Airship Antics (plot help requested)

[QuaziquestGM]

Snakes on a plane.

I actually ran this for the "Winter break but we're still here and bored can you run something please" one shot for my college group.

I started out by conning them into think that I was running "Titanic" by playing up the dignitaries and maiden voyage of this "ship of dreams". I even gave one player a hook that he was trying to get out of town fast as he owed money and won a ticket playing poker. Once the ship took off he recognized one of the passangers as his bookie's accountant, with this tall dark paladin type hanging over him..... (witness and Samual L)

Besides the flight crew getting eaten, the sorc took out the rudder, and blew a hole in the bottom by using Fire Burst after getting swarmed by snakes in the hold. The ship then ended up crashing into this big fence on Skull Island. Then they had to fight off a needle tooth swarm and a t-rex to get to the inflatible life raft and get off the island.
(airplane, Jurrasic park, King Kong)

 

[shilsen]

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

Ballistae.

Only works if they're cruising reaally low

True about the altitude thing, but it might still be fun to use ballistae. The only thing more fun than swarming an airship with giant undead mounts carrying enemy soldiers, is doing so with giant undead mounts carrying enemy soldiers firing ballistae

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.

Nice suggestions. Some details (like the fire seeds thing) aren't an option because of the levels of the attackers involved, but the general premise fits well with what I have in mind.

If the intent is for the attackers to get the princess and have the PCs rescue her...

If the intent was for them to have a tough fight but prevent the kidnapping...

I have no intent, other than creating a fun fight, challenging the PCs and having a good time. I'm running a very open-ended campaign, and generally never set up an encounter with an expectation of what I want to happen. The attackers will have their agenda(s), and if the PCs can't stop them, they'll achieve it.

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.

I've got 5 PCs, and since the attack will be a multi-pronged one, chances are they'll have to split up and fight in different places. Of course, they're really powerful and have a lot of spellcasting at their fingertips (7th lvl Wiz spells, 7th lvl Drd spells, 4th lvl Clr spellls), so they may find ways to prevent that, but it'll take some doing.

 

[shilsen]

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.

Nice image! I'd thought of vampires already, but with the speed the airship travels at, trying to get on board in mist form is a little risky, so I'm considering two options. (1) During the attack, the Emerald Claw bring in a couple of vampires, intending them to be a kind of final weapon if they are beaten back. The vampires hide somewhere in mist form and sneak out at night to try and kill the princess. (2) Similar idea, but the vampires are on earlier, to launch a surprise attack while the Claw are making theirs, and/or destabilize the airship to make that easier.

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.

Paladins being hit on by women they aren't interested in never gets old. One of my most amusing sessions as a DM was in another campaign when a paladin similar to Gareth was hit on by a very friendly female vampire (whom they had in-character reasons to work with) with a serious lack of boundaries. We had players crying with laughter at the table.

My my, praise from you? I must have died and gone to hell.

Come on, you know I like your stuff. The things you posted on the thread about the Fleshweaver were damn handy.

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.

Nice. And thanks. I'd have to change that howl ability to have it work with the Emerald Claw present, or might just steal the flavor and stick it on a couple of modified ghouls or such.

 

[Merkuri]

Going in a different direction... Princess Haydith is essentially a hostage of the Brelish crown, and Karrnath holds a similar hostage against Breland. These "child exchanges" happened often in historical medieval times, and while on the surface they are done in good will - to help the children learn more of their former enemy's culture or somesuch - in reality they are there so that if one nation makes aggressive moves against the other, the defending nation can kill the hostage in retaliation. Honestly, I don't know why King Boranel would let her visit her homeland unless he's innocently overlooking the whole "hostage" thing or it is a huge gesture of good faith towards Karrnath, but you've already worked it into the plot so we'll have to roll with it.

So on that note, why would the Order of the Emerald Claw, or any other organization for that matter, want to attack her in transit? IMO, the best thing to do is to take the airship down and make it look like an accident. If Breland cannot protect its own hostage, the crown looks bad in the eyes of its people and Karrnath gets very very angry. An "accident" like this could start the war anew.

