some help with my campaign please?

[barbario]

so at the end of the next game session the pc’s while have aquired an airship

so i need a way to have it work in the context of d&d. im thinking some kind of gas in the balloon and was thinking about something like magical bellows below the deck that whe squuzed provide the fuel to make the propellers go so it goes forwards. but what about up and down? or if you guys think of something better.
also there a helpful gremlin that will be the engineer below deck al Scotty fro star trek. his names Skahdi… get it?

[Kaldath]

I would go on a variant of a Spell Jamming Helm. If you are not familiar with SpellJammer, it is a AD&D 2nd Edition outer space setting. The SpellJammer helms worked on one of two principles the first sucking magic energy out of a mage or Cleric ( uses up all that characters magic for 24 hours ) to provide the ship with power. The Mage/Cleric would man the helm and become the pilot. The second type of Helm is a LifeJammer, and it sucks the life out of a human/humanoid ( elf, dwarf, ect ) to power the ship. What I would do in your cause is take that principle and modify it to fit into your setting. OR you can introduce tinker Gnomes!!!!

[barbario]

yeah i love spelljammer. but i wanted to go a different way. whats up with tinker gnomes? thats what i was going for with the gremlin. sort of a home brew gnome/gremlin guy.

[Kaldath]

Tinker Gnomes are from Kyrnn aka Dragonlance, and is a race of Gnomes who Build Machines. The Problem is that these machines have a tendency to Malfunction is a spectacular fashion. However, there is a second race of Tinker Gnomes on a different continent of Krynn from the Main Gameing world that actually make very functional machines. Oh, and the Tinker Gnome talks very fastsothattherewordsallblendtoegtherintoonesinglewordlikethis.

[barbario]

riiight. been awhile since i read dragonlance. wasnt my fav campaign world

[Kaldath]

Not sure if this will help at all, but here is a picture of the Airships from the Dungeons and Dragons Online MMO http://lorehound.com/wp-content/gallery/ddo-online-update-5/ddo-airship1.jpg

No stats or anything, but maybe the image will inspire you .

[barbario]

those are rad. i little more dynamic and flashy for the setting though. its kind of gritty, influenced by asoiaf. i think what im gonna do is a have it be a hot air balloon. but basically a “hollywood” hot air ballon. you know how stuff in movies is never how it is in real life just for sake of cool. cars dont blow up when you shoot them, if you ran through a window you would be so lacerated etc. so im just gonna have the gremlin tell them that in times of yore they were more common. hell mention far-away kingdoms that still might use some. but the problem with them is range. you have to burn something to fuel the furnace but there no natural gas. coal is heavy and expensive. some have used magic means but these are rare cases. such is the case for this ship. the gremlin has fashioned a magical dwarven bellows that he discovered in the ruins of an ancient dwarven citadel (which is beneath a human stronghold that has recently been over-run by giants and orcs.) so the gremlin works the bellows below like the typical engineer ala scotty. one of the pcs has to steer and comm thru a pipe like in steam days. shes a Saevolken (Sea Folk) berserker. badass viking warrior chick. thanks for the info on tinkr gnomes. im gonna use that and have the ship malfunction at the worst times. and regular people are not gonna by pleased to see a crazy flying ship over their heads. and also theres a white dragon roaming around.

[Herr D]

airship might be best made in following pieces:
1. Choose wood carefully. Some wood just doesn’t burn well, and if climate allows, a design allowing for replacing panels/beams one at a time (modular design / repair may have been done in 1300’s) Just keep harvesting green saplings and weaving.
2. Hot air in multiple interconnected dried ‘animal bladders’ similar idea to leather wineskins would prevent fatal crash: you could tie off leaks and reroute flow. Skill–tanning, sewing, carpentry.
3. fuel–for rapid hot burn and light weight and low cost, pouches of mill debris. Wheat kernel casings, corn husk dust, etc. is stuff they might pay you to take away if you sweep it out for them. It is so flammable that in tonnage pressure in summer some silos have spontaneous combustion instances. It’s VERY reliable tinder, dense powder as heavy as fine dust.
Alternate 3. There is a well-known spell in the index for a heatless permanent torch that can’t start a fire. If you’re the GM, rewrite the spell so 15 ‘lanterns’ uncovered all at once cause a wave of heat, but 1d4 lantern wears out daily. Fuel would then be 1d4 sp/day
4. Propellors? If 1/4 party pedal at once . . . that’s an overlapping shift setup. Pony on a conveyor belt? 1 minihorsepower.
5. Concealment: paint it to look like a flock of birds that tastes nasty to the locals. Augment with illusion.
Any of these pieces could cause major problems with or without catastrophe.

[cliff]

Interesting you mentioned a dragon, that was going to be my suggestion, a young red dragon supplying the “hot hair” as I seem to remember it you add more hot air to go up, and realease some from a valve to go down.
Of course if you have a captive red dragon as your hot air supply there is also a chance of Moma Dragon looking for her young.

Tinker Gnomes can really add to a campaign. One of my GMs had a Tinker Gnome air ship. It had some sor t of compustable feul that was leaking all over the place. It was launcehed by catapult and its landing gear was giantr springs. It was called the White Lightning XV, sadly we figured out what happened to 1-14 once we landed, but everyone survived.

[barbario]

well i introduced it to the players. i made it seem like this gremlin knew what he was doing but he is seemingly daft. i managed to work in a princess bride reference. they just got it as the session ended. also theres an attack force of drow (this is in an underground hangar) and driders coming… the first cliffhanger ending to a session. so theyve yet to get how it works. what im going with is that the fremlin has hooked a a magical artifact to an extremely modified steam-engine type furnace. the Dwarven Bellows were once used to make endless heat for ancient dwarven weapon-smiths. its gonna be crazy and hard to steer and is gonna break down at the worst moments.

[barbario]

so theve acquired their airship. now i dont know what to do next? i dont want them to just zoom fly to where theyre going. i like decompressing stuff with encounters. but what to do in the sky? i dont just wan random flying monsters all the time. also noone in theyre part of world has airships/ man i think i screwd myself lol. any ideas?

[Kaldath]

Flying Monsters, such as Dragons, Gryphons, Rocs, certain demons. Also Ballista Bolts and or catapults fired at them from keeps and stroingholds they fly over, or from nearby mountain peeks as well as magical weapons and spells to knock them out of the air. You can also use Malfunctions to force them to land and while they are making repairs some random encounter can happen. Also visual clues they can see from the air can lead to an encounter if they investigate like beacon fires, or smoking ruins of a village etc. and lets not forget about weather, really bad storms can force them to lands as flying in high winds or through a lightning storm can be deadly.

[barbario]

thanks kaldath. that is actually very helpful.

[Herr D]

Let’s not forget minor weather problems. With no one else having airships, no one charted the jet stream, right? Face them with using too much fuel to go directly, and if they go around, face them with fog so they get lost. Then what happens with birds. 5 pigeons really can bring down some modern jet planes. So what happens if a small flock roosts on one side?

Interferences: suppose they get too close to a wizard’s home on an icy cliff. The spells / artifacts that keep his place warm rockets the ship up 500 feet, then when they get past, they plummet 510 feet, completely missing the cliff. Motion sickness is avoidable with a roll, right?

[barbario]

thanks again! i made a top down map for the pcs when they are shipboard

[Author]

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