The Skeleton Ship is a spelljamming ship built and used by the undead.[1][2]
Description[]
Some undead raiders have been spotted using the skeletons of gargantuan creatures as ships. The statistics of these ships naturally vary depending on the creature used, but a version built from a typical kindori skeleton is given here, since these are the most common Skeleton Ships. Intact and usable radiant dragon skeletons are rare, and even then are usually missing portions of the tail and wing bones. What is left usually makes a ship around 10-11 tons in size. Skeleton Ships created from other creatures are even more rare, but there have been reports of a massive Skeleton Ship made from the bones of a stellar dragon. This huge, snake-like ship is reported to be approximately 100 tons in size. The bones of Skeleton Ships are usually bound together with magical spells, allowing for strength and flexibility at the joints, but some of these ships are seen in which the bones have simply been lashed or wired together.
Crew[]
The crew sizes given are for human-sized air-breathing creatures. Undead have no such limitation, and as many as can hold on to the Skeleton Ship may come along, to a practical maximum of about 100, but most crews are closer to 20-30 strong. A typical crew may consist of a vampire, lich, or mummy captain (or in some rare cases a skeleton or zombie), served by 1-2 wights or ghasts, 2-5 ghouls or zombies, and 4-24 skeletons. Many ships have no ghouls or ghasts, but those which do tend to raid more frequently than other ships, since the ghouls need flesh for sustenance. A few Skeleton Ships have recently been encountered crewed by those rare undead known as true ghouls. These ships seem to belong to a unified nation of ghouls, although the exact location of this nation is unknown, since the ships so far encountered seem to be advance scouts.
Ship Uses[]
Piracy: Undead pirates use these vessels to plunder and raid, mounting one ballista in the jawbones of the skeleton, and the other on its spine. The helm is supported by the belly-ribs. Often the helm of such a ship will be a lifejammer, in which case captives will be kept as fuel, often tied to a rib with all of their joints broken to prevent them from struggling.
Personal Yacht: On occasion, liches may be encountered who have little interest in living creatures (except as a source of spell components, new spells, and magic items). Their crews may attack living spacefarers to gain magical treasures, or they may ignore them unless attacked. It is usually impossible to guess the motives of the liches who captain these yachts.
Other Configurations[]
Firebomb: Some goblinkin have sought to load kindori skeletons with greek fire or other incendiary loads, and launch them as mobile rams when attacking bases and fleets. This works except that the targets can readily see what is coming at them, and can often cause the fragile ships to break apart before they get near.
Appendix[]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Ed Greenwood, SJR1 Lost Ships, 1990, (TSR Inc.), Ship Catalog chapter, pages 60-61 and 63
- ↑ Dale "Slade" Henson, War Captain's Companion, Ship Recognition Manual, 1992, (TSR Inc.), Ships of the Spelljammer Universe, page 42