#fantasy mobility aids

[rainbow-zebra-art]

Flat color commission for @zedb1939! Princess Sedia Goldleaf, a half-elf from the High Elves of Catalan, is the oldest daughter of King Hohen Goldleaf. She has two broken legs in casts after being attacked by the Witch King, who cursed her legs to heal slowly and painfully. But she doesn’t let the spell stop her, and with her enchanted crutches and casts, she travels with her beloved fiancé Jason Lupin in search of a cure.

[cy-cyborg]

Hey im trying to write a centaur type character… the character has fibromyalgia and i want to represent them well by giving them some kind of mobility aid. But because of their being a centaur and the way their bodies are so different from humans’, i don’t know what kind would work best yet, and i’m afraid of designing something that won’t support their weight or will just look silly

Hm, that’s tricky. I’m not super knowledgeable about fibromyalgia, I know a few people with it and I know it causes things like pain, difficulty breathing and fatigue but that’s about it so definitely run these suggestions by someone else before you use them. I do know a decent amount about horses though.

So for mobility aids that would be primarily used by the human half, so long as you make them tall enough they should be fine. Things like crutches, canes etc, though admittedly, I’m not sure if they’d actually be helpful unless they’re only needing support for their front legs, since it probably wouldn’t relieve any pressure from the back ones. A rotator might be slightly better depending on how it’s structured, but it too wouldn’t help much with the back limbs

The centaur equivalent of a wheelchair or similar device would be much more complicated though.

Horses… don’t take well to mobility aids as a general rule of thumb, so anything for the horse half specifically is going to have issues. most quadruped animals who need a wheelchair can use a little cart or buggy like this:

[ID: A picture of a golden retriever in a mobility cart that's supporting their back legs. /End ID]

But horses really, really struggle with them. A lot of it’s behavioural, they’re prey animals and having something strapped to them like these “wheelchair carts” freaks them out and causes a lot of stress - especially if it gets stuck on something (like a rock, or crack in the ground). with training, they can learn to be relatively ok-ish with it, like how other horses are trained to be ok pulling carriages, but those carriages aren’t attached to them 24/7, these carts are.

This isn’t necessarily something that would apply to your centaur unless they’re very horse-like in behaviour, but I thought it worth a mention just in case. The bigger issue though is physical, and would 100% be a problem for centaurs. Horses are big creatures and are very heavy. It’s not good for them to lie down for too long, as all their weight can put pressure on their organs and do damage. It also makes it harder for them to breathe (that’s why, when horses are sedated for surgery, they try to keep them standing upright where possible). Likewise, a cart has to take at least part of the creature’s weight, and so long-term use puts a lot of pressure on the soft underside of their belly and chest, and causes many of the same issues.

One thing you could potentially do is give them something that mimics the ways horses “naturally” try to alleviate pain and fatigue. My mum has a very, very elderly pony (he turns 29 this year) and his knees have been giving him trouble lately, which means standing is hard, but if he lays down he might get stuck. Instead, he goes and finds trees or fence posts or the side of his stable and just leans against them (mum has padded the side of the stable he usually leans on). As a mobility aid for your centaur, this might look like the front end being supported by crutches or a cane, and the back half being supported by something tied to their back leg. I image the hind-leg crutch would stick out at a slight angle so it’s not constantly dragging along the ground, and when they need a breather or break, they could lean their body and shift their weight onto it. Something like this

[ID: A poorly drawn image of a centaur. Its human half is holding a stick-figure drawing of a crutch. Another similar crutch is tied to one of their back legs. The image shows them from the front and side, with the front showing that the rear crutch sticks out slightly. /End ID]

(I’m a professional artist lmao)

It’s not a perfect solution (and probably wouldn’t be great for their back tbh) but I’m not sure what else you could do, this at least gives them a way rest if they need it without depending on straps that could cause pressure sores/injuries to their abdomen and (horse) chest

Of course, centaurs in and of themselves are very unrealistic and their anatomy doesn’t really work either, so you can always take liberties with the realism of the horse-end mobility aid stuff. If you don’t want something on the more realistic end, I would say a cart wheelchair for the back end + crutches/canes/rotators for the front would be fine. It depends on the tone for the setting!

