| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 12 Jan 2021 : 18:25:03
Just curious, even if its skyships in Eberron, has any rules been written up anywhere for them regarding basic movement speeds, etc.. that might be useful in an encounter type scenario already? I know there was a crashed skyship in Chult, but I don't think there were any rules written to go with it. Just didn't want to recreate the wheel if I didn't have to. About to check DM's guild, because I'm not real particular on the rules to use, I just want something that looks like it could function for use in a game. |
| 9 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 03 Feb 2021 : 13:06:16
I don't have the slightest clue why your response just triggered this in my head George.... but I've got this idea now of Halruaa having taken the Rashemi concept of the witchboat and incorporating it into a smaller skyship. By that I mean an unmanned craft (I guess like what we might think of in our world as a drone or a plane on autopilot, but much larger) that's set to perform some specific tasks in and above Halruaa and its borders.
Playing the imagination game, what might such a concept be used for in Halruaa besides the obvious one of portably scrying/spy platforms, flying attack platforms, and simple ferries that travel from one location to another on timed intervals? |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 03 Feb 2021 : 07:45:19
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Ships hanging from a blimp is a common depiction, but Halruaan skyships have never been described as needing the blimp.
Yet half the pictures (not text) of Halruaan flying ships show them with blimps. Both shining south covers for instance. This is another one of those things that I like to call "canon" isn't always uniform and there's multiple variations of what a skyship will look like actually built. Some may have the tortoise shell hull, others may not, etc...
Ed said:
Some Halruaan skyships, dating from the founding (the Netherese diaspora) were VERY different from the skyship described in my DRAGON article. They were the creations of literally scores of Netherese archwizards, who all “went their own way” in the design process, striving separately to craft “ships that could sail the skies” by all manner of different magics. (Yes, they “worked” very differently from each other.)
Later Halruaan skyships were developed from these eccentric originals, and of course STILL varied wildly from each other. Many of them started to make use of the various magics active in Halruaa, interacting with family ward-fields for navigation, safe passage into and out of guarded airspaces, and even to stay aloft.
Gradually, over time, the paranoia of most Halruaan elders regarding “the rest of the Realms” deepened and widened, and they grounded most of these “originals,’ incorporating them into family castles as fully-furnished and –provisioned “getaway craft” for family survival in the face of some dire disaster (er, that is, a disaster that didn’t involve magic going wild or ceasing to work). General wisdom in Halruaa took the view that these older, more powerful unique skyships were “treasures” full of “family secrets” that should be shielded from the eyes of non-Halruaans. So simpler and more standardized trading and “everyday flying” vessels evolved for use in Halruaa and in trading flights to and from the wider Realms - - and this is the sort of craft that was described in FR16.
It also, of course, became the craft non-Halruaan spellcasters could most easily examine and duplicate, hence the Thayan copy described in my DRAGON article.
The Red Wizards could, over time, copy a simple Halruaan trader, but never get to see the “real” Halruaan family skyships that remained at home, increasingly incorporated into Halruaan castles (and thereby “hidden in plain view”).
-- George Krashos
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 03 Feb 2021 : 02:53:09
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Ships hanging from a blimp is a common depiction, but Halruaan skyships have never been described as needing the blimp.
Yet half the pictures (not text) of Halruaan flying ships show them with blimps. Both shining south covers for instance. This is another one of those things that I like to call "canon" isn't always uniform and there's multiple variations of what a skyship will look like actually built. Some may have the tortoise shell hull, others may not, etc...
Considering how often the art fails to match what it's supposed to depict, I personally wouldn't consider it a source of canon. Artwork has shown at least one of the Seven Sisters with brown hair and Drizzt as an old man with funky headwear. Bruenor has had dark brown hair and nearly red hair. Drizzt has also been slender, average-looking build, and seriously buff. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 02 Feb 2021 : 21:09:17
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Ships hanging from a blimp is a common depiction, but Halruaan skyships have never been described as needing the blimp.
Yet half the pictures (not text) of Halruaan flying ships show them with blimps. Both shining south covers for instance. This is another one of those things that I like to call "canon" isn't always uniform and there's multiple variations of what a skyship will look like actually built. Some may have the tortoise shell hull, others may not, etc... |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 Feb 2021 : 20:23:02
Ships hanging from a blimp is a common depiction, but Halruaan skyships have never been described as needing the blimp. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 02 Feb 2021 : 16:28:14
Well, in finally finishing up rime of the frostmaiden, I noticed it said "airship (see the Dungeon Master's Guide)". I had already written up an idea for a smaller skyship comparing it to a keelboat from Ghosts of Saltmarsh and removing the oars, so I'm comparing the rules in the DMG to mine and find them similar (mine has less cargo capacity, less hit points, and holds fewer people, but I had the speed a little higher at 10 miles per hour instead of 8). That all being said, in the interests of helping anyone else that comes along and reads this thread, its in the 5e DMG page 119 for an "airship" and they cost 20,000 gold (in comparison a galley is 30k and a warship is 25k.... but both can haul a LOT more weight and people). There's nothing to indicate in the DMG rules just how big or even what an "airship" is like, but there is a picture below it of a ship with a blimp on top, which is something we've seen in relation to some pictures of Halruaan skyships (other pictures have traditional sails). To note, also, for Eberron I noted there were rules for their air ships, and whereas the one in the DMG indicates 8 MPH, the one in Eberron was said to be able to go up to 20 MPH (thus theirs must be more advanced). Also, there is the helm in Dungeon of the Mad Mage, which gets up to extremely exceptional speeds (game breaking speeds in my view), and I also created some rules for a ship using a helm, but I'm heavily limiting the speeds that they can go lower in atmosphere (i.e. the idea that you can go from Toril to the moon's surface in under an hour is replaced by the concept that it may take you a week or two to reach the moon, but then once in space you go much much faster). |
| Diffan |
Posted - 14 Jan 2021 : 06:05:59
Not sure how useful this is, but in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (4E) p.254 it says: "Magic allows it to climb or descent in the air, but it can sail the seas as well. In either mode, it relies on the wind for forward speed. As long as its magic remains, a Skyship won't fall from the air or sink." |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 12 Jan 2021 : 19:55:23
Found something in Eberron - Rising from the Last War. That being said, they're limiting production of them via having the wood "naturally buoyant" and calling it soarwood, so its not really like the concept of Halruaan ships, which require constant recasting of magic, etc....
But, I did find something on DM's Guild that's looking interesting if a little complex, but it's also pay what you want called Airships and Mayhem. May look at it. It seems to more fit the concepts of Halruaan ships, but rather than specifying "having to cast levitate" it works on giving up spell slots to charge crystals of magic that get drained. Still, it makes it "not free" and "requiring daily maintenance". Might be fun. I also see some other guy that apparently went to more depth with a bunch of Izzy's guide to airship stuff, but I can't get a good preview and I don't want to drop any money on something without a good reason. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 12 Jan 2021 : 18:36:33
I know there were write-ups in earlier editions, but I'm not aware of anything for 5E. |
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