Mediterranean

[dan89156108]

I have been tinkering with a Mediterranean theme. I am also having the main form of player and npc transportation being Airships. Here is the back story and player introduction.

"This is the lush kingdom of Saaldiana, located on the continent of Alashaara. Saaldiana has experienced 100 years of peace and prosperity thanks to the strength and leadership of the noble ruling family. The kingdom is currently led by the noble and ambitious Isma'il, sun of Khuzaymah. Saaldianna has many lush port towns that are teeming with trade from other nations. The surplus of trade has made Saldiana a very rich nation, an aspect that has made the ancient kingdom of Arieala look upon Saaldiana whith envious eyes. The holy war of 100 years ago are but a lesson taught to school children in Saaldiana, but it is quite different for the elven of Arieala, who live hundreds of years. Their Devastating loss in the great aerial Battles over the straight of Numair, due to the Saaldian masterwork grasp of airship design, has left the Holy War and resulting defeat fresh in their minds. You <The Adventurers> find yourself in the lush port town of Rafiq after your many journeys. On your way to the inn after an exhausting walk through the deserts of eelo'hadiem, You encounter a crowd... What do you do?"




I also envision epic airship battles, not only player vs monster but also airship to airship combat using a modified skill encounter. The encounter would be something like a series of rolls for a firing turn, then a series of rolls for an evasion turn. Instead of hp, each ship would have a number of success before failure rolls. There will also be a chance to board and capture an airship if the ship has half the failures for a loss. I am still working on the details but I am excited to get this rolling.


If any of you like this setting or my ideas for airship combat, please feel free to use them, just give me some credit. Any feedback anybody can give would be greatly appreciated.

 

[knightofround]

Right now I'm writing a Mediterranean-theme campaign as well. I want to make the world high-magic, but I've been wrestling what to do with airships. Because I like 'em, but if they exist then it obsoletes naval combat.

Right now I'm considering making Airships more like blimps, rather than traditional naval-ship-that-flies-thru-the-air. So they would be available for stuff like dignitaries and military insertion missons, but they wouldn't be available in large enough quantity to invalidate naval trade and warfare altogether.

It sounds like you really want to push the battle airship concept, which is cool, but you might want to consider what repercussions that will have on naval and land-based war/trade.

 

[dan89156108]

Thanks for the reply. What I was thinking was that airships do not so much replace conventional ships but it is more like modern day jets. They are a step up from prop planes, but they do not replace them. There are still ships in my world, and the thing I wanted to put in place was that airships are expensive. That way the average party or merchant would not be able to afford one right away.

 

[Prisoner6]

I'm not convinced that airships makes naval combat obsolete. So long as there are naval vessels that need protecting, there will be a need for naval combat vessels. Even in today's modern world we still use nautical transport for all kinds of cargo that either can't be reasonable transported by aircraft, or we choose not to because air transport is more expensive than sea transport.

I'm not exactly sure what is meant by "Mediterranean" ... I was thinking something more historical, with Greeks (or Romans) and Egyptians, possibly Persians or Babylonians. I see that's not what the OP had in mind though. What makes this campaign "Mediterranean"?

 

[dan89156108]

Perhaps my wording was off but you do make a good point. When I was thinking Mediterranean, I was thinking Mediterranean / desert landscapes as the main environment. Things like open deserts sprinkled with oasis and lush ocean port towns, with the occasional temperate grasslands. And I agree with your example of modern day navy protection. I want airships to be a main part of the game, but my having airships does not render traditional ships obsolete. Its like you can afford a ship now, and when you become a successful merchant / high level party, you would be able to afford an airship. And obviously, moving large amounts of goods would require the use of a great ship, instead of an airship.

 

[dan89156108]

First Encounter

I was thinking about the types of encounter that players would have, and I was thinking of something along the line of getting work from a trader, to board his airship and protect him from pirates. The twist that I wanted to have is that the trader is paying the party a vary large sum of money, something like 10000 gold for a level 1 party. If they accept the job offer, they would board the ship and along the way have random encounters. After a random amount of time they will be ordered to stop by another airship, the players can choose to try to escape, listen to them, or fight them without asking questions. The ringer is that the ship ordering them to halt is actually a privateer for the royal navy, and the trader that you where hired by is actually a pirate. and depending on the players action, they can choose to help take down the pirate, fight against the privateer, or whatever else they may come up with. I really like these options because there are many different outcomes possible. If they help the privateers and take out the pirates, they may be able to take some of the contriband for themselves, or even be awarded the pirates ship as a reward for assisting with the royal navy. If they take out the royal privateer, they could have the options of joining with the pirate, or even take out the pirate as well and take his ship. These options of course would depend on the parties alignment. I however like my 4e players to begin with unaligned. This way I allow them to dynamically choose thier alignment along the way and after a certain amount of good or bad points I can say, you are good, or you are lawfull, or you are neutral.

Please tell me what you guys think so far.