Re: Behind the Dark Fist - Ships

I'm doing the inline reply thing.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Adam Miller" <night_druid3000@?????.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 7:11 PM

> Since we're discussing Under the Dark Fist, I want to
> bring up a topic for discussion: the ships.  Namely,
> I'm trying to think of how would be the best way to
> construct their winged wolfships.  I'm just not sure
> one would go about building those wings of those
> ships.  It kinda looks like a plastic toy, really;
> neat to look at, but impossible to build to scale.  So
> how would you go about building those wings?

A lot of SJ ships have certain features that look cool, but seem 
impracticle. I often wonder if you could build models of the "seaworthy" SJ 
ships that would actually float and not instantly tip over.

> One idea I'm toying with is that Vodoni ships aren't
> built, they're born.

You've used this organic idea before - the Goblin Porcupine, if I remember 
correctly. I think it worked well with those ships, but I'm not certain it 
can be reused for these ships. The Vodoni culture is more sophisticated than 
goblin culture, so they *should* be able to design and construct a number of 
ships by themselves.

> Perhaps on one vast ocean world,
> there are gigantic wolf-headed manta rays, which the
> Vodoni catch, gut, maybe petrify, and turn into their
> ships.

Organic ships, made from plants or animals would certainly justify some of 
the weird ship designs. But if you *are* going to go down this route, *I* 
will be asking for details of the new monster you are inventing.

Given the fact that Vodoni Breeders used their magic to turn lycanthropes 
into Vodoni Enforcers (and Vodoni Conquerers), wouldn't it fit in a bit 
better if Vulkaran was behind the creation of any new lycanthropic monsters 
you want to introduce?

If you put the Vodoni up against a water world the Enforcers and Conquerers 
wouldn't be much use, but if the Vodoni Breeders found a humanoid creature 
that could *already* travel trough the water they could infect it with 
lycanthropy and create an aquatic version of an enforcer or conquerer. If 
you happen to be using 3.5 edition D&D, this is fairly easy, because they 
have made a lycanthrope template that can be added to any creature with the 
humanoid or giant type. So all you would need to do is trawl through all the 
monsters with the aquatic subtype to see which ones would "look cool" as 
transformed lycanthropes.

Here is the URL to the Lycanthrope at d20 Hypertext SRD:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lycanthrope.htm#creatingALycanthrope

(Obviously if that gets split up, you will need to reassembe it onto one 
line.)

UtDF says that the Breeders do things to the Lycanthropes after their 
transformation, so this template doesn't give us the full process. I'm not 
sure if the best solution would be an add-on template, or just a 3e 
conversion/expansion of the magical poison described in the monster listing. 
(A comparison with standard 2nd edition werewolves would probably identify 
the exact changes that the poison creates in an enforcer or conquerer.)

DMs using older versions of D&D can compare the template to the 
off-the-shelf versions of lycanthropes higher up in the article to see what 
sort of adjustments they might want to make to an aquatic monster to convert 
it into an aquatic lycanthrope.

I think that the SJ designers were possibly partly designed by old (Greek?) 
sailing ships that had eyes on the front or (Nordic ships? with) an 
agressive looking figurehead or by fighter planes from WWII which had toothy 
mouths painted on the front. So I do think they work, ok as designs *based* 
on living creatures rather than creatures themselves.

So I'd be happy for someone to create a small creature that looks a bit like 
a Nightwolf or Werewolf ship. But the Hunter-Killer ship already looks a bit 
daft. I can't really take a push-me-pull-me werewolf seriously.

Looking at the three ships, I would suggest that the Werewolf was based on 
an Enforcer wearing a pink cloak and the Nightwolf was based on an aquatic 
lycanthrope that either has wings or has (or used to have) the ability to 
shapechange between a humaoind form and a manta ray form. The only other 
thing that feels wrong is the idea of Vodoni Enforcers walking around 
wearing bright pink capes. How camp is that? LOL

I made that thing called "Monsters as Characters" recently and you can 
search through that (Ctrl+F on Windows) to quickly find links to all the 
aquatic monsters. It only contains playable monsters, but I think the Vodoni 
would need a "base creature" that was fairly similar to a human in power. 
Otherwise their aquatic enforcers would be a lot more powerful than their 
land-lubber cousins. Here is the URL of that monster list:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dvsjcxp_5dpv9fk

Here is a quick list of aquatic creatures that *might* be useful:
* Aquatic Elf (aka Sea Elf)
* Kapoacinth (an aquatic Gargoyle)
* Locathah
* Merfolk
* Merrow (aquatic Ogres)
* Sahuagin
* Sahuagin Mutants (with 4-arms)
* Malenti (Sahuagin Mutans who look like Aquatic Elves)
* Skum
* Nixie (aquatic sprite)
* Scrag (aquatic Troll)

Aquatic Elves don't seem to useful, unless you check out their cousins in 
the Dragonlance Campaign Setting. They can transform into sea creatures. So 
you could create another version of an aquatic elf that can turn into a 
manta ray. However, that is a lot of work, so I'd probably use this race as 
a last resort.

Gargoyles already have wings, so the kapoacinth and its lycanthrope version 
should be able to fly under water. I could easily believe a 
lycanthrope-kapoacinth could look like close enough to a Nightwolf ship for 
it to be based on them. However, they are a monsterous humanoid, so 
shouldn't be valid for use with the template.

Locathah have an odd body shape. I can't easily believe they would turn into 
anything looking like a Nigthwolf.

Merfolk have tails. They probably wouldn't be much use for this idea.

Ogres don't have wings, so neither do merrow. But lycanthropic-merrow might 
fit in with Behind the Dark Fist. So they might be worth thinking about. 
Raids on merrow communities might possibly cause problems between the Vodoni 
and the scro, so might be an excuse for the scro to and the elves to agree 
to mount a joint operation against the Vodoni.

Sahuagin are not the right shape, but the malenti mutant might work. 
However, they are monstrous humanoids and malenti are as incomplete as the 
aquatic elf is.

Skum don't look right and are also abberations.

Trolls look wrong, so a scrag would also look wrong, but they do fit the 
template and a werewolf-variant might be useful if Behind the Dark Fist does 
a campaign on a water world.

Nixies are sprites, so are far too small to be useful.

The only water creature that wasn't a dragon was a triton. They look like a 
humanoid, but are an outsider. So I'm not sure if they are vulnerable to 
lycanthropy.

Personally, I'd bend the rules and use kapoacinth-lycanthropes. Even if the 
combination is strictly impossible, you could still use some form of 
tranmutation magic to create something similar.

> Fully mature creatures are werewolf ships,
> immature become nightwolf ships.  Rather macabre, but
> it'd fit an empire of monsters, I think...:)

If I was a Vodoni Breeder and could get hold of creatures like this, I would 
rather keep them alive, mount a spelljamming helm on their backs and use 
them as a living ship that can fight back.

The two ships don't look similar enough to be one creature. On top of that 
you have the Hunter-Killer, which would need to be two creatures chopped in 
half and joined together.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/