Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ericSHINRA 03-26-07, 08:00 PM	Ok, I've been toying over running a game centered around Airships and travel through the skies from some time now. Determining how best to create such a setting is rather tough though simply from a logical standpoint. In place of solid clouds, I'd like to have mountains and some land masses but I'm not sure how to rationalize their existance. Does anyone have any recomendations or advice on what I can draw ideas from? I'm fairly open to ideas, but I think I'd like to rely more on 'steampunk-like' airships in place of the magic airships of Eberron.
KeshFerrar 03-26-07, 08:51 PM	There was a game called Septerra Core back in the day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septerra_Core). It was about a bunch of continents that orbited the clockwork core of a world. They had airships that used "Core generators," or some such magi-tech. Final Fantasy in all its incarnations had airships that fit your "steam punk" requirement. Floating islands also feature in many of the games. Spelljammer (the old 2ed setting) has a lot of examples of the "world comprised of floating islands." You could use a similar idea: your world is really a plane without its own gravity. The islands/continents have their own subjective gravity that acts along the "waterline"... er gravity plane. That way ships only need a form of locomotion (propellers) to move from one island to the other.
ericSHINRA 03-26-07, 08:55 PM	There was a game called Septerra Core back in the day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septerra_Core). It was about a bunch of continents that orbited the clockwork core of a world. They had airships that used "Core generators," or some such magi-tech. Final Fantasy in all its incarnations had airships that fit your "steam punk" requirement. Floating islands also feature in many of the games. Spelljammer (the old 2ed setting) has a lot of examples of the "world comprised of floating islands." You could use a similar idea: your world is really a plane without its own gravity. The islands/continents have their own subjective gravity that acts along the "waterline"... er gravity plane. That way ships only need a form of locomotion (propellers) to move from one island to the other. I'll look into both Spelljammer and Septerra Core. I've been a fan of final fantasy since the SNES and I love their airships but can't recall any floating islands and/or continents.. :confused:
ericSHINRA 03-26-07, 09:01 PM	Ooops. Double Post.
Syn_Exelian 03-26-07, 09:24 PM	You could have just a part of the world having been cracked into the floating islands thing instead of the whole worl if you want to try to keep some of the world in a "normal" form. That way, you can have your area where airships are a good idea and useful, but still maintain areas where not everyone will own one.
ericSHINRA 03-26-07, 10:28 PM	I like the idea of a 'broken' world but I'd want the entire planet to be shattered if I were to do such a thing. Not sure I'll go that route though.
killthemoles 03-26-07, 10:58 PM	You don't necessarily have to break your world. Say the people just got too scared livening on the ground, whether it be the manifestation of demons on earth or angry dragons who are jerks,the natives of you world fled to the sky as the place the demons (or <insert apocalypse theory here> ravaged the sky. You could go the traditional magical ground that just happens to float, creating giant contents in the sky, but since you said steam-punk, I'm sure your natives are smart enough to create giant steam gear powered land masses (varying in size from artificial island to small continents) that took to the sky. I could see your adventures ranging here from: Demons gaining access to an airship and invading airship ports; Spies from the opposing nation are sent to break the power core reactor down; Your routine cliche doomsday scenario where Archmage builds a giant tower to space gaining access to untapped arcane energy capable of destroying the world, where the pcs have to scale the sky tower and defeat him. I'm kinda likening your concept of an airship world, I could see a good advancement in levels and quests to do. Tell me if any of my ideas help you :)
ericSHINRA 03-26-07, 11:41 PM	Your a big help, really. I was thinking of having an eternal storm or something under the lower cloud cover but I'm really not sure what to do yet. I also had the idea of poison gas making the surface world uninhabitable. These poisonous clouds would also travel across the planet with the wind, making the sky more dangerous. Regardless, I was planning on having cities built on the taller mountains. These are all just basic ideas though, I haven't fleshed them out much.
tryco 03-27-07, 10:12 AM	when i was reading this thread i was thinking about Skyland. it's quite the same thing from what you're talking about. the earth is scattered and bits of earth are all floating around the core of the earth. http://data.nickelodeon.nl/misc/dynimg/media/skylandbackground.jpg something like this.^ they use ships to fly from one piece of land to another in search of water. you can make cities and ruins on top of pieces of land. the ones who made the cities and ruins only have to worry about that the piece of land don't crash into another piece of land. in Cityscape is a small piece about cloud cities. http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Cityscape_Gallery/101114.jpg you don't only have to use skyships, people could also use animals, like giant eagles to fly around. hope these ideas worked abit.
ericSHINRA 03-27-07, 11:42 AM	Having decided my world will have been shattered, I think the first image you provided works great. Edit: Crap, I was going to call my world 'The Skylands'.
tryco 03-27-07, 12:38 PM	any idea on how you sky/airships wil look like? or are there all diffrent kind of ships?
ericSHINRA 03-27-07, 01:51 PM	Most of the airships will look like standard sailing ships though I they'll have a mixture of sails and/or propellers powered by steam engines most likely. Military airships will be more streamlined and rely more on metal then wood for their construction.
