3.5e Custom Airship

[ILM]

I'm thinking about introducing an airship in my setting. I know I always have the option of lifting something straight from Eberron, but I had something more exotic in mind: an effigy enchanted to fly. This seems to be nothing new, but I’m stumped on two aspects - for the moment!
- Assuming a non-epic caster and no extreme CL shenanigans, I can get an effigy of up to 20, 25 HD. With Circle Magic, possibly up to 40. However, even Colossal creatures occupy a space of no more than 60 ft, which is less than I was hoping for. I’d need at least 100 feet, so something like Colossal +++ or whatever. I’m tickled by a magical, flying construct Giant Squid (alternatively, Cachalot Whale) but how do I get it to that size?
- How do I then enchant it to fly?

[Trasilor]

Say a wizard did it...

But seriously, I assume that you are running this game, therefore you can do whatever you want.

For instance, the Eberron Air Ships bound elementals to the ship to make them fly. How? They (the authors) made up spells to this. Its your world, you do the same.

Or, just make a a 250+ft flying squid and forget the mechanics. I always feel that one should never let mechanics get in the way of a good story.

If the PCs press you on how it flys, you can either say its an artifact and the spells and incantations used to create this have been lost. If they continue to press, you can make an adventure out of it.

[Gavinfoxx]

Getting it Aloft Options:

Option 1:

That Flying Ship in the Forgotten Realms book "Shining South"

Pros: Traditional to FR. Looks like a ship -- A Wondrous Item!
Cons: Needs a Huge Crew. Wooden, and normal wood even. Expensive. Slow. Looks like a ship... uses Wind Power to move. Utterly vulnerable to natural antimagic area. Also vulnerable to attack.

Option 2:

Eberron Style Flying Ships -- a Wondrous Item, uses alchemically treated "Soarwood", and a bound elemental in a ring. In the core eberron book.

Pros: Fast. Traditional to Eberron. Relatively Inexpensive. Lighter than Air -- will float, even in an antimagic area.
Cons: That type of elemental binding likely isn't ethical. That type of elemental binding also needs a specific feat at high level. Soarwood isn't too terribly durable. Locomotion doesn't work in a natural antimagic area, just the floating. Probably needs a crew too

Option 3: Enchanting a Stronghold Space using the Stronghold Builder's Guide rules

Pros: Can be made of lots of interesting materials--not necessarily wood! Gives movement for interplanar options. Can be quite fast. Gives swimming/earthgliding/etc options, great!
Cons: If you use these rules for the main way of doing locomotion, then the price starts adding up real quick. Very vulnerable to a natural antimagic area.

Option 4: Making the ship an Effigy (From complete arcane, I believe)

Pros: Self Locomotion! Can follow orders! Can look like an animal or wyvern with added hit dice (and thus size) or whatever! Can fly on it's own power! It can fly and move about in antimagic area!
Cons: Has a low number of hit points, so it can be 'killed' with direct hit point damage. Arguably not a con -- most of the rules for vehicles have them with low hit points anyway for some reason, and it might manage to get a hardness from those. It's not necessarily a 'smart' ship at this point. Will need to flap it's wings to stay aloft. Might need some house rules to get the right form of an effigy -- making it so much bigger than say, a Wyvern, might require DM intervention. Will need silly template stacking to not be too vulnerable. Might be targeted by intimidated people (AHH ITS A WYVERN AHHH!!).

Option 5: Using the actual spell in Shining South that is the basis of their ships, maybe in a Spell Clock or a Repeating Trap
Pros: Really, Really cheap. I mean, a spell clock or repeating trap or whatever of this would be RIDICULOUSLY cheap. Can get very large amounts of weight aloft. Did I mention cheap?
Cons: Suppressed in an area of natural antimagic. It requires spells to be actively cast, either by a person activating a wondrous item, or casting the spell from their list, or pulling a lever for the trap, or a Spell Clock automatically casting it. Doesn't provide locomotion!

