Trapped on the Hull of a gargantuan dungeon adrift in the Phlogiston looking for a way in before the air runs out.
"Oh. Thank the immortals...A hole in that glass dome. Bring up the Grapplinghooks, we must get inside."
kindly restate your question in a manner that provides some background info, direct us to some background info, or otherwise clarify what the starship warden is referring to, because i for one don't have the slightest idea how to answer that question, because i am completely in the dark what you are asking.
A Mutant Humanoids RPG Set on a starship adrift in space. Described as the ultimate dungeon to even stumble across, it fits into Spelljammer Space as the ultimate encounter. A fifty mile long 25 mile wide 8&1/2 mile deep dungeon adrift in space.
The Starship Warden
INTRODUCTION
Mankind's urge to explore and expand its frontiers finally caused another push into the vastness of space - first interplanetary, then interstellar. By the 23rd Century a great migration wave was spreading from Old Terra to the hundreds of inhabitable worlds which had been discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. During the next hundred years colonization ships of all types and descriptions went out to the stars, bearing seedling colonies seeking a better life. Many found their new homes - for better or for worse - but for one reason or another scores of these starships never reached their destination. This game is based on just such an event, the fate of a colony ship which became lost...
The starship Warden was created from the designs used in the United Western Starship Cartel program, and it was laid down in the Trans-Plutonian Spaceyards in 2277. The design was the most ambitious ever attempted, the blueprints calling for an oval spheroid of tremendous size using a new metal alloy of tensile strength previously unknown. The ship was an incredible 50 miles in length, with a width of 25 miles, and a height of eight and one-half miles. Additional levels above and below the central one brought the total number of decks to 17. Warden required 11 years to complete, and it did not leave the Sol System until 2290 because of the effort required to outfit the starship. The vessel contained complete Terran environments, and the colonists were not rigidly screened for the expedition, for it was held that Warden's accommodations would place few physical or psychological stresses upon colonist or crewman.
A description of the starship's levels, as well as some of the equipment typically found on each, follows. The vessel was basically given over to large, open areas, with a simple system of electronic locks used to insure that colonists did not stray into command or possibly harmful areas. With its cargo of the flora and fauna of Earth, 1½ million colonists, and 50,000 crew members, the wonder of the Interstellar Colonization Age set forth to found a new world many light years from its old home.
DISASTER
Some one-third of the way to the planetary destination which had been selected for Warden stretched the very fringe of a cloud of space radiation. This cloud had been charted and analyzed, so that Warden's captain was aware that he was to plot a course to avoid any possible danger. Somehow the vessel came too close to the radiation, and the cloud contained disaster. The energy given off at the fringes of this celestial hazard was foreign to all previously known radiation types. It passed through every one of the ship's protection systems and defense screens. The effects on the ship itself were startling. The worst hit were the colonists aboard, and most of the human beings exposed to the radiation simply turned to piles of calcium with no advance symptoms. Hard hit also were the flora and fauna which underwent mutation if they even survived at all. Even some of the vessel's systems were affected, and unstable, radioactive areas were caused from the cloud's radiation. The humans who survived the initial exposure discovered too late that life forms in their natural setting - such as the ecologically prepared forest areas and the like - seemed to have the greatest resistance to the effects of the radiation. A few of the crew and colonists then took to living in the huge parks of Warden. A handful remained who tried to restore sanity and order to the starship. They failed.
Life became a struggle merely to survive for those humans that were left. In this struggle all knowledge of the ship's mission or even, in fact, that the humans were on a ship was lost. Ship's systems were maintained in a minimum operative state by the vessel's main computer and the robots that were operating at the time of the cloud's entrance into the starship. Later generations of humans lost all sense of identity. with the ship regressing into a state of savagery. Life quickly stabilized (as life has a habit of doing) with new life forms created from exposure to the unknown radiation. The humans settled into a tribal way of life and those few that traveled and came back told of areas where the animals walked like men and plants were able to talk and move. The vessel traveled on past its assigned planet with its safety systems preventing the ship's destruction by crashing into a planet or burning up in the sun. It is only a matter of time until even those almost perfect systems fail and the starship dies. Until that time, life continues to flourish and the Warden travels on, much changed from what it once was.
