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Hello Pathfinders,
I've been thinking lately that there haven't been many flight or air-based modules for PFS so I've been having my head among the clouds trying to come up with different possibilities and problems for a scenario of my own:
Problem #1: If 80% or more of the battles will happen in the air how are the players supposed to stay in the air at very early levels?
Answer #1.1: Giving the players an airship to navigate the skies with and give it some McGuffin or another for quest importance and its flying capability.
Answer #1.2: Fiat to have the players already have grown wings and give them Fly as a trained Class Skill which is less hindered by Armor Check Penalty.
Answer #1.3: Let the players have a mount with flight capability. (Mounts can be targetted and killed, sure but they could have Ride and be given the Mounted Combat feat)
Answer #1.4: Give the players magical items to help them conquer the skies one way or another (most boring alternative I could think of).
Problem #2: The height; of course if someone becomes disabled or unconscious they might fall off the airship or drop from the sky one way or another and if no one helps them they will die, so how does one go about it to make it fair?
Answer #2.1: Leave it to the players; if they are a smart bunch they will have thought of these issues and taken precautions, such as tying a rope around their waists and tie it to the mast of the airship or purchase Featherfall rings if they have wings etc.
Answer 2.2#: Give them mundane items that slows down their falling speed so they can be picked up by the other party members or their mount.
Things the campaign will involve; floating islands, dense clouds, lightning storms, strange weather phenomena, hail/rain, aggressive flying beasts, mounted enemy cavalry/airship pirates, surveying the decrepit lands below.
If you have any suggestions, comments, critiques or requests please let me know and I'll shape the campaign accordingly.
You could have a world with areas of subjective/no gravity like the elemental plane of air. If islands can stay aloft, then why not creatures?
Suggestions:
Use flying races. Harpies, raptorans, perhaps a flying fey or two, add flight to sylphs, use winged folk from GURPS, aasimar, tieflings, and so on.
Airships are cool. Use airships. Airships are cool.
Flying mounts, absolutely. There are a number in the rule books.
Give the problem of surviving falls to the players, but show them what others have chosen to do. You need to decide on a technology level for this campaign, which sounds like it should be a bit higher than standard. If so, steam engines, guns, trains and factories could all be options, with their own ramifications.
Put in flying castles, dragons and whatever themes you end up with after choosing races.
Delve somewhat into the political ramifications of flight, most notably that if you can fly high above something and dump bombs on them, the only cities that will survive are those who prepare for this. They will have mobile cities, dangerous weather enchantments, huge artillery pieces, defensive fleets, tame flying monsters, or the like.
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You could have a world with areas of subjective/no gravity like the elemental plane of air. If islands can stay aloft, then why not creatures?
It's not a bad suggestion, although it would make it rather pointless to have airships or flying creatures if there is no gravity. With the exception of travelling slightly faster.. But having certain anti-gravitational fields or something like the elemental plane of air have seeped into the material plane could be really cool.
Use flying races, airships are cool, flying mounts in the books, higher technology level, flying castles and political problems around safety and city defenses.
Very good, I like the thought of using the tiefling and aasimar templates to give them wings. I was thinking of adding stuff like cannons and certain technological changes, guns already exist from Ultimate Combat so I can use that. The political issues would be certain since it is difficult to set "borders" around the cities, all there would be is airspace which can cause arguments of who is invading whoms airspace.
Thank you both for your suggestions, I'm all open for more.
Oh, and people living on a flying island have some unique problems, first and foremost water and space. So, they have military power, but need to take or trade for the basics of continued existence. Their temptation to subjugate large areas of ground societies would be exceedingly strong. Oh, and give them an entitlement complex a mile long. There is no excuse for not being massively decadent when you literally look down on everyone else.
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Water supplies and living space, steal or trade for survival, take large amounts of land below the skies and bigotry.
That's right.. Because there is no way for unlimited water and food supplies to exist unless they found an exceedingly large island with lots of open space and a gate or Well of Many Worlds to the elemental plane of water. One civilization might have been able to do so and are envied or attacked by the other civs for this resource.
Others might employ heavy amounts of slavery, working the poor souls to brink of death to bring the supplies from the world below in large slavery encampments. Clerics might still be of high demand since they can produce water and food from thin air as well.I was also thinking, the airship should be the main mean of getting around but also have a stable within that houses the flying animals for getting to and fro smaller island or fend of ranged aerial-attackers that are hard to hit with the slow cannons. Perhaps even a accrue a whole crew for the ship as they progress.
I used the Room and Building Rules from U.Campaign for it and just added a Engine Room for Airships.
