have some area of the world be a plasma rift or something, and some imporant legendary ship with an imporant legendary captain makes some ill fated journet into the rift, meets his end, and the remains form some kind of magical ghost ship, or something, I don't know, just copy an anime.

1.The ship itself is attacks TOWNNAME when the players lodge for the night. They are awoken by screaming and GHOST PIRATES attacking everyone's shit. The town guard and population is in total chaos.

2.The Flintlock of Implausible Carnage. It's been theorized to do obscene amounts of damage, but it can only be fired ONCE.

3.Make it the figurehead on the front of the ship. Where it's heart should be.

>>4254061
No, have the ship be the lich.
As in it reforms if it's phylactery isn't destroyed.

>Should I make the lich's phylactery the ship itself, or something differant?

JESUS CHRIST DO THIS.

"Where's your phylactery, lich! Tell us now and save yourself the trouble."

"You're standing on it."

Introduce it by having the horizon darken and it coming into view. Before that, have players hear some rumors about something to do with an airship.

That's it. It just comes into view and flies past in the distance. It doesn't even need to do anything to the PCs; they just need to have seen it. That way, you can have it show up later without them WTFing.

fill it with Genestealers

>The Flintlock of Implausible Carnage. It's been theorized to do obscene amounts of damage, but it can only be fired ONCE.

I like this, maybe it needs a more mythic name. Inscribe it with runes inlaid with gold, gunpowder made from the ground bones of fire demons, hammered from starmetal and a bullet made from the tear of a dying god.

1) Like all good pirates, the ghost pirate enjoy raiding things. Have a few refugees stumble into town, telling tales of a dark airship manned by a skeletal crew that descended on their town and burned everything to a crisp. Bonus points if you include that some men were dragged away (later, let the PCs find said men having been turned into more undead crew.

2) Being raiders, any number of fun artifacts could exist in the hold of the ship. If we're talking 4E artifacts, then something like a sentient weapon of an ancient hero would be fairly awesome. Perhaps the hero was the last man ever to threaten the lich.

3) Depends. Do you want your players to have an airship? If no, make it the phylactery, such that they'll be forced to destroy it. If yes, use a different phylactery, but don't place it on the ship (too easy to find).

>>4254106
"The Devil's Thumb"

>>4254084
This is quite awesome.
Also, sections of the airship go ethereal at the most opportune times, protecting a certain area of it - the engine room for example (which I would make very similar to the crematorium that the Many dwelled in in NWN2 MotB). Corridors suddenly vanish and the PCs fall into a cabin below.

Here you go.

Having a lich is rather cliché, how about a vampire? Have him be Bram Stoker style (wall crawling, killed by sunlight, ANYONE killed by being blood-sucked becomes one, etc).

If you make the ship big enough, put a small castle on top; your players will never expect that.

The ship sails through the skies in a giant storm cloud, ever searching for fresh, attractive females. It has no crew save the vampire's harem, and the odd dire wolf or two, but is in such bad condition that to set foot on it is to invite almost certain death. Those that stay upon the vessel for too long (ie, past adventurers on the same quest as your players) become walking dead. They would not truly be under the control of the vampire, but would see anyone not in their 'party' as an enemy. Some may have been on the ship for hundreds of years, and hail from half the world away. They fight an eternal battle against each-other nightly, and come back to life at the setting of the sun.

>>4254061

Ghost ship... captains soul and source to be killed is somewhere not on him...

I see what you did there.

>>4254300
Your players would only be "safe" during the day; although they would have difficulty telling time do to the clouds. The wolves, however, would be a constant danger, and would also be under the direct control of vampire.

The airship itself is a giant mimic.

>>4254351
>>4254300
not OP but still....lame.

One of the artifacts should be cursed. It is the reason the ship is crewed by the damned. Maybe a necklace that curses anyone who wears it for any amount of time to die a painful death due to some plague in a few days, only to rise again and roam the earth forever. Anyone not wearing it has a very powerful urge to acquire said necklace and wear it, to the point of killing to get it.

>>4254381

Shapeshifter pirates who pretend to be undead!

Everything on the ship is a shapeshifter.

>>4254416
The cursed artifact should be a chest full of gold pieces.

>>4254061
Ghost airship is an airship without anyone in it.
Just hangin'.

>>4254300
>lich is cliché
>how about a vampire

laughingelfman.png

Have the Liche's soul bound to the ship itself.

>>4254790
Was hoping someone would catch on to that ironic humor.

Instead of a Lich, use the ghost of a Dryad.

Her (former) tree is now the mast.

She has a fuckton of Necromancy, but also a bunch of nasty Druid spells.

>>4254856
Now THAT is an awesome idea.

What was the name of that awesome ship in Norse mythology? The one Hel has, and it's made of the nails of the dead?

Yeah, make that.

If you want the pirates to be a bit more sympathetic have the captain's phylactery be the ship. A legend would spring up that 'his love of his ship was so great that not even death would keep him from sailing it.' or something. Hes still bloodthirsty as fuck, of course, but you get the sense that hes just doing what he loves.

If you want them to be "yarr pillage and destroy" pirates have the phylactery buried on some island in typical pirate fashion. Only the captain knows where it is. This way they can keep plundering riches for all time. Yarr!

>>4254893

Skifbladnir, I think.

Also, introduce the airship at a completely random interval. Ideally, interrupt an in-character conversation between the players with "you notice you are now standing in deep shadow."

>>4254893
It's Naglfar. Have a cleric go mad and start cutting the fingernails of the recently dead so that the ship of the dead won't grow any bigger

I have an idea, imagine three brothers each working their way to lichdom and when they finally they all trade phylacteries and go on their merry ways. Imagine how fucking hard it would be to kill all of them.

>>4255061
One could be the captain of this ship, which could spawn a certain number of undead per day as a function of the captains HD.