[gaynaturalistghost]

Cyphe!

I gotta come up with a cool design for her cane

[nn-ee-zz]

Mobility aids in fantasy!

[rain-after-thunder]

Disabled Aelwyn who uses crutches.

Aelwyn who can’t go back to school to finish her wizzard studies, who starts researching different ways to bend magic to her will.

Aelwyn, who has always had a knack for creating new spells, starting to tinker at her own crutches, weaving wards into the framework.

Aelwyn, for who good is not good enough, caves and asks Gorgug for help. Who finds a way to make her crutches extend, bend and move to support her arms, elbows, shoulders. Makes them connect to her back, her hips, down her legs .

They no longer look much like crutches anymore, it’s a thin, light framework that supports her entire body, that moves her exactly the way she wants, that allows her to stand with her back straight for more than 5 minutes for the first time in two years. The exoskeleton glows with abjurative runes and the outline of a powerfull ward is visible over her body, deflecting blows like steel armor.

New spells rest in her memory, mechanical and precise if nature in a way that the arcane inks in her spelbook can’t articulate. Spare the Dying, Resistance, Cure Wounds, Sanctuary.

Her joints still ache, she tires fast and even after all this time it is still hard to control the venom in her words, still hard to accept help and kindness without it feeling like a wool blanket on freshly flayed skin. But she has found something that is wholly hers, found something to be proud of that isn’t tinged with approval from her parents.

Aelwyn still can’t walk without support, but the frame folding her up is crafted by her own hands. Maybe everything will be allright.

[alpaca-clouds]

How to make a "world" more accessible

Let's talk a bit about accessible worldbuilding. I am thinking here first about Solarpunk worlds, but also about other scifi and fantasy worlds, that often do not think about this at all. Again, there is this nasty tendency to just assume that there are no disabilities in those worlds - and it leaves disabled people often feeling left out.

One of the most basic accessibility features one would expect to see in a world would be some sorts of ramps. And don't get me started with "oh, in my world wheelchairs fly!", which is something that actually not all folks reliant on wheelchairs want - as the actual hand-moved wheelchair often gives them a certain control.

It should also be noted that ramps help not only wheelchair users, but also people with baby strollers, and folks who might use other mobility aids like rollators. Heck, in my life ramps have also helped me, when I was travelling with a large trunk. Really, ramps make life easier for a lot of folks! Heck, if we think about a solarpunk world, where hopefully a lot of folks would get around by bike, ramps would help as well.

Of course, in some cases (if feasible in the technology level) there might also be a need for some sort of elevator. Again, not only wheelchair users will make use of that.

Another thing that should help, would be a wider usage of stuff like orientation systems for blind people. Currently those things are fairly spotty. Like some places have them, other places don't. And even where they are implemented, a lot of folks do not know what they are and will walk over it and park their cars on it. Stuff like that, which will once again make stuff more dangerous and inaccessible for blind people.

Then there should more accessibility accomondations for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Those could mean to install visual signals for warning systems, which often currently are mainly auditory. It could also mean a wider usage of stuff like subtitles if possible in the world. And it also could mean that in the world people are more encouraged to learn sign language.

But those are the obvious disabilities. The stuff folks think off first when they hear "disability".

But there are other disabilities. Personally, for example, I do have some issues with my bowels. So what would be important to me is easy access to toilets whereever I move around. Which also is to say: Yes, dear public transport. Not having a single accessible toilet in your fucking train is an accessibility issue and ableistic.

Or the one accessibility aspect that has slowly been taken away recently due to hostile architecture: Benches and other places in public to sit down on. Because a lot of folks just cannot stand/walk for a long while. This is true for old people, and recently increasingly too for folks disabled through COVID.

There is also the need for shaded areas. As there are several disabilities that do not deal well with direct sunlight. Be it people who react allergic against sunlight, be it people whose eyes cannot deal with too much light, or be it people who might just struggle with their circulation when in the direct sun for too long.