You could take some cues from the Meridian comic, though that's more about trade.
Airship: Yes. Airships are fragile things, and not very fast. To protect one, it needs more mobile units to mount a perimeter defense, i.e. flying beast cavalry and winged soldiers. If the airship is supposed to carry something heavy, it needs to be correspondingly massive in size.
Slavery: Good thinking. So now you have a politically volatile and dangerous setting, full of injustice and cruelty. Some court room intrigue should fit right in. What you don't have is dungeons, though. Would make a pretty significant difference.
If it helps there is a Thread called Pathfinder in the Sky on this forum and then there is this Thread as well.
updrafts
I was also thinking, the airship should be the main mean of getting around but also have a stable within that houses the flying animals for getting to and fro smaller island or fend of ranged aerial-attackers that are hard to hit with the slow cannons. Perhaps even a accrue a whole crew for the ship as they progress.
An air aircraft carrier! Awesome. :)
As others have said, there are a number of ways around the problems you mentioned. On the flip side, don't be afraid to start the party on the "ground" at the first level and show them all the things that the "big guys" get to play with. You can hint at it pretty easily and get the players realizing that "Yeah, we're gonna need some of those flying mounts, and we damn sure better figure out how to control them." In all honesty, the biggest problem I see (and this comes purely from my personal experience) is in getting the party to invest in things like mounts, ride, and fly. My experience has been that a lot of players do not like to invest in those things because they fear there will be too many occasions when they will not be useful. Personally, I'm not a big fan of just giving them these things (though the mounts could be an exception as they could be given to the party as a reward or at the start of a quest, etc.) I'm just not a big fan of handing out free feats and skills. If the party cannot figure out that they need to learn how to travel and fight in the air in an aerial campaign, then just handing them stuff isn't likely to help matters later on.
As for the falling problem, I think it would be pretty routine for riders of flying mounts to have a harness system set up, such that even if they are knocked unconscious, they are still tethered to their mount. Airships might be a little different as I doubt they'd want to be attached to ropes the whole way (think sailors), but certain crew members absolutely would be tethered (like when climbing the rigging or crow's nest, etc.)
All in all, this sounds like an awesome campaign and one that should encourage the players to try out different ideas that they might not normally go with.
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There's a comic similar to this, airships need good defense, coutroom intrigue would fit in, no dungeons though.
Well.. My personal experience with PFS is that there are -too many- dungeon crawls, underground hazards and not enough freedom of movement. I might include a few smaller dungeons within the earth of the floating islands themselves with pitfalls and slide traps that drops players out into the air (just an example).
Love the idea of a courtroom intrigue, I am all for that. "OBJECTION!" o/I have two threads for you that will help.
Good call. I'll check these threads up and see what I can learn from them as well, thanks.
Updrafts
Yep. That's also a good hazard. I'll include it under my "weather conditions" list, thanks.
Start the PCs on the ground and get a feel for the game, let them learn from the narrative instead of handholding them since I don't do it. Like Answer #2.1 let the players be smart about it when it comes to height, encourage them to try new things.
That's a really good suggestion, they can start off on the horrible ground-level and trough through the decrepit earth, witness all the slavery going on and wanting to investigate the "cities in the skies" to find a solution to all this misery. Thus having to find a way to get up there and invest in stuff to complement these adventures.
That way I won't have to give them free stuff and handwave it, thank you.
Now what kind of Airships are we talking bout here?
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My experience has been that a lot of players do not like to invest in those things because they fear there will be too many occasions when they will not be useful. Personally, I'm not a big fan of just giving them these things (though the mounts could be an exception as they could be given to the party as a reward or at the start of a quest, etc.) I'm just not a big fan of handing out free feats and skills. If the party cannot figure out that they need to learn how to travel and fight in the air in an aerial campaign, then just handing them stuff isn't likely to help matters later on.
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I hear you on that one. Case in point is climb. There is a skill that only really is relevant before you can buy potions of fly, in an anti magic zone, or GM fiat of "Prove you are the strongest" sort of things... Swim for me falls into a similar category, and commonly ride because I can't take a horse into a dungeon corridor and keep a straight face. Because the DCs for flying are so low for anything that isn't "combat-y', you don't need to invest in fly for getting around in that sort of world...
Unless your an adventurer and plan on fighting while flying. Even then.... DCs cap out at 20 (36 in a tornado and are you REALLY going to be flying in one of them?)