Option 6: Nautiloid
Pro: Flies like a champ. Can leave the atmosphere.
Cons: I don't know where the 3.5e rules for these are. Needs a spellcaster as a full time helmsman

Option 7: Gate Zeppelin from Planar Handbook
Pros: mundane flight and propulsion, can hover, can Gate to another plane 1/day
Cons: slow and big targets. getting a good place to set down is difficult.

Locomotion Options not part of the above:

Option 1: Get some tireless flying creature to pull it

Pro: You get a few flying effigies or flying mindless undead to pull your swank flying boat! Awesome! They can keep it moving in an antimagic field, cool!
Con: They can be targeted, and are vulnerable. Also the cables or ropes connecting them to the ship can be targeted. Also, having separate creatures from the ship providing movement to it gives miscellaneous problems of their own.

Option 2: Decanter of Endless Water + Riverine Nozzle + Permanent Wall of Fire

Pro: THRUST. LOTS AND LOTS of thrust. Like, if you do things right, Jet engine thrust level! You can call it a PLASMA DRIVE!

Con: You are spewing lots of water (or steam, or plasma, or whatever if you added some bits to it to heat it) behind you. This might upset people / the weather / the Druid / certain creatures. Suppressed in Antimagic area. Also, someone generally has to interact with this item to get it to do stuff. Also, problems with aiming the thrust.

Option 3: Sails
Pro: Already in most settings. Cheap. Work in antimagic area.
Con: Can't generally go faster than the wind, not sturdy. Might require stormwrack rules

Option 4: Using some perpetual motion machine (there are a bunch that can be made with D&D spells) to move a propeller
Pro: Can be relatively fast
Con: Easily damaged, won't work in antimagic area. Might need the heat metal / cool metal thing, or any of the other perpetual motion machines.

Option 5 (part of the first section): The whole thing is an Effigy, like an upsized Wyvern Effigy
Pro: It can move pretty fast and maneuver! It can fly without Suspension!
Con: Cons shown in getting it aloft section

Option 6:
Frostfire Engine from Frostburn. Lightning Turbine from Arms & Equipment Guide or Cloudkeel from Arms & Equipment Guide
Pros: I dont know these that well
Cons: Expensive as all heck

Option 7: Dragonfly Longship from Dragon Magazine #331
Pros: I dont know this that well
Cons: I dont know this that well

Option 8: Make a Soarwhale into a Zombie. Hollow it out
Pro: You are flying in an undead zombie whale blimp
Con: You are flying in an undead zombie whale blimp. Also the massive amount of HD means that you need to use something without a HD cap, like elixir of the unfailing servant or something.

Getting it Intelligence

Option 1: Haunt Shift

Pro: An easy way to get it intelligence.
Con: Evil, uses negative energy. Makes it, you know, haunted. Might not always let the inhabiting spirit have full control over everything. Requires some intelligent undead to start with. To bypass these issues (ie, get a Deathless / positive energy version), will need LOTS of DM Fiat / Custom spell research / questing. Probably supressed in antimagic. From a fairly oboscure source book (Libris Mortis I think?)

Option 2: Embedding a Sentient Magic Item in the structure/workings somewhere

Pro: Fairly easy to accomplish. Gives it Sentience.
Con: Will probably only work well with the Effigy version, and only if there's some way to link the commands of the magic item to what the Effigy does. Might not give it control over all the ancillary aspects of the ship, unless it has access to lots of unseen servants / mage hand / etc. sorts of things. Probably supressed in Antimagic.

Option 3: For the constructs, use Rudimentary Intelligence from Dragon Magazine #327.
Pro. Fairly easy to accomplish. Animal intelligence. Doesn't require humanoid constructs, unlike the feat alternative (yay!)
Con: Somewhat expensive!

[mint]

My DMG puts Colossal space at 30 ft. or more. Anything over gargantuan is arbitrary isn't it?