Dealing with Your Elemental [Archive] - Wizards Community

Dealing with Your Elemental [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
The Necromancer King
02-02-06, 03:20 AM I wanted to treat the Cyre’s Revenge, the airship focal to my new campaign, be as much a character in the game as any other NPC. After all, she’s where they live and work, and she’s a part of their lives every day; why shouldn’t she have a bit of a life of her own?

So I gave her a bit of character. She’s a medium-sized airship, for one thing, with increased speed and manoeuvrability but she’s nowhere near as tough as the airships presented in the Explorer’s Handbook. She’s got some battle-scars, a couple of holes, and since the Cap’n happens to be in a lot of debt, he can’t get them fixed as quick as he’d like. She’s only got one mounted weapon, but it’s a one-of-a-kind cannon made special for her in Zilargo (which is also where the crew picks up their gunblades; only one man currently knows the secret to their creation, but it’s a specialty market. “Firearms? How un-heroic…”). She has central heating, working off the fire elementals heat…

Which got me thinking: fire elementals. Why are elementals not a more integral character to the running of the ship? Why are they relegated to merest mechanics? Why can’t they be the soul of the ship, the ship’s character?

So I decided to make her a character.

When Cyre was commissioning new airships, sometimes their ideas were a bit different from the norm. While other nations were content to leave the design as-is, the Cyreans had some very interesting notions of what an airship could be, and what an airship should be. They crafted warforged that were linked to their specific ships, meant to be the perfect war captain. They asked for revisions in design: airships with sails, airships with wings, airships that were entirely enclosed, smaller airships, larger airships, wider or thinner airships, airships for which a crew of two would be sufficient, airships that needed entire platoons to man… They also requested experiments on Elementals.

To begin with, no normal artificer was willing to take their ideas seriously. Changing the design of an airship was often seen as a horribly daunting task, particularly with the specifications given to them by the Cyreans. When the Cyre military quietly made a pact with the Power of Purity, though, all that changed.

The Cyre’s Bastard, first of the airships crafted for the Cyreans, was a small ship, easily crewed by eight people or less, with a state-of-the-art front-mounted weapon, improved speed and manoeuvrability, a warforged captain linked to the ship in ways even he can’t fully explain, and an intelligent, willing fire elemental working as the power supply. As part of the deal with the elemental, she was to be given free reign to wander (impossible with her trapped in a Khyber shard in the artificer’s cabin). To circumvent this, the Power of Purity hired a powerful illusionist to craft a permanent illusion of the Fire Elemental over which she has complete control. She appears as a human woman enveloped in flames, and can go anywhere on the ship, even through walls and floors, at will. She cannot touch anything (and does not, therefore, light anything on fire), nor can she interact with any member of the crew except in indirect ways. She can speak to them, however, and makes a point of doing so at most available opportunities.

She likes coal (fed to her through the ring), and has a fear of landing (she’s ok with docking, as long as she can stay in the air). She can turn the power supply on and off at a thought, though she does so only if she absolutely feels it is of vital importance. She likes the captain, but finds him difficult to deal with. She dislikes the pilot, who she feels takes inappropriate risks, and she is mostly fond of the rest of the crew. At night, she likes to dance on the deck.

Has anyone else thought of doing something like this? Alternate airship design? What have you come up with?
Setherial
02-02-06, 05:26 AM I hadn't thought about it but it is a great idea. In fact I already feel like setting up an adventure where the party goes to search for a mythical ship reputed to be hidden somewhere in a cave. It was never used since Cyre was destroyed before they put it into action.
I love the idea of the party taking possession of the ship and start a pirate operation launched from an island where they have their base of operations. A small, fast, manouverable ship with a personality/attitude, love it !!

So the elemental has a sort of astral projection (humanoid illusion) and can walk around on the ship, interact with the crew. This is a facinating idea BUT two thing bother me:

1) what about free will, if the captain says go left and the elemental says I don't think so :) The entire elemental trapping feels like slavery, and it works because the enslaved elemental has no choice but to go where it is told. Now if she can walk on the ship but realizes it is just a cage and she has no real say in things I don't think she is going to be a pleasant individual.

