Is there a horse in The Blood of Dawnwalker? How you get around instead
No horse and no mount of any kind. The valley is covered on foot, with two haste perks, a wolf form at night and shrines you can fast travel between.
Horse or mount
None
You cannot ride anything.
Fast travel
At shrines
Stand at one and pick another you have found.
Cost of fast travel
No time
It uses no time segments.
No mount, and why
You cannot buy a horse, ride other animals or unlock a mount later: the valley is explorable only on foot. A Rebel Wolves senior quest designer said at Gamescom that the world is not that big, which may be why. How big it really is, in rough numbers, is on the regions page. Some reviewers still miss one: it can feel like a game where you could hop on horseback, and there is a lot of ground to cover even with the shrines active.
What you do instead of riding
By day
Mercurial Fervour
Briefly slows the world around you, which makes your own sprint much faster. It is day only.
By night
Shapeshift
Press sprint a second time while already running and Coen becomes a wolf. It is probably your fastest way to travel, for as long as you have stamina; it starts with your first point of Corruption.
At the top of both perks you can run without spending stamina, and the movement perks cost no time segments to learn, unlike most of the skill tree.
Fast travel, step by step
- 1.
Find a wayside shrine and light it. Grey icons on the map are shrines you have not found; blue ones are active.
- 2.
Stand at a shrine you have already found and interact with it. Fast travel only works from a shrine you are physically standing at.
- 3.
Choose Fast Travel and pick another active shrine. The same menu gives you Perks, Storage and Wait.
A shrine may only count once you interact with it, or walking near one may be enough, with a pop-up to confirm it. Interact with each one to be safe.
Destroyed shrines and towers
Some shrines are broken. A destroyed shrine has to be repaired before it works, which can mean a small quest: following clues, fighting and recovering the shrine's missing heart. Towers are the other map tool: they can reportedly only be climbed at night, and climbing them costs no time. There are either eleven of them or about eight or nine. Where each region's shrines and towers sit is on the regions page.
Night powers for getting up and down
- Shadowstep
- A short teleport with a marker for where you will land. Crosses gaps and gets you onto ledges; its range can be raised in the skill tree.
- Planeshift
- Lets you walk up walls. It costs stamina, and with Shadowstep it is reportedly the only way up a tower.
- Claw Ride
- A controlled slide down a surface, for getting down cliffs. A Shadowstep just before landing is the alternative. Get a Claw Ride wrong and you can reportedly kill yourself.
These are vampire powers, so they belong to the night; what else changes between the phases is on the day and night page.
If the shrine rule annoys you
A Nexus mod, Fast Travel Anywhere, lets you travel to shrines you have unlocked straight from the world map. It does not unlock shrines you have not found, and its author warns to use it only while standing still because the game can bug out otherwise. How mods install, and what to back up first, is on the mods page.
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