Horse
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Horses (Equus ferus caballus) are a subspecies of odd toes ungulates native to the continent of Eurasia on planet Earth. Horses are quadrupedal herd dwelling herbivorous (specifically grazing) creatures that usually weigh between 250 and 1000 kilograms and are well adapted to long distance running. Starting around 4,000 BCE, horses were domesticated by humans, first for food, but eventually their primary use was as beasts of burden and in particular as mounts to carry humans about. They would remain one of the main methods of transporting humans over long distances until the industrial revolution when they were gradually superseded by rail transport and automobiles.
Types of Horse
Like dogs, horse have been bred by humans into a wide variety of breeds for specialized purposes in different areas. To keep this contained in general they are divided into three groups...
- Hotbloods: Small, lightly built horses which have great speed and stamina, but can't carry much. Notable Hotbloods include Arabians, excellent for hit and run attacks.
- Coldbloods: Big, Heavily built horses. Very strong and durable, but pretty slow. Notable Coldboods include Clydesdales and Destriers. Destriers were favored by Europeans as they could carry heavily armored knight around easily and were great for charging into enemy formations, however there inbreed aggressiveness, which was great for charging, meant they were poor horse for use in peace as draught horses and are a extinct horse breed.
- Warmbloods: Medium sized horses that are somewhere in between hotbloods and coldbloods and good all rounders. Most modern racing horses are Warmbloods.
A more extensive list of horse breeds can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_horse_breeds
In addition there are a few other categories of horses worth mentioning.
- Mules:Really more of a half horse, mules are what happen when you cross a donkey with a regular horse makeing them the half dwarf of the Equine world. Mules have horse mothers and donkey fathers, while the offspring of male horses and donkey mothers are called Hinnys. Mules tend to have the size and ground-covering ability of its mother while being stronger then a horse of similar size, and need less food then a horse of similar size. Generally in fiction mules are used the same way donkeys are, to show foppishness and stupidly on the behalf of the rider, but they are more often use as pack animals.
- Ponies: A broad category of small horse breeds, often bred to be easier to manage and requiring less resources. Often these were bred in less hospitable climates of for training purposes.
As general terminology goes a female horse is a mare, a male horse is a stallion unless it has been castrated to make it less aggressive, then it's a gelding.
Horses in Warfare
More than any other non human animal (except maybe dogs) the horse has been a direct aide to humans at war as a beast of burden, draft animal and as a mount. An average horse can keep up at for over a kilometer at full gallop and keep up a slower canter of 15km/h an hour for an hour. First and foremost a horse means you can travel more quickly from Point A to Point B that you can on foot which offers you a tremendous tactical advantage over your pedestrian foes. It should be noted, that horses do not increase your army's strategical mobility, as while a well fit horsemen can travel much faster for a few hours, well fit infantry may march at sufficient speed all day long for a few days at a pace that would actually kill any horse, so at a long march horses actually hinder your army. Yup, humans are hardy motherfuckers like that.
Though there were probably a few guys who tried riding horses into battle before this and there, our first records of people using horse for warfare with large scale success was with chariots, which began to show up around 2000 BCE. Early in their domestication horses were fairly small short legged critters compared tot their modern counterparts. There was also another matter in staying on the back of a horse in the heat of battle. As such one of the best ways to make use of a horse in battle was to have two or more of them pulling a small lightly built carriage which could carry one or more guys into battle. Usually this would be a driver who had the reigns and either an archer or a guy with a spear. Chariots became very widespread going from Spain to China. Chariots could be used to run circles around enemy formations, charge enemy formations (especially if they had blades stuck to their wheels) and were good places for a commander to command his troops. A historical note before we go on: the roman roads were designed for chariots, and later horse drawn carriages, when cars were invented they had to fit the existing road so the width of a modern car and a ancient chariot is fairly close.
However chariots have a problem in there use, there expensive since you have to take care of two horses, pay two riders, and get a chariot, and there not all that effective as the Roman foot soldiers proved. But riding a single horse was still not picnic. You sometimes hear the statement "Calvary only exist because of the stirrup", which is not true as the Numidians who ass kicked the Romans time and time again in the punic wars proves. What the Stirrup did do is allow the rider to "lock" himself in place so that he can charge without getting unseated. If two roman era Calvary men attempted a Medieval style joust, they both go flying every time. You could be a cavalry men before the stirrup, it just meant charging was a much riskier idea then it would be for the later Knights.
After the stirrup DID come to Europe by invading nomadic horsemen from central asia however you can see the effect they had on warfare. This was the time of the heavy knight able to guide, control and most of all stay atop an warhorse as he drove it directly into the enemy lines. The Knight was the tank of his age, heavily armored, highly mobile and well armed with lance, shield and sword and able to fight with all three from an advantage of height over the peasants he lorded over. While the Roman had made an Empire with infantry it was Medieval Heavy Calvary that carved there own feudal realms. But Calvary are expensive, not as much as Chariots since you have half as many horses, but a notable expense none the less. Hence the development of feudalism to support as many armored elite knights with as little administrative costs as possible. Each knight got his little fief that he taxed to cover his upkeep costs.
While most Europeans were mainly interested in horses for their major charge bonus elsewhere people were more interested in horses as mounts for archers. On open terrain archer on horseback can literally run rings around an infantry formation while pelting them with arrows at a long distance well away from their spears.
In Traditional Games
Role-playing games set in the typical vaguely-medieval-European setting will invariably have horses (or some other setting-appropriate mount, like giant lizards or camels) available to speed travel and increase load capacity between locations. Certain classes, like knights, may have skills to use their horse in combat for increased speed and attack power. Caring for a horse is extremely complicated, to the point that real-world knights and horse-owning nobles had servants specifically tasked with managing the horse; they need to be fed, groomed, and fitted with equipment like horseshoes, saddles, and reins to operate at peak efficiency, and they are not as adaptable to terrain or as capable of sustaining a heavy pace as a human. Most role-players are more interested in crawling through dungeons than playing "Horse Stable Manager 1500", so the needs and capabilities of horses are usually kept well abstracted.
Greek mythology also includes legends of centaurs, creatures which consist of a man's upper body connected to a horse body at the shoulder (the horse-body's shoulder); naturally, role-playing games include them as monsters or player-character races.
The ancient Greeks believed that in far off lands there was a head horned creature called a unicorn, which coincided with a critter that was described in the old testament. Given the context of what they were talking about these were probably Indian Rhinos, but this did not stop European artists to imagine these creatures as being like Horses with horns based off Narwhal Tusks. Since the classical depiction of unicorn was a huge horse with a long sharp horn coming out of it's forehead which it could use to impale people with, in the middle ages the unicorn was a symbol of masculinity. Times have changed. Or did they...?