Another could be a lofty mage with a hell of alot of necromancy spells and wield the Necromantic Sphere.
The Necromantic Sphere:
This apple-sized sphere seems to be a crystal containing writhing black tendrils.
Whoever touches this sphere with bare skin has a high chance of dying instantly, their body turning to ash 75% (undead are immune to this effect). Any physical objects used to touch or store the sphere will change color to black, feel clammy to the touch (regardless of material construction) and also develop patterns of colors that resemble skulls, screaming faces, or in some cases images of the holder's own death. Magical or intelligent items will become warped, cursed, or worse. All who die within 200' of the sphere become incorporeal undead that will not willingly leave the presence of the sphere. Those powerful enough may attack the holder of the sphere immediately. If the sphere is not in someone's possession the incorporeal undead will hover around it aimlessly. All corporeal undead within 2 miles will also be attracted to the sphere. The user has full control of 3x of his hit die in undead. A level 1 user can control 3HD’s worth of undead, a level 20 user can control 60HD’s worth.

The Third could be a feral like creature that has levels in the Druid and Barbarian classes. His phylactery could be a dead tree that causes any living being that touches it to become undead (a will save for the pc's of course).

>>4254080
This would be awesome. Where/what would the phylactery be?

>>4255224
The dock where it ports.

>>4255224

Guarded by a monstrous skeletal kraken that has it buried within it's skull.

If we're going ultra-fucking lol mode the Kraken is summoned by the Lich. Ala-POTC.

>>4254080
>>4255224
>>4255232
>>4255279
Imagine the head trip of the players, they kill the captain and burn down the ship thinking it was the captains phylactery. As they walk away the the ship begins to rise out of the sand and starts flying towards them as it does so a necrotic twelve headed hydra rises out of the sand ahead of it and strikes violently at the players.

The ships done dicking around and has summoned this hydra to finish the fucking job. It starts casting all sorts of summon undead and animate undead and create undead spells. Hordes start rising out of the sand around the party. Oh and the ship has all of the corpsecrafter feats so the party will have a fuckton of fun killing this horde and hydra.

It just somehow seems more fitting that the ship itself is the lich and the Captain is the phylactery. Have the captain play the tragic damned seeking redemption route. Once the characters fight through the countless traps, hallucinations, undead, a single weak lichand finally get off the ship with this guy in tow, he says something like:

"Hurry. The master is not pleased."

"We killed the lich, pal, and that grounded the ship. It's over.'

"Who, Lyrax? A passenger."

"Then who do we have to kill the bring this ship down?"

"Right question. Wrong pronoun."

Cue ship roaring and raising itself from the earth, as literally tens of thousands of undead of every species rise from the sand.

It'll be good, too, especially if you play the Captain right, because it'll take them an age to figure out he's the phylactery.

>>4255452
The saving throw against the lich ship would be as follows.
DC= 10+16+1 for a whooping 27.
Undead Animated Object
Colossal Undead Construct
464 Hp
Initiative: -3
AC: 15
Str 28
Dex 04
Con —
Int 26
Wis 1
Cha 1
Speed 50 feet
Attack: Slam +25 melee (4d6+1d8+18)
Fort +10
Ref +07
Will +05
DR 15/Magic
Immune to: Cold, Electricity


CR 12 before you give it class levels.

>>4255757
Give it 20 levels of Dread Necromancer. Cr 32

Saving throw would go to 37 and it would have all of the Dread Necromancer Spells

Hypertext SRD Says 60 level 20's would be overpowered by this boat.

Giant flying Lich ship with enslaved undead crew? That sounds amazingly awesome. This is why I love /tg/. Would said ship have to be made of the bones of a giant or something, or could the Lich's body be built into the figurehead or somesuch?

>>4255850
We were going with toenails actually.

>>4255911
Well, that works too, but that's going to take a shitton of toenails. Then again, if you're making a flying lich ship, you might as well go ahead and tell your players to shove it if that's the part they take issue with.

>>Giant Lich Ship

So stealing this.

>>4255929
>>4255931
Be forewarned, it'll be ungodly when Im done with it. I'm making a character sheet.

>>4254061
Fuck me for running a post apoc game right now. I so want to put this in. I might just put in a derelict tanker now...

I'm thinking that the Hydra should be the ship's figure head. Have it animate at a most (in)opportune moment

>>4256081
With the Necrotic Hydra the CR would be impossible.

Heres 2

>>4256216
>>4256230
OP here.
I love /tg/.

>>4255757
Did you pull those stats from th Colossal Animated Object entry, or just make it up?

Also, what levels should the captain have? Dread Pirate?

And lastly, what race? Because I'm thinking a warforged phylactery pirate captian is almost too much awesome for me to handle.

You could have the Ghost ship ambush the players while they're traveling.

Start it out by seeding rumors of many, many terrible and interesting things happening in your world. A Plague here, a Orc attack there, Werewolves in the east, etc etc. Then offhanded mention piracy on the rise, and then another session, drop rumors of a Ghost ship.


Then one day when your party is traveling, have some ruckus occure on the ship, and the weather starts to get bad, make them think THAT is the real threat.

Then finally when they're on deck trying to help out the crew.... In the middle of a blistering storm, rain going sideways, dark clouds, bursts of wind, and lightning up the wazoo, have the Ghost ship appear out of a bank of clouds.

PREPARE FOR BORDERS.

ghost ships are lame. Kraken liches are where its at.

>>4254090


Genestealer GHOSTS

>>4257950

OH SHIT

>warforged dread pirate phylactery captian
>lich ship

SOMEONE DRAWFAG THIS NOW

one last bump before bed

So the captain is like, what, mind-controlled into doing the lich's bidding, or does he simply exchange his body for an awesome magic necromancer ship?

Hm, the latter seems FUCK YEAR enough to work.

>>4258102

>trade

not exchange, ofc.

Lich Ship with a Phylactery Captain?

AWESOME.

bumping, hoping this wont die yet

sorry but i dont have anything AWESOME as this to contribute

We need drawfags and writefags on this!

Maybe have the passenger lich have secretly make a piece of the ship as his phylactery so when the ship reforms the passenger lich reforms as well. The passenger lich would be a pest the ship is trying to get rid of but doesn't know which part of it is the passenger's phylactery. Maybe the passenger is the one who somehow orchestrated this whole lich ship business to have a reforming phylactery. Y'know just to give some depth to the ship itself.