2) An elemental must have a pretty alien mind since it is from another plane and does not see things as we do, I figur. I would fancy the idea of specially trained psions/telephats who can communicate with the elemental and steer the ship by doing so. The elemental might not realize it is trapped, it might be trapped inside a permanent illusion that looks perfectly normal to her. By shaping this illusion the psion can manipulate the elemental in doing what it should. It's a tricky idea since steering the ship would become a slow thing, unless one would presume the psion by going into a complete trance could steer the ship with amere tought, making it extremly quick and manouverable.

In my head it all feels a lot like the captain of the enterprise talking to the ships computer :)
Decree Of Boredom
02-02-06, 08:30 PM I will be stealing this idea. Excellent, excellent work.
Belabras
02-02-06, 10:24 PM That's a great idea, and really great way to work the Power of Purity into the game world. Cool stuff.
Leonidus
02-03-06, 12:44 AM *yoink!* Nabbed it, mine now.

Of course, I'm betting one of my players is going to make an Andromeda reference. Too many sci-fi/anime geeks in the bunch to not make some kind of comment.
The Necromancer King
02-03-06, 07:06 AM One of my players DID make an Andromeda quip. I told him to shove it.

In regards to Setherial's points:

1) The Power of Purity doesn't enslave their elementals as other artificers do; they believe that the elemental should be given the choice. So Zephira (the ship's elemental), chose to be the power-source for the Cyre's Bastard, and has some level of loyalty to the causes that the rest of the crew believed in. One of the benefits to giving an elemental the choice is that they can develop attachments to people, places and ideas; in her heart, Zephira's a Cyrean, and she's been working to help the crew since the Day of Mourning.

2) The whole idea of the airship's helm is that it creates a telepathic bond between the pilot and the elemental. Most of the time, the pilot is engaged in a battle of wills with the elemental, forcing it to go where the pilot wants to go. This is represented by a Profession (Pilot) check, but for untrained pilots, I treat it as an opposed Intimidation/Sense Motive check. For Zephira, it's a Diplomacy or Bluff check rather than Intimidation, because she is a willing participant in the directional process. She doesn't like the idea of landing the ship, so she'll be fairly resistant to that, but she's willing to try just about anything else.

2a) She IS an alien creature, which means that there's going to be some confusion between her and the crew on occasion. But I prefer to play this out like as a Spock/Data/Doctor (sorry for the Star Trek reference...) style of miscommunication than as something utterly and completely unknowable. She's making an effort to understand the crew, and their needs and wants, but there are some things she's still not sure about, and places where she's going to blunder along the way.
Setherial
02-03-06, 08:20 AM Thanks for your insights so far. I'm more then eager to use this idea but I still need some convincing (since I will have to convince my players of the logic) as to why an elemental would choose to be the engine of a ship. I can't but help compare this to myself when someone would ask me if I would like to be the propulsion system of their new car.
Maybe the answer here has many factors like:

- flying this ship would not feel like captivity to the elemental but rather like just flying about, it likes to do this anyway and it doesn't mind that hard taking the crew to places they want to go. It feels like a driver more then an engine.
- The crew has befriended it somehow while Cyre was still around, maybe they freed it from captivity and formed a bond with it. Then years later when cyre was destroyed they offered it a partnership (a rather unusual one at that but...)

eager to hear your input

Seth
Belabras
02-03-06, 10:37 AM Setherial - The Power of Purity organization (from MoE) is a movement amoung Gnome Elemental binders to encourage actual cooperation with Elementals rather than slavery. As such, they communicate with the more intelligent elementals to come to agreements that work for both parties. In this case, a powerful fire elemental gets a free vacation from Fernia, a tour of Khorvair, and to meet alien (to it) species in exchange for minimal work on it's part. To a being that is essentially immortal, trading a little work for a host of new and interesting experiences probably didn't seem like such a bad deal. Those gnomes can be pretty convincing too.
Setherial
02-03-06, 04:15 PM Setherial - The Power of Purity organization (from MoE) is a movement amoung Gnome Elemental binders to encourage actual cooperation with Elementals rather than slavery. As such, they communicate with the more intelligent elementals to come to agreements that work for both parties. In this case, a powerful fire elemental gets a free vacation from Fernia, a tour of Khorvair, and to meet alien (to it) species in exchange for minimal work on it's part. To a being that is essentially immortal, trading a little work for a host of new and interesting experiences probably didn't seem like such a bad deal. Those gnomes can be pretty convincing too.

