BX Monsters A to Z: Camel

 Not a terribly exciting entry in the B/X bestiary, nor one that's likely to see much use... unless your game features deserts, of course.

Camels are no great shakes in battle, with mediocre AC and Hit Dice and trivial damage. They can bite for a single point of damage or kick for 1d4, and those are probably used more in fits of temper against inept handlers than in deadly combat. Player-characters probably aren't going to fight many camels anyway, unless they happen upon a herd while lost in the desert and desperately need food. They may, however, fight people riding camels, or have occasion to require some camels themselves. As in our real world, camels are the steeds and beasts of burden of choice for desert environments. According to the description, they can survive up to two weeks without water and treat desert or barren terrain as clear for purposes of travel. Since those terrain types normally reduce movement rates to 2/3 normal, and given the difficulty of finding food and water in them if your journey proves longer than expected, that's no small benefit. That means a camel-mounted party can cover 30 miles a day, or 15 if fully encumbered. A riding horse, the swiftest land-based mount available, could make 32/16 miles per day with the terrain penalties a camel ignores, which is only barely faster, and it's not nearly as desert-hardy. If you were to take it on a desert expedition, it would likely need water as often as a human, and in larger amounts to satisfy its larger body. Water being as heavy as it is, that would sharply limit the duration of said expedition, which makes the camel far and away the superior choice. 

The rules say lance charges on camelback aren't possible. I don't know whether this is true of real world camels or not, but I can certainly imagine desert warriors swinging scimitars or other weapons while mounted on camels. At least there's nothing in the rules to forbid it.

There's really not much more to say about the camel. Its niche is fairly narrow, but it serves admirably within it, and that's why it's in the rules.

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