SilvercatMoonpaw 03-27-07, 01:58 PM	Look up "Skies of Arcadia". It might help. I'd say more but I don't have time.
Araes 03-27-07, 01:59 PM	From personal experience, I went with the orbiting phenomenon for my own setting as KeshFerrar suggested awhile ago. It seems the most logical, minus the islands breaking and the high winds, but you can find semi-reasonable explanations for that stuff. Plus, airships basically work with almost no effort at that point then, because you're already orbiting, so if you maintain orbital velocity, but just change your vector then you can start moving out from an island. The problem is that if it were utterly realistic you would start to travel inward or away from the planet with changes in speed, so you could fudge there. There are also some interesting mechanics with how the islands are set up. Are they all in a band? Are they orbiting haphazardly and there's a danger of collision? Big chunks the size of continents or much smaller ones? killthemoles seems like he's pretty much describing Chrono Trigger's era of Zeal. *Edit* SilverCat beat me to this... Another good game to look at is Skies of Arcadia, which covered exactly the same topic as Skyland. And man, does Skyland have pretty art... http://www.flyover-skyland.com/18606030.jpg
Illiden_Nailo 03-27-07, 02:03 PM	Also if you have played Baten Kaitos, that is also a VERY good idea on a campaign. If you haven't, check it out, its cool.;)
SilvercatMoonpaw 03-27-07, 04:22 PM	Okay, there are probably a few logistics questions you have to answer to yourself: 1. What keeps the ships up? The more tech/magic advanced even the most basic method is the less likely some primitive tribe can do it. This limits who gets around. 2. How much does ship travel need to play a part? Depending on how expensive it is to keep the ships up, people will prefer the cheaper ground travel. However, if you plan on making ground travel only short-reaching (i.e. places aren't large enough to support the needs of a civilization) then air-travel should be cheap enough to make up for it, otherwise you are going to end up with the rich shippers getting richer. 3. Can people fly on their own? Baten Kaitos has people with wings. You can still have people who can fly who would require ships to go long distances, just as it would be pretty much impossible to swim and ocean. If people can't fly then they'd likely be slightly paranoid about falling off ships because then you're basically dead.
KeshFerrar 03-27-07, 06:53 PM	If you have the islands orbiting in a 0g environment, but they themselves have 1g along a plane (ala Spelljammer) you don't need to worry about the ships holding themselves up. And in such a world people could fly by themselves since after they leave the island's gravity field they're in 0g -- whee! Also you could still have some massive storm raging beneath the islands. No one dares the cloud deck. Otherwise, like Silvercat mentions, you would need to worry. With steamtech you'd probably have to go with faux science. "Di-gravitic fields," or some special metal or substance found in the floating islands. If you had the storm in this setting, perhaps it centers on regions where this mystical floating material can be found. You set up a risk and reward scenario that's ripe for plots.
