[Contest]Equestrian

How well can you ride your mount?  A chance to prove it.

Three Animal Handling (Ride) rolls. A superior mount gives +1 to these rolls. Add them together, that's your total score.

1st: 6GD, Superior Courser, +1 TP
2nd: 10GD
3rd: 5GD

Animal Handling (Ride): 3d6k2 11
Animal Handling (Ride): 3d6k2 9
Animal Handling (Ride): 3d6k2 8

Despite a promising start, astride her faithful dapple grey rounsey, Jory, Corrine only manages a passable circuit of the course, a little unsteady through the water after over-reaching a jump, and knocking over a barrel on a tight corner, but she at least manages to get to the end with her dignity intact.

A new horse:

Loreia has been looking forward to the opportunity to show what she and her companion mount can do, frequently taking her mount out to ride whenever she can get the chance. Cantering up to position, one would certainly understand that she would have to regardless. She glides forth on a golden sand steed named, according to the roster, Charity.

Coldbrook Grand Tourney - Equestrian (Superior mount): 4d6+1 16 4d6+1 18 4d6+1 22

Baelon arrives on Fortis, a brilliant white destrier he purchased with winnings from the last wedding tourney he had attended. A full fifteen and a half hands, Fortis displayed musculature that made the reasoning behind his name self evident. Broad of chest and massively haunched, it looked like this horse could batter down a castle gate with a single kick.

He put the stallion through its paces, evincing that horse and rider had put more than a little time practicing their skills. The crowning flourish was Fortis rearing up on two legs and holding the pose so long and so still that the pair appeared to be a painted statue, then hopping forward, forelegs lashing out at invisible foes once, twice, thrice without pause. Certainly, this stallion was in impeccable physical form as well as the pinnacle of training.

Mechanics:

It's just a humble rounsey mare, plain and brown.  No noble white stallion, no broad-chested destrier, no exotic, expensive, Dornish racer.  Not even a fine dapple grey, like an angry sky over Storm's End threatening to crash and roar.  Brown.  Just a rounsey, common as a pony and half as respected, less shaggy than a garron but no more noble, weaker than a stot but no rarer, the humblest of war-trained horses, truly, with breeding of who-knows-what and, what's more, who-cares.  

The rider's not much more to look at, where breeding and wealth are concerned, the Seven pity him;  a strapping young man, a few dozens years old, with the beginnings of a beard and pony-tailed dark hair.  He's big in the shoulders but without a personal tabard, without his own colors on his shield, no heraldry to call his own.  He wear Baratheon yellow, but in Ser Harbert's name, not his own. His sturdy traveler's clothes were cut well, and well cared for, but were of plain, road-friendly, colors, grays and off-white linens.  Browns, like the mare.  The rider was, it seemed, as plain as the horse he rode.

Just a humble rounsey mare, yes, but it would seem no one has ever told it that.  What a ride!

The rider and mount dash 'round the field, weaving through the half-finished jousting lane -- upright poles only, guide-ons for the riders to show off with -- easily, smoothly, even at a run.  A figure-eight or two later, and it was time for a leap, vaulting the humble brown rounsey up and over the nearby pile of smooth-hewn logs (later to be the posts finishing the almost-a-fence for said jousting lane), and landing, and carrying on at a smooth, steady, pace.  All easier for a rounsey than a destrier, all appearing almost effortless.  No, not just effortless, fun.  There's no denying the humble rounsey's toss of her head, the rider's smile.  They're enjoying it.

They finish, the mixed-bred steed and mixed-bred rider, with a sidewise prance to the center of the field, cavorting in a high-hoofed trot, sidestepping neatly.  Then, at last, a slow spin, facing the smallfolk and the large, rounsey tossing her plain brown mane with pride, rider giving a bright smile through his short beard, and waving to all and sundry.

A rounsey, perhaps, but not the humblest!

[I finally got the fancy code to work to roll all three at once (yay), and I finally rolled over in my other tab while I wasn't distracted with posting, so I got the copy-pasted bbcode (double yay, I'm afraid I wasted a few decent rolls by clicking away on accident), but the link still won't post 'cause I haven't been here seven days.  I'll shoot it to Reader on RPG.net again, in a PM.  Let the record show it cracks me up that I never once got to use Attractive because I didn't roll a single '1' in all my Charm tests yesterday, and here I ended up with four of the friggin' things.]

[Equestrian Tourney Challenge, 1 2 3: 3#5d6 15 21 25

Ben as was apt to be his way manages an average ride. He starts and finishes well, with a lag in the middle. He could blame none of his failures on Strax. He always did as he was bid. After this long tourney season it was becoming obvious to Ben he needed to put more work into his own training instead of his squire and the many Marsten troops, or perhaps he was just getting old. The competition around had begun to look younger every new tourney.

He leads Strax in a bow to the Coldbrook booth as he rounds his way off the field. Then approaches the stand to acknowledge his lady wife with a bow before trotting off to the pavilions.


Coldbrook Equestrian: 3#5d6k3+1 18 9 16

Coldbrook Equestrian Contest: 3#4d6k4 18 10 20
Forgot the Ride: 3#2d6k2 9 8 7

[ooc]I forgot to add my Ride specialty to that roll. #latenightorokos[/ooc]

New Totals: 21 (6, 6, 5, 4) + 16 (5, 4, 4, 3) + 24 (6, 6, 6, 6) = 61



As always, Jon had his trusty dapple grey courser Ghaston. His horse wasn't the prettiest or the finest of breeds but the two had a rapport with one another. And today that rapport mattered more than generations of animal husbandry or a rider's innate skill. Their displayed skill was magnificent, every maneuver executed to perfection, every action flawless.