Airships

Airships are not rare curiosities in Apocalyptica Arcanum. They are working machines, built from timber, brass, iron, and shard-craft compromises, and they sit at the crossroads of commerce, war, and crime. If you can pay for hydrogas and keep the hull patched, you can go places no road can reach and you can do it fast.

This page covers two things:

• In-world primer: what airships are, who owns them, and how people treat them
• At-the-table mechanics: how crews run them in play using the vehicle stat blocks

Most airships stay aloft via Hydrogas balloons, Shardisite-based enchantments, or both. Hydrogas is a lighter-than-air combustible fuel held in one or more reinforced tanks and gas cells aboard the ship. Hydrogas is efficient and widely used, but it is also volatile. Every airship captain knows the same rule: fire is not a problem, it is the end of the conversation.

Hydrogas does two jobs:

• Provides primary lift via filled balloons or envelopes
• Provides power for onboard systems

Hydrogas is the airship’s lifeblood and its biggest weakness. When reserves run low, ships lose buoyancy and settle toward the surface. Most captains treat fuel planning like religion. Fire aboard a hydrogas ship is always treated as an emergency. Even small flames prompt panic, hard choices, and desperate damage control. This keeps airship encounters tense without bogging down into accounting.

Even a modest vessel represents serious capital as well as upward mobility in the world. Ownership or even stewardship usually means one of these is true:

• Someone is wealthy
• Someone is sponsored
• Someone is in debt
• Someone stole it

A ship in the sky feels like power, and power always produces rumors.

Airships are run like vehicles with their own turns, but they still rely on people. The core idea is simple: The ship is a monster stat block that needs crew actions to function. You do not roleplay every rope pull. You assign roles, declare actions, and resolve outcomes fast.

Airships operate in 3D space. In most fights, track:

• Range (close, medium, long)
• Relative altitude (below, level, above)
• Bearing (ahead, broadside, aft)
• Speed state (cruising, sprinting, braking, stalled)

Use of maps can be helpful, but this system is designed to be intuitive and simple so that you can run airship combat entirely in the theatre of the mind.

The airship rolls initiative and takes its own turn. Crew still take their own turns as normal.

The ship can only take actions if crew members have readied the relevant ship action on their turns. That means a typical round looks like this:

1. Crew turns: each crew member either fights normally or readies a ship action
2. Ship turn: the ship spends up to its allowed number of actions, consuming the readied crew efforts

This prevents “free ship actions” and keeps the ship from outshining the party. It also makes sabotage and casualties matter.

If you expect the ship to fire weapons or maneuver during combat you must have a character in the appropriate location (helm, steering wheel, controls, mounted weapon, etc..). A single character can sometimes cover multiple roles, but it gets risky and almost impossible in a large vessel. The two primary roles aboard an airship are the Pilot and the Gunner. Other roles exist and are vessel-specific.

Non-player characters can perform all of the following tasks but it will be at GM discretion what actions are taken by those NPCs.

Pilot

• Uses their movement to maneuver the ship on their turn
• While actively piloting, they have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks
• Melee attacks against the pilot have advantage

Gunner

• Crews a mounted gun
• Readies “Fire” or “Reload” for the ship on their turn
• If proficient with firearms, the gunner adds their proficiency bonus to attack rolls made with mounted guns. Class features that apply to firearm attacks may apply to mounted weapons at the GM’s discretion.

Other roles aboard an airship may include but are not limited to:

Engineer

• Manages damage control, rigging, and mechanical/alchemical/arcane systems
• Can be used to justify improvised actions: sealing ruptures, stabilizing lift, rerouting power, jury-rigging controls

Spotter

• Calls targets, ranges, and threats
• Often uses Perception, Investigation, or tools
• Great for granting advantage, negating disadvantage from weather, or identifying weak points

You do not need a formal rules sub-system for each role. Use these as table language so everyone knows what “help the ship” means.

Most airships can take multiple actions on their turn, up to the maximum listed in their stat block. However, they may only take as many actions as have been readied by the crew.

Common airship actions include:

• Move (fly speed listed on stat block)
• Dash
• Mounted weapons (gatling guns, cannons, ballistae)
• Reload weapons
• Ram (see below)
• Special systems (magical weapons, lightning systems, experimental drives)

If an action exists on the ship sheet, a crew member must ready it to enable it.

Mounted weapons are powerful, but they have constraints:

• They require a crew member stationed at the weapon
• They require a readied ship action
• They often require a reload action between shots, depending on the weapon

If the gunner is proficient with firearms, they add their proficiency bonus to the mounted weapon’s attack rolls. Class features and abilities that apply to firearm attacks may also apply to mounted weapons at the GM’s discretion.

Piloting uses the pilot’s movement to move the ship. This is intentionally abstract. It keeps ship movement tied to a character, not free-floating on the ship’s turn.

At the table:

• The pilot declares direction, altitude change, and intent
• The ship’s movement is applied as a repositioning effect
• If the pilot is disrupted, the ship becomes predictable and vulnerable

If you use proficiency systems like airship proficiency, let it matter on:

• Risky maneuvers
• Ramming accuracy
• Weather navigation
• Preventing stalls and capsizes

If the airship is moving and the pilot leaves the helm or becomes incapacitated, the ship continues on its current speed and heading until acted upon by an outside force. The GM determines the outcome based on environmental conditions and the encounter.

Ramming is not a casual option. It is a desperate gambit with unforgiving consequences.

• Ram! Melee Attack: 1 target. Hit: (damage listed in ship's stat block) bludgeoning damage to both the target and this ship. While this ship is flying and moves more than half of its movement speed to ram, it can make a melee attack against the first object in its path. If this ship's pilot has an airship proficiency, they may add their proficiency bonus to the attack roll.

Use ramming when someone is desperate, reckless, or certain the target is softer than the hull.

Most ships have at least one anchor and that opens up some mechanical options:

• Emergency Brake!: As a reaction, a crewman at the anchor release may drop the anchor. The anchor falls straight down from the starboard bow for 120ft. Any creature below it must make a DEX12 saving throw to jump out of the way or be hit and take 8d10 bludgeoning damage. If the anchor falls its full distance through the air hitting nothing, and is still attached to the ship, it is ripped from its mount and this ship capsizes for a round. Anyone standing topside must succeed a DC20 saving throw or be thrown overboard.
• Cut 'er Loose!: As a reaction, a crewman at the starboard bow may pull the pin freeing the anchor chain from its mount.

When reduced to 0 hit points, an airship does not simply “die.” It crashes. The nature of that crash depends on altitude, speed, structural integrity, and fuel state. The GM determines whether it spirals, descends uncontrolled, breaks apart midair, or detonates in a hydrogas fireball.

Airships rarely operate at full efficiency while heavily damaged. As an airship loses hit points, the GM may impose narrative and mechanical consequences appropriate to the damage sustained. These may include reduced speed, loss of lift, disabled weapons, ruptured gas cells, jammed controls, uncontrolled drift, electrical failures, spreading fire, or exposed crew.

Airship combat is not a static exchange of attacks. It is an unfolding environmental hazard in motion. Decks tilt. Rigging snaps. Fires spread. Crew are thrown from their feet. Falling debris becomes shrapnel. A wounded vessel becomes increasingly unpredictable.

The goal is not granular simulation, but escalation. The lower the hull integrity, the more unstable the situation becomes. By the time an airship reaches 0 hit points, the fight should already have shifted from victory to surviving the crash.