I'm currently in the early stages of a long, sprawling 3.0 campaign. Our party just built an airship. I don't know if I want to secretly show
>>4256216
>>4256230
to my DM, or keep dead quiet about this whole thing.

It needs a necro-elemental powering it's hull.

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN!

ARRRRRR DAVY JONES!

Oooh, it needs dead animals following around in it's wake, like a whale, cause the oceans used to be taller or something.

Fuck yeah undead whale.

>>4258501
What about skeletal seagulls?

>>4258506
Those don't seem quite as intimidating.

>>4258501
Better yet, IT IS FOLLOWING AN UNDEAD WHALE!

>>4258553

I'd say just have the lich captain it. Though the dryad idea's pretty cool too.

Also: instead of the lich summoning the giant kraken, make that part of the quest hook. The lich-captain had an ancient Moby Dick-style hatred for the kraken, and to kill the lich the PCs have to raise it from the dead to kill him and then figure out how to de-animate whichever one survives the fight.

>>4258544
No, but skeletal animals behaving exactly like living animals are always unsettling.

A while back someone figured out that the easiest way to make an airship is to kill a whale, strip its flesh, animate the skeleton, bolt armor plates to it, and lash a boat to it. Once all that's done, give it some boots of flying since magic items change size to fit their wearer.

Frankly, I'm surprised that /tg/ has surpassed the whaleship's levels of awesome.

Dawson's Christian

Jayme Dawson was the Captain of the Christian and her crew,
And he flew and fought the Christian in the War of '82.
Now the Christian was the tightest ship 'tween here and Charlemagne,
And the crew of Jayme Dawson was the same.

On patrol in sector seven, keeping watch on Barber's sun,
They were jumped by three light cruisers though they wern't a match for one.
As they came to general quarters and they sent out the alarm,
Dawson's crew was sure they'd finally bought the farm.

No one living saw that battle though the fleet was quick to leave.
When they reached the site they found a scene no sane man could believe.
Dead in space lay three light cruisers, cut to ribbons all around,
But no sign of Dawson's Christian could be found.

There are stories of the Dutchman, the Celeste and Barnham's Pride,
There are stories of the Horseman and the Lady at his side,
But the tale that chills my spirit, more because I know it's true,
Is the tale of Jayme Dawson and his crew,
Yes, the tale of Dawson's Christian and her crew.

>>4258614
(instrumental interlude)

I was second mate on Hera's Dream, a freighter of the line.
We were shipping precious metals to the colony on Nine.
It was on the second watch of that most uneventful flight,
When the pirate ships appeared out of the night.

Now to me there was no question, for they had us four to one,
And you can't fight dirty pirates when your freighter has no gun.
So we stood by to be boarded by a party yet unseen,
When another ship appeared upon our screen.

First we thought it just a pirate, but the vector was all wrong.
Then we thought it might be rescue, but the signal wasn't strong.
When she didn't answer hailing, we all felt an unknown dread,
For we saw her shields were up and glowing red.

Now the courage of that single ship is shown by very few,
But we never knew a ship could fly the way the stranger flew.
Never fearing guns or numbers, like a tiger to its meat,
The stranger then attacked the pirate fleet.

>>4258620
And the strangers beams burned brighter than all beams I'd seen before.
And the strangers shields were harder than the heart of any whore.
As the battle rent the eather, while we watched and shook our heads,
The pirate ships were cut to bloody shreds.
The pirate ships were cut to bloody shreds.

Just as quickly as it started then the fighting was all done.
For the pirate fleet was shattered and the stranger's ship had won.
Though we tried to call and thank her, not an answer could we draw,
Then she dropped her shields and this is what we saw.

There were thirty holes clear through her and a gash along one side,
And we knew that when it happened, that no crew were left alive.
For the markings all said Christian, deep inside us each one knew,
'Twas the tomb of Jayme Dawson and his crew.

Now instead of flying off, the stranger then began to fade,
First the hull, and then the bulkheads as we cowered there afraid,
For as the Christian disappeared, the last to slip from view,
Were the bones of Jayme Dawson and his crew.
Yes, the bones of Jayme Dawson and his crew.

>>4258624
There are stories of the Dutchman, the Celeste and Barnham's Pride,
There are stories of the Horseman and the Lady at his side,
But the tale that chills my spirit, and I swear to God it's true,
Is the tale of Jayme Dawson and his crew,
Yes, the tale of Dawson's Christian and her crew.

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE AND NOT A DROP TO DRINK

>>4258553
>Better yet, IT IS FOLLOWING AN UNDEAD WHALE!

Here's an idea - it is constantly following an undead beast through the skies. I like the whale, but a kraken is good too. Something is enabling it to fly, and it's flying through the clouds with the airship hot on its trail.

The beast has eaten the airship's phylactery. It wants it back.

Now, lich ship with the captain as phylactery is a nice idea.
For additional complications, have the captain actually want to be killed or some such, but the ship is constantly guarding him.

And I'd think it would hint better at the ship being the lich if there is little ghastly pirate crew, and more of the ship itself being a dick.
It's an airship. "Oh, we have to go over here to find the captain and solve this shit? Fine then, it's just a few hallwa-" and the easy way simply isn't there, a large hole in the side of the ship. If done right, could be made an interesting point where you would access a blocked deck or the outer hull.

Not to mention the ship being an asshole and dropping pieces of itself to make more of those large blockading holes. Of course, failing an attempt to jump over one would be... well, really bad.

>>4258707

Hell with that, it's too easy. The ship is a superpowerful fucking Necromancer. It should do what all ghost ships do and be radically bigger inside then outside, and change constantly and try to kill them first subtly then more and more viciously as they start to piss it off. Except the moment your PCs figure this out and take action to bypass the hallucinations, it turns out they aren't hallucinations. The ship is modifying its own internal structure faster than the PCs can explore it, and it's getting violent about it.

