While the red wizards of Thay may claim that they invented flying ships powered by a series
of enchantments, the truth is that these were a common sight in the fallen, now scattered
empire of Netheril and the most intact remnant of Netherese culture can be found in the nation
of Halruaa.
Halruaan skyships don't use lighter than air gas or heat to provide floatation, they do
this with spells, otherwise, the ship is just a design very similar to a more flexible,
clinker-built carrack with a more wide-bottomed and sturdy keel for making landings, although
this is largely unnecessary, the closer the enchanted ship comes to the surface, the stronger
the repulsion force of its magical levitation becomes, this also drastically limits the
sort of cargo and altitude the ship can reach.
Slightly larger than the Caravel and smaller than the massive, top-heavy Galleons, Sky
Carracks are typically three-masted with hard duskwood for their masts and keel, flexible
overlapping strips of Blueleaf timber and all the smaller fittings and load-bearing
parts are either smithed metal or rare Phandar wood, accented with inlaid brass, gold and
a few parts of dark adamantine.
The sails are expertly woven, there is the bowsprit and mizzen sail that are lateen-rigged
and the square-rigged foresail, mainsail, and the two topsails.
The flying ships also have a couple of side panel sails that are kind of lateen-rigged.
As the predecessor of the galleon, the carrack is one of the most influential ship designs
in Faerun's more recent, human-dominated history; while ships become more specialized the basic
design remains unchanged in Thay and Halruaa.
Both styles are piloted by the use of a solid silver control rod and two golden sleeves
with various runes on them, the position of the golden sleeves on the silver rod controls
the levitation and pitch of the ship.
They can touch down on the water, but the levitation magic prevents the ship from actually
touching down, it hovers above the surface on its wide hull.
I often forget this minor detail and just chalk it up to giving the enchantments a long
rest to recharge or some such, but this is just standard Dungeon Master tactics of never
admitting you forgot something and just overlaying more inconsequential details to cover the
fact, only for your players to take those details and use them with pinpoint precision
to gain an enormous upper hand you never planned for later on in the game.
Because the lifting capacity of the ship is limited by its altitude, cargo flights will
have a reduced crew, down to as few as ten to fifteen crew and as long as the altitude
doesn't push past a certain point, the ship can carry many tons into the air.
It helps to think of the crew members not just as a weight of a person, but more importantly,
its also the weight of their provisions.
With a bit of research, it turns out daily rations per person were calculated to be 1.5
pounds of biscuit, 1 lb of beef or 0.5lb of pork, 2.5 pints of water, 1.25 pints of wine
(customary, also against scurvy), plus 0.3 gill of vinegar, and 0.6 gill of oil.
On fasting days, to extend rations and break up the monotony meat was substituted by rice,
fish, or cheese.
Other provisions included flour, lentils, sardines, plums, almonds, garlic, mustard,
salt, honey, and sugar.
Fresh fish caught on the way, and supplies that are replenished in harbours, including
any local fruits and vegetables.
So adding all that up, your average 200-pound crew member will require 180 pounds or 81
kilograms of provisions per 30 days on board, this also includes their gear.
So even with a dangerously minimal crew of 15 on a cargo carrack on a three-month trip,
that's 8.55 tons, leaving only 1.45 - 6.45 tons of extra cargo/lift capacity and only
as long as the ship stays within 100 feet of the surface, the levitation strength decreases
steadily until the ship can only carry the crew, their provisions and the ships bulk
up to at the very most, 3600 feet.
Beyond that range, the ship requires a spelljamming Helm device.
So, nowhere near a match for any sort of modern aircraft's altitude capacity.
Looking at the traditional crew requirements of even a cog or caravel on an ocean sailing
vessel, well, it's a lot more than the dungeon master's guide has listed, by a long shot,
it's kind of a habit of fantasy RPGs to nerf the crew numbers.
A Caravel would have 16 officers and 35 sailors with space for maximum addition of 120 passengers,
which makes for a hell of a boarding party if they are all well trained and armed, but
again, there is no way to carry the provisions required by that many fighters, so they would
require a support ship loaded with provisions and such.
