My best guess for likely conveyance is some kind of barge-like object.
It's going upstream, so it's not going to be a quick trip. However, I
know pretty much nothing about barges: how they're propelled (especially
against the current), what they look like, etc etc etc.
I'm currently thinking about having them taken upstream by a goblin
water-rat - the kind of nomadic feller who has his entire family on the
boat, and makes his living shipping things and people up and down the
Smoke, the Conn, and perhaps the Makarem.
All the horses and stuff plus a family implies a pretty big barge, but
the Smoke looks like a pretty big river. How big, I have no idea - I
hope it's not drawn to scale on the maps, or it's about 20 miles wide in
places. If anyone can suggest a real world river that compares (the
Volga? The Mississsippi? the Nile?) I can look up some information on it.
How DOES a large barge move against the current at TL3, anyways? Towed
by animals or humanoids on shore? By sail? It seems like it would be a
bit big to pole it unless you have like a giant or something. Ditto
rowing, and paddling is RIGHT out. The chinese had a sort of man-powered
paddle-wheel, but that would be totally not in theme for what I'm trying
for. Any ideas what would be appropriate on the Smoke?
And any clue HOW big this thing should be would be great - I'm mostly
trying to figure living space - 50' by 20'? bigger? smaller? I have no
frame of reference :(
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