blindcynic 03-27-07, 07:51 PM	Hi all, I too have been working on air-ships, but I went with old fashioned hot air-balloon ships. Like that now forgotten cartoon Teddy Ruxpin. Of course in my swiftly developing campaign world (I have been working on it for perhaps 3 weeks) I already know a few things about the world and that has aided me hugely on the how's and the why's. The reason air-ships were invented is due to massive flooding of the planet and large mountainous regions that make ship travel difficult in many areas particularly along the equator. The Empire which rules this area has since managed to gain control of the skies. They use air-ships and sky mages to police it. (My campaign also has some tech, but only the BBE Empire has it. Flintlocks and pistols plus a few cannons here and there) Mainly though the northlanders are traditional DnD kingdoms. Airships around their are not too common. (That is until now, when the empire is invading these kingdoms.) So enough about my campaign, (Sorry I have a one track mind), what races are u thinking of including? What about flying creatures? In my campaign I haven't decided if Elves and Dwarves and other non-humans other than hobgoblins will exist save for a few spots. (Making them legendary and much like a 1st edition DnD game I used to play, thought of as myths.) In my campaign the Empire's sky-mages have made an arrangement with Manticores and keep at least one aboard every Military Sky-ship. Well the Crown lands (A smaller, independant European style band of nations) rather jealously keeps griffons and a few other nations trade in giant eagles. While the Hobgoblin tribes keep wyverns. The biggest concerns I have about so much water and so much "sky" stuff in my campaign though are distance, travel, trade and death. 1-With so much distance between everything (The Sky, the Water and the land) PC's are going to have to spend a lot of resources or gather alot of specific resources to get around. 2-Travelling so much is part of why I chose this type of setting, it creates a "Feel" of a vast largely unexplored world. On the other hand, if they land somewhere just arbitrarily I don't know what I will have prepared! 3- Trade- How do the nations without sky-ships feed themselves, trading in vital economic goods??? I thought of a way! The Empire is going to have access to several wizard created demi-planes that have natural resources that this world will not have, and they will jealously guard those. While the non-Empire nations will be largley on land and neighbouring islands, they will engage in traditional trade. 4- Finally the biggest concern, without every party member being able to fly or permanently enchanted with feather fall, won't they eventually die from some aerial battle, simply by...well *SPLAT*? Or on some naval expedition they could starve, face scurvy, or have their ship sunk on them! Again both really common forms of death for a campaign like this... Oh yeah-> back to the airships- In my campaign they will work by special stones which conduct heat from the elemental plane of fire, thus creating heat which creates lift. The stones will of course be rare and products of the ancient Empire and a group of mages that no longer exist. The New Empire will be desperately collecting these stones from around the world. The building materials for the boats that hang underneath the big balloons are specially treated woods. The ship is enchanted with a feather fall spell, large sail-like wings are used to guide the blimpy ship across continents. The canvas that forms the balloons is woven from fire resistant plants that were originally harvested from the Elemental Plane of Fire. (Long, Long time ago) These plants grow on this world now but only in certain parts and much of it has been harvested without forethought. So much that is a hundred times more precious than gold. (Speaking of gold, I dunno if I should use heavy metallic objects as currency in this setting...what do u think?)
ericSHINRA 03-27-07, 11:39 PM	Thanks for the help everyone, I'll be sure to post what Information I have later but for now I have to get back to work.
Halaku 03-28-07, 01:05 PM	First an apology on the stream of thought way this post is going to be written. But to the actual topic, how well does the setting lend itself to being able to support civilization? Water is going to have to be harvested directly from clouds, the rain chased, or a perilous trip made down to groundlevel to find water that isnt salt water, or if salt water, how much resource is expended making it drinkable and fresh? Then there the matter of agriculture, fields take a lot of space, and water, and manpower to work, and a large enough tree might break through whatever floating peice of land its on and send it all groundwards. The problem of meats and protein is also a large one, unless the world has already evolved/adapted to have mostly flying species that dont need to land for most of their life, or migrate between large stable land masses. Yes fish and the sea are an option, but again thats a perilous trip to ground level. Following that theres the problems of communication throughout the world, its a bit harder to send a messenger to a nearby village when they might not be physicaly capable of making the flight ( i can see raptorians playing a large role here ). A floating city would be a nightmare in an of itself, how easily could sabatoge bring one down, how much weight could the given city/floating island support, space is going to be a premium that only the well off or very agressive can afford. Then on the matter of airships themselves, how much would the common person know? In normal dnd its assumed that with a little work, anyone living in a port town can buy/build a rowboat and go fishing without to much risk, is the same true for airships? Falling is a much larger danger, and fuel might be as well. Do they range from the magical permanent flying battleships of eberron to the small bicycle driven skiff with an air bladder? Is an airship for cloud harvesting or bird hunting a family heirloom to be treasured, or somthing one can pick up with an afternoon trip to the bazar? Again sorry for the odd formating but thats the way i think, and they're all viable questions/concerns.
Debug0x2a 03-28-07, 04:24 PM	I just immediately got the idea of this setting being a corsair's dream. I mean, one man with enough know-how about airships can hold an entire city ransom. Then there are racial skyships. For example, there will be quite a difference in functionality and luxury between a gnome airship, goblin airship, and human airship. Halflings don't count because they couldnt make it up the stairs...
