Ark of the Monarch
It's big - stupidly big, ridiculously big, like yo mama, it's fat, juicy, succulent wait I'm supposed to be talking about a ship not the King Kong Nuts.
It's also made mostly of crystal grown from the skin of several Krysa - if you're a stinkin' Krysa you're either royalty or banned from leaving royal territory for being a potential threat to the current royalty - who high as kites from tonnes of drugs that altered the way the crystal formed from their skin so that it wouldn't be worn away by magic dissipation and chemical reactions with air over time.
It is powered by a mixture of slavery and unpaid internships. Brijilds(species:8bd8f7ee-e67b-48e5-8872-aa01a6e424b3) have fire abilities and are also all either enslaved, live outside of Lamara (something something escaped) or live in hidden amongst Lamara's population because their ancestors @[Did a little trolling, and are used to create artificial wind to power the masts whenever there isn't any wind, meanwhile Tummens - no articles on them yet but basically a load of kinetic nonsense that adds up to super strength without super durability - do the heavy lifting with oars and such, Gosha - also no articles but they can shapeshift based on what/who they've eaten the raw flesh of and this includes some limited ability to take on animal traits - manage the Koldraks - sea serpents - that pull it and, finally, Krysa manage repairs.
The hull is made with crystal that conducts electricity due to high copper content - yes at the drug-induced agony of some non-royal Krysa - and this allows Thorkinns to electrically charge it and zap any big octopi or other strange sea creatures that feel like booping, snacking on, hugging or attempting to mate with the ship. Jarlets get everyone high as balls (also exceptionally well-suited to doing anything a normal person can do but better, or making others able to do things better) while Akwin deal with most things underwater and are generally handy.
Finally and most of all, it is always the personal property of whoever the Monarch is at the time. For a Monarch to not add something in some way or improve something on the ship during one's rule is considered an act of laziness and an insult to all previous Monarchs and the Krysa as a whole, even if it's just a painting in one of the hallways.
As much as its sheer size and all is mostly just for the purpose of it being the most terrifying non-living to imagine approaching your city, the size is put to use by most of the ship being dedicated to its use as a military vessel. Extremely long-range trebuchets capable of bombarding cities from miles away, various means of quickly deploying entire armies of thousands of troops, and the ship's durability and ridiculous size mean that any ships behind it are often shielded from any trebuchets or similar things that enemies are using. Its presence has been the deciding factor in who won many coastal sieges and battles, as well as naval battles.
Propulsion
Brijilds shoot their fire into various massive contraptions that redirect the hot air to the masts, which are made from fireproof geglin (like dragons but underwhelming, unlike their biological cousins the Haffrin, who you should be able to tell from the fact alone that I capitalized it are like dragons but the exact opposite of underwhelming) skin.
Weapons & Armament
Extremely long-range trebuchets on a ship go brrrr. Also for the ship's defense there's ballista, various weaponised animals, smaller and faster ships that can be deployed and of course those on the ship themselves, since many of them have various magic abilities that are extremely helpful in naval warfare.
An example of this is how Brija, a Brijild with the ability to shoot flaming gas from her freckles, used a trebuchet to launch herself towards a ship and used her powers to direct herself to land close to the ship and slow her descent enough that she wouldn't die on impact with the water. She then used burning bubbles of the gas beneath herself to launch herself up from the water and ran on it - yep, she figured out how to run on water by super-heating the water beneath her feet - to the ship where she killed a third of the crew while rescuing the Monarch's younger cousin.
Gliders and aerial creatures (none actually in the water are weaponized as they'd just be killed by sea monsters moving from one ship to the next) are also utilized for soldier mobility, but Brija was unable to get any of the aerial creatures to let her onto their backs and didn't know how to use a glider so she felt like demonstrating just how built different she is.
Armor and defense
A meter-thick hull of intermittent layers of Krysa crystal and shock-absorbing jaganji ligaments (huge 4 winged bat things the point is they like crashing into things and have legendary shock absorption in those ligaments).