Make it known that this is an airborne campaign and that they will need to cater for that. There will be large open spaces with flying critters in it and no floor / ceiling commonly. Then let things land where they players end up going. People might think swim is a bit of a waste, but I'll bet most everyone looked at it REAL hard for skulls and shackles (unless they deliberately wanted to do a 'land lubber' character for RP giggles anyways). Why? Because it was appropriate and you knew you probably wouldn't end up just wasting skill points on it. Someone might want to play a really uncomfortable flier and run with being an extreme ranged bowman to get around it. Perfectly acceptably char that if you were handing out free skill points and feats, you now need to work around to get him 'balanced' against the free stuff everyone else got.
On a different topic, there was an cloud castle in one of the OLD books that I had at one point that had a giant scoop / dredge thing on it that regularly the inhabitants would just drop into a lake for water supplies or just scoop up a whole farm if they needed more food. That's a simple way of getting them up there from the ground if you wanted. They camp out one night, and awake in the middle of the night to find themselves being scooped up along with some firewood trees and already some 100 feet already in the air. From there are they non-persons, slaves, offered citizenship as an apology, offered to be dropped back down, the whole thing a set up by an Seer who sees that they will need them and throws them their plot hook... ?
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I agree with Gargs454 but with Climb and Swim, Fly is the same unless airborne combatant where DC caps at 20.
Let the players know it's an airborne campaign and let the players decide what to do, some might create land-dweller chars for fun and then you would have to balance it out with all the free stuff they got.
Heard about castle in the clouds where giants gather supplies to by stealing entire lakes and farms. Maybe let the players be scooped up during the night and set them into a settlement where they will be given the choice to leave or help in these bizarre times.
Not impossible to make, but it would seem a bit forced to scoop the players up and drop them onto a floating island before they feel absolutely ready to go. Personally I would rather want the challenge of actually going up by my own efforts rather than having the 'GM-hand' pluck me and set me onto the islands and then tell me "$h!t's hit the fan, please help us!".
If they see the slavery and misery first-hand and decide to help, they will be more invested in the narrative as they will feel that it's their responsibility for going through the trouble of getting there in the first place. I'm not shooting your idea down, it's still a very good one but it's a bit hard to incorporate from how this is currently set up.
EDIT: I'm still very interested in the story about the floating castle with giants helping them supply their resources, that could be a possible plothook itself. Do you have a source to the book?
If you can get hold of D&D BECMI's PC2-Top Ballista there's pretty much a campaign setting based around a flying city (complete with gnomish flying machines). "Fantasy Physics" actually becomes a learnable skill, in which you can create machines that - if they look like they are supposed to work - will actually have a chance of doing so, no matter what natural laws they break in the process. That alone makes it the perfect skill for Gnomish engineers in almost any game ;)
It's got a wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Ballista
Put in flying castles, dragons and whatever themes you end up with after choosing races.
Delve somewhat into the political ramifications of flight, most notably that if you can fly high above something and dump bombs on them, the only cities that will survive are those who prepare for this. They will have mobile cities, dangerous weather enchantments, huge artillery pieces, defensive fleets, tame flying monsters, or the like.
There was an article in Dragon Magazine #160 called "The Enemy at the Gates" that covered the differences that a fantasy city would require from a normal city. It covers flying cities, floating cities, and more. It was all pretty theoretical, so wouldn't converting between a 2E and PF.
I haven't read everything in this thread, but if you've ever played Skies of Arcadia or Skies of Arcadia Legends, that might afford some inspiration.
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You should model it off of Skies of Arcadia.
Yeah, definately Skies of Arcadia.
I know, it is a very alluring thought and that's why I'm basing most of the hazards from there without giving away too much about the source. If I incorporate the moonstones it would be a dead giveaway from where I got the inspiration and complicate the magic system/balance if it allows special properties. I'll think about it.
I like the way you guys think and don't worry, your voices are heard as I am already drawing inspiration from it.
I thought of two things...
First, airship combat is not going to be up close and personal. With a slow ship that has large cannons, you will be at very long range when you fight. Thus, stuff will have adapted to that, such as special arrows for longer range, spells useful at extreme range (metamagic feat?), and the like. There would likely be stronger materials for extremely long ropes. Vision would also be extremely important.
Second, if the campaign primarily happens up in the air, that should be a theme regarding magic as well. Air spells easier to cast or conversely, other spells more difficult? Specific spells to target and deal with flying opponents? Magic to make structures levitate? Weather effects could be fun to divide control weather into lower-level, more specific, spells. With encounters starting at longer distances, you will also want ways to significantly increase duration.
