Boat options for river travel

[Kaibis]

I am creating a campaign setting on a large river (It's homebrew, but based on FR except when I need to change it). I am envisioning a large river trade route between Baldur's Gate, Elturel, and a large city on the NE of The Reaching Woods. My campaign setting is a small town nestled in the Reaching Woods.

I would like river travel to be a small part of the campaign but I don't know much about old boats. It is a 220mile journey between the two major cities, then a further 150miles upriver to the town.

The PHB options don't quite fit what I need, so I will homebrew a few (2-3) likely river boats (a slow cargo barge, a ferry type boat). Any suggestions on boat styles, costs, speed? Do they have berths etc (I am googling for a good boat resource but haven't found a compendium!!).


Waterborne Vehicles (PHB p157)

Vehicle	Cost	Speed
Galley	30,000 gp	4 mph
Keelboat	3,000 gp	1 mph
Longship	10,000 gp	3 mph
Rowboat	50 gp	1½ mph
Sailing ship	10,000 gp	2 mph
Warship	25,000 gp	2½ mph

[Kaptin Keen]

Well - depending on your intentions, there could be many different things. Earthdawn has steamboats operated by t-skrang boatmens guilds. Historically, if you want lower fantasy options, there would be a lot of rowing or towing by teams of oxen (upriver, clearly). Longboats seem like a good solution for riverboats, but I might be colored by being from longboat land.

If much trade is taking place, there would be a natural push for innovation. Steamboats, water elemental craft of some sort, giant river turtles pulling craft, or with platforms on their shell. River drakes. Minor deities of the river selling miraculous propulsion for prayer.

[Kaibis]

Well - depending on your intentions, there could be many different things. Earthdawn has steamboats operated by t-skrang boatmens guilds. Historically, if you want lower fantasy options, there would be a lot of rowing or towing by teams of oxen (upriver, clearly). Longboats seem like a good solution for riverboats, but I might be colored by being from longboat land.

If much trade is taking place, there would be a natural push for innovation. Steamboats, water elemental craft of some sort, giant river turtles pulling craft, or with platforms on their shell. River drakes. Minor deities of the river selling miraculous propulsion for prayer.

I never thought that far out of the box. Such great colourful ideas. Thank you.

I am happy for "steamboats" (but run on magic, not steam), rowboats are great.

Since you are from longboat land :D Can passengers get a berth on a longboat?

I love the idea of some kind of harnessed beast (giant turtles - heck yeh). River Drakes, deity boats

[jayem]

Well - depending on your intentions, there could be many different things. Earthdawn has steamboats operated by t-skrang boatmens guilds. Historically, if you want lower fantasy options, there would be a lot of rowing or towing by teams of oxen (upriver, clearly). Longboats seem like a good solution for riverboats, but I might be colored by being from longboat land.

Depends on the size of the river (and traditionally english rivers were wider and shallower than they are now). Though if cities are 150 miles apart, that's basically the width of England (if you count Cornwall as being a twisted length)

For that UK scale

Small sailing boats covering the estuary and near coast. You won't be sailing far beyond the estuary (for massive continental rivers read tributary).
Rowing boats?
Various types of horse/ox drawn barges
The cargo variants of Punt/Gondola type boats for the shallower waters.

Ones going along the river almost certain to have some kind of tent ability. Unlikely to have true berths.
And all the above being slightly mixed. If there's a good chance of the wind being in the right direction you may have a sail. And there's no point stopping at the market town to sell to a bigger/smaller boat if you don't need to.

In the canal era, the American rivers you had full on steam cruisers. So there may well be an analogue for the Rhines and Danubes.

[kraftcheese]

I'm trying to remember some of the cool boats in Mieville's "The Scar": there was a vampire's ship that sails with moonlight instead of wind, ships that run on huge windup clockwork springs and a floating city pulled by a leviathan connected to a huge bridle and controlled by magical suggestion and I think like...fantasy arcana petroleum?

There's also frog-humanoids who work in and around rivers and can shape water with magic, humaoid dock workers with grafted gills and tentacles and stuff to help them get around and do stuff like scrape barnacles off ships, a sadistic dolphin city guard called Bastard John and big crayfish-centaurs (I imagined they were like the dreugh in Morrowind).

[NRSASD]

If you want to look up river boats, why not ask one of the greatest civilizations in the world to have ever arisen alongside a river, Egypt? Here's a link to a decently reputable website on the subject.

This is more for sailing ships, but here's another link to a 5E homebrew guide for naval combat made by one of our very own Playgrounders, RocksInMyDryer.

[Kaibis]

...there was a vampire's ship that sails with moonlight instead of wind, ships that run on huge windup clockwork springs and a floating city pulled by a leviathan connected to a huge bridle and controlled by magical suggestion and I think like...fantasy arcana petroleum?

There's also frog-humanoids who work in and around rivers and can shape water with magic, humaoid dock workers with grafted gills and tentacles and stuff to help them get around and do stuff like scrape barnacles off ships, a sadistic dolphin city guard called Bastard John and big crayfish-centaurs (I imagined they were like the dreugh in Morrowind).

I love all this, thank you for the great ideas.