Darth Sephiroth 03-28-07, 04:35 PM	I've been working on a similar type of setting with insanely dangerous and mountainous forrests that cover most of the world meaning few people travel through them and use various aerial methods of travel
Halaku 03-28-07, 04:42 PM	That raises a good point about races in general and how they would adapt to the change. Humans are human, they'll always manage somehow (worse then cockroaches i swear) and probably still manage to be the most profilic and conflict happy of the surviving races. Elves might have it harder, but they'll be best prepaired to handle keeping an ecosystem running on small islands, maybe even happy about it because it makes it all the harder for other races to disrupt things. Never mind the elven penchant for breeding giant eagles and archery is a strong mix in this type of world. Halflings and gnomes and dwarves are all in the same boat so to speak, being smaller they take up less space and so have a good starting advantage, but they're also all races that prefer subterranian homes, which would be problematic at best and fatal at worst. Gnomes might adapt and go steampunk/flying fortress and the like, or spread about the other races, halflings i can see very easily adapting to a nomadic lifestyle in large floating caravans, maybe even pulling small islands behind them for agriculture. Dwarves get the short end of the stick in every case but the one of cities being on mountaintops, in which case they'll be the least effected and become even more withdrawn into their holds. The larger races like giants and their ilk are in for a good deal of trouble, finding homes and food, aside from storm giants, who would be in the perfect position to found a new empire come to think of it. Raptorains would become the new profilic race, able to surive a good deal more easily then the others and maybe even welcoming the change, to say nothing of their uses as messengers and traders now that the world is skybound. In any sort of resource shortage clerics and wizards become even more of a godsend (pardon the pun) able to conjure food and water from the air itself (you dont have to pardon that one). It would become the norm that every high level caster have an air elemental pet or some other flying mount, perhaps even renting/selling them out to the less fortunate. Druids would be fine all things considered, being able to adapt to the sky as easily as any other terrain, and perhaps taking a good part of the now natural world back from civilization. Last on my mind are two specific prestige classes that would become legendary in the world, wayfare guides and elocators (assuming psionics is included). Warfare (wayfair?) guides would be the best friend that everyone wants, able to always get you and whatever you need from point A to point B without the hassle or risks of air travel. Elocators, well, what does someone who is under a permanent levitate/fly/skate effect have to fear about the ground being gone? Edit: Also this thread ( http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=381080 ) has alot of idea's that we could put to good use on airship design.
taradusis 03-28-07, 11:14 PM	Perhaps biological solutions?An island could plant puffball mushrooms around the edges of the sky island.These puffballs would be filled with a magical gas that provides lift like a balloon?The roots could hold the island together?A biological blimp creature like the one from john varleys titan trilogy,bigger than a football field,has tentacles that it drags thru water for fish?Pick up "integral trees"by Larry Niven,a great read about trees that float in space.RANDOM THOUGHTS
Debug0x2a 03-28-07, 11:19 PM	Odds are gnomes and their curious nature will probably divide the race in 2: those with disastrous consequences and those with crazy looking airships. Races like humans will probably have relatively simple airships. Races like elves with more sleek designs made to blend more with nature. This could also lead to new hierarchies of religions. The church of Obad-hai, being one of few deities with the air domain, would probably become quite a power. Elves with their nature oriented culture would probably revere the birds and most likely get along well with winged races like the raptorans. Dwarves would most likely have the largest of airships, designed as battle fortresses instead of simple transportation/living quarters. More to come...
ragoftag 03-29-07, 12:07 AM	Its SF, but try Larry Niven's INTEGRAL TREES. I used a atomic shaped planet, rings solid but non-intersecting, with Skysails and lots of flying critters for an alternate plane of Air once. Goodman Games did some work on this awhile back. Find some Roger Dean paintings from the Asia era (They were a '60s band), He had some interesting visuals. Don't worry about the magic behind the curtain. Can you understand a computer? Build a Cray from scratch? They still work. I got past 3 metals courses in college, still can't make stainless steel in the kitchen, but I can buy a knife made of it at the store to slice meat...just like my umpteenth ancestor could if I handed it to him. 'Course, being Irish, he was probably painted blue, nigh naked and prone to cannibalism, hmmm, and handing him a WEAPON might be a poor career move!
Sliversun 03-29-07, 12:17 AM	I think there's already a TV show called Skyland. Just so you know.
cat_god 03-29-07, 12:47 AM	Have you ever read the comic 'Meridian?' The company went out of buisness, but the story was good. It could be something like that.