Bonus points to the OP if the reason the ship is cursed like this is because the captain shot an albatross.

>>4258731
Alternatively, put a lich gorilla inside it, named Forever.

Needs a singing sleazy Skeleton Swordsman that cant swim

>>4258732
>>4258674

Fuck year, Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

I'm stealing the lich-ship idea, with the ship hunting some flying creature of some kind that ate it's phylactery.

You can eventually make the PC's roll a streetwise-test with differnt DC's, and in this way they should get some basic information from townsfolk about a big-ass flying ship, that roams the southern cape, and pillages whatever gets in it's way...

If you're running a campaign you can even have your PC's hear the rumour, without seeking the ship, but maybe next time they are in town they'll hear more rumours (the ship has pillaged a town close to the one the PC's currently are in?)

Maybe the old sage of the town knows about the ship? Or an ancient tome in a the towns library (or an evil mage, who have the tome in his tower)?

>>4255336
>The ships done dicking around and has summoned this hydra to finish the fucking job.
PURE AWESOMENESS.

>>4258570
I had forgotten that whale skeletons look so much like aquatic dinosaurs.
That's great for a ghost ship.

>>4258842

There has to be a hook, the reason the PCs give enough of a shit to try and catch it. Like it's fucking things up for people.

They say the ship will, from time to time, slow in its search, and be forced to call for assistance. Many an airshipman has tales of a dread wreckage of a vessel, vast beyond belief, built of a frame of whalebone and stretched over with ragged skin, pulling alongside, and creatures, human, but... not human, shouting over for news of a vast beast of the sea The wise and cautious crewman replies instantly and truthfully, and should he have seen the beast, they say the creatures shall grant him a small boon before travelling on. Those that cannot help are let past, suffering small misfortunes for many weeks after. But those who lie come back haunted, constantly looking over their shoulders, as though waiting for something fearsome to come. And come something must, for each and every one soon vanishes in the dead of night. The tale of one such widow speaks of a change in the haunted man, from fear to acceptance, and he says goodbye and packs as he always does for a voyage. With their belongings in hand and tears in their eye, they sigh, and walk out the door into a fog not there moments ago, ne'er to be seen again.

The ship is actually travelling well behind the Kraken. Sometimes mere minutes, sometimes days. From time to time it will stop in a city, almost always a port, to 'resupply'. A fog settles over the town, and when it covers the entirety of the settlement, a storm breaks out, and the ship descends. IT achors in the port, and resupplies. Strange, nearly-human creatures are seen leaving, visiting the shops, and coming out with boxes, bags, sacks of... something. Not once do the shopkeepers remember what happened, only that their supplies are short, and an enormous sum in coin from beyond living memory left on the counter. These tales come from those smart enough to lock their doors and hide abed when the Ghost Ship comes calling. Those that do not heed the deep terror of their soul, well... they say the ship is is always looking for new crew.

>>4258949
>they say the ship is is always looking for new crew.

This. Zombie press-gangs in port towns and over the oceans, seeking out the best sailors and whalers of every generation to finally bring the Great Beast to the ground.

And if one of the PCs is getting a reputation as a great hunter of rare creatures...

The ship, thus, is content enough to leave alone the towns it passes and tend to its own devices, and all wise men and governors know better than to cross it.

This is because of the tale told of the one man who saw fit to stop it.

One governor, of the wealthiest and powerful island of the Sea, was offended by the rumours of this vessel, a ship that would heed no man and a travelling insult to his authority, and saw fit to put it under his thumb or under his feet. Gathering the mightiest of his vessels, a hundred skyskiffs, a score of airgalleons, and the pride of his fleet, three mighty cumulodreadnoughts. He gathered the merchants of his port and bade them scour the sky for sign of the great beast, for surely the ship would not be long behind. One crew saw it, and lay it wait for the dread vessel to follow. An hour later, the black clouds of its passage were seen on the horizon, came the deep fog, and the mighty storm, before the vessel hove to. They called their age-old question, and the captain, seeing his chance for glory, claimed to be fetching the witness crew, went below, and ordered all cannon fired. They struck the morbid ship, and in doing so made the greatest mistake of their now unnaturally-extended lives.

The Ship of Bone went to war.

Nothing is known of the day the battle was met, for of all the hundreds of ships and thousands of men who sought the ship, not one has been seen since. They say, though, that since that day the holes in the vast bone bulwarks of the ship have been filled, the hide sails refreshed... and the wind that blows on them alone howling almost like the souls of the damned.

Dude, this shit is awesome - we need to archive the HELL out of this right now.

Also: I'm stealing the ideas in this thread for my campaign.

Some day I will apply for a campaign with RACE: BOAT on my character sheet just to see what my DM does.

>>4259018
Dear god, why did I laugh?!

Give the ship a small swarm of skeletal fish that "swim" near the hull

>>4258959

You are well-travelled indeed, adventurer, to know the tale of Django the Slayer.

They say the man was the greatest of whalers ever to live. A man so keen of eye he could see whales beyond the horizon itself, so strong of arm his harpoon could pass clear through his target and out the other side, and his aim so keen he could strike the whale in its great back, leaving it paralysed, easing the challenge of rending when the flesh is rotting away. He had hunted all the creatures of the sky and beasts of the sea, and taken every quarry he had set his eye to. He even saved a whaling fleet from utter ruin when, ravaged by a Kraken, he stood firm on the deck of his sinking vessel and hurled the weight of the shattered mast full into the beasts eye. They say, too, that it was this great feat that led to what followed, for it was six days later the Ship of Bone visited his homeport. Like all such visits, men vanished, but this time, Django was one of them, though his wife had seen him in the house, holding firm his three children.

A year and a day past, and the ship returned, but somethign that had neer before happened came to pass. The ship took noone, but left one man. Django had returned, in a year aged to a man of sixty, and with a vast purse of ancient coinage, totalling the value of every ship in the port. He never once spoke of any what had passed that day, but all who lived there knew, for never again did Django set foot on the deck of any ship, nor raise his arm against a creature of the sea or sky.

