The Krylock - Details
“The ship is yours, Captain. And so is the horizon.”
~ Mepuwhani, Chief of the Iska
Originally build by the shipwrights of Ridashia, the FSS (Free Sailing Ship) Krylock has cut the waves of the Inner Ocean up and down the eastern side of the continent. Being a sloop, the Krylock boasts a relatively small frame for an oceangoing vessel. From stem to stern, the Krylock measures in at 27 meters long (90 feet/18 tiles) and is 6 meters wide at it’s widest point (30 feet/6 tiles). From keel to mast-tip, it reaches 19 meters of height (60 feet/12 titles). Ninety-seven square meters of sailcloth flap proudly in the wind, split between the Krylock’s two sails. The bulk of this is in the trapezoidal mainsail, hoisted between the mast, boom and the gaff and supported by a network of rigging. The remainder hangs in the jib at the front of the craft, where it catches extra wind. The hull is compact, but the space is well-utilized. A single below-decks level contains a hold, a galley, four cabins and a head. Above-decks, a single small cabin near the stern comprises the cockpit. This space holds the craft’s helm by which the ship is steered, the main-sheet by which the mainsail is controlled and the various navigational tools that you have stored there over the course of your career. Either by construction or by the foibles of said career, the Krylock has accrued several interesting traits which are described in full below.
Many a ship has set out from the shipyards of Ridashia since
the city was rebuilt, but none have been crewed by a
brachyura, a tabaxi, a water genasi and a dashingly
handsome bard all at the same time.
Fore-and-Aft-Rigged Sails & Keel: A keel catches water along the bottom of the hull, serving to minimize lateral motion of the vessel, and counter-weighing the force of wind on the sails. This allows the ship to resist being blow off-course by prevalent weather. This resilience, combined with the system of ropes, pulleys and wooden spars that moves the sail around the rotating boom, allows the Krylock to sail against the wind. It can’t move directly into it, but is capable of beating upwind to produce net upwind velocity, zig-zagging across the direction of the breeze. By flaring the foresails and moving the mainsail to be perpendicular with the keel in the other direction, the ship can run with the wind, doubling it’s velocity as long as it directly follows the direction of the wind. If not moving directly into or with the wind, the ship moves at a tack and uses it’s default speed. Additionally, the use of a gaff-pole to mount the sails makes the sails more efficient and easier to control. Thus, the main-sheet can be mounted at the helm and the captain can manage both the rudder and the rigging in times of need.
Living-Wood Timbers: The once-broken Krylock has been restored with living cedar-wood by the woodsingers of the Iska clan. Despite having comparable weight to traditional timber, living-wood is a slightly more durable material. This results in 25 extra durability over the original hull. The greatest advantage of living-wood, however, is the druidic magic it carries within it. The wood knows the shape it was sung into, and will eventually regrow that shape if it’s damaged. As long as the hull’s durability has not dropped below 60 (resulting in large-scale destruction of the living-wood frame), it restores 5 durability a day. This process does not interfere with function and so the Krylock’s hull can regrow whilst sailing, docked or even laying beached. Additionally, the living-cedar hull occasionally grows leafy boughs out around the upper hull. These smell nice, and have all the practical purposes of any other eastern white cedar leaves; when mulched they have mild disinfectant properties and can be boiled into a tea that staves off scurvy. These leaves are not nutritious, palatable or numerous enough to provide any meaningful caloric content, however.
Reclaimed Seafire-Arbalest:
This staunch old arbalest was blasted off the misty hulk of a Seafire Bastion, and rescued from the poor care of the Blood Vultures that had taken it over. Time and mistreatment have dulled this once-proud weapon but the skilled labour of the dock authorities of Lion's Port have restored a great amount of punch. It stands at chest-height upon a sturdy, 360-degree swivel-mount. This mount is fasted to the deck upon the elevated forecastle of the Krylock, and provides full firing coverage in all directions but downward. A crank-operated ratchet-winch provides the force necessary to draw back the 6-foot metal limb, and to hurl bolts 150 feet when fired. A series of quiver-slats around the base of the arbalest hold up to 10 specialized siege-bolts, making grabbing new ammo in the heat of battle a relatively straightforward process - for the first 10 shots, anyway. These huge siege-bolts are devastating, smashing through targets for 4d12 + 8 piercing damage. The huge scale of this weapon makes precision-aiming difficult, however, and imposes a -6 penalty on ranged attacks – although this is no issue when firing upon vessels, of course. Like the ship it's mounted on, this weapon is battered, scrappy and comes through for its crew when they need it most.
Weathered Jetstream Array: Originally recovered in parts from a drifting piece of skywrack, this worn jetstream array was assembled and mounted to the Krylock with the help of Alani and an included instruction manual. Now built, a gleaming, sky-blue crystal spins in a fine matrix of aluminum arms and glowing spellforms. The enclosed manual indicates that such devices are meant to function on a 24-7 basis, stabilizing weather patterns and enabling the continued survival of aven sky-cities in Scapha’s turbulent atmosphere. This one is weather-ravaged and the crystal is shot through with hairline fractures but it still works in short-but-powerful bursts. By reaching a hand (or other limb) through an aperture in the aluminum structure, seizing the crystal and focusing, a crew-member is capable of evoking massive gusts of wind. These winds blow consistently in the initially-chosen direction and affect a 2-km radius sphere from where the array was activated. This effect lasts 1d4+1 turns, and can be cancelled early by re-crewing the array. Once used, the crystal dulls in sheen and the whirling spellforms slow; it takes a full 24 hours for the fragile magical device to recharge.
Running with the wind gives sail-powered ships a great boost of speed, be that wind natural or...otherwise.
Artist Credits
In order of appearance
Martin Deschambault - Beyazid District Naval Arsenal Concept Art
Thomas Jacques Somerscales - A Barque Running Before a Gale