I'll pick up on a couple of points that I raised, if I may.
RangerWickett said:
* What does this thing eat, by the way? Did they ever explain what the Leviathans ate in Farscape? Then again, it's a big elemental critter, so maybe it relies on elemental energy to survive, and the party's fire mage could withhold her power. But I don't want an NPC ally having too much of an impact, unless things go really bad for the party.
I don't recall that we ever really found out exactly
how a Leviathan gained nutrition. It might have been able to cull energy from the background radiation, but it would also need materials to repair itself. I would point you in the direction of
another living spacecraft though: the
Lexx. Now that thing could land and eat its way though a planetary crust! Now since you have said that this thing is styled after a Shark I can imagine it flying low and opening a huge jaw (or series of jaws) and just devouring a forest as raw materials! Nasty, and troublesome, but story-worthy!
Oh, and it could indeed draw upon the power of the Elemental Planes (Air?) for its energy. If you don't want a 'simple' magical apprach to defeat it, imagine if it had a huge elemental Node somwhere within it, tapped by tentacular organic cables, like a huge lightning generator. Getting a hold of that and damaging it might slow the creature down (though imagine the spasms of a creature one mile long!)
* The critter is aware in an animalistic sort of way, not very intelligent, but yes, it should know how to defend itself. I could see its 'skin' twitching or shivering, knocking people off their feet, and yeah, it should have some turbine-esque lungs on the sides, which respirate. It doesn't have much in the way of limbs, except for the fins/sails, and its long tail, but that's not that useful against smaller threats. Indoors, it could probably flood passageways, though, akin to, well, coating things with phlegm to make it easier to cough them up.
Internal spasming is a great way to cause trouble for PCs, since the motion can make spellcasting very challenging, and creates a hazardous internal battleground. If its own troops are used to this, then they will fight at an advantage.
Further, spasms might be capable of really destructive behaviour, like collapsing a corridor, or inducing persitaltic waves, or tearing rents. Whilst they sound really damaging to the critter, think about it: it's a mile long, and each corridor is a tiny fragment of it. Do we worry when a single capillary in our skin is burst? We call the result a bruise, and if it's large it's painful. But it doesn't threaten our lives. So you can be brutal internally, and still not have the ship itself really threatened.
* As for critters keeping it clean, I'm imagining lots of small birds, like ravens, picking at the cracks in its skin, sort of a cross image of remoras keeping it clean and scavenging birds eating it alive.
I can't help thinking of Alfred Hitchcock here... imagine being intelligently swarmed by
hundreds of these things. They might actually be under the direction of the Ship itself. Or they might have a reflex to defend the Ship when it is threatened. After all, more of these things can always be spawned! Indeed, since we are talking a
huge ship, there might be thousands upon thousands of these scavengers, a seemingly endless stream of them. A few hundred might be an easy challenge for large area of effect magics. But when the spells start to run out...
Though you are thinking birds to maintain it, that's dealing with the outside (and probably internal lung surfaces). But there is plenty of internal volume that will need maintenance. If you don't fancy monkey-analogues, them some sort of snake or centipede might be good...
* Polyps and cysts. Got it. Ooh, and one thing Pilus has been working on . . . He captured an unseelie fey who was friends with the party. This fey could absorb life through her touch, vampirically healing her as she harmed others. Pilus was just managing the first parts of his experimenting on her when the party rescued her and really pissed off Pilus for the first time.
Then he might be able to produce some crude analogue of her ability. Imagine a sort of psychic maw, into which prisoners can be thrown, so that the ship can steal their lifeforce for its own use, particularly to repair itself. The PC's army might turn out to be a very useful source of resources to aid the Ship and its Master! nasty.
I still need to think of some sort of layout for the insides, and think of the logistics of how it could land if needed, how troops get on and off, who'd be where guarding what, and so on, but so far there've been a lot of great ideas to really add flavor to this monster. Thank you very very much.
Hey, this sort of chewing the fat is exactly
why I come to EN World! This is serious fun!
Landing: can the ship just hover? if so, imagine it more like a huge airship. It doesn't land, so much as moors. Otherwise it might have a bony keel which can support the weight of the ship. That would change its apperance though, since it would also need many bony ribs internally to support its weight on the ground.
Embarkation: since this is a living thing, there's nothing stopping the ship having muscular flaps that can lower from its sides or underside, and down which troops can be moved. In that case it looks rather a lot like a dropship! As for materials, though they could be moved the same way, I can also imagine cargo hatched with their own tentacular pulley systems. The Ship literally grabs the items into itself!
Plans: well with something on this scale you only need detailed plans of various significant areas, and perhaps several generic areas (like galleys / heads / dormitories / etc.). Then the rest is an 'area' map, showing the broad functions of the internal volumes. You have an enormous advantage in dealing with a living thing: much of its volume within will be take up by its own biological functions, and thus essentially inaccessible to the players. (Though you might consider PCs using
waterbreathing to take shortcuts through large blood vessels!)
This really is good fun Ryan!