SURVIVAL
The players of the game are put into this situation as humans, mutated humanoids, or intelligent monsters. What they do and how they survive the dangers of the ship makes for an interesting situation for all participants alike. The travels up and down through the starship are only accomplished by using bits and pieces of ancient knowledge the players are able to gather from the referee and their starting point. Traveling throughout the ship forces the players to gain technological devices and information just to survive on a day to day basis. They can also make use of the secretions and liquids produced by the mutated plants and creatures of the forest levels.
AUTHORS: GARY GYGAX & BRIAN BLUME
© copyright April 1976 TSR Inc.
You adventure in Greyhawk? Consider the prospect that the Greyhawk setting emerged as a result of the people from a crashed starship in one of those early games where the players such as the Gygax's helped develop the game as they went.
"You encounter a great and terrible monolith in the deep of the Phlogiston. The helm crashes and your hammership soon follows as your small wooden vessel falls into its gravitywell..."
I think I speak for everyone on the SJ board when I say that you, yellowdingo, are a mook.
Oh goodie! Another uncreative clone. Take your insults to the moderators...
What I was intersted in was establishing the Starship Warden as the ultimate Spelljammer encounter. I was also hoping to find a few creative contributors not a tide of abuse from people who have run out of puppies to drown.
In short, everything you are attempting to do here is stupid. Please cease.
At best there is going to be a survival adventure on the hull as PCs search amongst the wreckage of other ships in hope of pulling together the resources to get off it.
Once they realize that spelljammer helms wont work within range of the Warden, they would need to conduct an expedition beyond Freaktown (a community of Mutated peoples) built on the hull with debris from crashed ships).
Finding a way into the hull puts them in what is essentially a world of chaos. Eventually they might actually learn something from an inhabitant that will allow them to search the ship for the resources needed to escape from the ship to any of the accessable D&D worlds.
Ultimately that knowledge will provide for the next generation of Spelljammer travel. Suddenly you are looking at Ironclads instead of simple sail vessels.
Untimately Brian, the idea was to get a few ideas from contributing DMs that would lay down encounters for a D&D game...Unfortunately it doesnt work like that.
The idea was to have the ship drift through the phlogiston very slowly on a one off. It wouldnt be comming back this way, it would leave a trail of devastation as hundreds of ship stumble across it as it moves through their travel corridor.
What I was intersted in was establishing the Starship Warden as the ultimate Spelljammer encounter. I was also hoping to find a few creative contributors not a tide of abuse from people who have run out of puppies to drown.
Don't pay any attention to him. The problem is not with the idea; it's with the way you keep going on and on about it. You sound like a broken record. Even people that like the idea may be turned off by your obsessiveness. People who don't have much of an opinion either way (like me) will just find it irritating, and people who think the idea is stupid are liable to insult you. The way to avoid it is to post your idea, explain it to those who need it explained, and let the discussion take its course. If you don't get the response you hoped for, oh well. It happens to all of us. Bringing the subject up in half a dozen unrelated threads is *not* going to make people more interested.
Wyvern
What are your thoughts on encountering the miles long Starship Warden deep in Spelljammer Space?
That´s not spelljammer. AND NOW, don´t you ever dare call that ultimate again... specially in Spelljammer.
It won´t dissapear, okay? It´s lived for 31 years without you, it´ll be fine after you leave.
Don't pay any attention to him. The problem is not with the idea; it's with the way you keep going on and on about it. You sound like a broken record. Even people that like the idea may be turned off by your obsessiveness. People who don't have much of an opinion either way (like me) will just find it irritating, and people who think the idea is stupid are liable to insult you. The way to avoid it is to post your idea, explain it to those who need it explained, and let the discussion take its course. If you don't get the response you hoped for, oh well. It happens to all of us. Bringing the subject up in half a dozen unrelated threads is *not* going to make people more interested.
Wyvern
Stop looking for puppies to drown and contribute an idea...
Dont like me going on about it fine lets hear from you Wyvern.
Describe a scenario where your party would encounter this Monolithic dungeon adrift in the Phlogiston...
Stop looking for puppies to drown and contribute an idea...
