Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Fabian 03-19-06, 12:23 PM	We've seen pics of airships with and without sails in the official Eberron books, but the floor plans I've seen always are for those without sails. What's the concensus, are the airships with sails just artistic license on part of the artists? L8r,
Xiane 03-19-06, 12:41 PM	In this case I'd say look to 2nd Ed's Spelljammer setting. Strictly speaking while in the flow and being flown around under the helms power a spelljamming vessel did not need sails. However 99% of spelljamming vessels also were used to dock in sea ports (saving odd designs like ilithid nautilus/neogi deathspiders). So how does this apply to Eberron? Well one could likely wager that sometimes an airship would need to be docked in a port of a port city or similarly need to pull into a 'dry dock' for repairs so the reason why you see some airships with sails and others without is two fold: 1) Looks, I imagine an air elemental bound airship using a wind sail could likely improve its speed and look really damn cool. (whereas a fire elemental air ship the sails would just catch flame I guess) 2) Should the vessel need to double as a sea going craft sails would be a must
Edymnion 03-19-06, 12:50 PM	Airships do not have sails, because they don't need them. The bound fire elemental provides the forward motion. But there are numerous water craft that have sails with bound elementals in them. Remember that the airships are a pretty new invention, but there are lots of traditional sailing ships that have had air elementals bound into their sails to provide constant wind (In Keith's second book, Shattered Land, Daine and company sail to Xen'Drik on a ship with an elemental sail because of how fast it is). So it depends on if you are looking at the plans for an airship, or just an elementally bound vessel. Airships don't have sails, but some EBV's do.
Fabian 03-19-06, 01:28 PM	Airships do not have sails, because they don't need them. The bound fire elemental provides the forward motion. I think airships have either a fire or an air elemental that powers them, not just a fire elemental as you seem to imply. Please see ECS pg. 124). Also, pg 10 of the Explorer's Handbook shows an airship with sails. I'll grant you that it's difficult to tell whether that particular airship is powered by a fire or an air elemental (maybe fire?). So to restate the question, I am looking at airships and not bound elemental ships. The question remains whether airships do or do not have sails. L8r,
Edymnion 03-19-06, 01:34 PM	Also, pg 10 of the Explorer's Handbook shows an airship with sails. I'll grant you that it's difficult to tell whether that particular airship is powered by a fire or an air elemental (maybe fire?).Hmmm... looks more like they just took some artistic liscense so they could get that nifty picture of the captain in the rigging. But still, the answer should be "No, they do not need sails". No reason someone couldn't put sails on if they wanted to, but they aren't needed. The bound elemental(s) is(are) what provide the ability to stay in the air and to move about. They have no need of normal wind to move about. However, I suppose you could make the argument that the ship in that picture is particularly weak/cheap, and it doesn't have a strong enough elemental bound to it to actually move the ship, just to keep it aloft, and that they need the sail to move around with.
Purple Yin 03-19-06, 07:51 PM	So to restate the question, I am looking at airships and not bound elemental ships. The question remains whether airships do or do not have sails. non-elemental-bound airships? As in FR Halruuan airships? Such things aren't by default in Eberron, so i guess its up to you.
Hideous Phidias 03-19-06, 09:52 PM	In the early days of steam powered ships many ships with steamengines also had sails on them. Although many of this ship nolong need or would ever use these sail the still were put on the ship during construction. They made the sailors that served on the ship feel safe and more at home on the new type of ship. this held true until some time after the first world war. Now that is said I see no reason why a airship could not have sails. I liked the picture myself, I even used it in a game I ran as the base for an airship that the party worked on for awhile. I simple said that the airship, (which was privately own) was an old model on of the first. I even gave it better then normal speed because of magic sails that help move it along with the air elemental that was bound to it. And to the question of the elemental on the ship in the picon page 10, I say it is an air because of the smaller pic on the top of the same page which shows the same ship with a clear or whitish wheel around it. And last time I looked the fire wheels on anyother pic are reddish. Look at the icon that I use to see classic example of a fire wheel airship.
dang 03-19-06, 11:47 PM	Now that is said I see no reason why a airship would not have sails. i do. a FIRE ELEMENTAL. but an air-powered ship could have sails to eke out a little more speed, provided they don't add a ton of weight or wind resistance when not in use. so, small sails, probably lateen, with a spinnaker (sp?). i need to check out this EH pic...