>>4259042

Why just fish? You should have an entire skeletal oceanic and aerial ecosystem accompanying it.

>>4259054
sorta nautical undead Wild Hunt

>>4259054
After the wizard cast Fly on us, we were moving towards the ship. That is when they appeared. Skeletal sharks.

This is so damn awesome that you could almost build an entire campaign around it. I LOVE THIS.

Lichs aren't always evil, you know?

>>4259081
FUCK YES.

>>4259018
The only issue is figuring out the LA, is there an easy CR to LA calculation available?

>>4259081
be prepared for "der, but sharks don't have bones! hyuk hyuk hyuk.."

>>4259100
WE NEED MORE OF DREW

>Ghost Ship

SEA OF GHOSTS

OH GOD MY DESTROYERS ARE GOING APESHIT

>>4259118
They have jaws, though.
Which could turn into flying magic jaws.

>>4259213

Add a shark-ghost behind the set of jaws...

Should they be sea creatures if its an airship, or should it be surrounded by skeletal rocs, cloudskates, arrowhawks and herelded by a skeletal albatross?

I'm thinking something indescribably epic.
The party somehow figures out that the ship is merely chasing after its phylactery, which is inside the undead skywhale's stomach.
The party somehow manages to extract said phylactery. They now have the Lichboat sailing after THEM.
que this scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX0IXHMuy7U
"They're gonna see this coming."
"Nope. They're not gonna see THIS coming."

So, which did we decide on?
a) lich-ship with warforged pirate phylactery captain
b) lich-ship eternally chasing undead quarry with the phylactery in its stomach

Rip off Event Horizon as much as possible and have your players wanting to scuttle the boat and leave.

I has an idea.
Since we've already given the lichboat 20 levels of dread necromancer, we might as well alter the demilich template slightly and stack it on there (Epic level handbook). Sure, it'll be the biggest demilich anyone's ever heard of, but who cares.

The ship now has not one, but NINE phylacteries, seven of which are soul gems on the ship itself and can be used to trap the souls of unfortunate passengers. The eighth was eaten by a sky-leviathan, which now carries the phylactery in its stomach and has turned undead as a result of the powerful necromancy coursing throughout its body. The ninth is the ship's warforged captain, who believed he could only dedicate himself to a machine, like himself.

The Dread Pirate warforged captain and his demilich dreadnought now scour the skies in search of the Sky Swallower, an undead leviathan of immense size, and thier eighth phylactery.

The ship and captain now need names.

>>4262058
Dread Pirate Roberts.

This entire thread brings new meaning to the word Boatmurdered.

>>4262058
Event Horizon, and Captain Ahab.

I have a name for the ship. I've always wanted to use this name for a ship of SOME sort, but my campaigns never seem to make it to the shore. Take it if you'd like.

Call it "The Bedlam Dance."

>>4262240
>Dead Pirate Roberts.
fixed

>>4262240
Dammit, I was thinkin' it!

And his ship is the Pirate Ship REVENGE.

ARRRRGH.

>>4262240
Dread Pirate ROBORTS

*scribble, scribble*

>>4263251
F YEAR!

>>4263302
maybe later i'll tape another piece of paper to it and finish the sails

>>4261566
Both.

The undead querry bit off part of the captain-phylactery, and he wants it back.

The PCs can help the ship, or fight it.

how to introduce:

An old haggard druid tells a grim story: He was once captured by a scrupulous sorcerer and watched in horror as several dryad trees were cut down, the dryads killed and their souls captured in soulstones, all of it being used to craft a massive ship on a dry-dock set up in the middle of a field... the use of this magic wood didn't become apparent until the sorcerer summoned and imprisoned several elementals of air and wind withing a large sphere which was secured in the bowels of the ship.

the force of this wind sphere allowed the ship to rise form the ground, held aloft simply by the elemental forces exerted by the sphere. The dryad trees made for the timbers holding the sphere in place - as nothing else could withstand the exposure to such magic. It also insulated the rest of the ship.

It was then that the sorcerer set off, with a crew of a few hundred on his ship, to explore some great mountainous region he had heard of in the east.

>>4263654

continued

What the sorcerer hadn't expected was the druids terrible vengeance: Calling upon nature to punish this transgresion, dry winds were thrust upon the ship, at such a force that it stripped the flesh from the crew.... leaving behind walking skeletons, twisted and warped by the elemental magic of the ship, and the desperate attempts from the sorcerer to escape death, him having used a spare soulstone to trap his own soul... becoming a lich hellbent on taking revenge on anything living for destroying his perfect plan.

artifacts:
the sphere of elemental flight - a large sphere, about half a meter in diameter, if secured to pretty much anything, will make that thing boyant to the point that just blowing on it (or slapping a sail on it to catch the wind) will make it move about). Securing it to the ground will not do anything. If you tie it to your back, you effectivelly become weightless, no matter how much gear and equipment you otherwise carry, and can kick off and float into the air... good luck getting down.

>>4263541
So the warforged phylactery would then have a peg leg or a hook for a hand? :Awesome:

A thought occurs to me, however, that Dread Pirate might not be the best choice for the captain. Legendary Captain would do much more for the ship, and it would make sense that the lichboat would want a captain that would make the lichboat a better boat.

>>4263693

possible uses of the sphere - if you need to inspire your party...

fix the sphere to any vehicle - a cart, wagon, whatever, its instantly weightless and you can tug it along by tying a rope to it. no more encumberance problems - also handy if you need to move something very heavy or large around...

also floating keep of doom

Help archive this thread you scruffy neckbeards.

>>4263879
Request made.

>>4263879
>>4263919
>request
You know we've got our own archive, right?

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html

Remember- phylacteries are EXPENSIVE.

>"The phylactery costs 120,000 gp and 4,800 XP to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation."

>>4263942
>You know we've got our own archive, right?
Sorry, newfag here. I will wallow in my shame.

Archived - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/4254061/

THE GHOST SHIP RETURNS

>>4263251
Man, that's awesome.

two compliments, so i had to finish the sails.

>>4265665
That's amazing.
You have a talent.

some of the crew perhaps?

