Animals to ride other than horses?

In my world, which is basically a rip-off of every other high fantasy novel out there, elves are light pretty creatures who live in forests. And because forests don't have horses (they don't right?) they mount stags...

Dwarves ride mountain rams...

Basically it depends on which animal lives where. You can try camels or elephants if your setting is a desert or savanna. You can even have your own enlarged versions of panthers and tigers and have them mounted (*ehem*Warcraft*ehem*).

If dragons are out, what about some kind of giant lizard?
Or giant birds?

There are always llamas, though your reader may have an issue taking you seriously.

Mythical creature wise, you could have hippogriphs, griffins, giant eagles, and pegasus (I have no idea what the plural is for that one). That's all I have other than dragons off the top of my head, other than flying monkeys.

What about a giant hamster?

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Considering I've seen stories where people mounted centaurs for travelling, I think you could get away with dragons that also have a human form, as long as you address that issue in the novel.

As for other suggestions -- I don't think anyone's brought up elephants yet. Or yaks. Or the more prosaic mules and donkeys.

Also, wikipedia's bit on riding animals tells me that garuda are a mythical beast that act as mounts. (It also has ostriches, but wants a citation for that, so you might be faced with reader disbelief like the llama posted mentioned above.)

Llamas are defiinitely legitimate riding animals (extremely common in several South American countries) and Ostriches would certainly be exotic (One of the characters in Swiss Family Robinson tames and rides an ostrich).

If your world has magic, what about something inanimate, such as flying carpets, flying brooms, etc? Or are you looking specifically for animals?

Oh, and if you wanted Dragons, but don't want them riding your intelligent dragons, how about Wyverns? They're usually portrayed as smaller, stupider cousins of dragons.

In the world that I'm using for this Nano, most people use draft animals like horses and oxen for transportation. However, there is also a more expensive and rare creature known as a wingdrake, which can be used for flight. There are also wingless drakes that can be used as draft animals and riding creatures. There are different breeds of wingdrake, designed for different applications. There are about as many kinds of wingdrake as there are types of horses in our world, everything from breeds designed to carry heavy weights long distances, and others that are light and fast. Some have rarer colors and are bred for looks and showing.

Instead of stables, the drakes are kept in tall, multi-story structures called roosts that they can learn to fly from.

Drakes are related to dragons, but dragons are exceptionally rare and I'm not even sure they'll be making an appearance of any kind in the story I'm currently writing.

I really wanted rideable dragons, but I wanted to do it in a more realistic way. This was the best compromise I could come up with. :)

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. . . Sheep.

Although that would probably be slow going, so maybe magically enhanced sheep. Also, giant inscects, mules, wolves, bears. . .

I'm not being much help, am I?

Bears. Seriously. Your mount could fight for itself and it would eat mostly berries (and your foes). ^_^

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Bears and reindeer are the mounted animals in my novel :D

Big cats, like cougars and panthers.

(ok, I´ll do my best to write in English)
Ok, big cats are funny to ride. They are fast, if its well trained it doesnt move a lot.
About my story I was thinking to use a white lion. I´ll use dragons too, but, they are a kind of... I dont know. I woulndnt like to ride one. Big eagles are funny too, specially if you make some changes in them, like color... form... etc.
If you want something to fly, ask for superman. Jaja, it was a joke.
Hey, I have an idea. Why don´t you create a kind ot terminator but, instead like a human, like your favorite riding animal.
Mmm... I think I´ll do that.
I´m hungry... bye.

Soy El Gran León Albino de ojos azules y brillantes como lunas llenas

Thanks for all the suggestions!

The sheep and llamas made me laugh too much, so those are out.

I like the idea of big cats, they might work, and I like the bears as well. Since I'm thinking of these for military purposes, they would work as both being able to bear the weight of somebody in armor and being able to move quickly through battlefields, not to mention the extra protection they'd give their riders. But aren't cats supposed to be hard to train?

I also like the wyverns. They do work as an alternative to dragons. Can wyverns breathe fire?

Insects gross me out too much, and I don't know about the giant lizards either. They might work too, they'd certainly be fast enough.

You all had great ideas! I'll probably wind up using several of them, in combination.

