Bactrian in The Saddle Again

One of my plans for my campaign world is to do away with horses. They are extinct. As a result, it has become a badge of affluence to have a golem sculpted in the form of a horse -- dungeon-bling, if you will.

But what does everyone else do?

However much I loved the idea of one of my fellow blognards -- a series of catapults and nets as a means of transit -- it just didn't have the right tone.

The first cromulent idea came to me as I was watching some travel show about the Chinese hinterlands -- just a shot of a Bactrian's lower half coming over the crest of a sand dune.

After all, my world is inspired, in part, by Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique, which he described as comprising "Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia, India, parts of northern and eastern Africa, and much of the Indonesian archipelago."

In a word (or two): camel country.

Quite helpful is an article by Mitch Williamson over at War and Game: "Camels in Ancient Warfare."

After all, thanks to the President's new anti-tobacco pogram, Joe Camel will definitely be needing work.

Now, I just need to get me a DVD of Hawmps! and I'll be set.