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All airship combat would happen at long-range, stuff needs to be adapted for this range and stronger materials. Vision is important. Magic theme; spells need to be better and other magics than weather/air harder to cast.
All airship battles doesn't necessarily have to be at extreme range unless the enemy wants to destroy the othe ship. Pirates usually wants to get in close and board a ship, how do we do that? Pirates can have engineers on their team that created a cloud-making device, that can coat the ship in clouds allowing them to hide in plain sight to sneak up on other ships. Or smaller ships that can gain on larger ships and come in directly from behind, below or above.
Spells will definately need some metamagic feats, but that is up to the players. Materials are covered from the CRB ot make stuff stronger and more durable. Vision among the clouds? Absolutely, a spyglass or binoculars will help.
Themed magic; possible but I think it will be unfair to give users of certain magics an advantage over others, the concentration checks still have to be made if there are really strong winds or violent motions.
And yes, the weather effects will be hilarious if the players suddenly find themselves in a thunderstorm or needs to dodge a hurricane.
Sharknado!
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There may not be cannon...
I think there will be cannon.
Ballistae, bows and spells will still be a viable option for those who cannot afford cannons to their ship.
EDIT: I know it's 3rd party publishing, but this isn't for PFS.
Don't forget parachutes -- not everyone will have rings of feather falling (which you might want to declare are cheaper since everyone would be wanting one and a lot more would be manufactured...)
Dot;
I find this really interesting, so I'll stay and follow. Someone's already mentionned skies of arcadia, so my comment is taken...
Alternative to starting on the ground.
Let there be areas of weak separation from the Plane of Air with Plane of Air rules as discussed above. It would make sense for these to be the metropolises, the factories, the population centers...
What a burdensome place to be grounded to for a young adventurer with the sky in his eyes, to always be trapped to the same crowded island. I would be on the first air ship headed for open sky.
To be stuck on this airship running sails and watching the outriders fend off pirates. Oh to ride with the hippogriff outriders, The freedom, free from the hard wooden decks of the ship, being the first defense against raiders.
Such woe to be stuck escorting airships day in day out, hippogriffs need rest and must stick close to the airships. What a treat it would be ride with a Gryphon Assault squad. I heard that the Black Brothers stayed on the wing for three days to clear the Ebonhart draft of reavers!
It's a great honor to fly with the Gryhons, heck we are the number one squad since the Black Brothers flew into that dragon migration. But you've seen the roc riders? There was one at the Dukes Ball last week. TWO YEARS! that's when he last set foot on one of the islands. He told me about east of the great ocean! Says there are no islands on the other side! Imagine it... an empty sky...
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Not bad, not bad at all. Seeing all the romanticized adventure in the sky. Hearing about all the legends of the proud Gryphon riders from the East and the Pegasi Knights of the North on the surface world they'll be wanting to get up there as well. That in itself is not a bad way to start them off, but they will probably need a goal that further spurs them into action.
I know I'm going on and on about this, but they might come across one of the islanders slave encampments and frees them, hearing about the horrible conditions given by their slavers. The Gryphon Riders might not just have the time or care to help these poor souls and so the players may (or may not) take it to themselves to rise up for equality and solve these problems of the islanders.
Tomorrow I will create a list here on this thread to summarize all the points, notes, changes and fixes that will apply to the campaign for a better overview of what's going on here.
I found a book that may be useful called Companions of the Firmament. I saw it on Drivethru/RPG Now, but I cannot find a link to it on the Paizo store.
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Type: Mixed Magic & Tech Aerial Campaign
Level range: Any
Books & Materials:
- All Pathfinder books (except Mythic)
- 3.5 DragonMech rulebook
- 3.5 DragonMech Mech Manual
- 3.5 DragonMech Second Age of Walkers
- 3.5 DragonMech Steam Warriors
- D&D BECMI's PC2-Top Ballista
- What sort of defenses can you put on an airship?
- Pathfinder in the SKY!
Contents: Airships, Floating islands, Technology, Mechs, Mechanized cities, Unexplored territory, Weather conditions & phenomena, Anti-gravitational air pockets, Flying creatures & templates, Boarding battles, Extreme range combat, Land-to-Air combat, Mounted airborne combat, Environmental hazards, Crew & Ship management, Courtroom dramas, Contested borders and Navigation.
Inspirational Sources:
- Skies of Arcadia: Image1, Image2, Music1, Music2
- Final Fantasy: Image1, Image2, Image3, Music1, Music2
- Tales of Symphonia: Image1, Music1, Music2
Flavour Text:
The skies have opened! The time to explore the vast ocean of clouds and floating islands starts now and how will You conquer the heavens themselves?
