Bohort and pavo, the magical sports of Albion, both derive from historical martial games designed to train the players for war and skirmishes (along with other important magical skills.) Bohort is played on foot, and Pavo on horseback.
Bohort is the most common form. It is played on a course that can be indoors, outdoors, or in different landscape settings (including lakes, mountains, etc.). Each match is usually called a ‘puzzle’ and play can last from a few minutes to the better part of a day (in which case there are meal breaks).
Besides the sports and enjoyment factor, bohort is widely considered to be an excellent magical training tool for a number of professions (since it requires knowledge, skill, and quick thinking). It's also felt to be an excellent way to move students from intellectual understanding to practical experience in a reasonably controlled environment.
It can be played casually, similar to backyard croquet or tennis. Various sources create puzzles suitable for informal play, which can be set up by a neutral party, from a box of established items and tools. On the other end of the spectrum, the tournament league matches often involve months of planning to come up with unique combinations of challenges that require a range of skills and cooperation to succeed.
Who wins is determined by who meets the winning conditions. These are determined by both teams, the referee, or some other appropriate authority (such as those running a tourney or competition league). Most conditions involve protecting your own team's resources (such as a flag, chest, or location) while getting hold of the opposing team's.
Most puzzles involve a series of tasks. These vary depending on the puzzle or league, but can include:
- Completing certain tasks, sometimes in sequence (i.e. do this thing at spot A, bring the item in that box to location B, use it to find spot C...).
- Collect items (flags or tokens) from the course, usually involving locating them in the first place.
- Manipulate specific items for a particular goal, usually through charm or other magical effects (turning a mirror to shine light somewhere specific, getting an object from halfway up a cliff, etc.).
- Capture the flag, getting an item from the opposing team's territory back to your own fortress.
Some members of the team may be protecting their own resources, while others may be trying to get the opposing team's. One or two players may take on what are best thought of as side quests - secondary puzzles that give a reward that can help in the overall match. These become particularly important in longer puzzle setups.
Generally, matches are played by teams of five players, with most teams having 10 or more regular players. This means that selecting who plays in a particular puzzle can be a significant part of the strategy. Players can only be swapped out in case of an injury that means they can't continue.
Most players specialise in one position, but may play multiple. And of course, in pickup matches, people often play positions they wouldn't play in a tournament.
The positions are generally described as:
- Puzzle (working out the puzzles or next steps)
- Defender (protecting your home team's resources)
- Strength (magical or physical tasks requiring strength)
- Dexterity (manipulating objects, possibly at a distance or bringing things into alignment)
- Jack or Jill (for "Jack of all trades")
The Five Schools all have house teams (or the equivalent), with a rotating league within the school and a school team that competes against the other Five Schools and the Apprentice League's winning team at the end of the season. There's also a league of full-time players who favour a very showy play style. (
Isembard Fortier played on one of these teams for a bit before the War.)
There are also a variety of apprentice leagues, age-based leagues, and women-only leagues (though women have been part of the game from the beginning on all levels).
Many bohort afficionados feel that the top tier apprentice league matches are the most interesting to actually watch (and feel the professional league is a bit too concerned with looks over skill).
Players normally wear (for anything other than a casual garden game) lightly padded clothing that doesn't limit movement and sturdy boots. Women may wear split skirts, loose trousers cuffed at the ankles, or even long tunics and leggings under them.
There are several different common rulesets in use:
- Schola rules focus on wit and knowledge based puzzles. These are widely used by the Five Schools and the Apprentice League.
- Westbury rules also rely on wit, but allow for more complex magical puzzles and magic on the field.
- Richmond rules encourage a more physical game - closer to combat situations.
Lethal injuries are possible but uncommon, and usually involve a cascade of things going wrong rather than a single error. (The bohort referees at more risky levels of play to be highly trained at emergency care.) Bruises, concussions, or broken bones are rather more common, as are materia-related injuries. Some jobs prohibit bohort or pavo play above a certain level because of the risk (small but real) of ongoing long-term magical damage.
There are two bohort matches described in
Eclipse, as well as various other mentions in other books.
Pavo is the more posh form of bohort, played on horseback. It requires a highly trained and intelligent mount, skilled riding, a fair amount of space, and additional equipment. Pavo players tend to show off, or at least people think they are: also, there are all sorts of esoteric arguments about optimal strategies, training regimens, skills acquisition, etc.
(It does have some advantages. The Willets gossip in
On The Bias about the pleasant ways pavo shapes a man's body - it inclines to strength and flexibility in a number of ways.)
Most players specialise in pavo if they play it at all, but some play both pavo and bohort.
Pavo is almost always played outside, and requires a flat enough course that will not cause undue risk to horses, though there may be wooden walls, fences, or other obstacles. (Mazes are not uncommon, though usually combined with more open space.)
Geoffrey Carillon says in
Goblin Fruit : "Pavo, teams of five, all mounted, though it’s permitted for one person to be unmounted at a time. The same sorts of challenges as bohort, collecting flags or moving items to specific locations, or solving puzzles with magic. There’s a larger element of speed and accuracy because of the horses. Less emphasis on challenging objects, again, because of the horses, things that might cause damage.”
He goes on to say the skills for horses involve agility, wheeling quickly, steadiness, obedience, ability to change mode quickly. Some people vault on and off, but he doesn't, because of his bad shoulder.
The ideal pavo mount is fairly small, quick on its feet, clever and absolutely unflappable. For a mount for vaulting, close to 14.2 hands is ideal, but larger mounts are welcome if vaulting isn't an issue.
Geoffrey Carillon and
Rufus Pride set to breeding mounts for pavo and other uses in 1922.
You can think of pavo as a combination of polo matches and modern Pony Club Games, which draw on some of the same historical influences around training horse and rider to manage a variety of challenges. This video from the
2017 Royal Windsor championship gives a good overview, including how vaulting onto a cantering horse works.
(I played Pony Club Games - the United States version of the time - in the 1990s. Vaulting was never one of my good skills, but I was quite solid at the parts that involve precision and remembering the rules for a particular game.)
