Airships; impact on a world?

[Angel Tarragon]

Before the era of fast communication and travel, news took months or years to get around, and ambassadors often didn't see their homelands for very long times. As a result, it was only really possible to maintain real diplomatic interaction with one's direct neighbors.

Actually in fantasy worlds this isn't true anyway. Ring Gates are a quite effective way of keeping in touch and knowing with what's going on.

I.E. Slipping notes and using them as a parcel delivery system.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Actually in fantasy worlds this isn't true anyway. Ring Gates are a quite effective way of keeping in touch and knowing with what's going on.

Depends on the fantasy world, I'd say. Some of them allow the creation and use of gates, while others don't have them or make them a rare and uncontrollable natural phenomenon. Or maybe using them just too expensive for regular use.

Besides, I feel that frequent use of gates is somewhat... boring. Yes, it cuts down on travel time - but that also means you are missing out on all those overland adventures. There are no vast caravans traveling from city to city, no large convoys of ships if all international commerce is done via gates. Airships, on the other hand, are a powerful symbol of how the nations of the world can connect with each other. They can show a nation's military might, a merchant house's reach and power, and a private individual's wealth. They can both be a mobile home base and sanctuary and an adventuring location in their own right.

So given the choice, I'd rather have airships for long-distance travel than a gate network - unless you can find a way of making a gate network equally interesting (Planescape's Sigil comes to mind)...

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Depends on the fantasy world, I'd say. Some of them allow the creation and use of gates, while others don't have them or make them a rare and uncontrollable natural phenomenon. Or maybe using them just too expensive for regular use.

Besides, I feel that frequent use of gates is somewhat... boring. Yes, it cuts down on travel time - but that also means you are missing out on all those overland adventures. There are no vast caravans traveling from city to city, no large convoys of ships if all international commerce is done via gates. Airships, on the other hand, are a powerful symbol of how the nations of the world can connect with each other. They can show a nation's military might, a merchant house's reach and power, and a private individual's wealth. They can both be a mobile home base and sanctuary and an adventuring location in their own right.

So given the choice, I'd rather have airships for long-distance travel than a gate network - unless you can find a way of making a gate network equally interesting (Planescape's Sigil comes to mind)...

Actually, what I was referring to are the Ring Gates in the DMG, pg. 265. They're not generally used as a mode of transportation.

 

[Rhun]

You could read the War of Powers series by Robert Vardeman and Victor Milan if you can find them. It is a fantasy based series with airships and air-powered pistols. It might give you some ideas.

 

[kitsune9]

I am considering whether to make a fairly major change in my campaign world and add the presence of a number of airships.

I'm not thinking of making them common and ubiquitous, but just wide-spread enough that they'd have some economic and social impact.

For example, there's a group of gypsy-like travelers in my campaign world known as the Shalani. Across one swath of the campaign world there are probably five or six thousand members of their tribe. If that group owned 10-12 airships and could use them to travel back and forth from (essentially north-east, central and south america), what impact would that be likely to have on the kingdoms that they travel among?

What social changes would easy but infrequent travel be likely to create? What economic changes? What points am I NOT thinking of that could cause me trouble?

What have airships done for your campaign world that you really liked or disliked? Fill me in!

If the airships are fairly rare, many kingdoms are likely to give a king's ransom for the ability to manufacture these ships. If not, then taking them by force is a major incentive, but it's dependent upon whether the kingdoms have the capability.

If airships exist in a relatively low-magic world, it makes acquiring them at any cost even more important, because traditional defenses of city walls, etc are important against mundane attacks, but against an airship that can bombard from above, there's very little that can be done about it. In addition, many kingdoms are likely to just have them destroyed so as to avoid having their enemies having them at their disposal as well.

In high magic campaigns, airships would make a nice addition to a king's military, but if they can acquire flying carpets, high level wizards, and multitudes of magic items, this probably not too much of a concern unless airships represent a cheaper way of doing things.

Economically, it depends upon how fast and durable your airship is. If your airship crawls, then getting goods by ship or land are still likely to be more viable. If airships are worth a kingdom, they aren't economically viable either to move goods. If they are costly to maintain, another reason to not use them for supply logistics.