The ship has to be massive. Ludicrously massive. Holy-shit-I-could-park-my-Galleon-in-that-hold massive. A huge ship provides more justification for it being intimidating as fuck, more scope for adventuring within the shifting hull, and makes sense given anyone batshit insane enough to bind themselves to the boat would also be soarrogant as to want the biggest boat ever to exist.

It also can't be just any shitty wooden boat, because that;s boring as fuck. All organic. Giant whalebone forms the hull, the masts are their spines. The ropes are knotted and tanned tendons. The sails are whole human skins, stretched and stitched into place. The flooring and walls are built of ludicrous numbers of bones of all descriptions. All this is only visible from the outside, because the moment one steps inside there is an incredibly powerful enchantment showing a magnificent interior and every crewman and passenger is beautiful or handsome, and well dressed. The food is opulent and plentiful, the decor exquisitely tasteful. And yet, one cannot escape the sense of screaming discomfort one feels every minute they spend in the hull, nor miss the look of resigned desperation in the eyes of the long-term residents. Every so often a small portion of the enchantment will break down momentarily, letting loose a flash of sight of the true form of the vessel, or the smell of countless rotting bodies, or the feel of gently crunching fingerbones beneath the feet, or the screams and cries of those all too aware of the illusions they're trapped in.

>>4265745
have it so some of the passengers/crew want to end this bondage but are cursed so they can't speak directly of what is really going on so they talk in riddles

So, I'm guessing from the official drawfaggotry (and mighty well done too, I must say) that the hydra figurehead is now canon.
Does lichboat have breathweapons, too, or is it really just a figurehead?
Or are we going with the I-summon-fucking-skeletal-hydras-to-fuck-your-shit-up scenario?

>>4265799
I'm fond of the "The ships done dicking around and has summoned this hydra to finish the fucking job." scenario.

the crew boards the ship, entering it by it's lower cargo hold, and are promptly assualted by a pair of ... Well, it depends on the setting, it's more of a insert generic monster here. Just make the monsters generic, and the battle well-lit, and explicitly mention the well-litness. Venturing farther in, the adventurers begin shifting restlessly. The ship has been errily quiet since the combat with the creatures in the hold. It is also getting dark, and the old ship is groaning, but the loot is good, so it's ok. As the adventurers go into the next room the doors shut with a bang. There are no traps, no walls moving in, no spikes shooting out of the floor, so the adventurers move on. No light reaches these halls, being in the bowels of the ship, and the only lighting is the glowing of the hanging bulbs in the celing. But wait-there! A shifting of the shadows, a mere billowing of the darkness, nothing solid, nothing definite. Decending further into the decrepit ship, the adventurers start sweating, feeling eyes upon them, fingers of darkness tugging at their robes.
Suddenly they are upon it, a dull brass door, the captain's study. The halfling pulls a lever nearby and the hundred year old mechanism springs to life, dull clankings are heard from the belly of the ship, and the doors groan open, releasing the stagnant air, like that of a crypt. The adventurers peer into the depth of the darkness, and sight a body on a chair, facing away from the group. The rogue goes over there and picks up the book from the hands of the captain. The adventurers have what they need to save the failing crop far below, and turn to leave. they suddenlystop in their tracks, held there by the spell that now binds them.
"hey you little shits, that book is mine!"

>>4265939
Arg, I can't writefag today, the captain was dead and all dried up when they got there

>>4265939
I like this idea.
Well written.

I love you /tg/. So here's what we've got:

Lich-ship with 20 levels of dread necromancer.

phylactery is a warforged Legendary Captain.

Part of said phylactery was eaten by a kraken/leviathan/whatever (which probably turned undead as a result), and the lichboat now sails the skies on a neverending quest to bring down its quarry.

It restocks supplies from unsuspecting ports via cliche fog, everyone goes inside, shopkeeps return to find a few items missing, replaced with a generous supply of gold coinage, usually far more then the supply was worth.

It uses Create Undead for form a crew for itself, although if faced with a foolish adversary, it has been know to use Slay Living and Animate Dead. . .or its lovely Negative Energy Burst coupled with a ramming attack/carnal touch.

Ship known as something dark and artsy, eitherr Waltz Macabre or Bedlam Dance as suggested earlier.

>>4266024
>ramming attack/carnal touch
>carnal touch
Wat

>>4266024

What it's chasing has to be utterly vast, so leviathan.

Also, it doesn't always zombify new crew. Those whose unique talents are needed are taken aboard alive. Needless to say, being surrounded by so much horror is rather deletrious to their health. They come back, like Django, seriously traumatised, decades aged, but extremely wealthy from their involuntary contract.

>>4266052
>carnal touch
Oh god, I'm so sorry.
CHARNAL touch.

>>4266068
Lets leave it Carnal, just for the mental image of what qualifies as a Carnal Touch coming from a boat.

>>4266058
Right, so it takes important crew-members alive, but uses skeletons to do the drudge work. (cannons, deck-swabbing, etc.)

Is there anything else we've missed?

>>4266068
Charnel, actually. But that brings up an alternate use for the whole mess.

For as long as anyone can remember, the world of Oerth has been plagued with a crew of undead butt-pirates...

>>4266084
We've kind of ignored the superawesome artifact the ship is holding, if there is one. I suppose finding the phylactery and baiting the ship to do some dirty work is a reward in itself.

POSTING IN AN EPIC THREAD

>>4265167
If we weren't making the ship a lich, I'd say the ship itself... Maybe a few flying escape rowboats?

>>4266104
If the party decides to be good guys and actually give the captain his damn arm back, they should get a bell.
Ringing this bell will summon the lichboat. Once. And it might not be pleased if you called it for something stupid. After all, there's no bell you can ring that will make it go away again. . .

If they actually manage to succeed in bringing down the boat AND its captain, they should get a map leading to unrealistically large amounts of treasure.
Unless someone has a better idea.

>>4266104

Lich Ship plans to eventually conquer the world, and has a large store of highly potent magical objects. One is an ancient doomsday incantation bound into a seemingly worthless object so the adventurers won't notice it at first. This object is basically a super-nuke capable of melting the polar ice caps. Its reusable.

