Mainframe Industries used its Discord channel to lay out, in far more depth than before, how horses will actually work in Pax Dei. One thing is off the table for now: stables. The first version ships with horses, saddles, riding, cargo hauling, progression, aging, trading, and combat behavior — the stable building itself is being saved for later.
Getting a horse starts with crafting a saddle. Spend Grace, summon the horse bound to that saddle, give it a name, and ride. Three roles are planned: riding horses built for versatility, pack horses that haul more, and coursers tuned for speed and stamina, each carrying its own stats for speed, stamina, Courage, and cargo capacity. Players can own several horses at once and swap to whichever fits the job at hand.
Riding becomes a skill of its own — galloping levels it up, unlocks stronger saddles, and raises a horse's speed and Courage toward its natural ceiling. No horse can be killed or lost for good. Panic builds during fights until the animal throws its rider and bolts, but it can be called back the moment danger clears, and the studio tied that rule directly to the game's lore. Alongside the mechanics post, Mainframe shared an in-universe monastery fragment describing horses finding their way home across impossible distances once their rider speaks their name — a tidy narrative excuse for why a mount in Pax Dei is never truly gone.
Saddle inventory travels with the player through dismounts, dismissals, zone changes, and logouts, though switching horses only works once the current saddle's cargo is empty. Horses age as you play, but they don't gradually get worse at their job — once a horse's lifespan runs out, it retires instead: still owned, still rideable, but reduced to baseline speed, stamina, and Courage, with its cargo slot gone. Both saddles and individual horses, coat, name, and age included, will be tradable between players. And yes, horses can swim.
The same message doubled as an R48 status update. A small patch with fixes and some of the requested improvements is headed to the PTS this week. Mainframe also corrected its own patch notes: the new buff-refresh feature that triggers once a consumable drops below 30% duration only applies to food, not potions, contrary to what the original notes said. Staff durability, recently raised to match two-handed weapons, is landing well based on post-launch feedback, and the team is weighing a smaller Cleared Ground piece alongside a pass on chat formatting — Province colors, channel tags, and more visible player names.
No release window for horses yet. But the level of detail here — down to how a retired horse loses its cargo slot — suggests a feature that's been "coming soon" since before Early Access is finally closer to shipping than talking about.
