I was originally thinking that there are not airships, or at least not yet, since that might throw off my town geography. Unless… what if there were more caves? Or just that there are limitations to the ships… mostly that big haulers are bulky and ungainly. Gee, what a surprise. Dealing with the smaller ones, though… How to handle them with defenses?
The normal propulsion is slow. That's the key. There are airships, but while it can get them fairly fast eventually, the acceleration is slow. The bigger the ship the slower for one propulsion, of course, but bigger ships can have a number of them (always a tradeoff between the amount of cargo space and space dedicated to propulsion). That means that the small ones, with one propulsion unit (which I'll have to name sometime, or ID at least) aren't much faster than a walk, and someone at a fast trot could overtake it. On the other hand, a quiet one at night…
So there should be some way for the ships to be detected, probably by means of the propulsion. I would like the propulsion to be silent to human ears, but emitting something that detectors can pick up when the ship is within a mile or so. This will allow fortresses to be alert against airship raids, to the amount necessary anyway. Until they realize some of the things I'm thinking up. However, if even the fastest of the airships doesn't get much faster than, say, 30 mph after a good run-up, that means that an archer should be able to shoot them down if necessary, and pre-mounted ballistas or something like that should be able to make short work of all but the hardiest blimps (those would be made by armies, of course, as siege weapons).
This means that airships also travel high for as much as they can, in order to avoid piracy. After all, if the pirate can't reach them with hooks, then they can't catch the ship except in fairly unusual circumstances (that should make the pilot or captain uneasy about doing, for that very reason).
I'm thinking there could be other situations that someone might be able to accelerate an airship more quickly than expected. A rope/pulley system, for example, if there is someplace it could be anchored to. I wonder if there's some other propulsive method that could be used for short term and light ships, something like a fire extinguisher in space, along those lines. Perhaps pressurized water? Or maybe by burning out the aether accelerators (good for a long slow burn, used up too quickly for a short blast).
Um, more airship thinking: They are most vulnerable for the loading/unloading parts (also known as landings)... and also near those landings. That should play into the world a little bit, I think. The way I consider it, there would have to be pirates trying to take the airships, but on the other hand there would have to be defenses against that. The best defense is height, but the airships give that up for landings. Therefore, the pirates are likely to be the biggest danger during the landings. Not immediately at them, but hiding close by. It would be a risky business, because presumably the landings are also where the most powerful people, the ones who are able to maintain their own armies, would be looking out for things. So I think there would probably be specific troops designated for patrolling for pirates, and also probably a crack team or two dedicated to getting out and attacking the pirates when they appear. Of course, their appearance could be a bluff, etc., especially when more than one airship is nearby.
A pirate's best hope to take an airship would be to take control of it and fly it away from those who would resist them doing so. That might mean trickery at times, though the more straightforward and risky plan is grappling hooks as it goes by, followed by a quick climb and a fight at the top. If they succeed, they have it and are presumably so high up that nobody else will be able to catch them. If they fail, they die (or at least are mangled by the drop to the ground).
I can think of a couple ways of working this in. The first is to have those troops patrolling around the vicinity whenever there is an airship coming in or leaving, and I think that those may start to be more frequent around the time period this starts. The other would be to have the priest mention intentionally not finding and healing those who drop from the sky, as opposed to the MC (whom I really need to name and write up a character sheet on). Possibly due to the morals of the priest/shaman in that the pirates chose a life of crime and fighting for their own gain, and therefore chose to accept the chance this would happen. The MC, on the other hand, had it forced upon her, and could therefore both be healed, and be taught the ways of fighting back.
Um, more airship thinking: They are most vulnerable for the loading/unloading parts (also known as landings)... and also near those landings. That should play into the world a little bit, I think. The way I consider it, there would have to be pirates trying to take the airships, but on the other hand there would have to be defenses against that. The best defense is height, but the airships give that up for landings. Therefore, the pirates are likely to be the biggest danger during the landings. Not immediately at them, but hiding close by. It would be a risky business, because presumably the landings are also where the most powerful people, the ones who are able to maintain their own armies, would be looking out for things. So I think there would probably be specific troops designated for patrolling for pirates, and also probably a crack team or two dedicated to getting out and attacking the pirates when they appear. Of course, their appearance could be a bluff, etc., especially when more than one airship is nearby.
A pirate's best hope to take an airship would be to take control of it and fly it away from those who would resist them doing so. That might mean trickery at times, though the more straightforward and risky plan is grappling hooks as it goes by, followed by a quick climb and a fight at the top. If they succeed, they have it and are presumably so high up that nobody else will be able to catch them. If they fail, they die (or at least are mangled by the drop to the ground).
I can think of a couple ways of working this in. The first is to have those troops patrolling around the vicinity whenever there is an airship coming in or leaving, and I think that those may start to be more frequent around the time period this starts. The other would be to have the priest mention intentionally not finding and healing those who drop from the sky, as opposed to the MC (whom I really need to name and write up a character sheet on). Possibly due to the morals of the priest/shaman in that the pirates chose a life of crime and fighting for their own gain, and therefore chose to accept the chance this would happen. The MC, on the other hand, had it forced upon her, and could therefore both be healed, and be taught the ways of fighting back.
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