Setherial 03-20-06, 02:16 AM	pure from a technical point of view, a sail on a ship catches the wind and uses it to go forward, the wind helps the ship as long as you have it comming from the right direction. Now in the air you cut through the wind and you have to do it as best as you can, imagine an airplane with a big sial on top, it would only function as a wind catcher greatly decreasing velocity. I would think anything that flew and had sails on top to be a very odd sight.
dang 03-20-06, 02:32 AM	pure from a technical point of view, a sail on a ship catches the wind and uses it to go forward, the wind helps the ship as long as you have it comming from the right direction. Now in the air you cut through the wind and you have to do it as best as you can, imagine an airplane with a big sial on top, it would only function as a wind catcher greatly decreasing velocity. I would think anything that flew and had sails on top to be a very odd sight. you're assuming that an airship generally moves faster than the wind. to be blunt, it doesn't, especially considering they fly in altitudes at which the wind is moving faster than near the ground. sails aren't completely unfeasible, provided they can be furled/collapsed and don't add a lot of weight. it's a cost/benefit analysis. as seen in my above post, i agree that sails certainly aren't necessary, but could be helpful with some air-elemental ships.
shironiku 03-20-06, 02:33 AM	pure from a technical point of view, a sail on a ship catches the wind and uses it to go forward, the wind helps the ship as long as you have it comming from the right direction. Now in the air you cut through the wind and you have to do it as best as you can, imagine an airplane with a big sial on top, it would only function as a wind catcher greatly decreasing velocity. I would think anything that flew and had sails on top to be a very odd sight. Airplanes depend on lift to stay aloft, and must maintain a minimum speed or else they start to fall. Airships are kept in the air by magic and the natural buoyancy of the soarwood used in their construction. As I understand it, the elemental has nothing to do with keeping the ship in the air, only with moving it around. An airship with its elemental suppressed moves at 1mph. It is feasible to have an airship without an bound elemental at all, one that uses sails to propel it through the sky like an ordinary seafaring vessel. Sure, it wouldn't be as fast as a standard airship, but it has the advantage of not needing someone with the Mark of Storm to pilot it. National governments and rival Houses might like the option of operating airships without worrying about the pilots reporting all of their business back to their masters in House Lyrandar.
Setherial 03-20-06, 05:21 AM	Airplanes depend on lift to stay aloft, and must maintain a minimum speed or else they start to fall. Airships are kept in the air by magic and the natural buoyancy of the soarwood used in their construction. As I understand it, the elemental has nothing to do with keeping the ship in the air, only with moving it around. An airship with its elemental suppressed moves at 1mph. It is feasible to have an airship without an bound elemental at all, one that uses sails to propel it through the sky like an ordinary seafaring vessel. Sure, it wouldn't be as fast as a standard airship, but it has the advantage of not needing someone with the Mark of Storm to pilot it. National governments and rival Houses might like the option of operating airships without worrying about the pilots reporting all of their business back to their masters in House Lyrandar. So basically we are talking about a giant version of a permanent levitate spell to get it in the air and then trust to the wind to get it moving. hmmmm might work... You would have less friction then in water so it would be faster but on the other hand a storm might be even more dangerous to this kind of ship then to a sea vessel.
Purple Yin 03-20-06, 09:09 AM	as opposed to big galleys of yore they couldnt just use oars if the wind is in the wrong direction. if its only using sails then the sails have to be of a more modern design, allowing the ship to even slowly sail into the wind... i dont think the ships have negative bouancy without the elemental. sure the soarwood alon would make it possible, but if that were the case, then there would be flying ships, and other innovations, long before elemental binding was discovered by the gnomes. I think of the soarwood like the low density wood used in model construction, but magically hard like oak or redwood.