The ship plans to flood the world and enslave the survivors, possibly by turning them into zombies.

Party needs to kill the captain and nuke the ship.

>>4266088
There's something I'm not getting here...

The boat started out much smaller but over time it adds to itself. When it was built it was a galleon of the royal navy. In it's maiden voyage they encountered a necromancer's island. They decided to arrest him and they managed to kill him as he was trying to turn himself into a lich. Part of his soul became bound to the ships captain and part of it to the ship itself. The captain went berserk and killed the entire crew. They all rose up the next day and the ship started sailing oceans again.

>>4266179

The Captain is protective of the object, make the party think it is the phylactery. They are wrong.

>Lich Ship plans to eventually conquer the world

Gentlemen, I just had a horrifying idea...

Borrow a shtick from a lovely little series called Transformers.

The resulting Colossal++ horror will make your party shit bricks.

>>4266197
hah, they destroy the artaefact, thinking it was the phalactary, but release the potent magics inside, killing the lich in the ensuing blast, but resulting in a TPK as well.

>>4266233
Am I the only one who thinks a transforming lich is less awesome than a lich boat?

The Ashen Phoenix

Many years ago during the imperial expansion of (insert advanced country name here), their most proficient wizards and artificers devised their most potent invention yet - The Heart of the Sky.

It was a fierce, and potentially unstable combination of Enslaved Air and Fire Elementals, and powerful magic compressed into Lodestone to form a Lodediamond powerful enough to cast large vessels afloat and make them capable of unflagging speeds.

The (Country)'s navy built three such ships for combat: The Hippogryph, The Wyvren, and The Phoenix, Each ship was piloted by one of the guild's most powerful archmages, as they were the only ones capable of harnessing such power.

During the course of the war, they were mostly unmatched, until their enemies made pacts with dragons. whom still dominated the skies.

Eventually, the Wyvren and the Hippogryph were destroyed, the Phoenix suffered a much worse fate.

During the battle of _________, the Imperial forces were on full retreat as they had faced an opponent too strong for them. The Phoenix had taken heavy damage as a result, and once the retreat vector was set, the ship's Archmage, ___________, sensing the Lodediamond core was critically unstable, went below decks to try to stabilize it.

Witnesses reported seeing a blinding white flash, as bright as the sun itself, but the ship sustained no further damage. The ship never returned to port and the crew was never heard from again.

Once in a great while the ship casts it's great shadow over the land, floating past ominously. Many adventurers have gone aboard the ship, none have returned.

>>4266236
I don't ever want you to DM for me.

>>4266233

OH GOD

THAT IS SO AWESOME

The ordinary deckhands might be tar-stained skeletons, but all kinds of undead serve as the ship's officers. You might have a few, less powerful liches who have taken up residence in the ship in their quest for knowledge, and in return they serve as "doctors" or navigators. Death knights as bosuns and marines. Variety is nice.

>>4266265

con't

additional hooks - The ship's Archmage pilot, in trying to stabilize the core, fuzed part of himself with the diamond during the explosion, and is thus a being now similar to a witch, but having a more elemental twist. He is not necessarily evil, (unless the country was), but his mind is quite gone and he considers people aboard the ship as enemy hostiles.

The rest of the crew are magically amplified zombies who're either whole, and have high magical resistances, or have fused with other magical components on the ship in the explosion and are now zombified half-golems.

have fun with it.

>>4266246

The last thing your party will expect, after defeating an undead kraken, captain, and flying ship, is for the carcasses of everything in the area converging into a colossal titan-sized beast of doom.

Your party dies soon after.

Unless they still have the nuke, that is...

>>4265939
I think I've read summat like that before...

>>4266296

Or you could scale the thing, running up its chest with the aid of the gravitational magics holding it together and the wind vortex it's creating with its power, slashing down more skeletons and animated planks until you reach the door leading to its heart, where the skeleton of the phylactery-captain lies shackled, begging for release but unable to stop himself from attacking you.

All this while trying to finish the job as fast as possible because the lich-boat-golem is laying waste to the shoreline.

>>4266246

Understandable. It's a bit farfetched and WEABOO DURP in some regards, but it varies from group to group and player to player.

Captain is a gnome.

Nuke is a grandfather clock.

jesus Christ this thread is so epic.
A lich-awesome
A lich pirate-awesomer
A lich pirate that has a whole ship as it's phalactary-more awesomer
A lich pirate that has a whole ship as it's phalactary that morphs into a giant writhing amalagram of splinters, sails and rotting crewman flesh if you kill said lich-awesomeface.jpg

>>4266246
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAFXayH1bpY

>>4263947

> "The phylactery costs 120,000 gp and 4,800 XP to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation."
> and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.

... oh fuck.

>>4266394
I don't get it, what?

>>4266405
To become a lich, you MUST be able to cast spells - so your pirate is a caster of some sort. A very powerful one.

>>4266405

The phylactery has caster levels.

If the phylactery is intelligent - I.E. the Warforged captain phylactery or the awakened ship phylactery...

Spells. EVERYWHERE.

>>4266394
I mean, it's an inanimate object-the phalactary-it can't think, feel, or cast a spell by itself, right?

>>4266426

>>4266426

But it 'is' a person, so the capn would be controlling it.

>>4254300
>Bram Stoker style
>killed by sunlight
I don't think so sir.

>>4266426

See again; Warforged captain.

>>4266423
No, it cannot cast spells. It has a caster level for purposes of dispel magic and Mordenkainen's Disjunction.

Bone white whale! Unholy Grail!

The ship has been plying the skies for millenia. By this stage it has built up a truly vast horde of powerful wealth in its storerooms, valuable to the point that it doesn't even value raw gold anymore. Now, it just looks for the rare. Ancient artifacts, fantastically valuable artworks, relics of lost empires, anything that is nearly impossible to find. By this stage it has built up an incredible array of potent magical artifacts. Not to use them, just to keep them.