[Kaibis]

If you want to look up river boats, why not ask one of the greatest civilizations in the world to have ever arisen alongside a river, Egypt? Here's a link to a decently reputable website on the subject.

This is more for sailing ships, but here's another link to a 5E homebrew guide for naval combat made by one of our very own Playgrounders, RocksInMyDryer.

Thank you for the links, I have been googling without success - so very much appreciated.

[Kaptin Keen]

I never thought that far out of the box. Such great colourful ideas. Thank you.

I am happy for "steamboats" (but run on magic, not steam), rowboats are great.

Since you are from longboat land :D Can passengers get a berth on a longboat?

I love the idea of some kind of harnessed beast (giant turtles - heck yeh). River Drakes, deity boats

The only one that's actually my own invention is the minor river deity trading speed for prayers.

T'skrang riverboats use water and fire elementals to drive the steam engine, so they're not just steam boats. And the guilds themselves are cool, pirate/river traders who hold the secrets of the steam engines, passing them down the generations.

The harnessed beasts are straight from the goblins of Warcraft. Actually, maybe using river drakes for beasts of burden might also be something I came up with, no clear source on that one.

Longboats are open to the sky, so no berths - but you could change that if you like.

Also, The Scar really is a fantastic book. It has propability swords, and arcane pipe organs, and scab mettlers, and vodyanoi, and ... frankly, Mieville has a truly impressive imagination.

[Mechalich]

Any river large enough to permit hundreds of miles of navigable travel is going to be a pretty powerful beast. Going upriver will be challenging without mechanization. That either means pulling barge-style (ideally by livestock on land, but you can wade through shallows and haul the ship Lewis & Clark style if you must) or sailing (which is dependent on winds). Rowing upriver for hundreds of miles is massively miserable and likely to be less efficient than walking unless the riverside terrain is particularly impassable (meaning thick jungle or worse).

[Kaptin Keen]

Rowing upriver for hundreds of miles is massively miserable and likely to be less efficient than walking unless the riverside terrain is particularly impassable (meaning thick jungle or worse).

Longboats travelled upriver for centuries, hundreds and hundreds of miles. The vikings traded along european rivers pretty much as far as the water would carry them. And you know - sometimes beyond, dragging their ships from river to river.

I say trading, but ... I suppose t-raiding covers it as well or even better.

Link. It's in danish, but that's transcontinental river travel. They weren't messing around. Or ... well they were, but ... let's say they meant business.

[kraftcheese]

Also, The Scar really is a fantastic book. It has propability swords, and arcane pipe organs, and scab mettlers, and vodyanoi, and ... frankly, Mieville has a truly impressive imagination.

I know right! Not only is the fantasy fantastical, but I also love the characterisation; to me, Mieville's people and world feel real and heavy with history in ways that they don't in a lot of other fantasy.

I'll use this opportunity to tell people to read Mieville's Bas Lag Trilogy: Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council (which I'm almost finished).

[Celestia]

Strap some decanters of endless water in geyser mode to the back of your boat for a makeshift magitech speedboat.

[Blackhawk748]

The Arms and Equipment Guide has a list of more boats. Personally I recommend the catamaran

[Mechalich]

Longboats travelled upriver for centuries, hundreds and hundreds of miles. The vikings traded along european rivers pretty much as far as the water would carry them. And you know - sometimes beyond, dragging their ships from river to river.

Viking longships had sails. Also the capacity to row in large crews. They still may not have been faster than walking, or riding. In any case it was advantageous for their specific purpose to bring ships up river to areas they could raid, as it was convenient to haul large quantities out of hostile territory that way. The Cossacks in Russia did the same thing, but these were people not native to the areas where they were operating.

Local trade would use different mechanisms. River trade probably moves in increments, with stopping points such that you avoid tiring your oarsmen and so that you can have local navigators who know their way around specific obstacles. Though a lot depends on the specific conditions of a given river. For instance, whether or not it freezes in the winter.

[Kaptin Keen]

Viking longships had sails. Also the capacity to row in large crews. They still may not have been faster than walking, or riding. In any case it was advantageous for their specific purpose to bring ships up river to areas they could raid, as it was convenient to haul large quantities out of hostile territory that way. The Cossacks in Russia did the same thing, but these were people not native to the areas where they were operating.

Local trade would use different mechanisms. River trade probably moves in increments, with stopping points such that you avoid tiring your oarsmen and so that you can have local navigators who know their way around specific obstacles. Though a lot depends on the specific conditions of a given river. For instance, whether or not it freezes in the winter.

All of this is likely true - it also is entirely beside the point: Rowing hundreds and hundreds of miles is possible, and was done. And you don't trade with your neighbor, not if you're doing it right. Or, to be more precise, you don't row a boat up a river to get to the local village market.

[DavidSh]

On the fantasy end of things, look at Lord Dunsany's story "Idle Days on the Yann". You should be able to find this online.

On the historical end of things, you can try to take a look at Chinese boats on the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, and on the Grand Canal.

In some places river travel is seasonal, where the river may freeze up for part of the year, and the level and amount of flow of the river may depend on the times of snow melting in the mountains.