Euangelion 03-20-06, 11:20 AM	So basically we are talking about a giant version of a permanent levitate spell to get it in the air and then trust to the wind to get it moving. hmmmm might work... Again, the ExH states that airships are naturally boyant due to the soarwood in their construction. There's no need for a spell to keep them up in the air. You would have less friction then in water so it would be faster but on the other hand a storm might be even more dangerous to this kind of ship then to a sea vessel. Good point! Propulsion could be achieved using a permanent gust of wind spell.
Xiane 03-20-06, 11:22 AM	On another note maybe the drawing wasn't of an airship/elemental bound ship at all. Was looking through my eberron books for info on airships to hold a pirate encounter mid flight and came across what could be take as a ship with both looks like an elemental ring and sails, that being a Storm ship. A vessels whose elemental ring of air is used to produce wind to fill the sails. Found this in the Explorers Handbook however rather than flight this is a naval vessel
dang 03-20-06, 07:08 PM	Again, the ExH states that airships are naturally boyant due to the soarwood in their construction. There's no need for a spell to keep them up in the air. i have to agree with purple yin here, for several reasons. a) the EH is probably the worst, most poorly considered, most error-filled sourcebook of all time. b) i'm pretty sure there are non-flying ships made of soarwood... it's in a sourcebook (not EH), somewhere... c) as soon as one cut a soarwood tree down, it would fly away. meaning one would cut a soarwood tree up. d) if soarwood were buoyant, all beggars would fly. e) if soarwood were buoyant, airships would have been made in aerenal 25,000 yrs. ago, but would just be propelled by other means. i think a balance might be struck, however. for example, the ships wouldn't require a powerful, permanent enchantment, but soarwood could be particularly good at holding flight magics, or requires comparatively simple spells to activate a latent floating ability.
Edymnion 03-20-06, 07:36 PM	Again, the ExH states that airships are naturally boyant due to the soarwood in their construction. There's no need for a spell to keep them up in the air.That bit in the ExH is generally considered to be a mistake by someone who didn't know the system. The rest of the setting does not use this assumption, and there are places where it specifically mentions an airship crashing to the ground when the elemental escapes. Soarwood is a very light, very strong wood, but it is not lighter than air. I mean, its wood. It grows in the form of trees. If you say Soarwood is normally floaty, enough that a few planks that make up the skin of the ship could keep it aloft, a solid tree of the stuff couldn't stay rooted, as it would rip out of the ground and fly up into the sky. Keith's own novel line starts out with the main guys on a battlefield with an airship coming through. A sorcerer manages to dispel the bindings on the elemental ring for a few rounds, and the ship crashes into the ground. So really, just chalk that bit about an airship just floating of it's own accourd right up there with the raging shifter monk and the warforged that can't smell in the Races of Eberron book.
Master_Musashi 03-20-06, 10:43 PM	According to the explorer's handbook, soarwood has neutral bouyancy in the air. That means that soarwood trees do not float up out of the ground. They don't float away when you cut them down. They don't fall either. They just hang there, at exactly the level they were at before. Unless you impart some force to the tree, it won't go anywhere, and even if you smacked it so that it floated up, air resistance would overcome it's momentum eventually. Basically it has the same weight as an equal volume of air. Which is also why soarwood life preservers allow a passenger to float to the ground safely instead of falling to their death. The bouyancy of the wood partially overcomes the user's body weight. The only reference I can see to an airship crashing when the elemental was released was a little flavor passage at the beginning of a chapter in the ECS or EPH (I forget which) in which if you read carefully you will see the freed elemental is mad and deliberately driving the ship into the ground. As for the concept that soarwood would allow beggars to fly, that's so absurd it's not even worth countering, but I will anyway. Soarwood is horrifically expensive. There's a limited supply of it on Aerenal, and the Aerenal Elves will not allow it to be harvested faster than it can be replaced by new growth, and therefore the supply is a tiny trickle compared to the ravenous demand for the material.