Will you be taking up arms and ride your Gryphon to unexplored lands and find the secrets of the White Ocean? Will you be the next famous Captain of a notorious Pirate Airship and gain unfortold riches? Or will you take command as the Admiral of the largest Airship fleet the world has ever seen and conquer nations?
Only you can discover your true potential in !
More updates to come!
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Hello Pathfinders,
I've been thinking lately that there haven't been many flight or air-based modules for PFS so I've been having my head among the clouds trying to come up with different possibilities and problems for a scenario of my own:
Problem #1: If 80% or more of the battles will happen in the air how are the players supposed to stay in the air at very early levels?
Answer #1.1: Giving the players an airship to navigate the skies with and give it some McGuffin or another for quest importance and its flying capability.
Answer #1.2: Fiat to have the players already have grown wings and give them Fly as a trained Class Skill which is less hindered by Armor Check Penalty.
Answer #1.3: Let the players have a mount with flight capability. (Mounts can be targetted and killed, sure but they could have Ride and be given the Mounted Combat feat)
Answer #1.4: Give the players magical items to help them conquer the skies one way or another (most boring alternative I could think of).
Problem #2: The height; of course if someone becomes disabled or unconscious they might fall off the airship or drop from the sky one way or another and if no one helps them they will die, so how does one go about it to make it fair?
Answer #2.1: Leave it to the players; if they are a smart bunch they will have thought of these issues and taken precautions, such as tying a rope around their waists and tie it to the mast of the airship or purchase Featherfall rings if they have wings etc.
Answer 2.2#: Give them mundane items that slows down their falling speed so they can be picked up by the other party members or their mount.
Things the campaign will involve; floating islands, dense clouds, lightning storms, strange weather phenomena, hail/rain, aggressive flying beasts, mounted enemy cavalry/airship pirates, surveying the decrepit lands below.
If you have any suggestions, comments, critiques or requests please let me know and I'll shape the...
You sir gave me the idea I was looking for! In about two months a buddy of mine ,who lives in china, will be back in the states for 6 weeks and I was looking for a good campaign idea for his return
I was also thinking updrafts as a good thing. If you have some in the right places you could use them to get between floating islands. Of course you'll need to know where they are. Choosing poorly could be hazardous. :-)
You need to determine a few historical issues here. Why did the people in this world start going up instead of out? What could be wrong with the surface? Generally, it needs to be something truly bad, but not bad enough to make life on the surface impossible. Let's say that suddenly, and for a very long time, there were some kind of monsters that rampaged all over the surface, perhaps some kind of carnivorous grasshoppers, that made being outside fortified cities very dangerous. People still needed to travel, so sought alternatives. With aerial expansion came contact with various winged races. Then one day, perhaps fifty to a hundred years ago, the grasshoppers died overnight. Nobody knows why. With their death, the soil was fertilized, leading to a massive bloom next year, and during the following years, the previously tiny, battered populations grew sharply. The old cities recolonized the surface quickly, but the awareness of the grasshoppers remains strong, and those living in small agricultural towns and farms are considered brave for doing so. This is changing, of course, with new generations. Either way, more people lead to conflict and starvation once the times were no longer splendid, and on the surface, this meant dealing with massive fortifications - which in turn lead to a technological advance regarding sieges and siegebreaking in the forms of artillery, tanks, mechs, and the like. Today, these constantly sparking wars have ravaged a large part of the surface, once again shifting the focus to the skies.
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- Rerios - Located in the cold north region lies Rerios with its floating land masses stretching between 28800ft to 13500ft in diameter and the worlds largest Airship fleet. This region is one of the largest and fastest growing in the White Ocean due to their immense amount of trade and personal Mithril mine. They take painstaking lengths to bring merchandise from distant places, including the surface, to gain profit.
- Ilia - The floating continent of Ilia, home to the revered Roc Brigade, is in a constant shift due to strong winds. Recently they have been deploying means to stabilize their nomadic continent through technology and combat the harsh weather conditions.
- Eladium - Eladium, homeland to the exalted Pegasi Knights, this island have taken the shape of a spiraling tower due to the strange shape of smaller islands spread irratically around the air. The people took great strides in architectural construction to try and bind these small masses of lands none bigger than 3000ft in diameter and ranging from 300 to 1500ft apart.
- Ser'ves - Floating above the tall, rocky mountains in the east lies Ser'ves. This region as a natural habitat for Wyverns and because of this they share the same history as Ilia where they had to combat the vicous Wyverns to gain control over the island. Eventually the people succeeded being able to train Wyverns for mounted combat and become some of the most deadly aerial strike forces known.