Halaku 03-30-07, 01:01 PM	Thought occurs to me, why bother with airships? There are plenty of ways high level characters could move entire islands and such through the skies (assuming they were already there). Any high level druid/cleric could cast control weather and literaly push the island (skyland?) along. Wizards could build rather impressive fortresses with immovable rods and walls of force, to say nothing of the utility manageing to create a teleporting tower.
antsterr 03-30-07, 01:21 PM	I've been working on air ships for my own world. The idea being that if there is going to be an underdark, ocean lands, then there should also be lands in the air element; the sky. Above my world float clusters of "Aerolands". They float in clusters of 20-30 and each one is about 1 mile across. They are pretty flat and hold completely stationary in the air. The lands are held up by a supernatural mineral formation called the sky well, each aeroland has a sky well that forms roots of sky rock all throughout the land. sky rock can be mined and slowly grows back. The supernatural property of sky rock is that it can be lifted like a normal rock but will stop dead in the air at a certain altitude. this keeps all the aerolands at the same height. Air ships are made that have large deposits of sky rock in the bow and stern to keep them up in the air. they can't move up or down, they just float at the height that sky rock floats at. If they are overloaded the skyrock crumbles to dust and the ship falls from the sky. This makes the sky a virtual sea where ships sail all at the same level making aerial battles 2 dimensional as far as the ships go. There are two races that live on the aerolands. One propels the ships with giant wings that are rowed by rowers on the deck or inside the ship. The other has sails that stick out to the side and catch up and down drafts to propel them selves. they also have found how to use skyrock to detect wind currents like a compass find direction. using this they can sail the sky like a series of rivers (jet streams).
Debug0x2a 03-30-07, 03:38 PM	Thought occurs to me, why bother with airships? There are plenty of ways high level characters could move entire islands and such through the skies You just had to say it... now I have images of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 running through my head.
NexusX 03-30-07, 03:52 PM	Have you ever read the comic 'Meridian?' The company went out of buisness, but the story was good. It could be something like that. Man, it's good to hear the name Meridian! Yes, this series is a great source of inspiration of any skyship/airship campaign. It does have people living down in the lower regions, but everybody who's anybody is living on a floating island. They cut down float trees and have to tie them with ropes so they don't drift away, and use them to make their flying ships. A very creative series and comics company that I was very sad to see go. Their comics and graphic novels can sometimes be found in comic stores, and they are sure to be on ebay. I recommend the graphic novels or combined books, whatever they are called, that combine several issues together and they are probably reasonable on ebay. My own campaign borrows some rules from the Airships book (Bastion?), Stormwrack and even a little from Spelljammer. Read Meridian if you get a chance - good stuff (actually, about 95% of CrossGen's comics were top of the line, with the best writers and artists, which are now at DC and Marvel)! :) NexusX
KingGolem 03-31-07, 12:43 AM	Well, I have something like the "steam punk" airships in my campaign. There is a nation called Oropas that is home to a race of winged humanoids called "Oropasians." The most distinctive feature of Oropas is it's geology. Huge mountains float over Oropas, just below the clouds. The mountains work by a type of stone called "liftstone" (I know, that's not the most creative of ideas, but that's what's in the campaign) that is more buoyant than air so it floats up until the air is too thin for it to float in, so it maintains a neutral buoyancy at some point depending on the amount of liftstone it has. Anyway, inside these "liftstone" mountains, there is a substance called " concentrated liftstone" that appears as light yellow crystals. These crystals are mined from the liftstone mountains (which has detrimental effects to the mountain's altitude, and some have even come crashing down) and are ground up to serve as fuel for the flying Oropasian "sky barges." The way these sky barges work is that the ground up concentrated liftstone is put in a furnace where it is burnt into an incredibly buoyant gas that is blown through a series of pipes below the deck of the ship with mechanical bellows. The ships steer with massive adjustable sails that stick out on the top and the sides of the ship. That seems like a more plausible airship concept, since it's technically alchemy and not magic. I don't know what you were going for, but I suppose you could take this technology, stick in your campaign, and go with the age-old saying: "gnomes did it." :D
cat_god 04-09-07, 12:22 AM	Man, it's good to hear the name Meridian! Yes, this series is a great source of inspiration of any skyship/airship campaign. It does have people living down in the lower regions, but everybody who's anybody is living on a floating island. They cut down float trees and have to tie them with ropes so they don't drift away, and use them to make their flying ships. A very creative series and comics company that I was very sad to see go. Their comics and graphic novels can sometimes be found in comic stores, and they are sure to be on ebay. I recommend the graphic novels or combined books, whatever they are called, that combine several issues together and they are probably reasonable on ebay. My own campaign borrows some rules from the Airships book (Bastion?), Stormwrack and even a little from Spelljammer. Read Meridian if you get a chance - good stuff (actually, about 95% of CrossGen's comics were top of the line, with the best writers and artists, which are now at DC and Marvel)! :) NexusX Trade Paperbacks. TPB.