Edymnion 03-20-06, 10:54 PM	According to the explorer's handbook, soarwood has neutral bouyancy in the air. That means that soarwood trees do not float up out of the ground. They don't float away when you cut them down. They don't fall either. They just hang there, at exactly the level they were at before. Unless you impart some force to the tree, it won't go anywhere, and even if you smacked it so that it floated up, air resistance would overcome it's momentum eventually. Basically it has the same weight as an equal volume of air.In which case it *CANNOT* keep the airship in the air. The thing is covered in metal, ropes, people, supplies, etc. There would be tons of material (quite literally) that would be weighing the ship down. The soarwood would have to be lighter than air and be actively counterbalancing all of that weight. Heck, just the nails that hold the soarwood planks together would be enough to make the whole thing heavier than air. So again, if the elemental is freed, the ship will come crashing to the ground.
Setherial 03-21-06, 02:15 AM	In which case it *CANNOT* keep the airship in the air. The thing is covered in metal, ropes, people, supplies, etc. There would be tons of material (quite literally) that would be weighing the ship down. The soarwood would have to be lighter than air and be actively counterbalancing all of that weight. Heck, just the nails that hold the soarwood planks together would be enough to make the whole thing heavier than air. So again, if the elemental is freed, the ship will come crashing to the ground. it's not because something is lighter then air that would make it fly, it's not air that pulls you towards the planet it's gravity. And if gravity didn't pull the air towards it we would have no atmosphere, we would not run out of air at high altitudes, etc...
dang 03-21-06, 03:37 AM	According to the explorer's handbook, soarwood has neutral bouyancy in the air. That means that soarwood trees do not float up out of the ground. They don't float away when you cut them down. They don't fall either. They just hang there, at exactly the level they were at before. Unless you impart some force to the tree, it won't go anywhere, and even if you smacked it so that it floated up, air resistance would overcome it's momentum eventually. Basically it has the same weight as an equal volume of air. Which is also why soarwood life preservers allow a passenger to float to the ground safely instead of falling to their death. The bouyancy of the wood partially overcomes the user's body weight. that makes no sense. e.g., if one were to wear a soarwood life preserver, and say one were a svelte 130 lbs... one would weigh 130 lbs, and crash to the earth. edymnion is completely right here. it's not because something is lighter then air that would make it fly, it's not air that pulls you towards the planet it's gravity. And if gravity didn't pull the air towards it we would have no atmosphere, we would not run out of air at high altitudes, etc... again, not making sense. helium floats because: it's lighter than air. it floats to the top of air, because it is less massive than air. think of oil and water. gravity still pulls helium, but the pressure of the air overpowers gravity. As for the concept that soarwood would allow beggars to fly, that's so absurd it's not even worth countering, but I will anyway. Soarwood is horrifically expensive. There's a limited supply of it on Aerenal, and the Aerenal Elves will not allow it to be harvested faster than it can be replaced by new growth, and therefore the supply is a tiny trickle compared to the ravenous demand for the material. whoah. it's A JOKE. you know, like the old proverb, if wishes were h... :( nevermind. but if it weren't a joke, then would economics dictate the construction of a fleet of giant airships or sets of individual wings for rich people? hmmm. funny we haven't seen those... but to recap: don't use anything you read in the EH, it's a terrible book. if you haven't bought it, don't.
