Looking for ideas of cool 'living' ships. Some thoughts so far have been.
A Dracolich reformed into the shape of a boat before having the soul infused. It hates the crew but is magically bound to obey (to some extent).
A giant mimic. Probably has a giant toothy mouth on the prow, which is also probably where you board it from.
A Hive ship, which is to say a hive of large ants or formians act as a maintenance system of some kind.
A Dragonfly with sweet looking solar sail dragonfly wings.
Tried this in general with no responses so maybe folks have ideas here.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Depending on how sentient you want the ship to be, do you want it to be a major story hook, and whether it's an ally or enemy to the adventurers, here's a few ideas that popped up into my head immediately. These are partially inspired by movies/video games and I'll mention them as well. For the my part, I think the most awesome "living" ship would be a ship that isn't identifiable as nothing more than a ship. Only by investigating the ship more thoroughly would it become evident that the ship is alive.
The ship itself isn't alive in a way that it can communicate with anybody, but it doesn't function at all without an "engine". A sailor's soul must be trapped inside the ship inside a suitable container (whether it's a chest, a jar, a magical cage...). Kind of like in PotC the Flying Dutchman "must have a captain", so Davy Jones' heart is locked in a chest. Except in this case the captain doesn't matter, but the ship itself needs the soul. Without the soul, the sails won't fill, the steering wheel does nothing, the anchor doesn't drop, etc. It just drifts until a soul is offered. And a soul can be freed from it with a magic ritual. This could be used as a story hook either way: the adventurers need to free the soul or need to insert a soul. This is somewhat similar to your dracolich boat idea.
A ship that doubles as a giant hermit crab's (or similar) shell. The ship sails as normally, but upon reaching the shore, the crab rolls out and starts walking on land.
The ship is actually controlled by an other entity. It appears as a drifting sailboat in the sea, but when someone boards it, the ship is uncontrollable and it takes the sailors to the creature's lair.
A not-quite-mimic-but-still-kinda-mimic ship that appears as a ship in distress, luring sailors nearby in hopes of treasure or helping other sailors. Upon contact, it grabs hold of the ship and wraps it in tentacles/vines where it attempts to crush the ship.
There are many ways to do this which you can steal from other media. The main thing to address is what is the point of the ship being alive?
(Stargate) One of the main enemy civilizations have living fleshy ships but they behave identical to a normal ship and the only point is atmosphere: having pulsing veins criss crossing the ceiling creates much more body horror than a regular ship.
(Farscape) The main characters have a living sentient ship which creates multiple conflicts for the party due to the ship disobeying or getting sick or giving birth.
(Andromeda) The main character's ship has a sentient AI computer system which act as an additional party member and makes it so that most of the characters don't need to learn how to run the ship, they just have to befriend the AI.
(2001: A Space Odyssey) Another sentient AI ship where the ship becomes the villain the main character has to try to overcome.
(Doctor Who) A ship built on top of a space-whale who is tortured into carrying it drives the ethical dilemma for an episode.
(Doctor Who) The main ship is non-verbal but sentient and similar to Farscape causes some plots by disobeying or getting sick, but is mostly for RP purposes.
(Andromeda) A sentient AI warship with PTSD is the plot for an entire episode.
The general ideas are:
you can have the ship be effectively an NPC that the party have to befriend and take care of or they will end up stranded or dead.
you can have the ship be a villain the party have to defeat.
you can have the ship be sympathetic but at odds with the party and create ethical dilemmas for them.
you can have the ship be sentient purely for atmosphere.
Thank you both so much, these look like wonderful fodder to feed some further ideas. Also such wonderful ways to integrate it further into the story.
I read some of this aloud to a friend and they just blurt out. "MAKE THE AI LIKE THE ROBOT FROM HITCHHIKERS GUIDE"! Now I am looking at some of the ideas of Ai ships and what if they have the personality of Marvin the depressed robot. With the idea of a soul bound to a ship that could make their sadness very meaningful, not just silly.
On the flying Dutchman, perhaps it still is There must always be a captain and ship seeks out a new one when the old passes. Perhaps the ship is not entirely benign and feeds off the crew in some way. Slowly siphoning their life force, or it just tends to get its crew dead. May have used a cabin boy for the bound soul last time. Like they make mistakes at crucial moments like forgetting to pull up anchor when they need to run.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
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Looking for ideas of cool 'living' ships. Some thoughts so far have been.
A Dracolich reformed into the shape of a boat before having the soul infused. It hates the crew but is magically bound to obey (to some extent).
A giant mimic. Probably has a giant toothy mouth on the prow, which is also probably where you board it from.
A Hive ship, which is to say a hive of large ants or formians act as a maintenance system of some kind.
A Dragonfly with sweet looking solar sail dragonfly wings.
Tried this in general with no responses so maybe folks have ideas here.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Depending on how sentient you want the ship to be, do you want it to be a major story hook, and whether it's an ally or enemy to the adventurers, here's a few ideas that popped up into my head immediately. These are partially inspired by movies/video games and I'll mention them as well. For the my part, I think the most awesome "living" ship would be a ship that isn't identifiable as nothing more than a ship. Only by investigating the ship more thoroughly would it become evident that the ship is alive.
The ship itself isn't alive in a way that it can communicate with anybody, but it doesn't function at all without an "engine". A sailor's soul must be trapped inside the ship inside a suitable container (whether it's a chest, a jar, a magical cage...). Kind of like in PotC the Flying Dutchman "must have a captain", so Davy Jones' heart is locked in a chest. Except in this case the captain doesn't matter, but the ship itself needs the soul. Without the soul, the sails won't fill, the steering wheel does nothing, the anchor doesn't drop, etc. It just drifts until a soul is offered. And a soul can be freed from it with a magic ritual. This could be used as a story hook either way: the adventurers need to free the soul or need to insert a soul. This is somewhat similar to your dracolich boat idea.
A ship that doubles as a giant hermit crab's (or similar) shell. The ship sails as normally, but upon reaching the shore, the crab rolls out and starts walking on land.
The ship is actually controlled by an other entity. It appears as a drifting sailboat in the sea, but when someone boards it, the ship is uncontrollable and it takes the sailors to the creature's lair.
A not-quite-mimic-but-still-kinda-mimic ship that appears as a ship in distress, luring sailors nearby in hopes of treasure or helping other sailors. Upon contact, it grabs hold of the ship and wraps it in tentacles/vines where it attempts to crush the ship.
There are many ways to do this which you can steal from other media. The main thing to address is what is the point of the ship being alive?
The general ideas are:
Thank you both so much, these look like wonderful fodder to feed some further ideas. Also such wonderful ways to integrate it further into the story.
I read some of this aloud to a friend and they just blurt out. "MAKE THE AI LIKE THE ROBOT FROM HITCHHIKERS GUIDE"! Now I am looking at some of the ideas of Ai ships and what if they have the personality of Marvin the depressed robot. With the idea of a soul bound to a ship that could make their sadness very meaningful, not just silly.
On the flying Dutchman, perhaps it still is There must always be a captain and ship seeks out a new one when the old passes. Perhaps the ship is not entirely benign and feeds off the crew in some way. Slowly siphoning their life force, or it just tends to get its crew dead. May have used a cabin boy for the bound soul last time. Like they make mistakes at crucial moments like forgetting to pull up anchor when they need to run.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."