How to make a living ship

[molten_dragon]

For an upcoming campaign, I'm interested in a particular NPC having a ship that is alive. I picture living wood, vines instead of rigging, the masts looking more like tree trunks, and the sails looking like sheets of leaves. I intend for it to be intelligent as well.

Now I could of course just say that's what it is with no further explanation, but I'm wondering if there's any way to do this (or close to it).

Animate objects at CL 32 + permanency + awaken construct would give an intelligent construct ship, but it would still be dead wood and rope.

Anyone got any better ideas?

[Yuki Akuma]

There is actually a special material called Livewood, which is... living wood, but I have no idea where it is.

Alternatively, expose the awakened animate ship to Incarnum and give it the Incarnum Construct template, so now it's Construct (Living).

[JeminiZero]

Livewood is from Eberron Campaign Setting.

There is also Incarnate Construct from Savage Species which *technically* only works on humanoid shaped constructs. Which suggests that if you had a man-shaped animated ship, it might work on it.

Edi: Livewood means that the tree is still alive, but stops growing. As such, it can be used to support Dryads (and possibly other similiar tree-dependent creatures). So that a Livewood tree can have Dryad crew/guardians.

[Serpentine]

One of the Dragon Magazines gave stats etc for the liveships from the Robin Hobb books. I can't remember which magazine it was - you'll be able to look it up - but I think it'd be a good start. The tree trunks, vines, etc can be fluffed in.

[Asheram]

Edi: Livewood means that the tree is still alive, but stops growing. As such, it can be used to support Dryads (and possibly other similiar tree-dependent creatures). So that a Livewood tree can have Dryad crew/guardians.

Thank you for a new plot for my campaign. :smallbiggrin:

[The Gilded Duke]

I think an awakened Livewood Ship would be the way to go. Livewood itself would give it the ability to be targeted by healing spells and the like. Awaken would make it into a plant creature, with decent mental scores (3d6), and stats like an animated object of its size (except a plant with mentals). Also, if you want to make the ship really awesome, you could always have a maximized awakened cast upon it for all 18s, or even make it a Maximized Empowered Awakened (likely using a rod), for even higher mental abilities.

I think the thing would get feats too, although awaken doesn't mention it. You might have to do retraining or some other method to get it the feats it should have from its hit dice. The ship itself would be quite scary, assuming a colossal size ship you would have 32 Hit Dice to play with. Sadly animated objects dont list a water movement speed, although you could perhaps use whatever speed the ship has conventionally. Your skill points as a plant aren't that great (int would help) I imagine most of them would be in profession sailor and knowledge geography. As far as feats go, I think you would get the best results with Incarnum and Tome of Battle feats.

Lastly, as far as costs go... I don't think this thing would be too expensive. A livewood item costs 1.5x the normal price of an item. A livewood Cog would only cost 9,000 gp. A maximized awaken would probably cost 1530 + 1250 gp, for a total price of 11,780. If you want to go with a full psychic reformation to choose feats and skills for the new ship, it looks like that would cost 8,000 gp for the manifester xp cost, and the ship would lose 1,600 xp. The base power cost would be 280 gp.

20060 gp total. The living ship would still end up cheaper then many of the other ships out there.

[Larkas]

Just a heads up: Awaken Construct don't normally work on Animated Objects -- even Permanent ones. They can still be dispelled, and as such, only temporary constructs (even though they can go on forever unless dispelled). Awaken on an oddly shaped tree could work, anyways.

[Ravens_cry]

Just a heads up: Awaken Construct don't normally work on Animated Objects -- even Permanent ones. They can still be dispelled, and as such, only temporary constructs (even though they can go on forever unless dispelled). Awaken on an oddly shaped tree could work, anyways.
Actually, I am pretty thankful you can not.
"Hey, I am alive, and I can talk and stuff! Wow, this life stuff is great!
Wait ,that spell caster is casting a spell, I wonder what it doe . . ."
Yeah, that's . . .just a little freaky.:smalleek:

[Matticussama]

Awaken on an oddly shaped tree could work, anyways.

Or Polymorph Any Object to reshape the Tree into a ship-shaped tree, then Awaken it afterwards. Since it can effect one nonmagical object of up to 100 cu. ft./level, you could make a pretty large tree ship to be awakened.

[The Viscount]

If you want, you can use the Elsewhale from Manual of the Planes. Not quite a ship, but it's alive and can carry passengers.
Manual of the Planes also gives stats for a Living Astral Ship, if that's more what you're looking for.

[Larkas]

Also, it might be nice to look up Spelljammer. Specifically, THE Spelljammer.

[Ravens_cry]

Or Polymorph Any Object to reshape the Tree into a ship-shaped tree, then Awaken it afterwards. Since it can effect one nonmagical object of up to 100 cu. ft./level, you could make a pretty large tree ship to be awakened.
I like that idea. There would be a room in the hold where the roots go into a bed of soil and leaves growing on branches all over the deck, the sails may even be leaves, but it could work.

[Darth Stabber]

Carve a ship from stone.

Cast stone to flesh.

Casr animate dead.

Not a living ship, but close. Kinda gross and squishy though.

[molten_dragon]

Thanks for all the cool ideas guys. I think I'm going to go the route of awakening a ship made of livewood. That gets pretty close to what I need, and I can fluff the rest.