Airships

"Come on, gentlemen, lead your shots, this isn't hard. We have math for this!"

- Almost every Trevultine Gunnery Officer

This article or section alludes to information that is under active development and subject to change.

Airships are a broad classification of sky-fairing vessel common in Colmaris in the Age of Rediscovery, by then centuries in common use after the First Skies War saw their overall introduction. The term equally refers to small civilian aircraft as it does to military vehicles ("warships"). Sufficiently small airships may occasionally be referred to as "boats". While some early designs used more exotic methods, most airships rely on various forms of thrust production while getting their bouyancy from a device called heartballast, which is crafted from Colmaris Lodestone. Modern airships are capable of greatly exploring much of the Skies when appropriately operated.

History

The concept of the heartballasted airship originates with the Feng Empire, who first discovered the material of Colmaris Lodestone after the Ancient Breaking. The Empire built its own navy of such ships and used them for a time for exploratory and commercial purposes, before attempting an invasion of Trevultum when the skytides were favourable - an event known as the First Skies War. After the repulsion of this invasion, the Trevultines were able to reverse engineer the basic principles of the heartballast and built their own counter-invasion force, which became the earliest traditions of the Grand Navy of the Trevult Imperium.

However, these simple vehicles lacked many of the modern conveniences and equipment of modern airship designs, which were advanced in large part due to the efforts of the New Coldmaris's Cartographers' Guild and sailors who operated such vessels under guild supervision, so much so that the conventions and equipment thus developed are in more or less universal use by the time of the Age of Rediscovery.

Common Varieties

"It's said the ancients knew a thing or two about this, but I certainly don't."

- Anonymous Guild Cartographer

This article or section contains information that is not yet fully fleshed out.

Equipment

As a vehicle, an airship can more or less be thought of as a collection of equipment sharing a common pool of hit points.

Lift Generation

An airship requires lift in order to function, without which it will begin to sink. This can be generated by one or more pieces of equipment designed for the purpose, by far the most common of which is a heartballast unit. Heartballast has the major advantages of passively generating lift and being location-independant, allowing shipbuilders to put it near the center of the ship's mass, where it would be the most protected and have the minimum limiting factor on ship maneuverability.

Ancient airships, some Greatwind designs, and some small pleasurecraft or special-purpose vehicles may generate their lift in other ways, such as through the use of gas bladders.

Thrust Generation

Regardless of how you get yourself into the Skies, you will be hard pressed to traverse them without some means of generating thrust. Traditionally, this has been through the use of sails, but more recently propeller systems powered by lundesite boilers have become the preferred "drive" system. These more modern systems provide serious advantages, like better handling regardless of the wind, fine positioning during precision maneuvers, and the ability to derive mechanical power for other systems aboard the ship, but in general can only be fit to some larger craft with a few exceptions, and in general are far more expensive than older methods.

Cladding

For the most part, the vast majority of civilian ships are wooden-hulled. While wood is not especially abundant on Colmaris, it remains lighter and therefore preferable to metal for non-military applications.

Military, and even some pirate ships, tend to use armoured hulls to better withstand the attacks of other vessels or crews on the ground.

Armaments

"Come on, gentlemen, lead your shots, this isn't hard. We have math for this!"

- Almost every Trevultine Gunnery Officer

This article or section alludes to information that is under active development and subject to change.

Armaments for ships can by and large be divided into three categories: guns, torpedos, and special weapons. Most ships have no special weapons and rely entirely on guns to function. Torpedos are a more modern weapon type, typically only seen in use by militaries or especially well-equipped pirates. In addition, a variety of consumable items function similar to weapons, most notably mines.

Additionally many ships are equipped with metamagic amplifiers which can be used to amplify Sorcery to the extent it can be used as a shipboard weapon.

Special and Miscellaneous Equipment

"It's said the ancients knew a thing or two about this, but I certainly don't."

- Anonymous Guild Cartographer

This article or section contains information that is not yet fully fleshed out.

A variety of other special equipment for ships exist. Some larger vessels carry lifeboats. Many have onboard water and sewage handling, galleys, and other life and comfort systems. Some ships are equipped specially for specific tasks, such as fishing, condensate collection, or other exotic purposes.

Gameplay Mechanics

"It's said the ancients knew a thing or two about this, but I certainly don't."

- Anonymous Guild Cartographer

This article or section contains information that is not yet fully fleshed out.