Re: Shipboard slang - Was: Mammoth -> Horseshoe Crab sailor slang/crew requirements

--- jamesriley <jamesriley@???.net> wrote:

> Whoa! That is awesome. I checked out your whole
> site, and loved it.

Thank You! =)

> you are the closest to anyone I have heard of to my
type of
> campaign. Admittedly, I
> don't have anywhere near the variety of personal
> gear and high magic holo
> chambers and such, but I seem to have done a little
> better in weaponry and
> creature comforts aboard ship. 

Most of the magical gears were created because of the
adventures my group went through. Trust me! They
learned their lesson about not being prepared and they
made sure they plan for every possible event.

When the game session ended we were starting to
explore Heavy Armored Infantry. The 10' tall spirit
warrior (spirit knight)of the Elven Imperial Navy were
clashing with the Saurian Empires super soldiers
project. The super soldiers were 12' tall bi-pedal
triceratops soldiers, 10' tall bi-pedal t-rex commando
and 6'(or maybe 8') tall bi-pedal raptor recon scout.
The EIN was supporting Loxodon Republic, while the
"war hawks" in the Taurian Hegemony asked the Saurian
Empire to use their super soldiers. Taurian Hegemony
Regiments and Loxodon Republic Legions already clashed
at the border. On top of that, Scro in steam powered
battle armors (I love borrowing ideas from other
sources! Yeah!) are showing up taking advantage of the
confusion.

http://sjml.spelljammer.org/archive/oracle/200504/15-000001.html

On another note, EIN contracted Realm Exploration
Society to study a way to use hyperspace (astral) to
move ships from one crystal sphere to another without
using the flow. The EIN wanted to quickly move their
ships from stable spheres to re-enforce and resupply a
beleaguered crystal sphere. The Scro got a wind of the
idea and they have been trying to throw a monkey
wrench in the project since. Small astral gates were
tested and found that voidjammers need strong psionist
on a special void-helm or use mind flayer elder brains
to power the ship to traverse the astral plane. What
they found out was that the mind flayers have a strong
presence in the astral plane and using it to move
their spelljammer ships. The Githyankis were not happy
to see another group enter the plane and added our
heroes to their "must kill" list. EIN and REX sent
representatives to meet with the githyankis. Githzerai
agents are keeping close tabs on the situation.

http://sjml.spelljammer.org/archive/oracle/200312/01-000045.html

If it was not complicated enough, I also started to
add waterjammers, iron-clad ships, Homeworld Cataclysm
type beast controlled ships, and Buggers
(Volucris/Zerg)into the fray.

> 	I am interested in the S.A.G.E item/personality, I
> have something
> similar, but more primitive, with the ship AI and an
> autopilot linked to
> planetary locator. Not all of my military ships even
> get one of those, just
> the command ships, carriers, and star knight
> (paladins) scout-ships. 

I think we have only 4 prototypes of the S.A.G.E. we
were tinkering with right when our session ended. The
SAGE is a high intellect type of grand magical item,
just shy of being an artifact. The personalities are
different from each SAGE and they interact with user
differently. The one on the R.S.S. Realm Quest is a
female named Synergy. They can control almost
everything in the ship except the helm. That
restriction was added after my players insulted
Synergy and she left them stranded on an asteroid. The
teleport device, the single user holodeck, unimatrix,
ships devices, doors, sails are within the SAGE
control. It can project itself to any part of the
ship, Synergy projects herself as a red headed 5'5"
tall busty female. Special commands, known to certain
officers of the Quest, are required to bar her from
listening or projecting herself into a room. SAGE can
use and defend themselves with spells stored by
magic-users and clerics into her memory. In Port
Tortuga's REX HQ, the SAGE works with unseen servant,
teleport, levitate and other spells to move objects
like elevators, paper work, coffee pots and weapons
(training). We did not have time to work on it's
special abilities, minor powers and major powers.

> 	Your spear of defense looks very similar to what my
> warships have
> deck-mounted as crew served weapons (think of them
> as twin .50 cal
> machinegun mounts), but again, mine are a little
> more primitive than yours
> without as much variety of spell effects. I do have
> one up on you in regards
> to those items however I've linked mine to small
> magic batteries (about the
> size of two ammo cans equal to 64 additional spell
> levels) for almost
> continuous recharge. 