Dont like me going on about it fine lets hear from you Wyvern.
Describe a scenario where your party would encounter this Monolithic dungeon adrift in the Phlogiston...
This guy was the only one who tried to be nice and honest to you, and you say he drowns puppies! Now, don´t command us to contribute ideas, we will contribute ideas as soon as we get them. Assuming we WANT to contribute ideas at all.
How about this, will it make you shut up?
A tremor jerking on one side of a crystal sphere, as something very big smashes against it. Characters should go investigate what the hell it is.
Or...
A band of strange people living in an asteroid reach a certain populated place in Wildspace. They are mutated, but carry with them tales of a certain place whose potential exploitation is unimaginable. Who´ll be the brave soul to brave the dangers bravely and come back to tell the tale again?
Or...
Some yellow dingo has been japping his mouth about the starship warden in the phlogiston too much, and serious spelljammers are getting annoyed. Who´ll just drown the puppy like he so seriously wants so we can all live in peace? Is there any other solution, like kicking the dog´s ass so mighty he lands on the Warden?
Try googling the starship warden, and see if you can find any like-minded individuals, yellowdingo. Okay?
Describe a scenario where your party would encounter this Monolithic dungeon adrift in the Phlogiston...
Why would I want to do that? I've already told you, I don't find the idea all that interesting. (Now, if it were an artifact left behind by an powerful, ancient race, that could be interesting.)
I did think your idea about the "Manticore" was kind of cool, but it has nothing to do with the thread you posted it in, and I'm not going to help you hijack that thread.
Wyvern
Why would I want to do that? I've already told you, I don't find the idea all that interesting. (Now, if it were an artifact left behind by an powerful, ancient race, that could be interesting.)
I did think your idea about the "Manticore" was kind of cool, but it has nothing to do with the thread you posted it in, and I'm not going to help you hijack that thread.
Wyvern
I posted the Manticore thing in a thread on random encounters in wildspace. What is more random than a non generic spelljammer comming out of the dark at you? A Brick perhaps?
A powerful and ancient ArtefactThat is precisely what the Warden wiould be. For you an artefact is something like the Sword of Kas...for others who have been doing this for a very long time the discovery of the Warden would be like the discovery of a fifty mile long 25 mile wide, 8 mile thick rosetta stone. If you can survive penetration of the hull, and learn even some minor secret on how to build metal hull spelljammers, it would have a significant effect on the course of the future of your campaign setting.
Age of the Ironclad Spelljammer
If there was a ship with the dimensions you describe, I doubt like hell the PCs would ever find anything on it. They'd wander vast, long, massive, abandoned access corridors and die of huger/thirst before ever bumping into anything more helpful than some oozes and a zombie.
now you get it...howabout more?
Exploring the hull for a way in, the marooned crew encounters a region of radiation around a hull penetrating hole. After a check on their Fortitude DC30 which causes their skin to turn green (latent mutation), they make their way into a large chamber filled with strange looking spelljammer craft. They are soon attacked by strange metal golems.
The party ranger conducts a wilderness lore check to look for food, discovers a fungus/brain like substance in side the metal head of the metal golems, Fortitude test at DC20 to not be sick but it keeps your party alive.
I posted the Manticore thing in a thread on random encounters in wildspace. What is more random than a non generic spelljammer comming out of the dark at you? A Brick perhaps?
Actually, a little reading woudl have told you that your post was NOT on-topic for that thread. The thread was about discussing teh probability of such encounters, and explaining why merchants, pirates, etc, should meet in deep space. It wasn't a listing of random encounter events at all.
Actually, a little reading woudl have told you that your post was NOT on-topic for that thread. The thread was about discussing teh probability of such encounters, and explaining why merchants, pirates, etc, should meet in deep space. It wasn't a listing of random encounter events at all.
What he said.
A powerful and ancient ArtefactThat is precisely what the Warden wiould be. For you an artefact is something like the Sword of Kas...
Don't assume that my mind is that limited. When I said artifact, I meant a reality-warping, sanity-shattering, multiverse-threatening device created by a powerful and sinister race of ancient beings that lie entombed in deathless slumber within, waiting for some fool to awaken them...
...not a giant dungeon in space.