hehe cool, sounds like a believable theory :)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
The Necromancer King 02-02-06, 03:20 AM	I wanted to treat the Cyre’s Revenge, the airship focal to my new campaign, be as much a character in the game as any other NPC. After all, she’s where they live and work, and she’s a part of their lives every day; why shouldn’t she have a bit of a life of her own? So I gave her a bit of character. She’s a medium-sized airship, for one thing, with increased speed and manoeuvrability but she’s nowhere near as tough as the airships presented in the Explorer’s Handbook. She’s got some battle-scars, a couple of holes, and since the Cap’n happens to be in a lot of debt, he can’t get them fixed as quick as he’d like. She’s only got one mounted weapon, but it’s a one-of-a-kind cannon made special for her in Zilargo (which is also where the crew picks up their gunblades; only one man currently knows the secret to their creation, but it’s a specialty market. “Firearms? How un-heroic…”). She has central heating, working off the fire elementals heat… Which got me thinking: fire elementals. Why are elementals not a more integral character to the running of the ship? Why are they relegated to merest mechanics? Why can’t they be the soul of the ship, the ship’s character? So I decided to make her a character. When Cyre was commissioning new airships, sometimes their ideas were a bit different from the norm. While other nations were content to leave the design as-is, the Cyreans had some very interesting notions of what an airship could be, and what an airship should be. They crafted warforged that were linked to their specific ships, meant to be the perfect war captain. They asked for revisions in design: airships with sails, airships with wings, airships that were entirely enclosed, smaller airships, larger airships, wider or thinner airships, airships for which a crew of two would be sufficient, airships that needed entire platoons to man… They also requested experiments on Elementals. To begin with, no normal artificer was willing to take their ideas seriously. Changing the design of an airship was often seen as a horribly daunting task, particularly with the specifications given to them by the Cyreans. When the Cyre military quietly made a pact with the Power of Purity, though, all that changed. The Cyre’s Bastard, first of the airships crafted for the Cyreans, was a small ship, easily crewed by eight people or less, with a state-of-the-art front-mounted weapon, improved speed and manoeuvrability, a warforged captain linked to the ship in ways even he can’t fully explain, and an intelligent, willing fire elemental working as the power supply. As part of the deal with the elemental, she was to be given free reign to wander (impossible with her trapped in a Khyber shard in the artificer’s cabin). To circumvent this, the Power of Purity hired a powerful illusionist to craft a permanent illusion of the Fire Elemental over which she has complete control. She appears as a human woman enveloped in flames, and can go anywhere on the ship, even through walls and floors, at will. She cannot touch anything (and does not, therefore, light anything on fire), nor can she interact with any member of the crew except in indirect ways. She can speak to them, however, and makes a point of doing so at most available opportunities. She likes coal (fed to her through the ring), and has a fear of landing (she’s ok with docking, as long as she can stay in the air). She can turn the power supply on and off at a thought, though she does so only if she absolutely feels it is of vital importance. She likes the captain, but finds him difficult to deal with. She dislikes the pilot, who she feels takes inappropriate risks, and she is mostly fond of the rest of the crew. At night, she likes to dance on the deck. Has anyone else thought of doing something like this? Alternate airship design? What have you come up with?
Setherial 02-02-06, 05:26 AM	I hadn't thought about it but it is a great idea. In fact I already feel like setting up an adventure where the party goes to search for a mythical ship reputed to be hidden somewhere in a cave. It was never used since Cyre was destroyed before they put it into action. I love the idea of the party taking possession of the ship and start a pirate operation launched from an island where they have their base of operations. A small, fast, manouverable ship with a personality/attitude, love it !! So the elemental has a sort of astral projection (humanoid illusion) and can walk around on the ship, interact with the crew. This is a facinating idea BUT two thing bother me: 1) what about free will, if the captain says go left and the elemental says I don't think so :) The entire elemental trapping feels like slavery, and it works because the enslaved elemental has no choice but to go where it is told. Now if she can walk on the ship but realizes it is just a cage and she has no real say in things I don't think she is going to be a pleasant individual. 2) An elemental must have a pretty alien mind since it is from another plane and does not see things as we do, I figur. I would fancy the idea of specially trained psions/telephats who can communicate with the elemental and steer the ship by doing so. The elemental might not realize it is trapped, it might be trapped inside a permanent illusion that looks perfectly normal to her. By shaping this illusion the psion can manipulate the elemental in doing what it should. It's a tricky idea since steering the ship would become a slow thing, unless one would presume the psion by going into a complete trance could steer the ship with amere tought, making it extremly quick and manouverable. In my head it all feels a lot like the captain of the enterprise talking to the ships computer :)
