Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Royalarcanist 04-09-06, 09:44 AM	Hey, got a question about binding elementals into items and airships. We've got the example elemental bound items in the ECS with armors that can make you fly and weapons so gracefull that you get the weapon finesse feat when using it. We've got wagons that can travel without any animals pulling them and fast as well, and we've got strange vehicles that can travel through the very earth itself! Then we have the airships. They've got a ring of flame around them. Now how I see this is kind of like some sort of jet engine, since the wood an airship is crafted by a material which floats in air ayway. But wouldnt it just make more sense to bind the ships with an air elemental instead, or maybe their sails? Whats your thought on the airships using fire elementals instead of air.
Syltorian 04-09-06, 10:27 AM	An airship can have air elementals bound to them instead of a fire elemental, with no problem. All illustrations I have seen use rings of fire, however. Perhaps because it seems easier to show fire on a picture, rather than a ring of rippling air (although it could use flashes of lightning, like a lightning rail does, but according to the Explorer's Handbook, the air-elemental ring deals bludgeoning damage, not electrical, if I recall correctly). There is no difference in the stats, except for the type of damage caused if you are unlucky enough to make contact with the elemental ring. But you could use it for flavour: I could see some animated discussions in-game between advocates of air-elementals and advocates of fire-elementals. Perhaps there are airship-builders who specialise in one of these, and try to flaunt their superiority over those of a different school. The Gnome elemental-binders would surely enjoy such battles of publicity (and other covert battles too, of course). That said, if I remember my real-world elemental theories correctly, fire is actually the highest, uppermost element. Literally, that is. The elements were seen as belonging into different altitudes, or spheres if you want. Fire and flame always burns upwards (in natural circumstances, at least), and light - the sun, most importantly - comes from above even the air Thus, ancient sages put fire even above air. I have the suspicion that a reasoning similar to this, if not actually taken from this, could have influenced the idea of making things fly by fire. (That, and the idea of a mongolfiere and hot-air balloon, which was not known to the ancients when this theory was established, however). That, and of course the image of a jet-engine. Most airships do not have actual sails, although there are depictations of this, I believe. The air-elemental as known from most sources would be bound to a ring, a storm raging around the ship, and guiding the airship the same as a fire-ring. Both make sense, actually. Personally I perfer the air-elemental ring because it seems better for sneaking. A huge, blazing ring of fire tends to give you away, even if you try to approach on a clouded night.