Skypirates Campaign- Some Questions

[Razjah]

I will be running a skypirates campaign in the fall. I plan to use this to ask questions about the races and other parts of the game. I am trying to design the setting to be system-agnostic, which will allow me to run it using 4e, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, or other systems. Currently the game will be Savage Worlds: Explorer Edition.

To start, I think I have finally settled on a method of providing flight- the heart of a flying creature. When the heart of a flying creature (generally hippogriff, griffin, wyvern, or a dragon) is placed into the heart matrix located in the center of the wheel of a skyship the ship is given flight. In this world the hearts of such magical creatures are gem like and do not degrade with age. The heart provides flight, but not true control. The heart allows a ship to change its altitude, but little else. The wind is what really moves a skyship. The ships use sails for propulsion. I picture them to look more like the Skyship Weatherlight (if anyone has read the old Magic: the Gathering novels or does a quick Google search) than to look like old sailing ships that simply fly.

I plan to use the hearts as a method of classification of ship class. Hippogriff hearts change altitude the slowest, Griffin hearts are the workhorse hearts of many ships,. Wyvern hearts are typical of the Royal Navy's best ships and very rich merchants. Dragon hearts are very rare, precious, and have a unique ability- the ship can fly without sails or use sails for even more speed, they are more akin to planes in movement options. Very few ships have these (there will be a group of evil NPCS who have only ships with dragon hearts- think of them as the Reavers from Firefly).

Does this classification system make sense? Is it too simple/broad? Suggestions?

 

[Relique du Madde]

I see it as being potentially problematic and you will be confrounted ith many questions ike:

For instance, can a bird's heart be used? If not, then how about a thunderbird or phoenix?

Does the creature have to be magical? If so does it have to be winged flight?

Can "winged elves" work? How about angelic or demonic beings?

 

[Razjah]

Thanks for the feedback, Relique du Madde.

To clarify- the heart of msot animals and creaturs is a normal heart. But magical creatures have gems for a heart. Those who can fly under their own power can be used to give a ship flight.

I think I will need to limit the monsters available for these games, although in a pirates game NPCs will be the most common "monster". Things like angels/demons/etc are generally considered outsiders in D&D- so in Savage Worlds they would not have a gem heart. Elementals don't have proper bodies and would not have a heart because of this.

Do you think the classification system would work? In some books old ships are referenced as 1st class or 2nd class ships. This is what gave me the animal based system. The current flight method also stops every wyvern heart ship from being better than every griffin heart ship. Although the heart allows better change in altitude, speed is a factor for the ship and its ability in the win.

I never had my players running off looking for orcs to harvest when I gave the orcs acid bloos. So I didn't figure my players would hunt down certain magical creatures looking to improve their ship- that is something I need to consider.

 

[Herobizkit]

Another observation... maybe you could use the hearts as fuel, but like all fuel, it gets depleted. They don't degrade with age, but they DO degrade with use.

I would suggest hunting down some old 2e Spelljammer information for research material.

 

[Razjah]

Herobizkit, thanks for the feedback.

I thought about the fuel option before the deciding to go with the no degrading option. I just thought that with food supplies, ammo, charts, and other specifics that adding fuel would just increase book keeping. Food is easy to handle, ammo too. The charts let the pcs find good trade routes to attack or protect.

But the fuel... I don't want ships crashing when they run out of fuel and it wouldn't make sense for the ship to stop moving. The heart allows the ship to have vertical lift and to actually stay in the air, the forward propulsion is from the wind. The exception is a dragon heart. But the few ships with them often keep using sails to increase their speed.

I like the idea, but I don't think it will go over well with the players. I often have enough trouble getting them to track the trail rations they eats, never mind something that will strand them if it runs out. Or they become paranoid and get extra hearts and always have a spare.


Do you have any suggestions for what to look for in the Spelljammer stuff? I never played or even saw any Spelljammer material.

 

[Herobizkit]

My short answer is "all of it". It can be tracked down through several means... for example, you could use a program that rhymes with orange to get the whole Spelljammer product line.

Please note: EN World does not support copyright infringement. Nor do we allow folks to use the site to trade in infringing materials, or tell each other where to go to find them. Pelase dont' get into discussion of stuff here. Thanks. ~Umbran

Spelljammer was 2e's attempt at making a campaign setting that linked the then-current worlds of Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk. They did so through, well, space. They had all kinds of rules for various engine-types and ship designs (with accompanying movement rates, crew capacity, and armaments), as well as some nifty space-faring races. Regardless of the engine, the ship itself needed a mage to command it (save one or two, but I forget which type) and keep its "air-bubble" intact.

Examples? Humans used regular seafaring ships, as did the Kara-Tur humans (Asians in Forgotten Realms); elves "grew" their ships and shaped them after flying creatures in nature; Dwarves carved theirs from massive chunks of rock, making flying fortresses; Gnomes had their clockwork ships pulled by Giant Space Hamsters. Then you get into wacky races like Illithids, Neogi, Giff... oh, and there are celestial (i.e. space) dragons the size of moons.

 

[Herobizkit]

I like the idea, but I don't think it will go over well with the players. I often have enough trouble getting them to track the trail rations they eats, never mind something that will strand them if it runs out. Or they become paranoid and get extra hearts and always have a spare.

Depending on your DM style and your players, that's a whole avenue to explore in and of itself.

For every group of people who approve of an action (like hunting and killing magical beasts for the sole purpose of harvesting their hearts), there will be at least one group to oppose them (Mages, for example, might see the kills as wasteful, or Clerics might support the Right-to-Life of all living things), and at least one group trying to find a balance between the other two (Rangers who want to regulate the amount of allowable kills in an area, preventing over-hunting).

 

[Glade Riven]

How about narrowing it to dragon hearts, and the demand for dragon hearts has lead to a war between mere mortals and dragons?

 

[Razjah]

Herokizbit, thanks for the pointers. I'm still bouncing around the fuel idea. Having to hunt down multiple dragon hearts to have an awesome ship would be annoying. But worrying about fuel is an interesting concept.

Transbot9, thanks for the feedback! I gave the dragon wars some thought. Dragons in Savage Worlds are insane. D&D dragons are not easy to kill either. I like the idea of a dragon war, but I think that doing so in this setting would detract from the piracy aspects. Even if pirates raid the dragon lairs for treasure, they are still "helping" the humanoids. I just worry about taking the focus of this setting off pirates.

 

[Rel]

Having run rather a lot of games that feature flying ships of one type or another, I think this idea is pretty darned cool.

I would suggest that you have the nature of the ship's heart also be tied into the size of the vessel. So Griffin powered ships might be fast but need to be relatively small and light. Too big a ship with a Griffin heart and it becomes very sluggish (and thus an easy target).

You might have some really big critter like a "Sky Whale" whose heart becomes a sort of workhorse for merchant ships. Slow but can lift a lot. And these might rely upon an escort of faster ships to defend it.

This might also lend itself to the possibility of having multiple heart "sockets" on board a ship so that you could add more hearts for speed or lift.