Oh! Do you think you could ride a basilisk?

:( But llamas are efficient, easy to care for, and durable!

Some of these suggestions will work much better if you have magical ways to tame the beasts. (I'm specifically thinking big cats, but those aren't the only suggestions.)

and the subject of a great song!

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama

llama, llama, duck!

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I dunno how fantastical your story is, but if you considered pegasi, then my idea shouldn't be too out there, haha!

What about large rabbits or jack rabbits? Maybe jackalopes? I've always loved the idea of a lagamorph mount. It just seems natural. But then you may have to explain why they're so big. Maybe they just are!? Or mounted mice. Like in the comic book, Fables; the Mouse Police. I don't know if you're familiar.

But yeah, mounted lagomorphs and rodentia are my picks.

http://www.chuckstoyland.com/potpourri/jackalope%20postcards/Jackalope%2...
Found that special for you!

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. "

-Aristotle

Duplicate post. My bad!

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. "

-Aristotle

How about giant spiders?

Okay, to whoever it was with the llama llama duck song, that was absolutely hilarious. I LOLed. Seriously. My mother looked at me like I was insane. But I'm still not going to use them.

For now, I got by with a dragon volunteering to be ridden, but I don't think that my MC would feel comfortable using her like that in the long run.

I kinda like the large rabbits idea, because they would be very fast. The only thing is, I don't think that they'd necessarily be fierce enough for battle. I might use them for couriers and scouts, though.

I still don't know about what animals to use for battle, though. Still not sure if wyverns can breath fire, and I still don't know if a basilisk could be ridden. Any thoughts on those?

Spotted Hyenas are pretty aggressive and still almost unique.

Mandrills are hella aggressive.

Are you looking for flying animals?

Bats are cool.

Secretarybirds have an awful name but they are really cool to me.

I'm not really sure what else. Birds and other flying things can be aggressive if needed, I think. Except maybe doves and budgies.

I dunno! I'm pretty fascinated with the idea of people riding oversized animals, so all of those sound pretty snazzy to me, haha!

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. "

-Aristotle

In my story wyverns are military mounts but are to aggressive for civilian use. And I think they can breath fire in myths, they definitely can in my story.

I wouldn't want to ride a basilisk what with the whole eye thing. But aside from that I don't think they're big enough to support a rider, but the wikipedia article isn't very clear.

My suggestion is a rhinoceros, a domesticated variety that is easy to train of course.

The big cat training can be explained that they were breed to be easier to train and follow commands, which is realistic.

You could always pull an avatar and make some cool hybrid mount.

Like a llama-duck. Or an Ox-fish.

Looks can Deceive.

I don't know if you can or can not ride this animal. They aren't very big. But it has always, *always* been my dream to ride a Capybara. I don't know if it's fantasy-y enough. ROUSs would be a more appropriate term.
Imagine you're MC, proud and strong, riding a very large guinea pig.
Plus, look at this guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capybara_Hattiesburg_Zoo_%2870909b-58%...
Isn't he suavest thing you've ever seen?
Okay, I'm done gushing over how awesome the Capybara is.

(Really, really awesome.)

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Camels, elephants, mules - plus they could ride in a cart drawn by oxen or yaks, or they could walk with donkeys or llamas to carry their supplies? Or must these be magical species?

Texas Longhorns. Seriously: http://www.texaslonghorn.com/longhorn_info/unique_longhorn/riding.jpg

Besides looking majestic and coming in all kinds of pretty colors, I hear that they're also very gentle, easy to train animals, but I'm sure they'd also be great as vicious battle mounts.

~Romans 5: 1-5~

I'm using yaks.

Come on, how could you not love this face.

I might have some kind of other animal for fast personal transport as opposed to beasts of burden, but I haven't decided on that yet.

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Giraffe would be awesome!
or the best idea yet a flying mantee!

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May be kind of cliche, but in northern regions in my own little world they ride oversized giant dogs.

But how about big cows? (Although I think the yak thing has that covered.)

In one of my stories, there's a group of people who ride what is basically designed after a giant raptor dinosaur. (And I wrote this story before WoW came out. You can't believe how excited I was when I found out trolls rode raptors in the game. Anyway, I digress...)