Decree Of Boredom 02-02-06, 08:30 PM	I will be stealing this idea. Excellent, excellent work.
Belabras 02-02-06, 10:24 PM	That's a great idea, and really great way to work the Power of Purity into the game world. Cool stuff.
Leonidus 02-03-06, 12:44 AM	yoink! Nabbed it, mine now. Of course, I'm betting one of my players is going to make an Andromeda reference. Too many sci-fi/anime geeks in the bunch to not make some kind of comment.
The Necromancer King 02-03-06, 07:06 AM	One of my players DID make an Andromeda quip. I told him to shove it. In regards to Setherial's points: 1) The Power of Purity doesn't enslave their elementals as other artificers do; they believe that the elemental should be given the choice. So Zephira (the ship's elemental), chose to be the power-source for the Cyre's Bastard, and has some level of loyalty to the causes that the rest of the crew believed in. One of the benefits to giving an elemental the choice is that they can develop attachments to people, places and ideas; in her heart, Zephira's a Cyrean, and she's been working to help the crew since the Day of Mourning. 2) The whole idea of the airship's helm is that it creates a telepathic bond between the pilot and the elemental. Most of the time, the pilot is engaged in a battle of wills with the elemental, forcing it to go where the pilot wants to go. This is represented by a Profession (Pilot) check, but for untrained pilots, I treat it as an opposed Intimidation/Sense Motive check. For Zephira, it's a Diplomacy or Bluff check rather than Intimidation, because she is a willing participant in the directional process. She doesn't like the idea of landing the ship, so she'll be fairly resistant to that, but she's willing to try just about anything else. 2a) She IS an alien creature, which means that there's going to be some confusion between her and the crew on occasion. But I prefer to play this out like as a Spock/Data/Doctor (sorry for the Star Trek reference...) style of miscommunication than as something utterly and completely unknowable. She's making an effort to understand the crew, and their needs and wants, but there are some things she's still not sure about, and places where she's going to blunder along the way.
Setherial 02-03-06, 08:20 AM	Thanks for your insights so far. I'm more then eager to use this idea but I still need some convincing (since I will have to convince my players of the logic) as to why an elemental would choose to be the engine of a ship. I can't but help compare this to myself when someone would ask me if I would like to be the propulsion system of their new car. Maybe the answer here has many factors like: - flying this ship would not feel like captivity to the elemental but rather like just flying about, it likes to do this anyway and it doesn't mind that hard taking the crew to places they want to go. It feels like a driver more then an engine. - The crew has befriended it somehow while Cyre was still around, maybe they freed it from captivity and formed a bond with it. Then years later when cyre was destroyed they offered it a partnership (a rather unusual one at that but...) eager to hear your input Seth
Belabras 02-03-06, 10:37 AM	Setherial - The Power of Purity organization (from MoE) is a movement amoung Gnome Elemental binders to encourage actual cooperation with Elementals rather than slavery. As such, they communicate with the more intelligent elementals to come to agreements that work for both parties. In this case, a powerful fire elemental gets a free vacation from Fernia, a tour of Khorvair, and to meet alien (to it) species in exchange for minimal work on it's part. To a being that is essentially immortal, trading a little work for a host of new and interesting experiences probably didn't seem like such a bad deal. Those gnomes can be pretty convincing too.
Setherial 02-03-06, 04:15 PM	Setherial - The Power of Purity organization (from MoE) is a movement amoung Gnome Elemental binders to encourage actual cooperation with Elementals rather than slavery. As such, they communicate with the more intelligent elementals to come to agreements that work for both parties. In this case, a powerful fire elemental gets a free vacation from Fernia, a tour of Khorvair, and to meet alien (to it) species in exchange for minimal work on it's part. To a being that is essentially immortal, trading a little work for a host of new and interesting experiences probably didn't seem like such a bad deal. Those gnomes can be pretty convincing too. hehe cool, sounds like a believable theory :)