also:
BOATES
Lizardman Cruiser: A larger ship than a frigate, a Lizardman cruiser is built for long range voyages and for fighting battles. Three-masted and with a modified sailing rig for both long distance cruising and tacking into the wind, it is a versatile sailor, made more versatile by the use of weather-magic. Like a frigate, it has large decked-over extensions running out to smaller outriggers, but unlike a frigate these extensions and their outriggers are less removable, with canoes for landings being stored under the extension decks along with other supplies. The use of reed mats is much reduced, with much of the planking being of solid wood even on the outriggers, while the main deck and hull is covered in a fine plaster-cement that protects it from water and fire. This gives the ship the appearance of being made entirely of stone, even though it is mostly wood, with only the keels and major ribs being made of masonry. Cruisers are large enough to mount the lizardmen's artifact weapons, though few mount one, and fewer still mount two. Mounting even one of these weapons can radically change the purpose of a ship, changing it from a brawler-boarder design to a long-ranged artillery platform.
Crew Size: 200 to 450
Armament: 10-20 Greatbows, 0-2 Artifact Weapons, 20-60 mounted blowpipes.
Turtle Ship: A cruiser-sized ship built for short-range protection of a coastline, the Turtle Ship is propelled mostly by oars and enchantments in battle, raising it's sails and unfolding it's collapsable masts only to cruise from one sortie to the next. It's armor is it's most striking feature, for huge sheets of Obsinite and bronze cover the upper deck, shielding the crew from attack, and enabling them to keep safe and ready for boarding action. Salamanders, razordons, and even cold ones are frequently stashed under the shield, a nasty surprise in any boarding action-and the greatbows of the ship are fitted with harpoons and chains to bind to the enemy and draw them close enough to drop the ramps and charge across. Salamanders can burn the wooden lesser ships, or scorch away lines, sails, and sailors. Supremely deadly in hand-to-hand however, the Turtle ship has less than a stellar shooting armament.
Crew Size: 200 to 800 (in extreme boarding configurations)
Armament: 1-4 Greatbows and 20-35 Mounted Blowpipes
Temple Ship: The largest and most exceptional of the Lizardman fleet, rivaled only by the Black Arks, are the Temple Ships of Zlatlan. Each temple-ship is enormous, with no less than six masts, and the vast majority of it's structural supports are not wood or mere stone, but unflinching Obsinite, enchanted to lighten the mass enough to float. Too large for the multihull construction of smaller lizardman ships, the Temple Ship is instead built with about 100 seperate watertight chambers below decks, while at the rear of the ship rises an immense pyramid, crowned by the captain of the ship. There, beneath a modest sun-screen, and seemingly naked for all the world to see atop it's palanquin, squats one of the fabled Slann. The ship's entire structure, from it's anchors to it's terradon perches atop the masts, is a geomantic conduit built to empower this supreme wizard, and give them fabulous reserves of magic to draw upon. A temple ship becalms it's enemies, then rips them apart with magic from range. The Slann is not alone, either, and it's temple guards and attendant skinks add their own talents to any battle. Each temple ship also has a unique prow, with a enchanted figurehead, guardian statue, armored ram, or whatever the Slann dictates it must have. Each temple ship is a unique expression of it's Slann captain's interests and fields of study, tactics and strategy.
Crew Size: 600 to 3000
Armament: 1-6 Artifact Weapons, 20-30 Greatbows and 100-150 Mounted Blowpipes
Ship upgrades
- Terradon Aviary This ship has an aviary and supplies to feed and maintain a scouting wing of sea-flying Terradons, able to scout far away fleets or deliver rocks from the sky onto an enemy's deck.
- Geomantic Reinforcements This ship carries specially modifed mounts for it's various mounted artifacts-Solar Engines, Rejuvenation crystals, Engines of the Gods, mounts too large for even the greatest warbeast that magnify the artifacts power.
- Star-reaching tower: A tower for a skink priest of the heavens to cast spells from, it reaches up towards the sky to conduct the winds of magic more effectively. Skinks on this ship cast further, and more powerfully.
- Earthing Achor : A specially built geomantic anchor-dropping this slows the ship, but taps the life-blood of the world flowing through the seafloor, recharging magic of the ship's casters. The amount recharged depends on the auspiciousness of the location, a fact difficult to determine from above the waves.
- Black-toothed Maw: An enchanted ram of Obsinite, which bites and chews through the hull of an enemy ship like the mouth of some great beast, though it is unmoving.
