Rank One:
Headquarters starts with the engine and two cars: cargo and stable cars.
Staff
Majordomo: promoting Lurch to this position.
Skilled (1): Doc Brown (Human Artificer) - Engineer and chief of maintenance.
Unskilled (2): Thelma (female Human/maid) and Louise (female Halfling/steward).
Base Cost 1,000 gp
Rank Two:
Features:
- Cosmetic: each car is built like normal buildings. Each is two stories with an occasional one having a dormer or small tower. The style and look vary from car to car based on function but they all have some kind of pitched roof with a flat walkway along the very top.
- Expansion: 3 new cars added - tavern, first-class & galley car.
- Transportation: The train ‘hovers’ 10 feet above the ground on a storm cloud. It can travel easily at 15 miles per hour. When climbing elevations, crossing liquids or ‘Rough Terrain’, its speed is reduced to 1/3 its normal speed. Once per day it can create a ‘tunnel’ to another plane as if the spell Plane Shift.
- Weapon: The Storm Cloud can create one of three spell effects: Lightning Bolt, Shocking Grasp and Thunderwave. The Storm Train can use Shocking Grasp at will when someone touches any part of it’s exterior. It can use Thunderwave once per turn and Lightning Bolt once every other turn.
Staff:
Trained (1): Maranda (female Hobgoblin/bard).
Untrained (4): Carrie (Warforged/cargo loader), Ruggar (keg robot/bartender), Mr. Puck (animated stove/cook), & Kriv Longseer (male Dragonborn/footman).
Crew: 10 (10 total)
Rank Three:
Features:
- Arcane: More than half the crew and wait staff are constructs of various types. Some, like the Warforged & Keg Robot are humanoid when others look more like clockwork pieces of furniture with arms. Any member of the party can spend an action to command one or more staff members.
- Defensive: Every door in on the train is locked via the Arcane Lock spell. Doors to the caboose and sensitive areas (cargo, stable and engine) are concealed with illusions to appear as walls. Crew, staff and Doorkickers may open them freely but passengers are given keys while onboard so they can move about. Besides opening their assigned sleeping compartment, they allow the passenger to travel between the passenger and tavern cars. First-class passenger’s keys also let them enter the first-class car. If a passenger wishes to go anywhere else, they must always be escorted.
- Franchise Choice (Expansion): Six new cars - caboose as well as library, crew, cargo, passenger, and workshop cars.
Staff:
Trained (2): Balus Runehurd (female Half-orc/blacksmith) & Walter O’Brian (male Human/chief).
Untrained (8): Maude Garrett (female High Elven/librarian), Roddik Term (male Dwarven/stable boy), Thardo Berto (male gnome/footman), Agas Gere (female Human/maid), Grillock Sins (male Lizardman/matradee), Raz on Duel (animated sword/guard), Zerex (Goblin/guard) & Stan (Warforged/guard).
Crew: 10 (20 Total)
Rank Four:
Features:
- Transportation (Replaces Arcane): The train can now fly as a speed 50mph as well as travel the plans more often. Roll a d6 after each use of the train’s plane hopping ability. On a 4, 5 or 6 it can do so again that day, otherwise the engine is over heated and cannot jump for the rest of the day.
- Franchise Choice (Expansion): One car is added (Work car #2). All of the cars are now slightly bigger on the inside by a half and gaining a third floor.
- Secret: There are passages throughout the car that connect it in odd ways that are not possible normally. These magical passageways can get anyone that knows them well enough from any part of the train to any other in seconds. It also lets the characters come and go with out anyone noticing.
Staff:
Trained (4): Dannin “Gretchen” Deepaxe (female Dwarven/Fighter), Franklin (male Tortle/Druid).
Untrained (16): Mildred Ratched (female Gnome/priest), Randle Hostone (Gearfordged/guard), Zeus & Apollo (Iron Defender/guard), Linc Pharn (Drow/steward),
Crew: 10 (total 20)
Train Car Order and Description
Engine - the massive metallic beast is encircled in an arcing bolt of electricity. Getting close means hair standing on end and the like but touching the bolt will kill a normal man. Inside the bulk of the space is taken up by arcane machines. There are six private, single person bunks on the first floor and a small sitting area for crew. The helm is located on the bridge in the middle of the second story of the engine. Behind it are the Engineer’s quarters.