Other notes is what kind of threat do airships pose to creatures that have the natural predisposition to flying? A dragon knows that he can probably outfly a castle's defenses or knights on horseback and has the advantage of taking the fight to puny creatures on the ground, but when he sees a flying ship that's outfitted with harpoons, catapults, ballistae, etc, he won't be amused, because now he knows that ship's crew can take the fight to him on their terms. This is something that dragons are likely to unite against.

With a fantasy campaign of variable levels of magic, an impact of an airship can be the ultimate weapon that every kingdom would be willing to go to war for or another way of transporting goods.

 

[Gilladian]

I want to thank everyone for their ideas and opinions so far, and to ask you to keep them coming.

So far, I have to say that you've given me great food for thought.

A few tidbits about my campaign world; it consists of relatively low magic (normal DnD magic up to about 12th level but advancement stops about there). So airships would be a big increase in magic level.

Some teleportation devices exist, but they're rare and ancient, from a previous empire, which also had flying ships, castles and cities!

So there is "grounds" for adding airships, but they'd be ancient magitech. The group that would likely control them are the Shalani - a people who once ruled a magical kingdom, but had it destroyed because of their hubris - which left them roving, homeless wanderers. Having them be the only keepers of the secret of flight somehow seems appropriate.

The ships would be powered by something like a magical fuel or gas. The ships themselves would not be lighter than air, but their fuel source could easily be. I'm thinking that the fuel only works when properly "charged" in some way, which only the Shalani know how to do.

Likely, the fuel comes from the dwarves - a very reclusive and slightly paranoid people who rely on the Shalani as their trade outlet to the rest of the world.

The Shalani would thus do their best to keep their airships close under their own control, but even if they got taken by others, the magic (fuel source) would soon expire, leaving the ships worthless. It would be hard for someone to apply leverage to both the shalani to acquire a ship, and the dwarves to get access to fuel.

The ships would be fast, but unable to carry a great deal, and fragile. Dragons would, as many people mentioned, greatly dislike them and try to destroy them, making their use somewhat problematic. The Shalani can build more, but the process is slow and expensive. They might lease one or two out to a given nation, but not often and not for warlike purposes (war does disrupt trade!).

Kingdoms are spread fairly wide apart IMC (mostly because they've grown up around isolated surivors of the Empire-destroying war 400 years earlier), so travel has always been difficult. I don't want to do away with that, but to add one way to minimize the difficulty if all cards are played properly.

That's about it, so far.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The ships would be powered by something like a magical fuel or gas. The ships themselves would not be lighter than air, but their fuel source could easily be. I'm thinking that the fuel only works when properly "charged" in some way, which only the Shalani know how to do.

In that case, I'd steal the best aspects of the fantastic heavier than air airships: Well's First Men in the Moon (Cavorite), Space:1889's Liftwood, and Brook's Voyages of the Jerle Shannara series (diapson crystals and parse tubes) or even Spelljammer.

In those sources, some of the ships are open decked like 3-masted sailing ships, some are ironclads.

Lift in the various sources is a manufactured metal, a naturally harvested wood, a crystal that delivers energy when exposed to light, or pure magic. Each has its advantages and drawbacks.

Likely, the fuel comes from the dwarves

Well, that would explain why there are so few dwarves...OH WAIT! You mean they mine the fuel! My bad.

Doing it that way would make the dwarves akin to Saudi sheiks, a fact that could make for some interesting dynamics.

 

[Sigurd]

Perhaps the ships themselves were the height of their arrogance. Their fuel demands grew larger and larger until the dwarves couldn't supply enough or poisoned the fuel they gave.

This poisoned fuel might work but have horrible side affects.

It might be prone to drop outs and failures - that's a real formula for losing a floating city .

Perhaps the magic had side affects or reacted to magnetic fields in different regions. The fields might have left stranded ships\ruins unable to move until the field shifted.....


Sigurd

 

[Quartz]

If you don't want them to be too useful, then you could put a really low speed on them, so that they can't really go into the wind too much. IOW They can't go from A to B and straight back to A. Maybe they have to travel via C, D, and E. Or wait for the right winds.

In the War of Powers, the flying city was restricted to a particular path, called the Quincunx IIRC.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The Martian Liftwood ships of SpaceL1889 (as opposed to the Imperial Navies with cavorite & steam) were essentially sailing ships, so the only thing that made them faster than their ocean-going progenitors is the fact that they can go over land, thus cutting corners that marine vessels can't. They had the same speed, but more direct routes.