In order for this to happen right the airship has to be attacked discreetly, perhaps at night, or sabatoged from within. Perhaps strange things are happening on the airship and the party has to find out why before the sabateur is able to complete his work. If you want to have a twist, you could say that the sabateur is meant to be found out, but has evidence that incriminates antoher group. Say, for example, that Breland is trying to sabatoge its own ship because it wants to throw suspicion on another group, like the Blood of Vol or the Order of the Emerald Claw. Or the Order of the Emerald Claw wants to blame Breland for some reason.

 

[shilsen]

Snakes on a plane.

I actually ran this for the "Winter break but we're still here and bored can you run something please" one shot for my college group.

I started out by conning them into think that I was running "Titanic" by playing up the dignitaries and maiden voyage of this "ship of dreams". I even gave one player a hook that he was trying to get out of town fast as he owed money and won a ticket playing poker. Once the ship took off he recognized one of the passangers as his bookie's accountant, with this tall dark paladin type hanging over him..... (witness and Samual L)

Besides the flight crew getting eaten, the sorc took out the rudder, and blew a hole in the bottom by using Fire Burst after getting swarmed by snakes in the hold. The ship then ended up crashing into this big fence on Skull Island. Then they had to fight off a needle tooth swarm and a t-rex to get to the inflatible life raft and get off the island.
(airplane, Jurrasic park, King Kong)

That's cool. I actually did an entire King Kong thing in this campaign too, with the PCs traveling to a mist-shrouded island off Xen'drik, which had a giant wall with feral drow living outside it. I never did do an advanced colossal legendary ape as I threatened to (Sharn is just so perfect for King Kong action), but I did hit them with a dinosaur stampede. And a needletooth swarm, which treed the PCs.

Going in a different direction... Princess Haydith is essentially a hostage of the Brelish crown, and Karrnath holds a similar hostage against Breland. These "child exchanges" happened often in historical medieval times, and while on the surface they are done in good will - to help the children learn more of their former enemy's culture or somesuch - in reality they are there so that if one nation makes aggressive moves against the other, the defending nation can kill the hostage in retaliation. Honestly, I don't know why King Boranel would let her visit her homeland unless he's innocently overlooking the whole "hostage" thing or it is a huge gesture of good faith towards Karrnath, but you've already worked it into the plot so we'll have to roll with it.

I know what you mean, and we discussed this IC and OOC during the game as well. But I'm running with the Five Nations take on things with Haydith and Boranel being exceedingly fond of each other, and treating it as the good faith gesture you mentioned. Which makes it even more useful a moment for the Emerald Claw and anyone else (including those within Breland and Karrnath) to mess things up.

So on that note, why would the Order of the Emerald Claw, or any other organization for that matter, want to attack her in transit? IMO, the best thing to do is to take the airship down and make it look like an accident. If Breland cannot protect its own hostage, the crown looks bad in the eyes of its people and Karrnath gets very very angry. An "accident" like this could start the war anew.

That's one reason I'm strongly considering making it not just one big single attack but a combination of different issues for the PCs to deal with. One or more saboteurs aboard, trying to bring the ship down, would likely be the first problem, and if they failed, the Emerald Claw (assuming that's who it is) would make an actual attack in force.

If you want to have a twist, you could say that the sabateur is meant to be found out, but has evidence that incriminates antoher group. Say, for example, that Breland is trying to sabatoge its own ship because it wants to throw suspicion on another group, like the Blood of Vol or the Order of the Emerald Claw. Or the Order of the Emerald Claw wants to blame Breland for some reason.

Great minds I've been thinking of the above too, especially since the Emerald Claw is just so easy a group to pin blame on. Something which might also be amusing is to actually have more than one group trying to bring down the ship.

So many options, so few PCs to torture...

 

[Anti-Sean]

Great minds I've been thinking of the above too, especially since the Emerald Claw is just so easy a group to pin blame on. Something which might also be amusing is to actually have more than one group trying to bring down the ship.

So many options, so few PCs to torture...

Ruken ir'Clarn, the Brelish parliament member who is working behind the scenes towards the disestablishment of the monarchy is certainly a valid option for one of the plotters...