A Carrack has a captain, two additional command staff, six petty officers, specialists like
the ships doctor and lead carpenter, another five special officers, and about 8 ships mates
in charge of the rotating shifts of around 82 sailors, with space for an additional 300
troops, Carracks are about 120 feet long, 100 feet of that is usable deck space, the
ships is about 20 feet wide, which is about 10 feet less than a Galleon, the Carrack has
a draft of only 11 feet, which is shallow for a ship that weighs around 600 tons, thanks
to lightweight woods and flexible construction.
Wind speed is critical to the velocity of a sailing ship of course, the Carrack flies
at around 7 km/h under normal wind speeds of 20-50 km/h, any less than that and it's
speed drops off dramatically, any more and it will gain more speed at the cost of taking
damage from the strain on the ship itself.
Complicated rigging makes it easier to steer and limit storm damage but requires a lot
more trained crew.
A cargo ship with a reduced crew therefore can not chance sailing through a storm as
they simply don't have enough crew to handle it without the ship getting mangled.
Of course, that is without the assistance of a wizard feeding additional enchantments
into the ship, providing more speed, lift and maneuverability and since the ships require
regular repowering with all sorts of enchantments to keep them flight-ready, the ships really
need a competent wizard to operate without breaking down pretty quickly.
They are also really quite difficult to steer when flying as the ships are subject to every
little bit of airflow without the friction of having to move through the water.
This does allow the ship to perform drops and lifts, but really the only combat advantage
the ships have is to rain missiles down from high above.
Speaking of weapons, those mounted to ships in faerun are limited, the most advanced are
manufactured by the island of Lantan, the most reliable are the traditional weapons
mounted to Halruaan skyships and the most formidable are the Thayan fleet, not quite
as formidable as their navy on the Sea of Fallen Stars though.
The Kara-Tur nations of Shou Lung and Wa have the most impressive and well-known ships,
which I will talk about in some detail in another video coming up this month, along
with the most famous and well-known port on Toril that people from Toril have never heard
of.. simply called 'The Dock'.
Speaking of weapons, let's have a look at the current stats for the kind of weapons
you can mount to flying ships.
First off, that giant-sized crossbow, the Ballista, is a large object mounted to the
deck and can be turned in a firing arc, the weapon itself has an armor class of 15 and
around 50 hit points, in experienced hands it can be operated by one crew member, however,
it's much better to have three crew, as it takes one action to load it, one action to
aim it and one action to fire it, the extra crew speeds that up considerably as they can
combine their actions to get a firing rate of once per round, while one person takes
three rounds to fire a shot, or two rounds if they are firing without adjusting the aim,
which is fine if you are just pounding a huge target that is almost impossible to miss.
The ballista has a +6 to hit when aimed and a range of 120 ft, a maximum range of 480
ft and it inflicts 3d10 piercing damage with its heavy metal bolts.
There is no mention in the Dungeon Master's Guide on page 255 about the fact that Ballistae
could quickly and fairly easily be adapted by their firing crew to shoot stone balls
instead of metal bolts, to make life easy on yourself, just switch the damage type from
piercing to bludgeoning and that is close enough.
Damaged ballistae will require a specialist carpenter to repair, but as long as the non-wood
parts are not ruined, the whole weapon can be rebuilt by the carpenter over one or two
days just using wood and rope.
Next up we have the Mangonel, now I know this is listed in a lot of ship weapon arrangements,
but its actually not that historically accurate to mount one on a ship, for a couple of good
reasons, one, they are damned heavy and the kick of them when they fire can actually damage
the ship itself, second, they are really better suited to being a field battle sort of weapon
and are not as accurate as the ballista, plus their firing arc means they can only be mounted
in front of the sails or you just end up destroying your own rigging, this is not such as issue
for Spelljamming vessels that don't have the extensive rigging of a sailing ship modified
to fly, so, I am just saying they are unlikely to be used on one of them.
A Mangonel is a type of Traction Trebuchet, also called a catapult, and it can hurl rocks,
burning objects such as fire pots or other containers filled with flammable materials,
and pretty much anything else readily available, including bodies, so its a weapon that can
not only be used for destruction, it can also demoralize the enemy and possibly spread disease
among them.