The spear of defense was a hand held range weapon used
by the REX space marines in my campaign. I liked the
idea of it being used as a twin Ma Duce type weapon.
You might want to use several and turn it into a hand
cranked gatling gun. It would allow it to power up
before the next shot and you can really crank some
fire power. It can pivot left, right, up and down on a
weapon mount. One weapon crew can operate it, but it
would need at least another one or two more crew to
help move it around.

I use a spellengine device that powers our accelarator
(so it does not take power from the helm), a
spellengine helm, and any magic item that uses
charges. The spell batteries are stored in the cargo
bay and each battery have 50 charges of energy. Each
item drains different amount of energy depending on
type and purpose of the item. A spellengine helm, for
example, use 1 charge per 1SR/Hour and 1
charge/additional SR per turn (SR 9 Max). It allows
non-magic users to helm smaller ships in the fleet.

> 	We tried the comm. badge ala star trek, but decided
> that it wasn't
> feasible to issue items that had to be custom made
> to each of the crew
> members, who might leave or die, leaving the ship
> with an expensive magic
> trinket nobody could use. 

It was the first item my players tried to replicate in
the game.

> 	I was blown away by how similar our ship to ship
> comms and sensor
> suites are, but my guys and I never thought to add
> in a database like the
> one you've designed (the unimatrix), although it
> would make sense the way
> the wizards in my sphere work collectively to share
> ideas and research.

Yes! Since my campaign was geared more as an
exploration campaign, they needed the massive
information made available by an unimatrix device. It
also a great plot device for them to find a long lost
map or info that takes them to another crystal sphere
or wildspace area without returning to HQ. 

> 	You and I evidently also came to the same
> conclusions with the short
> wand idea, however I have added a pistol grip to
> ours so that nonmages can
> fire them at double the charge cost (one for the
> spell and one for the grip
> to allow nonmage to shoot). We just call them
> blasters and wear them in hip
> holsters.

I never thought of letting my other players have
wands. I have to think on that, but massive damages
are in order if they missed their roll. 

> 	I was a bit surprised that you didn't have hot and
> cold running
> water in your ships and that in your descriptions
> you mentioned carrying
> water in barrels. I have supplied all my vessels
> with high pressure fresh
> water for drinking, fire fighting, and showers with
> items like decanters of
> endless water run through piping and into tanks with
> stones of purification
> (priest spell purify water)and, depending on whether
> it is a hot water
> supply or cold, hot plates (heat metal spell). Used
> water can be held and
> purified again, or jettisoned into space.

Decanter of endless water with pipes in a ship? I like
the idea, I might have to borrow that idea. The reason
for the barrels of water was because of certain magic
and gates does not work in the flow and for that
matter in dead magic areas. My players learned their
lesson of not being prepared for any contingency. That
is also why they have plants growing in clay pots to
supplement the air.

> 	It is interesting that your gravity drive is nearly
> the same as
> mine, but rather than creating a well into which the
> ship falls, mine
> creates multiple reverse gravity fields angled so
> that they squirt the ship
> or missile out ahead of them (similar to how a
> railgun launches its
> projectile only with gravity instead of magnetic
> force). 

That is a great idea. I hate to be the ship following
them. =)

> 	I noticed the ironclads in your shipyard, if you
> were to add fins,
> flukes and a more streamlined aft hull, you might
> have something that
> resembled our Orca class heavy cruisers and improve
> the MC by one or two
> classes. Also if you replaced the bombards with
> heavy accelerators fitted
> with autoloaders (set up like those tennis ball
> pitching machines) you could
> eliminate the air fouling and increase your rate of
> fire. Adding turrets to
> the fore and aft mounts will increase your salvo
> density per side by
> allowing those two mounts to fire on the broadside
> as well. 

The iron-clads included a sub-mariner ship that can
hide in sub-space (ethereal). The ship looks a lot
like the Jules Verne's Nautilus. Thanks for the
accelerator idea, I will used it.

> 	I could go on and on with the things I admire about
> what you've got.
> You've definitely given me some great ideas to try
> out and think about. It
> is late and I have just gotten off of a 36 hour
> duty, so I must stop now. I
> hope I have given you some small but helpful ideas
> for your own sphere.
> Thank you for your feedback and help. Hope to write
> again soon.

If you have any ideas, just post it. I like new ideas.
I said it before, I am way out of canon on my use of
spelljammer, but I incorporate ideas by other people
into my campaign.

Ariel Sibal
(Lord Steel)
steelrealms


		
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