- Cloudhaven - The Central station of Diplomacy, Cloudhaven. Here the various leaders of each nation gather to dispute and negotiate between each other to try and improve the lives of their people through various means of contracts and exchanges.
- Mechaport - The living Capitol of Mechaport, home to the well-trained Mecha Aviators, is a prime example of gnomish engineering. Capable of changing shape and ability to move anywhere they wish without experiencing problems of climate or supplies. This have awarded them with envy and irritation from other nations as they freely stride between borders, never settling down.
- Itar - This tribe of different winged creatures have made their home somewhere in the skies, nobody have seen where their actual homeland resides. Although living rather primitive, they have their skills of negotiation and never seems to experience issues with supplying their people. Their fierce aerial assault squads have given them respect from other nations and call themselves the Wing Leaders.
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- Pegasi Knights - The proud Knights of Eladium were the first to form effective aerial squadrons capable of patrolling the skies near Eladium and far away close to the borders, having a constant look-out of the traffic going in and out of their country.
- Gryphon Riders - The mighty Gryphon Riders are a combined force from all countries, gathered in Cloudhaven to form the most versatile combat teams to soar the skies. Because of their mixed backgrounds they can overcome almost any situation due to their unpredictable tactics.
- Roc Brigade - The feared Roc Brigade of Ilia might not be large in numbers, but rather in size. These brutal warriors of the White Ocean roam all over the world to perfect their training together with their Roc and usually travel alone or in two-man teams.
- Wyvern Lancers - The vicious Wyvern Lancers from Ser'ves have earned their reputation through their effective hit 'n' run tactics, using dirty tricks and ranged combat strategy. Whether they are capturing their foes alive or eliminating them the Lancers have rarely failed in their duties.
- Airship Fleet - The large Airship fleet of Rerios have been put together with great care and precision with the help of Gnomish engineering and Human resourcefulness, making it the largest Airship fleet in the world. Lead by Commander William De'bour they have kept the skies around Rerios safe from bandit attacks and savage wildlife from day one.
- Mecha Aviators - The Veteran pilots of the mechanized Airplanes calls themselves the Aviators. Mostly consisting of Gnomes they pilot small aircrafts in large quantities and sometimes even unmanned aircrafts that are controlled through strange means. They claim to have been able to take down adult dragons with a squad of no more than five aircrafts.
- Wing Leaders - The Wing Leaders of Itar are a crafty group of winged, humanoid creatures deploying File 'n' Rank tactics. Using well-armored militia at the front and archers mixed with spearmen and sorcerers to devastating results. Some rumors say that they have a powerful seer as leader whom can predict the outcome of battles before they even started.
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- Flying Gigantos - There have been reports of people seeing a monstrously huge battleship prowling the skies with firepower so devastating that it can sunder entire islands. After a very long time of silence the rumors start to spread about the legendary Gigantos being transported to roam other planes.
- Dragon Guild - Rumors say that there is a secret order of Dragonriders somewhere in the far ends of the White Ocean, no records show any proof of this being true so far.
- Gate to Elemental Plane of Air - Many engineers and wizards have been wondering why the islands float, some think it's the density of the clouds, others that it is the will of the deities, some think it might be because of arcane imbalance. Very few people whisper about that they believe that it has something to do with an open hole to the Elemental Plane of Air. Nothing has been proven so far with the exception for magic.
Edited for easier reading and name inconsistancies.
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Long ago, the efreet corrupted the lord of the fire elementals and manipulated them into waging an offensive on the material plane. A band of destined heroes banded together to stop the tyrants once and for all; they fought off incursions in their home town, fought through the capitol, then bridged the planes and braved the inferno.
They may have succeeded, but the other elementals joined the fray in the name of preserving balance. The heroes were killed in the crossfire and the planet turned into a bloodbath.
The planet's scars cannot be seen today. It is shrouded in a thick, mustard-yellow fog. Most creatures that enter it quickly die from the poisonous fumes; those that protect against it die more slowly from wasting diseases, if the fabled lurkers in the mists do not cause them to vanish first. Even the myths that torches become alive and wicked imply that the old world is no longer accessible.
A few mountain peaks pierce through the fog, but that is not where most of civilization lives. Most of civilization lives in the sky, on great floating islands or cutting the air with great ships. What few survived the end of the world have learned to make do with the space above it.