 

[fafhrd]

Nice image! I'd thought of vampires already, but with the speed the airship travels at, trying to get on board in mist form is a little risky, so I'm considering two options. (1) During the attack, the Emerald Claw bring in a couple of vampires, intending them to be a kind of final weapon if they are beaten back. The vampires hide somewhere in mist form and sneak out at night to try and kill the princess. (2) Similar idea, but the vampires are on earlier, to launch a surprise attack while the Claw are making theirs, and/or destabilize the airship to make that easier.

I hate to belabor the suggestion, but if you're concerned about the ship's speed for boarding purposes, it's a perfect opportunity for a lone saboteur or small group of less obvious villains to stall the ship at the right point(free the elemental, kill the pilot, cause some sort of faux minor disaster). Yes, I love that scene in Aliens.

 

[Bloosquig]

Clear floating balloons are let loose in front of the air ships path and when they are struck they unleash some kind of special gas / tanglefoot pouches / acid clouds etc. Maybe the killer gas slays the lower level crew and raises them as zombies to distract the guards while the real attack occurs below the ship...

dire undead woodpeckers, hollowed out for their devious cargo, drill holes through the bottom of the hull to allow their shrunken passengers access while the guards are busy upstairs.

Throw in a listen check for the party to realize that something funny is going on below during the battle upstairs and your ready for some craziness.

Or you could have people hide out using the old school low level mage spell that let you climb a ladder to an extradimensional hideaway and have them hide the ropes amongst all the other ones on the ship. When the time comes they pop it open and out come rogues and invisible mages. Not sure if the spell still exists since I can't find my books right now and I think I like the balloon / woodpecker idea better anyway.

 

[shilsen]

Ruken ir'Clarn, the Brelish parliament member who is working behind the scenes towards the disestablishment of the monarchy is certainly a valid option for one of the plotters...

Yup, yup, yup. Which is precisely why Hass ir'Tain, a good supporter of Ruken, is the one who hired the PCs. Is he part of a devious plan with Ruken? Is Ruken setting him up as the fall guy by getting him to facilitate the plan, which Ruken is dissociated from? Only Schrödinger's DM knows

I hate to belabor the suggestion, but if you're concerned about the ship's speed for boarding purposes, it's a perfect opportunity for a lone saboteur or small group of less obvious villains to stall the ship at the right point(free the elemental, kill the pilot, cause some sort of faux minor disaster). Yes, I love that scene in Aliens.

Belabor away. And if I go with the multiple attacks and esp. the saboteur(s) who pre-board the airship, having them set up something to facilitate the attack is definitely on the agenda.

Clear floating balloons are let loose in front of the air ships path and when they are struck they unleash some kind of special gas / tanglefoot pouches / acid clouds etc. Maybe the killer gas slays the lower level crew and raises them as zombies to distract the guards while the real attack occurs below the ship...

dire undead woodpeckers, hollowed out for their devious cargo, drill holes through the bottom of the hull to allow their shrunken passengers access while the guards are busy upstairs.

Dire undead woodpeckers? Now I really have heard it all

Throw in a listen check for the party to realize that something funny is going on below during the battle upstairs and your ready for some craziness.

Sure. That'll also be a nice way to throw the party a lot of difficult choices. "Okay - so you see the zombie wyverns carrying the soldiers coming in on the port bow. You're pretty sure you can hear screams and the sound of fighting from the passenger area below you. And there's that strange scraping sound coming from under the hull, near where the elemental ring passes around the ship. What do you do?"

Or you could have people hide out using the old school low level mage spell that let you climb a ladder to an extradimensional hideaway and have them hide the ropes amongst all the other ones on the ship. When the time comes they pop it open and out come rogues and invisible mages. Not sure if the spell still exists since I can't find my books right now and I think I like the balloon / woodpecker idea better anyway.

Rope Trick. It does still exist, but the wizard PC (permanent arcane sight) will detect it as soon as he passes near it. Still, there are some good options with it.

 

[shilsen]

Thanks for all the great suggestions, folks. You people, as always, are horribly mean and devious !

Here's another request: Does anyone know where I can find some floorplans for an airship? Especially ones I could print out and use. The one in the Explorer's Handbook isn't really usable with miniatures, and having one(s) that I could would be really handy.