JesseLowe/GuildWagons
Each wagon is crewed by five teamsters (Regular folks, extras), is drawn by 2 yeddim, and is about the size of a box car (shaped a bit differently, though). Three wheels to a side, minimum. It can hold up to ten tons of cargo, and weighs about four tons. (I think: How much can a single yeddim pull as cargo? What are the structural constraints of Age of Sorrows wagon manufacture?)
A yeddim has strength 14. This is enough for a human-sized biped to lift 2000 pounds.
What are the effects of:
- A yeddim's different construction? (Strong quadraped)
- Dragging instead of lifting?
- Wheeled wagons?
GURPS seems to be the way to go here, actually...
Yeddim (GURPS 4th edition)
ST 35 (Basic Lift: 250 lbs +/- a few pounds) (For non-GURPSers, that's how much the yeddim can lift easily and quickly, say, with a toss of its head.)
30 hexes (10 x 3)
Move 4
Maximum drag: 3,750 pounds raw, 75,000 pounds on a four-wheeled wagon (including the weight of the wagon).
Therefore: 1 yeddim can pull a 30-ton wagon comfortably for a full day. Multiply this capacity by the number of yeddim pulling the wagon, but bear in mind the eventual impracticality of really big wagons. At a certain point (around 8 yeddim, I think) it's easier to have many smaller wagons than one big wagon.
So, a passel of wagons for your perusal:
All wagons move at an average human walking speed. They can go faster, but this requires a successful Dex + Survival roll to handle the yeddim; the difficulty for this roll is given for each wagon.
1-yeddim wagon
When loaded, this wagon weighs approximately 30 tons. The driver sits in a cab far atop the box or seated on the yeddim as a mahout. Typically, this wagon will have two crew members, a driver and a handler. The driver guides the wagon while the handler does a variety of miscellaneous tasks. A 1-yeddim wagon is about eighteen feet wide, eighteen feet high, and seventy feet long. (For comparison, this is about half again as large as a standard modern boxcar.) It's supported by eight wheels, four on either side. Thanks to a sophisticated hinge mechanism, the four frontmost wheels can turn on a rack, making steering much easier.
Cargo capacity: 25 tons
Weight of empty wagon: 5 tons
Difficulty of Dexterity + Survival Roll: 1
2-yeddim wagon
Cargo capacity: 45 tons
Weight of empty wagon: 15 tons
Difficulty of Dexterity + Survival Roll: 1
4-yeddim wagon
Cargo capacity: 90 tons
Weight of empty wagon: 30 tons
Difficulty of Dexterity + Survival Roll: 2
6-yeddim wagon
Cargo capacity: 135 tons
Weight of empty wagon: 45 tons
Difficulty of Dexterity + Survival Roll: 3
8-yeddim wagon
Cargo capacity: 180 tons
Weight of empty wagon: 60 tons
Difficulty of Dexterity + Survival Roll: 4
Incidentally, I go along with the idea that a yeddim is a baluchitherium or indricotherium. [| Google search for baluchitherium pictures]
Also incidentally, a yeddim powered railroad is a distinct possibility, since on rails, each yeddim could pull twice as much.