Modenstein 03-21-06, 04:09 AM	people here seem a bit confused about what sails do on most seafaring sailing ships - they propel a ship because wind/air moves differently than the water, ie: the current of the water and the rudder and keel of the ship push the ship one way while the wind acts on the sail in another way. That is what allows you to maneuver via sails alone, without oars or some sort of engine running a propellor - etc. The ocean current not going the way you want? adjust your sail. The air current not going the way you want? Adjust your rudder. You still can't sail directly against the wind but you can "tack" back and forth and move against the wind or current. The probem for an air-ship is that both the airship and the sail interact only with the air, ie: a sail on an airship can only push you in the direction of the wind, you need some other method of propulsion to navigate. That is, wind blowing the wrong way? No use adjusting your rudder, because it only interacts with the wind, which you're already using to push the sails. Now like the seafaring elemental vessels on Eberron you could use an air elemental to blow a wind in whatever direction and speed you want - fine, though since we know that eberron airships move about solely from being directly propelled by an elemental either of fire or air, why bother to add sails? Presumably the elemental has already imparted movement by expelling wind or heat towards or away from the airship. That is you just have Lyrandar Dragonmarked guy tell the elemental to push you up, down left right, whichever way you want to go. For all intents an purposes an eberron airship is powered by a directional jet or propeller. You can use rudders/windflaps to adjust direction, but since the elemental is pushing sort of like an directional jet engine - no need for sails for propulsion and not much need for rudders or wingflaps since you tell the elemental to push forawrd and up for awhile to rise rather than relying on lift or telling the elemental to push forward and left rather than relying on a rudder to turn you left. Look at it this way - why do you never see a dirigible or zeppelin with sails on it? Because they could only push it in the direction of the wind which is already pushing on the hull of the zeppelin to begin with. The zeppelin is a sail. A hot air balloon is effectively an "air-ship" with sails alone for propulsion and hot air for lift - but you don't see a "sail" because the whole balloon acts as a sail. Near as I can tell soar wood either aids in lift or decreases firction making you faster or maybe both, but in the end it is the elemental that lifts and propels the airship and the wheel is a means of communicating with the elemental, not a system for adjusting a keel or rudder. To a certain extent it seems from what I've read that in Eberron the airship is not receiving any lift: the elemental is simply holding the airship while the elemental flys. If the elemental gets distracted, injured, or rebellious you get turbulance and loss of control. And if the elemental gets loose, well your ring of air/storm/fire vanishes or escapes and down your airship drops, with a resounding bang as it crashed to the ground. I'm probably not explaining it well, but I was involved in a airship heavy campaign in college and the aeronautics majors running and playing in the campaign explained with great authority why sails are relatively little use on an airship since if you've got the means to lift the ship (via a way better than a hot air balloon) into the air you probably already have the means to propel and direct the ship as well without relying on wind. And if you rely only on wind for propulsion you have less control than a hot air balloon. A hot air balloon can adjust its course a bit by increasing the heat to the air in the balloon and rising (hoping to catch a wind current going the right direction) or it can drop ballast/weight to likewise go higher looking for a good wind direction. To go lower a hot air ballon basically either waits to cool or it opens a vent in the balloon and releases hot air. A magical vehicle that was "weightless" and just floated and tried to rely on sails alone could only go where the wind currents took it without even the option of heating the air or dropping weight like a hot air balloon, since if everything in it is functionally "weightless" you have no weight to drop off, no air to heat for more lift. Such a sail only aircraft would have to be launched from a mountain top or it would get blown into nearby trees, houses, hills etc. Gliders and what are known as "sailplanes" get pulled aloft by a propellor driven plane, release their tow cable and use wind flaps and rudders to maneuver, but essentially they are a controlled fall with the exception of riding thermal uplifts to regain height. The sail on a ship isn't just the sail - it's the sail being pushed by the wind while the mast that it is attached to is held or even pushed in a different direction by the water. On an aircraft the wind is already pushing on every surface in the same direction, but there is no equivalent of water to provide any competing push, so rudders and flaps can tilt your vehicle's orientation but won't alter it's course in the wind - you need a propulsion system to actaully go anywhere aside from blindly following the wind and the occaisional thermal updraft. Airships are simply a fundamentally different things than sea-sailing ships. Airships operate in one medium, the air. Sea-sailing ships utilize the interface between the medium of the sea and the medium of the air to maneuver, operating in two mediums using one against the other as needed. Another point is that sails block your view, so it's harder to spot air pirates attacking. ;) though, I'll admit an airship with a mess of sails attached might look pretty. It's fantasy world so one can have sails or not (especially if neither the DM or players know anything about aeronaitics), but as I said, those who understand