Wyvern
What he said.
Don't assume that my mind is that limited. When I said artifact, I meant a reality-warping, sanity-shattering, multiverse-threatening device created by a powerful and sinister race of ancient beings that lie entombed in deathless slumber within, waiting for some fool to awaken them...
...not a giant dungeon in space.
Wyvern
Its not just a dungeon in space though is it. It is an artifact: a reality-warping, sanity-shattering, multiverse-threatening pandora's box looking for someone daring and powerful enough to survive the exploitation of its secrets despite the sinister race of humans (and worse) that lie in clone stasis waiting for a fool to awaken them...
Its not just a dungeon in space though is it.
Really? I thought someone described it as "A fifty mile long 25 mile wide 8&1/2 mile deep dungeon adrift in space." Oh, wait... that was you.
It is an artifact: a reality-warping, sanity-shattering, multiverse-threatening pandora's box looking for someone daring and powerful enough to survive the exploitation of its secrets despite the sinister race of humans (and worse) that lie in clone stasis waiting for a fool to awaken them...
Oh no.... humans! I'm trembling in my boots! :P
Wyvern
Really? I thought someone described it as "A fifty mile long 25 mile wide 8&1/2 mile deep dungeon adrift in space." Oh, wait... that was you.
Oh no.... humans! I'm trembling in my boots! :P
Wyvern
Yes I did describe it as a very big dungeon, but even I know that it would be a significant and civilication changing encounter for those who run into it.
And yes You should fear humans after all you are one.
Humans, despite your assumption that they are all the same are not. The difference between your little cleric and an ancient empire of clone humans hellbent on slaughtering anyone different is the capacity to achieve it.
Humans who are not interested in negotiation over your right to breate air free of their approval are historically proven to be nastier than any orc or demon you might imagine. We have had a million years of nasty humans and we only record the last few thousand years.
in the original book, one of the ships (the damselfly) is nothing more than one of the other ships (dragonfly) with a metal hull.
in later books, other ships have metal hulls, too.
ever since the main book, it has been possible to modify a ship to have a metal hull. expensive as heck, but possible.
and furthermore, there's no secret to building spelljammers of any material. if you crocheted a gigantic back and filled it with dirt, then strapped a spelljamming helm to it, you could spelljam that gigantic crocheted bag of dirt through wildspace. it would be horrible at maneuvering, but it would work just fine.
now, if you were to include some method of making *larger* spelljamming ships, or more *agile* spelljamming ships, or *faster* spelljamming ships, or any of a number of actual innovations, *that* might have an impact on wildspace. but a large, radioactive dungeon full of arbitrarily angry people who want to kill everyone is nothing special. i decently high level wizard who prepares for the situation could probably slaughter everything on the entire ship in record time, especially if you include FR in the picture (which spelljammer does, more's the pity).
Conceivably furnace powered iron hulled spelljammers, steam cannons only need heat not fire, so steam tech is a possible breakthrough.
steam tech would be a gnomish invention. good luck with anyone trusting that.
regardless, steam tech would be useless. spelljammers travel at 100 million miles per day, as i recall. no steam engine is gonna do that. anything travelling at tactical speeds is simply not going to become popular in wildspace as a whole.
steam tech would be a gnomish invention. good luck with anyone trusting that.
regardless, steam tech would be useless. spelljammers travel at 100 million miles per day, as i recall. no steam engine is gonna do that. anything travelling at tactical speeds is simply not going to become popular in wildspace as a whole.
Conceivably it would allow you to resist the natural flow inherent in the phlogiston, then you might establish steam powered ports within the phlogiston so that pirates would never have to visit a crystal sphere but could build an empire and eventually cut access to spelljammer space altogether having done away with wizard helms.
The product of mankind's hopes and fears, the gods grew powerful, fat with prayers and sacrifice. For a time, they played with the substance of reality like a child in a sandbox.