NexusX 04-09-07, 01:41 PM	Thanks, cat_god, that was what I was looking for. TPB, couldn't remember. Anyway, Meridian was good for inspiration if nothing else. I have a number of skyships in my campaign - very fast ones like in Spelljammer, that do not function well within an atmosphere (they are used to pass great distances in the planes, creating both an invisible bubble that traps breathable air, and protects the ship from the extreme speeds of the cosmic currents, worm holes and such), and very slow atmosphere ships that use rules from Airships, combined with other rules on my worlds. I only have a few floating islands, and none of my players have found them yet. The world we're adventuring on is big, and we're really not doing much yet in the way of skyships, beyond in other dimensions). In fact, the latest skyship my group found, the leader of the party couldn't figure out how to make it fly (the ship was at the heart of a big adventure inside a cavernous area with a hole in the ceiling leading out where the ship had entered from originally). I had a whole adventure lined up for them on the skyship, but they gave up (they got really close without realizing it), and just left it! My jaw was on the ground. I think the leader of the party may have been suspicious, thinking it might be trapped and crash on them (but it wasn't). We've had a different skyship since then, with a different party, but it crashed after a nasty air battle. Fun stuff. I was hoping WOTC would come out with a book with more on skyships besides what we've seen in Eberron. And more deckplans. My ships are all pre-Eberron, so they don't use Elementals, they use a magic rock called, Briq, which is supernaturally formed wherever gods have visited the world and expended their power carelessly (when gods of different alignment conflict, their powers corrupt the land where touched, leaving behind Briq. The Briq is the crystaline residue and can be harvested and burned to move the skyships. I'll likely check out Elementals too ... have fun! :) NexusX
NexusX 04-09-07, 03:04 PM	Sorry I was a bit vague on details of how my skyships move ... the skyship’s rigging is used for maneuvers and controlling altitude. I know, that's vague too, but I don't have the rules in front of me and it's been awhile. The Briq-powered furnace provides thrust. I also allow magic items to be used for fuel (using a converter that is available on some ship furnaces), but admittedly, my rules aren’t as well developed as I’d like (since time is limited, I was never 100% happy with spelljammer rules, and did some houserules as I found time, plus added some new ship rules when Airships came out, etc.) I have so little time to play right now that I’ll likely just use the Airships rules for the next ship(s) till I find time to flesh things out more and review the Eberron ships some more. The areas that have Briq are quite dangerous, so it’s worth more than gold, and people don’t waste fuel, knowing it’s hard to come by. If I do any Eberron style ships, it will likely be only a few here and there, since I've been running this campaign since 1979 and my players are all used to the fuel powered ships. Many good points brought up about sustaining life on a floating island. Perhaps there could be some trading also - the elves trade their higher arts and crafts for wheat, vegetables, spices, etc. via a merchant middleman and his skyshipping company. Other commerce as well - the dwarves in their high mountaintops crafting weapons and such - skyship merchants handling the trades. Perhaps an agricultural community trying to stay alive in a difficult region defends itself from the encroaching monster population by trading foodstuffs to the skydwellers in exchange for weapons and some well dropped boulders on monster settlements that bother them. Just some random ideas ... NexusX
taradusis 04-12-07, 02:06 PM	remember the gnomes from spelljammer?They raised giant space hamsters and canned the meat under the name of SPA-HAM.They had gnomish paddlewheels to use as trade vessels,RANDOM THOUGHTS.
NexusX 04-14-08, 07:26 PM	Crazy stuff, huh! Personally, I like my spelljammer a tad more serious. I wasn't into the insect-like, and bunny, turtle or whatever they were ships. I thought they should be made to look cool, not cartoony. I think with the right artist and vision, the setting could have done better, but that's just me. What would they have been like if they'd been drawn for the Darksun campaign or Planescape - I bet they'd look way better than they did? Then they'd look about right. I must love the basic concepts, however, because I have a number of flying ships zipping about Cosmothea, my campaign setting.