Shipbuilding: This is the skill of designing and building ships. It allows a character to supervise the construction of professional-quality ships, whether they are made by muscle or by magic. The Shipbuilding skill will also let characters evaluate the ships they encounter, determine who built them and when, etc.
⛵ Racial Variants #
| Variant | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Dwarven | Iron-Clad Logic | Dwarves design ships like floating bunkers. They specialize in Heavy Plating and internal bracing. Their ships have 25% more “Hull Points” but move 10% slower due to the extreme weight. |
| Elven | Organic Hull-Weaving | Elves “sing” wood into shape. Their ships are often made from a single, seamless piece of timber or living coral. These vessels are Self-Healing; a successful Shipbuilding roll allows an Elven ship to “grow” back minor hull damage over 1d4 days. |
| Gnomish | Submersible Innovation | Gnomes are the only race to experiment with “Vertical Navigation.” They are +4 to design air-tight seals and ballast systems, allowing them to build vessels that can travel safely (if briefly) beneath the waves. |
| Orcish | Ram-Spike Engineering | Orcish ships are weapons first and vessels second. They use jagged iron protrusions and reinforced bows. In a naval collision, an Orc-built ship deals double damage to the enemy vessel while taking only half damage itself. |
🗺️ Regional Variants #
- The High-Imperial Shipwright (Metropolitan/Urban)
Trained in the massive dry-docks of the capital to build Galleons and War-Galleys.
- Specialty: Standardized Rigging. They build for efficiency. Their ships require 10% fewer crew members to operate because the layouts are logically optimized for professional sailors.
- The Jungle “Canoe-Carver” (Wilderness/Tropical)
In regions with massive rivers and mangroves, shipbuilding is about Draft and Weight.
- Specialty: Shallow-Water Displacement. They can design large boats that have an impossibly shallow “draft,” allowing them to navigate river systems that would ground any other vessel of the same size.
- The Archipelago Outrigger-Master (Coastal/Island)
Trained in the open-sea traditions of the deep blue.
- Specialty: Stability Mechanics. They are experts at “Outriggers” and “Double-Hulls.” Their ships are nearly impossible to capsize in high winds, granting a +4 bonus to the Piloting checks of anyone steering them through a storm.
- The Sky-Port Rigger (Flying Cities/High Altitude)
In campaigns with aerial ships, this skill applies to Lighter-than-Air hulls.
- Specialty: Aero-Structure. They understand wind-shear and lifting-gas containment. They can evaluate an aerial vessel to tell if its “lifting-core” is stable or if the hull is about to buckle under the atmospheric pressure of high altitudes.
🕵️ Ship Evaluation #
As per the rules, the skill allows for the evaluation of other vessels.
- The “History of the Hull”: A successful roll allows the character to identify a ship’s “Nationality” and “Purpose” (e.g., “This is a masquerading merchant ship; the hull-line proves it was built for naval combat in the Northern Kingdoms”).
- Detecting Faults: A character can spot “Sabotage” or “Dry-Rot” that a regular sailor would miss. On a roll made by 5 or more, they can identify the specific Weak Point of an enemy ship’s hull.
Design Tip: A character with both Shipbuilding and Engineering can design “Amphibious Fortifications”—structures built on the coast that can withstand both land-based sieges and the corrosive power of high-tide waves.