When the old gods of earth began to be forgotten, they abandoned their world of origin to found new ones in their own image, places where they could never be ignored because they were the true source and sustainers of existence, places where they didn't have to worry about rival pantheons and new gods competing for their worship. Near a distant star, the Aesir and Vanir created Midgard; near another star, the gods of Olympus created Gaia. Other pantheons created other planets, each perfectly reflecting the world as their original worshipers had believed it to be. For a time, they were the absolute rulers of their realms, and they were more powerful than ever before. The greatest among them evolved to a state beyond gods. Calling themselves overgods, they created new pantheons in their image, new gods, new worlds, and new stars in entirely empty regions of space.
Eventually the people of Earth advanced to the point when they were able to travel the stars using their own technology, and they began to colonize distant worlds. The gods saw them as a threat, a source of potential contamination on their perfect worlds, and they petitioned the overgods to intervene. This the overgods did, creating spheres of unbreakable crystal to separate the worlds and stymie the earthling interstellar drives - and also to define the limits of what the gods could do, to protect their own power from being usurped by their former colleagues. They used their fiat to permit alien gods to invade some of the "perfect" worlds, hoping rival pantheons could keep each other distracted, their influence in check, so that no new overgods could evolve. The age of Earth was over, and the reign of the overgods had begun.
Conceivably it would allow you to resist the natural flow inherent in the phlogiston, then you might establish steam powered ports within the phlogiston so that pirates would never have to visit a crystal sphere but could build an empire and eventually cut access to spelljammer space altogether having done away with wizard helms.
to resist the flow inherent in the phlogiston, get out of the phlogiston river. problem solved.
frankly, i would class steam engines under "nonmagical engines" which would give them a SR of 1, and the ability to move a whopping 100 ton object.
you're better off using other forms of nonmagical engines, which just randomly seem to generate power out of nowhere, rather than requiring constant fueling.
and for the record, just because heat metal doesn't produce a flame directly, doesn't mean it can't produce a flame. a sufficiently heated object will ignite, and i would argue that the heat metal spell has a dangerous potential to cause ignition. in many substances.
to resist the flow inherent in the phlogiston, get out of the phlogiston river. problem solved.
agreed: I don't see any potential for steam engines in the flow. that's just useless, compared to the speed in the flow that's even higher than the standard 1.000.000 miles per hour (or day?) in wildspace (=inside of a crystal sphere).
frankly, i would class steam engines under "nonmagical engines" which would give them a SR of 1, and the ability to move a whopping 100 ton object.
you're better off using other forms of nonmagical engines, which just randomly seem to generate power out of nowhere, rather than requiring constant fueling.
heat metal- powered steam engines as nonmagical SR1- drives seem perfectly fine to me. the setting (rules) failed to give us nearly as many nonmagical variants as are needed to portray the multitude of possible solutions.
I mean: mankind (i.e. human) are a creative people and come up with all sorts of solutions to nearly every problem presented to them. gnomes take inventiveness to the next level and seem to produce crazy stuff all the time (I know: not all gnomes!), and especially in the spelljammer setting they are the crazy inventors of the multiverse. elves and dwarves aren't bad at being creative a well, and might have come up with a few nonmagical variants that work.
In short: we should see dozens of different SR1- engines out there. Steam seems fine to me and in my opinion goes well with the settings flavour - especially when the steam-technology is in it's very first stages and just starts to spread over the spelljamming community. it could be the thing thats discussed by every sage, alchimist and ship navigator at the moment, and even produce a few adventure hooks:
- go on an expedition to find a certain mineral/plant/metal/gem/whatever that seems to be a key element fot steam engines
- rescue missions for missing prototypes that dissapeared during a testflight (...in an asteroid field - good luck!
)- steal research notes from an engineer/alchimist/etc. ...or retrieve them
and for the record, just because heat metal doesn't produce a flame directly, doesn't mean it can't produce a flame. a sufficiently heated object will ignite, and i would argue that the heat metal spell has a dangerous potential to cause ignition. in many substances.
true, but I think it's easy to modify the spell a bit to avoid temperatures high enough to ignite stuff. shouldn't be such a big problem, even rules-wises. the other easy solution is to hold the heated metal in an environment where ignitable stuff is absent (you'll need a closed container anyway for steam drives becaus of the pressure). when there is no paper/wood/cloth near the heat source, nothing can ignite. of course, that's exactly where the danger lies (and where possible saboteurs might attack - another hook! :D ).