The great islands are held aloft by a magical gem that is totally not called Skystone*, because that would be generic and lame. One of the many strange warpings caused by the elemental war, skystone grows -- almost like a plant -- in areas of raw magic. It is naturally buoyant -- so buoyant that it is the primary force keeping the islands afloat. However, its value is esteemed even higher because it can be used to create and strengthen Air-elemental spells.
The wanderers of the skies have, for centuries now, acclimatized to their new environment, and great cities are rising and creating the beginnings of new empires. Although some cultures prefer to 'tether' their islands in one place, others actually prefer to sail them across the world by catching air currents with complex sail systems.
However, civilizing landships is neither easy nor cheap. With the bulk of the planet's veins of gems and metals inaccessible, good mining locations on the islands are hotly contested. Some enterprising pirates prefer to perform raids beneath the fogs of death for terrestrial goods, but even the most experienced eventually fail to return.
This is not to say that valuables are all too rare to be found; rather, they have changed forms. As Skystone is incredibly buoyant, very little of it can be carried without also carrying off its bearer. For this reason, extremely small and dense materials -- notably lead -- are prized as the 'new gold' for their ability to efficiently cancel Skystone's lift. The especially wealthy often decorate their homes with lead -- conveniently allowing them to retain some protection against divination that their ancestors once had with all of their plentiful rivers.
However, the dauntless grasp of Skystone is not just a worry for bravos who have to watch their pouches lest they float conspicuously high and broadcast their good fortune to nearby pirates. As the floating cities continue depleting their stores of Skystone, they begin cruising closer and closer to the ground to find their new equilibrium; to combat this, engineering teams have to remove weight (usually in the form of planned abandonment of tons of stone, although it is also an excuse to jettison unpopular residents).
Some brave leaders have experimented with intentionally controlling their mining to raise and lower the city for benefits in combat and surface raids, but as an inexact science, some of these experiments have met with failure. Islands are reported to have crash landed in the fog, mined too heavily to save in time. Similarly, a group of religious separatists once tried to shave off enough stone that they could escape into the deep sky and live in peace. Their island still rests where it first stopped, filled with the risen dead of paranoid kinslayers and the last desperate miners who discovered the effects of hypoxia too late.
The failures can be as bad as successes, however -- when the orc tribes stop fighting long enough to focus on a common goal, they turn their homes into weapons of war -- massive rams -- and sailing them directly into their enemies. There is no sound quick like that of an island cracking into pieces, the fragments spinning in place and flinging away the residents as the orcs maneuver to loot.
But as much action happens above the fogline, the world still stirs invisibly beneath the poisonous vapors. Skystone still buds deep in the caves of the planet below, and every once in a while, enough of it concentrates to tear out a new sky-island and return ancient secrets to their inheritors ... with new and unseen guardians.
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Alright folks, that's it for now. I wanted to add in terrorist druids that oppose the destructive and, honestly, dangerous mining that the earthships use; as well as comment on the problems caused by the swiss-cheese tunnels of rampant mining, but I have run out of steam. Perhaps I'll revisit this later.
* Switch out for something better at the first opportunity.
Also, I should have mentioned that Skystone could be used as a 'get out of dying instantly' card.
Essentially, Skystone is both a currency (equivalent to platinum pieces and greater) as well as magic item that creates and boosts Air magics. The most accessible of these is that, by consuming a small~ amount of Skystone dust, you can create a feather fall effect as an emergency measure. You can expect greater amounts of it to be useful for creating, improving, and enchanting effects like air walk, fly, and overland flight.
I think it's also great material for GMs integrating very unique and very cool magical effects and plots : q
tldr; Avatar the Last Airbender happened, now the world is Minecraft meets Riddick and everybody is pirates.
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You sir gave me the idea I was looking for! In about two months a buddy of mine ,who lives in china, will be back in the states for 6 weeks and I was looking for a good campaign idea for his return
That's great! The more that likes the idea the better and I like to hear that from time to time. Good luck with your adventure!
I found a book that may be useful called Companions of the Firmament. I saw it on Drivethru/RPG Now, but I cannot find a link to it on the Paizo store.
Thanks for the title. I'll look around the net and see if I find anything like it that I can get a hardcopy of.
I was also thinking updrafts as a good thing. If you have some in the right places you could use them to get between floating islands. Of course you'll need to know where they are. Choosing poorly could be hazardous.
Yep, you're right about that as well. I think certain creatures gain bonuses to staying in the air with updrafts and yes, at the wrong times you might need to fight against them. Thanks!
Give a reason for why surface life is bad. Make something up as long as it explains why life in the surface is so terrible that people look up to the sky. Perhaps that technology was necessary to live comfortably until it turned into a war.
