Ways to make an airship fly?

[frankthedm]

In Final Fantasy 12, for instance, Airships run on this lighter-than-air magic rock, called "skystone." Only, the magic powering it can't work in certain areas, called "Jagd." Because airships are fairly ubiquitous and a great way to keep law in a rich empire, jagd become lawless lands where no authority is enforced and monsters run unchecked.

In Final Fantasy 1 it was called "Float" and guarded by a beholder like creature. In the NES/Famicom japanese version, it was a beholder.

 

[Dr Simon]

In the World of Conclave, there is a magical wood that comes from a plant called Drifting Willow, that allows construction of floating vessels.

To control the 'bird ships' requires the use of Yellow Jade, supposedly blood from minor sun gods associated with travel and the sky. Only by connecting the two can a bird ship do more than float a few feet off the ground.

Unfortunately, Drifting Willow could only grow on one small island, which has long been stripped bare in the greed for creating bird ships. Most of the bird ships were destroyed in war. Only a few remain. Stories tell of secret gardens of Drifting Willow grown from cuttings, hidden in the mountains somewhere. Stories also tell of lost wrecks of bird ships that were carrying a fortune in pay for Imperial troops.

 

[Stormborn]

While most of the options have been covered I like the idea of living ships. Great Windwhales (to borrow a Black Company term) that aren't so much the means of propulsion as they are the ship itself. Young ones might have a gondola strapped onto the back and special chair for the handler while anceitn ones might have whole fortressess imbedded into their skin.

 

[Klaus]

The campaign setting I submitted to the Setting Search, called The Burning Lands, has sunwhales and skysharks. The previous could be used much like an dirigible, whereas the latter could be tamed to pull chariots.

 

[lukelightning]

Animate dead on nightmares. Skeletal creatures with magical flight can still fly (my wizard rides around on a skeletal rast). So get a sled and a few skeletal nightmares and you can be an evil Santa.

 

[Cedric]

Since no one has mentioned this, I'll throw it out there.

You could have a few technological anti-gravity field generators, that are built into a housing and have been left in the "on" position.

When an interstellar expedition crash landed on the planet, the few survivors used the anti-grav generators to haul larger supplies and building materials.

The old remnants of the technology are lost, as well as the traces of that civilization...but the generators still work and likely will continue working for thousands of years.

There are a finite number of them and they are jealously sought after.

 

[Frostmarrow]

HG Wells had a character who created an alloy called Cavorite. It created an anti-gravity field, and the A-G field's strength depended upon the angle of the alloy relative to the force of gravity.

Space 1889 used something like that for human airships and a natural substance called Liftwood to do the same for Martian ones.

Terry Brooks used magical crystals that were charged by solar energy in his later Shanarra books to provide lift for his flying ships.

And of course, the bound spirits/elementals thing is pretty popular, as is pure magic.

In Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen the BBEG uses stolen cavorite to power his airships. The cool thing is the greedy BBEG...

Spoiler

refusing to surrender it, grabs it, and falls into the air!

 

[lukelightning]

Easy: Have my character throw the ship at the ground. He's sure to miss, despite the planet's size modifier.

 

[Maldin]

Do you mean zeppelin-type airships in particular, or just flying ships in general? The Spelljammer Campaign Setting was dedicated to flying ships, of course. WotC dropped it a long time ago, but check out the "Beyond the Moons" website at http://www.spelljammer.org and the 3E update of the old Spelljammer materials in Dragon Magazine #276 and #339.

For you lovers of miniatures combat, the Spelljammer campaign had cardboard miniatures for staging ship-to-ship battles. You can check out what they look like on my website at
http://melkot.com/mechanics/sj-ships.html

Denis, aka "Maldin"
===========================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

 

[jdrakeh]

The campaign setting I submitted to the Setting Search, called The Burning Lands, has sunwhales and skysharks. The previous could be used much like an dirigible, whereas the latter could be tamed to pull chariots.

Mmmm. . . shades of Arduin. I love it!