Airship Antics (plot help requested)

[shilsen]

For the most interesting of reversals, she might be smitten with one of the Brelish dignitaries, and plan on abducting him upon arrival for some 'private time'. And as we all know, missing princesses are a big no-no, no matter if she's the one who is doing the kidnapping or not. Oh come on, she's a big Karnnathian girl, she can carry off a frightened noble on her own.

As mentioned above, why not Gareth? Him being so hunky and all, albeit unable to do anything in the bedroom

But if you're interested in making your whipping boys (and girl) -suffer-, I suggest checking out my new monster thread (with it's first evil minion up, The Hunting Bats of Ashtakala), The Bestiary of Ashtakala. I'll put up a nice famine spirit who will be right at home in the Emerald Claw sometime tomorrow.

Trust me, they'll thank me. I mean, you.

Nice. very nice. The hunting bats are a little too strong to use here, but undead dire bats might be an option for riding up to intercept the airship. And I'll look forward to the famine spirit.

2, Snakes on a plane.

*beats head on wall for being a doofus*

Thank you, thank you - I can't believe I forgot that! I may have to stretch a couple of things, but I've got to do Snakes on an Airship.

In similar plotlines, I've had the FRPG equivalent of attacks by warriors & rogues riding some kind of gliders/parasail/flying beastriders/1-man airships. In a Space:1889 setting, I used maneuverable liftwood-equipped solo airships (analogous to the sailboards used in windsurfing) to take down the air battleships of the various empires attacking the BBEG's base (a scene borrowed from Michael Moorcock).

Once the airship was brought down, the real battle was joined...

Nice. Of course, the only thing more fun than a battle after an airship crashes is a battle while an airship crashes

Similar effects could be achieved with a suicide agent with a DBF or some such...getting you Hindenburg-esque type imagery to play with to stimulate your players.

DBF is too high level for these enemies to have access to, but I did consider some suicide bombers with necklaces of fireballs. I've always joked about that, but never tried it out, and the Emerald Claw could do it easily enough. Have a bunch of zombies with orders to do nothing besides get close to an enemy and detonate one of their fireball beads. Starting a nice chain reaction.

1) In a version of your plotline, I had a shapechanging assassin in the group, posing as the handmaiden for the princess. Every day or so, she knocked off an NPC in a manner that seemed to be natural...a fall off of a cliff, a sting from a poisonous insect... After her ID was revealed, she seemed to get killed in a big battle, only to pop up one last time right as the PCs thought they were home free.

That's a nice option, except that I'd have to do it without a shapechanger. One of my PCs has True Seeing and is likely to be using it.

On the other hand, this being Eberron, they could easily have a few changelings on board even among the crew, most of whom would be in some identity that they normally wear. So a changeling assassin could just knock off another changeling and wear the identity he normally does, and anyone using True Seeing would see a changeling in that form, as they already had. Hmmm...

 

[Frostmarrow]

I did this in Eberron: The PCs where hired to go looking for an airship with the use of their own ship in the skies south of Sharn.

One day they sighted an abandoned airship and closed in cautiously to investigate.

I handed the sailor-PC a PoTC-ship and told him to show me how he intended to navigate to reach the derelict (represented by another wizkids-plasticard). I gave them the wind direction too.

Once they decided I had them roll spot, for pirates started raining from the sky. Another airship that was hunting them had appeared above. The players were completely surprised by this, since they had been so focused on how to reach the bait-ship. (It's always fun to surprise the players).

Once combat was over and done with I had the bait-ship double as a horror dungeon as it was ghoul infested. The ship they were looking for was the pirate ship that attacked the PCs.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Hell, yeah! No gliding airships in my game! Which, incidentally, doesn't include the gliding thing for dispelled fly spells either.

Well, a falling ship will hit really fast - but an uncontrolled, quickly dropping airship gives you enough time to have some fun. I'm thinking more along the lines of a crashing helicopter, spinning wildly and descending over the course of ten rounds or so...

 

[shilsen]

Well, a falling ship will hit really fast - but an uncontrolled, quickly dropping airship gives you enough time to have some fun. I'm thinking more along the lines of a crashing helicopter, spinning wildly and descending over the course of ten rounds or so...

Agreed. That's the kind of effect I'd like to go for. Or even just an airship which has its elemental suppressed just as it's making a turn in the middle of a fight.

 

[William drake]

MY PLAYERS STAY OUT!

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Since many posters were incredibly helpful on the The Fleshweaver & my PCs thread I started for ideas for my campaign, I thought I'd get a little more help from the marvellously inventive/fiendish brains here.

After having returned from their encounter with the Fleshweaver, the five PCs in my Eberron campaign have now accepted a job to accompany and guard Princess Haydith ir'Wynarn, sister to King Kaius III of Karrnath, as she returns for a visit to her country. She will be travelling from Wroat in Breland, where she normally stays now, and will be traveling via airship. The PCs were hired for this job by Hass ir'Tain, working on behalf of the Brelish Parliament and the royalty, since there are some fears that the Order of the Emerald Claw might make an attempt on her life on the way back. The princess will be accompanied by her personal bodyguards and other security, but the PCs, who are the most powerful adventurers in Sharn (being very strong 13th lvl PCs), are the ace in the hole in case there's trouble. They are expected to travel to Karrnath with Haydith and return with her after a stay of 2-3 weeks there.

For people unfamiliar with the setting, here's the non-Eberron version: The PCs are guarding a princess as she returns to her country of origin from the one she's been staying in (as a kind of diplomatic exchange after a century long war between those two and other countries). They are traveling by airship and there are expectations that a group of necromantic terrorists will attack them on the way, trying to kill the princess.