aeronautics say sea-sailing ship style sails are of very very limited use on aircraft of any kind. So sails seem to be mainly artistic license. <<via google I find that this fellow deals with the same issue (http://ourworlds.topcities.com/space1889/mars/cloudships.html) of sails on an object floating free in the air regarding the RPG Space: 1889>>> I am very fond of the idea of cloudships (as evidenced by my building a model of one) but I do have a problem with the concept as it is used in Space: 1889 - they simply will not work. I am not talking about liftwood. Liftwood is the fantasy element of the story and I am willing to suspend my disbelief and accept that there is an organic material that can counter-act gravity. No, my problem is that adding sails to a lighter-than-air craft will do absolutely nothing to control its speed or direction. A free floating object, and that's what a cloudship without an airscrew is, will travel at exactly the same speed and in the same direction as the wind current in which it resides. Balloons control their direction (and speed, to a lesser extent) by rising or falling to find an air current that is going in the direction they want to travel. If no air current is going that way, then neither is the balloon. Adding sails to a balloon will not effect its speed or provide any control over its motion. The sails do absolutely nothing. Why do sails work on a boat and not on a balloon (or cloudship)? Because a boat exists in two media of different densities. The difference in density between air and water means that there are two forces acting on a boat, the drag of the water and the pressure of the wind (which is actually a form of lift generated by the airfoil shape of the sails). A sail boat balances these two forces against each other to allow the boat to control its direction and to generate speed. A sail boat can actually sail faster than the wind speed under certain conditions. The resistance of the water on the boat's hull is vital to it's control. A boat that does not have a keel that extends far enough into the water cannot sail into the wind but will be pushed across the water in the direction that the wind is blowing. And that's the trouble with cloudships, they have no keel and no water for the keel to push against. Without that, there is no way for them to sail, they can only drift. There is a solution to this problem, though, and it can come from the same liftwood that allows the cloudship to rise into the sky. We know that liftwood is effected by planetary magnetic fields (the Venusian magnetic field accelerates the decay of liftwood), so it seems reasonable that one effect might be that liftwood resists crossing the magnetic field lines. That resistance would not be enough to slow the cloudship significantly but could provide the equivalent of the drag of water, and thus allow the cloudship to truly sail through the sky. Obviously, the magnetic resistance is different from drag in the sense that it is very directional, i.e. there would be less resistance when the cloudship is traveling with the field lines than when crossing them, but this is roughly analogous to ocean currents and, like their Earth ocean sailing counterparts, the Martian cloud sailors would long since have learned to use this effect and will have adapted their sailing techniques to not only compensate for it, but will have learned to use it to their advantage. so if you really want sails on your airships, all you need is some magical substance that interacts with something other than air - ie: aether/gravity/etc. that puts pressure on the "keel" and "rudder" of your airship and then your sails will work. Though the rigging would likely be much more complex than on a sea-sailing ship. :) see this image for what such a sailing airship might look like (http://ourworlds.topcities.com/space1889/models/blood-small.jpg)
Euangelion 03-21-06, 09:05 AM	So if soarwood alone doesn't keep an airship floating, another problem arises. :rimshot: So what does? If it's the bound elemental, wouldn't the binding ring have to be precisely in the point of balance between fore and aft, or the airship would pitch up or down? Even the slightest change in balance would change where that point was on the ship, so everything would need to remain in place, including the crew. Or the elemental would have to be constantly trimming the airship, which would mean that the pilot would always have to be at the helm, and the airship would not keep moving in the same direction without further orders. (For an easy illustration of this, think of a helicopter, and imagine the main rotor being mounted on the tail.) Frankly, I'll stick with the soarwood hull of an airship being as boyant in air as a wooden ship is in water, thank you very much!. :D And another thing, how does a fire elemental even move an airship anyway? Last time I checked, fire elementals don't have a fly speed. Just heating the air around a ship isn't going to move it. An air elemental I can understand, you're just telling it to fly in whatever direction you want. But a fire elemental? It might sound to some that it was the writers of the ECS who didn't know what they were talking about! ;) Seriously, though, a lot of things don't quite add up based on our modern understanding of physics. But it's a fantasy game, so who cares? An airship surrounded by a ring of fire is simply awesome. So what if the physics are suspect? So in some games airships are boyant without the elemental involved. So what? Knock enough pieces of soarwood off the ship, and it'll crash. But if they aren't boyant in other games, that great too. It'll be fun watching the party try to control an airship, which will be the equivalent of watching someone try to fly a helicopter without training. Good luck! Bottom line: I think I understand why the writers of ExH chose the path they took, and it makes the most sense to me, even though it isn't perfect. But it's definately not something to get worked up about.
