OG CAMEL
Faster than all but the fastest horses (except when loaded up with impressive loads of 600 pounds, at which point they're slow), camels seem like a pretty good beast of burden, though they aren't as good at kicking and biting as war-horses. They have a 50% chance to spit at people coming to ride them, with a 25% chance to blind for 1d3 rounds, so I suppose this 1/8 chance of being blinded could impair speedy getaways via camel and make horses slightly preferable. Bactrians are slightly slower than dromedary, and are tolerant of cold areas as well as the desert areas of typical camels. Both can go for 2 weeks without food or water, which is an obvious advantage over horses.
Sunset Realm Camel
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| you might be thinking 'lame, another no effort animal scribble' but you see if I drew everything from the camel's ears to the camel's toe, the blog would have to be nsfw |
First off, the hump IS full of water. Take that, biologists! Bactrian camels tend to have their humps freeze and be full of ice, making insulated saddles a must when riding them in cold weather. Camels do not die if their hump is pierced, but won't be able to go without water until healed and rehydrated, naturally. However, before you go sticking a straw into your camel, it is usually a better survival tactic to dump possessions to lighten the load, and then ride the camel towards a water source, as camels will make it further through the desert than you can. Smugglers sometimes deflate a hump and fill it with illegal goods, though this does not make for a happy or healthy camel. This is the origin of the nickname of a 'Smuggler's Mule.'
Dromedary camels are native to Saresare, and Bactrian camels are the moonland variety, being better suited to the frequent cold. While they were tamed in ancient times by Our Lady of Gardens, Saresare prefers to place its trust in the Law, rather than in gods and suns, and so their beasts of burden are a little sassier, both their camels (favored by the lower classes and merchants) and high-spirited horses (favored by the upper classes).
Entertainment wise, there are of course camel races, the official royal ones held either in or near cities having prize pools of 25 thousand silver, and the unofficial race 'Night's Temptation' held every 10 years or so and attended only by shady nobles and wealthy criminals. This invite-only race has a prize pool of a quarter-million gold coins, and is a multi-week race to an oasis town out in the Black Sands of the moonland, where treachery and murder of ones opponents is of course disallowed, but expected regardless. Vulch can typically be found along the path, waiting to eat the dead and guide souls to their desired resting place, but undead racers from last time often rise from the desert to participate, or simply take undiscriminating revenge.
Lesser known is the sport of camel wrestling, where camels are induced to wrestle each other, and the #1 camel (out of about 200 active ones, typically) is worth as much as winning an official royal camel race to interested parties. The camel that didn't fall down or run away is the winner. Yeah I dunno how they'd wrestle either but I didn't make this up, it was on wikipedia
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