Building an Airship

[rose4100]

Hey, my party and I are really excited about getting an airship in our Eberron campaign but we came across a problem. Both the campaign setting book or the Explorers book doesn't give any advice on designing your own (even though they give a premade ship). We wanted a small (90ft'er) sleek, manuverable ship but the one given is basically a big clunker. Can anyone give me advice?

 

[Aeric]

There are plenty of third-party suppliments about airships, most of which have rules for building your own, not to mention several examples of different models. Even something like d20 Mecha would be able to help you construct a low-tech, magic-based airship the likes of which are found in Eberron.

Hope that helps!

 

[MarkB]

The secrets of airship-building are pretty closely-guarded by the gnomes (and Eberron gnomes are very good at secrets). To build your own, you'd need to have learned both the techniques of binding Huge elementals and those of working soarwood to create buoyant vessels. Even then, probably only the Zilargo shipyards have the right combination of expertise, tools and materials to reliably carry out the work.

If you want plans for a smaller airship, there's one just over 100 ft. long featured in the module Whispers of the Vampire's Blade.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Airships (by Bastion Press) is one book worth investigating. It has a whole chapter, about 25 pages, on airship construction, plus another section with some examples of airships (about 10 pages, I think). As well as lots of other stuff. And it's nice to look at too, IMO.