Needless to say, it guards its storerooms well, and when you are a ludicrously potent necromancer capable of effortlessly shifting your form, that is very well indeed. The ship merely guards its goods out of wariness, but the very second one tries to steal something, it goes from ambivalent defense to horrifically violent resistance.

The ship has no motive, per se, other than the recovery of the phylactery. It is nothing short of an embodied incarnation of the age of sail, the lost time of the past of piracy and freebooting, and seeks little more than an eternity plying the skies, seeking lost treasure. That is, it will, when it gets that goddamn phylactery back.

Actually, that can be its origin. An age ago, during the days of sail, a Necromancer, angry at the public ignominy his long-feared arts were sinking into, sought vengeance against the pirates, the freebooters, the privateers, whose romantic tales of gallant adventure had seized the public imagination in an iron grip. He sought to simultaneously reassert the dominance of his black arts, recapture and rebuild the raw screaming terror behind his name, and end forever the bright gallant romantic notions behind piracy. To do that, he would become the most horrific pirate that ever lived. He spent a decade slaughtering the inhabitants of the ocean to build his dread craft, and took hundreds of marooned sailors from all across the seas to crew it.

Every powerful enchantment, every potent incantation, every single work of dark magic that ever was to exist he wove into the fabric of the ship. At last it was near to completion, and he sought to make of the ship a servant and an immortal by making it a lich. He built of drowned treasure a captain for the vessel, and sought to bind the vessel's incoherent and unbound spirit to it. The ritual was cast, and the ship came alive.

But he had made one great mistake.

He had sought to destroy the spirit of piracy itself, but has expended vastly too much power in his pride and rampant egomania, and awakened the spirit of piracy itself. Twisted from an unconscious power built from the countless dreams and tales of the world, he brought it to consciousness, alive, aware, and ANGRY. Angry at the fool who had woken it from unexistence, angry at the man who had forced it to life, but above all, angry at the man who had sought to destroy it.


Realising the sheer grandeur of his mistake, the necromancer fled in terror, diving into the sea, and taking control of a long-dead leviathan he had been planning to use in the ship, but never found how. Bringing it to life and fleeing with it across the skies, he thought to be safe so long as he never came back to sea. But again, he had miscalculated, and manipulating the vast power he had forced into it, the ship took to the skies in pursuit.

Ever since that day the tales speak of the ship made of bone, and the rotted leviathan it pursues through the sky. None know yet what the ship will do the day it catches the necromancer who offended and birthed it, but the corruption and dread tales it leaves in its wake are enough for people to wish that they be long dead before that day comes to pass.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm#magicItemDescriptions
Caster level doesn't mean magic items can cast spells if they're intelligent.

>>4266462
>>4266468
Most awesome back story so far.

>>4266450
dang, I was imagining a party walking along and suddenly fireballs everywhere

The ship also takes on passengers; the desperate, the foolish, and the mad. They pay for passage, for the ship will, one day, pass every port of the world, at every time of the world, and one can reach any destination, no matter how long lost, and the ship will keep the passengers alive until that day.

The price? Until the ship reaches your destination you can never leave, never step foot ashore, never leave its baleful influence. You will survive the journey, body intact. Your mind, and your soul, are other questions entirely.

And nobody even dares whisper of what happens to stowaways.

>>4266236
>>4266484
You sound like the same twisted individual

>>4266525
That does look like the same guy.
Why does he hate the party so much?

>>4266525
yes, yes I am

This is why you're the best board /tg/. Shine on, you crazy diamond.

>>4266525
Not even fun twisted, like BvES, but "pretend I'm a pyromaniac" twisted.

On topic: Has this always been a pirate ship, or was it repurposed for pirating? Similarly, has it always been sentient?

>>4266525
Although, the fireball mess probably would be something like " the ship can shoot magic missile out of brass statues erected on the ship,"
Maybe something that shows that they are inside of a sentient and mad ship floating through the air that wants them dead

>>4266610
maybe the ship wouldn't even be able to do anything to you, but the crew will always know where your party is, or the ship is a non-euclidian piece of work, and your party could spend years walking through the same halls

>>4266604
y'know I'm not usually a guy who does the "rocks fall you die" kinda thing. I'm more of the guy who treats D&D like a chess game, all the moves count for me. "oh you let one of the robbers go, huh? Well he was slowly driven mad by seeing his buddies tossed around like ragdolls because of your wizard, and wants to remove all the magic from the world, and, the funny thing is, his plan would work."

Place in the world:
Develop at least 9 constellations for your world(one being the leviathan and another being the ship). Give each and every one a small myth behind it and drop them into your world explanation folder.
Every so often have them of them invoked by NPCs in reference to the time of year, as an explanation of direction, maybe as a curse, maybe develop cults around others.

Those that see the ship and/or the leviathan are taken for mad, thought to be godtouched, or simply assumed to have been dreaming. But it comes up in a porttown or bar as a "I'm-drunk-enough-to-tell-you-a-secret" story. I'm not sure how it would enter into the campaign afterwards, but there would be some lore to go on for the sake of knowledge checks(IC) and foreshadowing(OOC).

Aww man, is this thread in autosage?
Well it's been a good one, now this thread will sail off to the uncharted area of past page ten.

>>4266751
No, way? really?
Oh, shit.

This is still /tg/. The thread won't go for hours and it'll still be archived.

Besides, I can't really think of much more that needs expanding.

>>4266768
I guess...

>>4265939
do you think after this I should do more of a Herculean "do 12 tasks for me and get my magic book" style stuff, or just a bossfight?

I don't usually drawfag but I had to draw something. This concept is AMAZING and I'm definitely using it for a campaign.

>>4263251
>>4265665
Also, I stole your sails cause I don't know anything about ships :/ I apologize.

>>4267265
Where did all these people that can draw come from?
Back in my day there was only like 4 people who could draw in the entire country.

>>4267265 eh, i ripped off google for a ref since i didn't either. the ironic part is yours looks more like the pic i reffed for the sails than mine....
>>4267410
it's the awesome, it brings us out.