And then there is allergic people. Which is also a big chunk - and in some cases can be quite debilitating. And I might remind people: In a fantasy or scifi world there might be people allergic to some of the worldbuilding stuff. Like in the Witcher Triss is allergic against magic, and in the nice sapphic webcomic Always Human one of the two main characters is allergic against bio-implants. Hence, ideally in an accessible fantasy/scifi world it would be easy to access what kinda stuff is in a potion and what not, to allow folks to be safe.

Lastly, of course, there are neurodivergent folks and... about that I am going to talk tomorrow.

Oh, and by the way: If you are disabled and have ideas of how the world could be more accessible for you... Please feel free to add!

[rqg179]

thinkin about lydia barkrock again i just. she's incredibly important to me both as someone who has chronic pain myself & as someone who grew up with a disabled parent. my mother was diagnosed when i was a toddler, so i don't remember a version of my mum who isn't disabled to some extent, it's just always been a fact of my life. and sure, there are certain things she can't do, and that list has probably gotten longer over the last few years, but she's still my mum, and she raised me, and she did a damn good job of it too. and idk i just. for the most part it's easy to find families that look like mine in fiction, but i'm not sure i've ever seen the medical side of my family in fiction in a way that feels as close to home as lydia & ragh's relationship does. it's just very lovely to see a disabled character who a) is a well-rounded character in and of herself, and b) is a parent, and is explicitly shown to be a good parent to her son

[doodlebug-aboo]

The sisters ever!!!!

Me? Drawing the Abernant sisters again? Shocking! Unpredictable!

[dykeogenes]

super duper good time to talk about the fascinating grey area of disability occupied by kristen applebees . because there is no way you have a dexterity score of 4 (FOUR!!) without having some noticeable and unusual differences in how your body works & moves! that is lower than the dexterity of most slimes in 5e. that is ONE point higher than the dexterity of a GELATINOUS CUBE. here is a small sampling of creatures from 5e d&d:

Thats two oozes and a snail. They have 5 dexterity each.

Like, 8 dex is uncoordinated. 6 dex is majorly clumsy. 4 dex is, like… I mean, imagine a giant snail trying to cook breakfast. Then make it clumsier. That’s the canonical dexterity level of kristen applebees.

the factual out-of-universe explanation for this is that Ally had never played d&d before when they made kristen and didn’t realize dex was a bad dump stat (iconic). But the fun thing about actual play is that the mechanics are in-universe canon, whether or not they have an in-universe explanation. Even if they aren’t *narratively* canon, they’re *mechanically* canon. So it’s canon that Kristen is clumsier than a CR 1/2 blob of grey goop— and that she and her friends accommodate it! her low dex factors into the kind of checks she’s willing to attempt, it factors into how her friends budget healing and protective spells for her in combat and SO ON! ally TALKS ON THE SHOW about how kristen’s exceptionally low dex makes things significantly harder & how it means there’s a lot of checks and saves that kristen Mechanically Cannot Pass without critting.

even though her having some type of movement ‘disorder’ is not narratively canon, it is *mechanically* canon. humans just Aren’t That Uncoordinated unless there’s something different/unusual going on with their bodies! it may never be explored narratively (which is fine) but kristen does have some sort of physical disability in canon. and that makes me kind of happy :]

[artherzenswarme]

Mobility Assistance Bug concept for a D&D character, inspired by Earwigs.

Mockup for how a character would sit.

[tsoican]

mobility aid design for a oc!

general idea behind them is that they're all created from a tree in a fantasy based world - as the character is a disabled archeologist in a wooded area!!

[immortals-delight]

As someone who is a cane user & also cosplaying Welt, I find it cool that they gave characters canes but I'm also equally disappointed when the cane is used more as an accessory rather than a mobility aid

[lintwizardlyart]

shoujoposting hours. A few months ago the phrase “biblically accurate wheelchair” floated into my head and I had to create a magical girl design around it.

[jimblesjumbles]

Designed clove a wheelchair :D

They would use mage hand to push themselves around.he gets a lot of joint pain in his hands so I thought I’d account for that.

:D

[tired-reader-writer]

Progress on the WIP! I'm taking a break for the night.

[wacky-nameless-inventor-24]

LETS GOOO