shadowpavement 03-21-06, 02:15 PM	Man, this is starting to sound more like the gnomish artificer elemental binding boards and less like the Eberron game boards :P
Edymnion 03-21-06, 02:23 PM	it's not because something is lighter then air that would make it fly, it's not air that pulls you towards the planet it's gravity. And if gravity didn't pull the air towards it we would have no atmosphere, we would not run out of air at high altitudes, etc...Actually, yes, it is. Being lighter than air is one way to fly, otherwise hellium balloons would not fly. Something that is lighter than air will fly up, just the same way a piece of fresh wood at the bottom of a lake will bob to the surface. Anything that weighs the same as the air it displaces is neutrally boyant, meaning it does not fall nor float, it just hangs there at the whim of the winds. Anything that weighs more than the air it displaces will fall to earth. The airship is heavier than the air it displaces, hence without something intentionally keeping it in the air (powered flight, like a modern airplane or helicopter), it will fall. Hence, unless that soarwood is lighter than air by a great deal, knocking out the elemental will cause the ship to crash into the ground. The thing about the soarwood keeping it up by itself is just flat out wrong.
Euangelion 03-21-06, 04:48 PM	The thing about the soarwood keeping it up by itself is just flat out wrong. Unless it's magic! ;)
jonthegm 03-21-06, 04:59 PM	I think a better question than the OPs is "Since they're nearly entirely a magical and imaginary construction, who cares whether airships have sails or not?"
Xiane 03-21-06, 10:02 PM	If it's the bound elemental, wouldn't the binding ring have to be precisely in the point of balance between fore and aft, or the airship would pitch up or down? In most elemental ring diagrams (including the underwater variety seen in the creation schema campaign) the ring of the bound elemental is roughly mid ship. The exception I've found being the storm ship which travels on the water which uses the ring BEHIND the sales to fill them with wind.
Edymnion 03-21-06, 10:19 PM	Or there could always be a ballast area in the back of the ship that is filled/emptied to make sure the ship's center of gravity is centered in the ring. Just because the ring isn't in the middle of the ship based on shape, it could still be in the middle by weight.
Master_Musashi 03-22-06, 12:05 AM	It's conceivable that sails would make an air elemental powered ship slightly faster... if having it blow into the high surface area sails would be more energy efficient than having it expel air backwards or against the ship's hull... I still like the explorer's handbook's explanation that soarwood has neutral buoyancy. I'm aware that neutral buoyancy wouldn't allow it to support weight if it were due to physical weight, but this is magic... Perhaps it has some inherent magical property that causes it to maintain a neutral buoyancy in the air, despite being under load. It's a purely subjective reaction, but I like the idea of soarwood hulls making you float in the air without any propulsion. As for whether it would be more efficient to have lots of little ships or a few big ones, it's fairly obvious to me that it makes more sense to have big ones. The dragonmarked houses are much more wealthy than any other wealthy individual. They are the only ones who can afford it at all, and they are profit minded. Airships are the obvious way to make this stuff profitable. Besides which, you could make a set of wings, or a soarsled, and it will let you float in the air... but what's the point? Unless you can provide some means of propulsion you're just going to sit there...