One other disadvantage is that the mangonel can't fire at targets closer than 60 feet,
however, it can be pretty devastating against the enemy ship's masts and sails from a pretty
good range, even if it is much slower to fire than the ballista.
Again, the Mangonel is a large object, armor class 15 but with 100 hit points, it has a
+5 to hit targets within 200 ft with a maximum range of 800 ft, inflicting 5d10 bludgeoning
damage when firing heavy stone ammunition which sails over in a high arc and lands on
top of its target, ignoring cover.
It takes two actions to load, two actions to aim it and one action to fire it.
Finally, we have the Cannon, it's a heavy metal tube supported by a platform on little
wheels that uses gunpowder to fling heavy balls of cast iron through the air at high
velocity.
If it is not using gunpowder it may use smokepowder or some arcane power to shoot the cannonball
instead, it can also fire cannon balls that are linked together with a heavy chain, to
rip apart rigging, cut right through a mast or inflict horrific wounds to the enemy crew.
5th edition gives us one size fits all stats for The Cannon, opting to represent the large
cannon, it has an armor class of 19, 75 hit points and is +6 to hit a target, with a range
of 600 feet and a maximum range of 2400 feet, which makes it great for long-distance and
fairly inaccurate bombardment of a target area, each shot inflicts 8d10 bludgeoning
damage.
It's interesting that 5th edition has a quality for monster stat blocks called 'Siege Monster'
where the creature deals double damage to objects and structures, but the actual siege
class weapons in the dungeon masters guide do not have that same quality.
Cannons require one action to load, one action to aim and one action to fire and are usually
operated by a crew of three.
Another option is simply carrying the normal weight of ammunition used in these weapons
and just forego the weapon and install ramps on the side of the ship where stones and such
can simply be dropped on an enemy target, as flying ships are so rare, combat between
two flying ships almost never happens on Toril any more and flying ships mounted weapons
are not very effective against flying monsters like dragons and such.
Most of the time, its up to the crew to pepper flying creatures with shots from their own
ranged weapons, such as crossbows and firearms.
Boarding parties can also rappel down ropes pretty quickly, peppering the target below
with hand crossbows, magic wands, fairly crude clay flasks of oil or ethanol, lit and exploding
on impact in a small conflagration You wouldn't want to do this in ship to ship combat, otherwise
everyone is going down in a huge ball of fire, but its pretty good against infantry and cavalry,
particularly devastating against ground-based siege weapons and fortified positions that
don't have their own cannons.
A lightly crewed airship loaded with a moderate amount of oil barrels can stay out of the
500-foot range of your average ballista, a mangonel can't hit anything past 800 ft, so
the airship can simply try to make a lot of tight turns and stay over a target, hammering
it with stone and fire from 1000 feet in the air.
We have a standard stat block for the three-mast Carrack Sailing Ship in 5th edition, much,
much simplified from earlier editions, particularly in regard to how sailing speed is listed.
It gives an armor class of 12 to the sails, 100 hit points and for each 25 damage the
sail takes the speed of the ship is reduced by 5 feet.
It's probably easier to just say each of the three masts and their rigging and sails is
represented by that armor class and hit point total.
A sailing ship in normal, light breeze conditions can travel 45 feet per round in the water,
reduced to 15 feet per round when sailing into the wind, and increasing to 60 feet per
round when sailing with the wind.
In heavy wind conditions, such as a storm at sea, the ship can travel faster downwind,
80 feet per round or so, but will take damage to the masts, rigging and sails that quickly
starts to reduce ship speed, so it's better to lash the sails and simply ride out a storm
rather than trying to race through it.
Again I have to point out that wizards of the coast is allergic to both realistic and
accurate numbers for the crew on board the ship and for the general tonnage of cargo
and the ship itself, in fact, there is no information on how much the ship weighs, you
would have to do a little googling to find that information, but thankfully, the internet
is loaded with information on the age of sails and all manner of sailing ships.
The history of sailing ships and siege weapons makes for fascinating reading, as does the
history of firearms, which I will be covering for you very soon, but not real-world history
of them, just their use of them in fantasy worlds.
So, lots more coming up, but for now, thank you very much for listening, and as always,
I will be back with more for you, very soon.