Re: Flying cities

Sebastian Lucier wrote:
>
> Very well done, I see you have some strong elemental-centric leanings. ;) A
> few comments follow:
>
        Ya, I like elemental magic personally:)

> Seems kinda silly to go through all that expensive work building the base to
> put an inexpensive city on top of it.  Kinda like the pharoah commisioning a
> pyramid to be built and then only being buried with some cheap jewelry
> instead of his hoarde of precious wealth.
>
        Yes, but when your running out of cash just trying to build the stone
it sits upon...:)  The early builders weren't too bold (like early
pyramids were fairly simple & small).  Also, are you going to expend a
vast fortune just to give every laborer & servant a wild house?:)  Later
cities were more extravigant, as were older cities (who slowly replaced
buildings over time).

> Do the smaller ones require deals with lesser elemental powers (wind dukes
> instead of wind lords.)  Once again, if it requires so many resources to
> build, I can't see anyone doing it on a small scale.  How about war uses and
> configurations on worlds w/o sj tech?  I could see non-sj illithids loading
> up a big war dome and flying it around, casting huge shadows on cities and
> then invading from below.
>
        Sure; I purposely left the exact requirements vague for that purpose.
In war, they were used just like the flying citadels of Krynn.  Mobile
army carriers, terror weapons, etc.

> >found the city large enough for their purposes.  The best craftsmen have
> >migrated to the city, claiming that the magic inherent to the rock makes
> >weapons sharper, armor stronger, and jewelry more appealing to the eye.
>
> Eh?  Are they mining the rock to build this stuff?  Wouldn't that also
> destroy structural integrity?  A cool idea in a similar vein would be a city
> that crashed and is being mined for the properties of the stone (though it
> seems like that would be a task in and of itself.)
>
        That must not have come out right; no they don't mine the rock;
instead, ore is brought to the city, and the dwarves claim that crafting
stuff in the city makes it better than crafting stuff outside the city.
        And yes, there's bound to be dozens of crashed cities throughout the
Maelstrom (and beyond, if you export the process elsewhere:).  Though
most of the properties would be lost, the stone would still be highly
prized;)

> Great city idea, but it seems kinda silly to actually bother taking one of
> these things into space.  It strikes me that with its ability to maintain
> life at a high altitude, a better use might be to use it as a way point for
> trade w/a groundling nation (assuming such things exist in your campaign.)
> Taking it into space means that you lose those nifty cloud benefits (though
> you can of course choose not to have those in the first place).

        The city used to have an artifurnace and moved about the moons of
Silkwind at will.  It just got stuck in wildspace after the artifact was
stolen:)

> It also
> seems more cost effective to just take an asteroid, carve it into the shape
> of a phoenix, and not go through the whole process of giving it the ability
> to fly since it doesn't really matter in space.  It's not as if it can move
> at sj speeds, and you won't get too far puttering around below that.  (On an
> unrelated note this has always been my issue with the Deathstar-you're
> telling me that thing is capable of traveling at hyperspeed?).  A neat way
> to justify a city in space could be that it is all that remains of a
> destroyed planet.

        Well, it did have an artifurnace (no upper limit to tonnage noted, so
they took it to the limits:)  It isn't known if the city left the system
of Silkwind & it's moons in the past, was built elsewhere & moved, or
wandered the sphere more extensively long ago.  It certainly hasn't left
Silkwind's area in the living memory of any human, and elves either
don't know or don't care:)
--
Adam Miller