I am putting together an adventure (or more likely a series of adventures) that involves the characters being part of a navy and being at sea for a long time. The PCs will be on a ship that is part of a large fleet exploring the wide oceans. Since this will be fantasy gameI would like for this navy to have a arial division. When thinking about mounts I could only come with Giant Eagles and Griffons. What other creatures could fit the bill. Oh and the entire navy and the PCs will be Halfling so the mounts only have to carry small characters.
Well halfling sized griffons with greater agility and perhaps some other special property specially enchanted to the purpose might be nice.
"Giant Eagle" is cool but you could tailor it to "Giant Osprey" halfling sized, seabird, catches fish to feed itself (so it makes more sense for an extended period at sea)
Everybody loves dragons;-) you could create a powered down (at least I would power them down) race of dragonlike flying mounts.
You could also make the flight magic item based - a cloak of wings - or even a cloak that transforms the wearer into a bird,
flight speed, +10 to spot, but no weapons use (or effective natural attack), or spell casting while in the form - it is fpr disguise and reconnaisance. Claok could make you an air eleemental.
Flying carpets
some thought starters
In the back of the Monster Manual II is a template for "warbeasts" which can be added to any Medium or larger animal or vermin (other than those which are already war trained, such as warhorses). Adding that template to any Medium flying creature would make for an excellent halfling aerial mount. I'll stat up a war eagle and put it on DM Tools.
There's also the winged template from Savage Species. How about a war flying viper?
TK
EDIT: Here's a war eagle!
|
Large Gulls...as in Sea Gulls. Have them trained to respond to a special whistle. They can live off-ship in the sea, following the Navy. Basically, they would be totally self-sufficient and only come when called. They can weather anything mothernature can send their way-as in storms. Watch out for the Kraken!!
The more i think about this, the more cool this adventure sounds. You must give us campaign updates.
Thoth-Amon
Here's a flying warviper
Flying warsharks coming up...
Flying sharks. For water landings and takeoffs. Plus, they're frightful.
Do they have frickin lazer beems? ;)
To give them "frickin' lazer beams," give them the ability to use scorching ray 3/day and increase the CR by 1.
Hm
A few more ideas are: Dire Hawks (RoW), Dire Eagles (RoS), Hippogriffs, Pegasi, Giant Owls (perfectly acceptable during the day, but even better for use at night), Dire Bats, Giant Ravens(Frostburn), Dire Vultures & Thunderbirds (Sandstorm), Quetzalcoatluses (MMII), Glidewings (Pteranodons) (ECS), Wyverns (although they might be a bit ornery, they do fit the weaker dragon idea Kyr put forward), Rocs (if you need a strategic bomber like capability or if you decide to dispense with ships all together), Couatls & Lammasus(if the expedition serves the forces of good). Also Aubrey the advanced eagles idea is an interesting one but I'm not sure they would have the necessary strength to carry a halfling aloft. From Arms & Equip there is also the soarwhale, which would allow you to dispense with ships all together (think whale crossed with zeppelin and you have the basic idea) and giant firefly for search and rescue. Also I would use the normal sized mounts since they could still be controlled by halflings and they could carry more than one halfling at a time if their normal rider size would be medium. Just stick an adjusted size howdah on the creatures backs.
Oh one other idea: instead of ships, use the zaratan from Arms and Equipment-essentially sea turtles the size of the largest ships, or a small iceberg. Actually, also check out Frostburn and Stormwrack for ocean oriented material (Frostburn for cold oceans and for using icebergs as ships.
Some great suggestions there folks, thank you. I do not have all the books listed above but I am sure someone I know while have at least some of them. I had been thinking of trying to find some kind of flying whale as an encounter. I do have a couple of D20 books that have PrCs that uses flying mounts and a naval campaign just seems the perfect setting.
What kind of whale?