An Airship as the center of a campaign

[weem]

I heartily also recommend the anime movie "Castle in the Sky", lots of skyship goodness around a plotpoint of a lost ancient civilization that fled to the skys via floating cities. The civilization disappeared, almost reverse-Atlantis-like. The contemporary-skyships are closer to dirigibles than flying boats.

In the contemporary-movie-era of Castle in the Sky there is a last search for the remaining floating city lost in the clouds.

I have heard of it, but never seen it - I will have to check that out, thanks!

An alternate idea I had used in a long dormant homebrew setting involved planar layers, that across the entire material plane was something of a convergent zone exactly about 7,000 feet above sea level where one plane intersected with the material plane. Anyway, along this "line" vessels could be built/crafted to "float" in the air, the knowledge of the process was not widely public, only a few states knew. At 7,000 feet across the planet could be found port cities and towns catering to the vessels. Dwarves were dominant among nations who used such vessels. Pretty much every mountain and mountain range became islands and archipelagos for the sky fleets. This arbitrary convention also allowed me to keep aerial combat fairly well limited to 2-dimensional engagements, 3-dimensional vehicle combat is teh suck.

That sounds really cool, do you have a site up for it?

Fortunately, as I mentioned, ship to ship combat is not a concern (yet). This campaign, even if it goes to Epic, won't necessarily see any of that. The following campaign very well could though.

I dig that idea though. I'm imagining each kingdom having at least one major port up there in the mountains. A lot of trade between them and of course all the work involved in moving products up and down the various slopes leading to these places (as I assume the ships ONLY operate at 7k feet).

Very interesting

 

[Cyronax]

I heartily also recommend the anime movie "Castle in the Sky", lots of skyship goodness around a plotpoint of a lost ancient civilization that fled to the skys via floating cities.

An alternate idea I had used in a long dormant homebrew setting involved planar layers, that across the entire material plane was something of a convergent zone exactly about 7,000 feet above sea level where one plane intersected with the material plane.

Eric,

I really liked your convergent zone-cum-airship line idea. I'd love to see more information about it too.

Weem,

Another tangential inspiration I used for my airship campaign was the old Disney cartoon show - Tail Spin (TaleSpin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Why a Disney cartoon? It had an interesing dynamic - it was a lot 1930's pulp type adventure set in a Points of Light world that revolved around airplanes and airships. One of the villains in the show was a group of sky pirates in a massive airship.

C.I.D.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

You have a link to that by chance? I did a quick search and didn't find it

Ship Recognition Guide

Ship Stats

Ship Rules

 

[Merkuri]

Depending on your campaign, other sources to consider:

1. ...
2. The Poseidon Adventure
3. ...

Oh, wow, I don't know what you have planned long-term for this campaign, but this could make for a pretty awesome climax/end adventure. After the PCs have spent months or years on this ship they finally run into something that the ship can't handle and it crashes spectacularly. The PCs are stuck inside and have to make their way out of the sideways or upside-down ship. This will both tear at the PCs' heartstrings and give them a new final way to explore the ship. This would probably work best if they crash very near the campaign's final destination so they have to make their way out of the ship and then immediately onto the campaign's epic conclusion.

 

[weem]

Ship Recognition Guide

Ship Stats

Ship Rules

Thanks!

Eric,

I really liked your convergent zone-cum-airship line idea. I'd love to see more information about it too.

Weem,

Another tangential inspiration I used for my airship campaign was the old Disney cartoon show - Tail Spin (TaleSpin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Why a Disney cartoon? It had an interesing dynamic - it was a lot 1930's pulp type adventure set in a Points of Light world that revolved around airplanes and airships. One of the villains in the show was a group of sky pirates in a massive airship.

C.I.D.

Haha, loved the show - I probably saw all of em! I still know the theme song (yikes)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I am reminded of Master of the World

That and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- both fine examples of shipborne adventurers and ulterior motives.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

That sounds really cool, do you have a site up for it?

It's a twenty-year-old campaign that hasn't been in use for at least 15 years. I've kept my hand-drawn maps and copious notebooks of house rules in a box. Maybe some day they will see the light of the interwebs.

 

[weem]

So I thought I would do some experimenting with putting together some (tiled) deckplans (in photoshop). I found some wood and pieced them together for the floor, the walls are simply black fill and the rest are pulled from the various dungeon tiles. This layout is not intended to be used at all, I just wanted to primarily make the floor (for future use) and test a couple things, but I thought I would post it as part of the process...