Stable car - this car is a large, red barn. It is a single-story building with more than enough for Boots to comfortably walk around in. A programmed illusion is set to make the inside look like a large field with a pond.
Cargo car – This car is the weirdest of the cars; a single-story, rectangular, steel-reinforced, brick and mortar building with a metallic demon sleeping on top. A single large sliding door lies in the center of the bottom floor’s left side of the car with a ramp extending to the ground when the train is ‘parked.’ The inside of the car is divided up into stalls for cargo to be secured in.
Cargo car – Unlike the other cargo car this one is a two-story, steel-reinforced, brick and mortar building. Several bared windows dot the second floor makes it look like a warehouse. Inside, the bottom floor is divided up into stalls usually filled with crates and barrels. The second floor is bifurcated with one side like the first floor and the rest made up of 10ft. x 10ft. vaults. Like the cargo car before it, there is a single door with a ramp extending when the train is ‘parked.’
Crew Car – This is the shabbiest looking building of them all. It appears like a rundown boarding house with a walkway running the outside of the building on its right side divided up like personal balconies. Clothing lines run the length, shading the balconies. Inside is separated into crew bedrooms of varying sizes as well as shared water-closets. There are two sizes, but all contain a bed & wardrobe while the larger ones have either a desk or larger bed.
Galley car - Where you in a city this building would not stand out. It’s a rather standard home-like building with a storefront on the first floor. Inside is rather much the same. The first floor is home to the train’s kitchen where all the food made. Next door is the ‘general store’, a place the Doorknockers can sell all the goods they find. The second floor is made up of a lounge for the crew with a few larger crew quarters and a water-closet at each end.
Passenger car - Like the Galley car, this one looks rather plain and ordinary. When ‘parked’ a boardwalk extended from the left side of this car as well the cars behind it, connecting them. An embarkation ramp lets crew and passengers reach the boardwalks from the ground at each car. There is a large parlor and drawing room as well as a small living room and salon on the first floor. The second floor is made up of small passenger rooms and a water closet on each side of a single hall. Each passenger room is large enough for a small bed and wardrobe but not much else.
Tavern car - This fancy car looks very much like a large tavern because it is. Tables and booths line the entire first floor. Meals can be taken at any time here even for those that have the option of dining in-room. The second floor is a lounge used for gambling, drinking, and mingling. The open floor has tables for gambling to one side and a bar and dance floor in the other. A grand piano sits in the corner usually being played by Maranda while Ruggar stands behind the bar. The top floor is an exclusive fine dining car for the first-class passengers. There is a covered ‘bridge’ from the topmost floor of the first-class car to this section, so they don’t have the mingle with the rift raft.
First-class car - This car looks like a large manor house. Two tower-like structures cap both ends, and a small landing is above the main entrance of the car. Both the first and second floors are divided up into large bedrooms; six on each floor with only two rooms and foray leading to the covered ‘bridge’ to the first-class dinning on the third. Each room has a full-sized bed, desk, wardrobe, and privet water-closet. Stan and Raz spend most of their time here, so motionless that passengers think them decorations.
Library car – This stone brick building is sandwiched by two tower-like ends capped with domes of glass. The interior is mostly a single story with a balcony running the length of the second floor. A landing makes up a second floor or sorts. Tables and couches litter the bottom floor as well the second story landing. Two desks lie dead center under the glass domes: one belonging to Ms. Garrett the librarian.
Worship car – This car looks like an old gothic church, large steeples, and all. The bottom floor is a church hall with several back rooms dedicated to the Blue Lady. The second floor is privet rooms for the crew and Miles while the top floor and towers are cells for prisoners.
WorkShops (x2) – When traveling it appears as a large two-story house with a pitched roof. When ‘parked’ the walls of the back half fold in exposing the blacksmith’s forge. The rest of the first and second floor contain areas for people to practice their trades. Two first-class rooms lie upstairs on the second floor.
Caboose - This car looks like a small gothic keep. The square stone building gives way in the back to a half turret. Four first-class rooms line the hall of the first floor and Lostin’s privet quarters occupy the second. Lostin’s quarters have a bedroom, parlor, dining room and bathroom with bathtub. The top half of the turret is a balcony for Lostin.
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