What I'm looking for are suggestions about anything and everything to do with the above. For example:

1) What will be the method(s) for the attack on the airship? NPCs, tactics, etc. This being Eberron, I don't want to go above CR 10 at most for the highest level enemy.

2) What sort of NPCs should be on the airship with the PCs? And yes, before anyone brings it up, I'm extremely tempted to have it be captained by Mal d'Lyrandar

3) What reason(s) do the Emerald Claw (assuming it's the Emerald Claw) have for going after Haydith?

4) Any ideas you may have for making the entire thing more complicated. Why were the PCs chosen for this job? Are all the NPCs on the airship on their side? Is there anything interesting that might happen with them in Karrnath? And so on.

And anything and everything else you think of mentioning.

Thanks, in advance.

I had a sick thought...what if the nercomancers, got ahold of the ship, sometime before the princes..or her guads. And, they wove, their own flesh-constructs into the weave: inside, or into the pattern itself. SO later, through someone or something on the ship that connects them closely to the things, they awaken their flesh-constructs...who tear out of the balloon, and force it to land or crash...or w/e. I mean, why would they even have to be there....they're terrorrists...(a flesh bomb) think normal terrorrist tacts...but with magic.

Or, what if they hid inside the ship's food locker...in with the meat? Wove themselves inside the chest of a cow, annd hung waiting inside the freezer for the time to get out, and get to work. They're necromancers, powers over flesh, and all forms of dead llife....have fun with it.

Game On: Oh, always a good thing to read if your playing necromancers "WOD: the Tzimishi, the flesh crafting clan of vampires from the World of Darkness. Very dark, gross, and alot of fun."

 

[shilsen]

I had a sick thought...

That's not sick. It's juicy

And fits perfectly with the kind of things I do in my game.

 

[Sugarmouse]

For a somewhat more mundane approach in 'stopping' the Airship (though this depends on how high Airships fly):

Ballistae.

Ground mounted, and tethered either to big trees, boulders or immovable rods. Shoot the bolt to penetrate the hull (have them spring loaded so that they effectively grapple the ship) and then watch it start making a nice bee-line for the ground at its nominal travelling speed. I'd use six in an expanded hexagonal set-up, so that three bolts penetrate each side of the ship.

Probably works best in combination with any and all of the previous suggestions - as the PCs might effectively manage to sever the heavy ropes (or chains - hmm... chains.)

When/if the ships crashes - have the evil guys assault the dazed survivors on the ground.



Hmm. I'm playing ED in two weeks time. This has given me ideas...

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Ballistae...Ground mounted, and tethered either to big trees, boulders or immovable rods. Shoot the bolt to penetrate the hull (have them spring loaded so that they effectively grapple the ship) and then watch it start making a nice bee-line for the ground at its nominal travelling speed. I'd use six in an expanded hexagonal set-up, so that three bolts penetrate each side of the ship...When/if the ships crashes - have the evil guys assault the dazed survivors on the ground

Only works if they're cruising reaally low

Two pronged assault. The emerald claw used suborned members of the military to get Karnathi skeletal warriors then disassembled them and put them in the ballast. The second prong involves flying beasts and an airship preferably though more flying beasties will work. The first thing they do is clear the decks of sailors with a kamakazi flight. A flying beast forcefed a LOT of acorns and berries with fire seeds cast on them and fireballed as it gets close to the deck. Then with the deck and all the various deck gear and any rigging or lines afire land the boarding party. It should be led by wizards with shatter. These wizards blow breaches in the deck to bypass the hatches and take the fight straight down into the royal stateroom where presumably the Princess is waiting.

If the intent is for the attackers to get the princess and have the PCs rescue her back then have her extracted by a teleporting mage while the boarders extract by whatever means they arrived. This will force the PCs to capture a member of the boarding party and find out where the attack came from. You can string it along however you want from this point.

If the intent was for them to have a tough fight but prevent the kidnapping, then use small adventuring party style units built around a rogue and a wizard. These parties should immeidately seek to breach straight down into the interior of the ship and fight in the confines of the tight passageways and berthing spaces. Have them avoid hatches and go straight through bulkheads to make their attacks difficult to anticipate. These are the groups that should advance on the princess. Blinking is a great help. While this is happening another group should be trying to break the binding ring on the elemental powering the ship, especially if you DM a larger group, since this will force them to split resources and cause a more challenging overall fight.

 

[fafhrd]

Scenic moonlit night as the craft cuts through low clouds limning the Blackcaps below. Sadly the clouds bore more than just silt and dew, and now the vampires, formerly in mist form are now spiderclung to the underbelly of the ship. First guy to have too much Nightwood Ale gets sees fast approaching red eyes just as he spews overboard.

 

[Solarious]

As mentioned above, why not Gareth? Him being so hunky and all, albeit unable to do anything in the bedroom

I must be loosing my touch. Gareth would be the perfect kidnap victim! I can see it now: cornered in a palacial suite in Atur, experienced princess trying her hardest to seduce him, he's reduced to naught but a see-through loincloth designed more to tease rather than conceal...

It'll be a riot.

Nice. very nice. The hunting bats are a little too strong to use here, but undead dire bats might be an option for riding up to intercept the airship. And I'll look forward to the famine spirit.

My my, praise from you? I must have died and gone to hell. The Famine Spirits are up: only CR7, so feel free to have a couple run amok. I'll see about getting a pack leader up sometime.

Statting up monsters with all this detail is sapping my creativity, I'll see what I can flush out for you tomorrow.