The Tireless Iron Cavalcade

Effect

The theurge summons up steeds of black iron and embers, the horses rising from the earth before the caster. Enough horses are summoned to serve up to a dozen companions. The constructs are tireless and perfectly obedient to their riders, allowing their masters to cross twen- ty miles of distance every hour they ride, or half that when crossing rugged terrain. Natural beasts fear the steeds and will never approach them. The horses will not fight, but have an armor class of 0 and five hit dice apiece for purposes of withstanding damage. They never panic and are immune to mental influences and other conventional mortal passions. While swift and obedient, the horses drain the fertility out of the earth beneath their hooves in order to power their metal shells. The blackened hoofmarks make it trivially easy to track the riders for up to a month thereafter. The marks made by the hooves are too small to cause substantial damage to an area's overall fertility or crop yield.