Look! Up in the sky! It's...hey, what the heck *is* that?

[DungeonmasterCal]

Those books rock. I don't remember the living blimps though. It's been a long time since I read those.

Ditto. I read them as a kid... hmm...I may still have them packed away....

 

[Ilium]

I'd think it was a captured creature used for the purpose of flying the ship... Kind of like a horse drawing a carriage... Only this is a gargantuan spikey flying fish thingy and not a horse...

Right, but my question was "why did it have the spikes in the first place?" Horses have hooves and great speed to escape their enemies. I was trying to hint at a big, dangerous predator that hunts these things for a living. Whizbang mentions rocs (a good point) and dragons (against which the spikes would be no help since dragons have breath weapons). I was trying to get at the "skyborne critters the groundhogs have no idea are up there." But apparently Rolzup intends that they were magically created, so they don't really need a rationale like that.

I still think they should be full of hydrogen, though. Just because.

 

[Scribble]

Right, but my question was "why did it have the spikes in the first place?" Horses have hooves and great speed to escape their enemies. I was trying to hint at a big, dangerous predator that hunts these things for a living. Whizbang mentions rocs (a good point) and dragons (against which the spikes would be no help since dragons have breath weapons). I was trying to get at the "skyborne critters the groundhogs have no idea are up there." But apparently Rolzup intends that they were magically created, so they don't really need a rationale like that.

I still think they should be full of hydrogen, though. Just because.

Ahhh gotcha.

hrmmm MAGIC HYDROGEN BABY!

 

[Mallus]

That's Captain Plundar the Airship Pirate-Barbarian's wet dream!

(Now if I can only talk Paul into letting him replace the Serenity Ow's gas bag with one of them...)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Presumably the dragon doesn't want to scrape them off the ground after blowing them up with a breath weapon. (I assume anything that looks like this is a herbivore/thaumavore, not a carnivore.) So the spikes would help in that case.

But yes, a mad arcanist who takes a puffer fish and uses it as the basis of their living blimp wouldn't have that as a primary issue.

But the most important reason for the spikes: Hey, it's 3E!

 

[Sir Brennen]

One of the Black Company novels also featured "sky-whales" - I wonder if Green Ronin statted them up in their d20 adaptation of the books?

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I still think they should be full of hydrogen, though. Just because.

Well of course it should be full of hydrogen. That's why the Dragons don't bother it!

 

[Rolzup]

That's Captain Plundar the Airship Pirate-Barbarian's wet dream!

(Now if I can only talk Paul into letting him replace the Serenity Ow's gas bag with one of them...)

I wish you all the luck in the world, I do.

(Not that it hadn't occured to me how handy a gasbag that *heals* would be.)

And it's the Serenity Ow now? It fits, it fits.

I keep trying to remember where I'd seen this image before, though. Some of Terry Gilliam's animations? An album cover from the sixties or seventies? John Blanche's old art from the Warhammer game? God only knows.

But, yeah, I have no idea what the damned thing eats. I figure that the gas that lifts it is terribly poisonous, however, and a nasty shock to anything that bites into the beast. And, this being D&D, it can also exhale that same gas as an effective breath weapon.

edit: Crap, it gets even better! At least according to Wikipedia....

Pufferfish are able to move their eyes independently, and many species can change the color or intensity of their patterns in response to environmental changes. In these respects they are somewhat similar to the terrestrial Chameleon.

They can change color. That's fantabulous.

 

[Gold Roger]

Thanks for this Idea. My next campaign will definitely have some demented clerics of the Changer (CN lesser/intermediate god. Portfolio change, aberrations, mad scientists and outcasts) breed this things. And sell them to whoever comes first.

Of course they might have some "instabilities".

Edit: And of course their creator will call them "Hindenburgs".

 

[Sir Brennen]

Don't forget in real-life, pufferfish are extremely poisonous (the internal organs, not the spikes.) Perhaps this aerial version is poisonous enough to dissuade even a dragon.