I like this idea quite a bit, but like you said it needs to be absolutely terrible. So I was thinking of throwing something in there that could only be managable by employing fully air-sealed mechs to a certain degree. Not sure how the labour camps would work out, but I'll think real hard about it. Thanks for your continued input!
tldr; Avatar the Last Airbender happened, now the world is Minecraft meets Riddick and everybody is pirates.
I really like where you mentioned that the Islands with minerals will be hotly contested and it would be so true. And the name for such a rock (*) could be The White Heart, referring to the White Ocean. Even though I dislike to use "another magical rock" like many games usually do.. I'm sure there is some way to incorporate that element in a reasonable fashion.
About the surface world I agree with your thought of the "fog".. Almost like Metroid Prime: Echoes where the dark world would continuously wear you down until death, if exposed to the vapors for too long without protection. Thanks for your opinion, I'll keep building this up and post my conclusions here!
Maybe surface cities have been built with enough height to get up enough. Towers, spires, bridges... always in need of repairs. Very dangerous in more than a little wind.
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Maybe surface cities have been built with enough height to get up enough. Towers, spires, bridges... always in need of repairs. Very dangerous in more than a little wind.
Good idea! They can also have erected tall walls around the digsites and farms to avoid having the fog leak into their crops or mines (although hazards of mining can be cave-ins and large amounts of gas killing the workers).
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Brother Alester, just want to say your nation list looks pretty frackin' cool. If that were the advertising blurb for a campaign setting book I'd be looking for somewhere I could buy it right now.
Probably something along the lines of Skies of Arcadia or Final Fantasy VI where it feels a bit steampunk, got something special in mind?
This is the style I typically go for. The interior typically is either Steam or Magic Powered and uses something similar to Eberron's Elemental Rings for that bottom halo to actually fly.
This is also usable. Especially for smaller ships or slightly more advanced ships.
Don't forget the Strix!
Strix are awesome.
Peet
Whenever people are looking for ship-to-shop battles, I recommend Fire as She Bears. Sure, it has some flaws, but it's far better than anything Paizo has done for naval combat.
It's designed for waterbore ships, so you'd obviously have to modify it for airborne combat. But give it a look, it's some pretty nice ship-to-ship rules.
Encourage play of the Strix race. They have a fly speed by default.
I think Aasimar and Tieflings can get a fly speed with the Variants but give up the spell like ability to do so.
The easiest way to do this is to have the PCs be the "Boarding Party" and the rest of the crew on the air-ship (Commoners, Experts, Aristocrats [probably 1-3], warriors, and Adepts [Probably 1-3]) take control of the flying of the ship. This way your players don't have to spend points on knowing how to fly the ship.
You can also make it so piloting basic flying devices is a common skill like riding a horse so anyone can do it without a roll. Though dog-fighting would obviously require a fly check.
Do NOT give your players the ability to defeat the skies. For instance if a player plays a Merfolk in a sea warfare setting then they are obviously not going to drown if their ship gets sunk. If the players are going in knowing full well that this setting is going on in the skies in air-ships and getting blown out of the sky to fall to one's death is a possibility then it is their own fault for not playing a race that can fly if they want to avoid that.
You have a universal hazard, falling to your death, you shouldn't remove that from play by allowing your players to ignore it. What you will probably find is the races that can fly will be popular by default.
Suggestion: Have Parachutes invented and common gear. However, ensure that they are limited by how much weight they can carry safely to the ground, and make it so the players have to pay for them out of their own pockets. Also, make these things unruly and hard to move with on. Make it so they make the Max dex bonus to AC something like +1 or +0. Make them a pain in the butt, but also make it so the PCs who are likely to need them, E.G. your tanks, wont suffer too much.
Suggestion: Give ships grappling hooks, massive ones that are fired into the other ship's hull then cranked in by some massive machine on the ship to make falling off rather hard. The NPCs on each side (Warriors and Experts mostly) charge the other on the ship in a massive melee.
"Sinking" should obviously be a bad thing. Perhaps the ship has massive parachutes that it deploys when it is "sunk" so everyone on-board doesn't die. Then again, if the opposing forces are particularly dishonorable they might just bombard it as it is going down anyway.
If a character falls unconscious and falls into water they have 1 or so rounds until they drown. If a character falls off a ship people who want to assist who can fly have 1 round until the character is simply accelerating too fast to catch. Again, you have a universal hazard, don't castrate it. It is supposed to be dangerous.
If they fall off and survive the 20d6 falling damage then they probably die from the environment below. Perhaps some wild beasts find him delicious.