In addition to the seaweed mentioned in this article, this ship does have itself a lovely set of spikes all over it to discourage sea monsters from anything they're not meant to do such as booping, hugging, trying to eat or trying to mate with the ship (yes, there have been creatures that attempted that last one).
Communication Tools & Systems
You know cup phones? Not cups they use, instead using can-shaped smooth thingies made of a Styrofoam like material extracted from plants.
Each collection of them has more strings attached to small, lizard-like creatures that invariably scream in agony when the strings they're attached to are pulled. There are various hubs across the ship, the largest at its command center, from which the strings attached to the creatures can be pulled so that others know to come over to answer and know from which one is screaming where the talk is coming from. The strings are connected so that whoever's at the command center can listen in on any conversation had through these strings.
Sensors
Domesticated creatures of various sorts both on and in the waters around the ship help serve sensory roles, such as molhuks (imagine an eagle and a seagull had a baby and it had teeth) being able to clearly see miles upon miles in every direction above and to a lesser extent below the water.
These creatures are mostly safe with the ship as underside is coated in False Kilwotr, a seaweed that avoids being eaten by looking and smelling exactly like an extremely poisonous seaweed, which the ship's sea creature pals can hide in, and flying creatures can of course just stay close to the ship when they fly without quite as much fear.
The creatures that live in the seaweed under the ship are Almanas, which are like eels in appearance. They have excellent undersea vision, hearing and smell and the bottom of the ship is transparent, so those at the bottom of the ship can see the almanas changing their behaviour in response to nearby predators (hiding in the seaweed etc) and let everyone else on the ship know using the string-phones immediately.
Additional & auxiliary systems
There's ropes they have over the side for Akwins carrying Krysa to go down whenever repairs need to be done on the side or bottom of the ship, and various other support systems to make this ship that little bit cooler that I'll probably think of later and then get annoyed that I didn't think of now because of how obvious they are, but also cleaners, maintenance crew and so on.
Hangars & docked vessels
It's usually dragging along some other vessels tied to its sides and behind it which serve as emergency rafts or are simply carrying additional personnel and cargo.
Fun facts:
- This ship has been utilized in 586 naval battles since its creation 279 years ago, including encounters with powerful/numerous sea creatures. This has on many occasions included monsters that could've absolutely destroyed it but decided that it wasn't worth the time they'd need to spend recovering.
- Despite all this insane shit, it cannot go into the Bottomless Seas surrounding the continent because the monsters there really are just that big and awful.
- As much as it's built for military purposes, there are large leisure areas in which the Monarch can enjoy themselves on any and all journeys.
- I know extremely little about ships and am awaiting to be informed of some fatal flaw in what I've said so far that means that this would never float on water.
- The previous Monarch, Kryslima, consummated her first marriage on this ship on the way back from getting married. Her husband died about a week later overdosing on drugs intended to help with seasickness, although some doubt the legitimacy of this.
- It has over 2000 paintings in its rooms and hallways. 700 of these were added by the Monarch Hangner, who apparently painted at least 20 of them himself. It's unknown which among these 700 were painted by him.
- A sea monster 5 times the size of the ship tried to mate with it and died. Its species is one in which the males are normally eaten as they mate with the female, so it simply ignored the pain until it died and fell on top of the ship, sinking it into the water. It took 5 years of preparation to be able to seal it, pump out the water and finally repair and clean up all damage done. The skeletons of those who died inside the ship, other than those who had noble blood and so were sent to their families, are still on the ship with their skulls on display.
- It was used in the Great Culling 73 years ago, in which a massive slave rebellion led to concerns about slaves being too numerous compared to the number of free Lamarans (and therefore a threat if they rebelled) so countless ones of them were tricked with the promise that they'd be taken to lands outside of Lamara and left there to die or survive depending on their luck and skills. The slaves that stepped up for this were deemed the ones willing to risk their lives for their freedom and were instead killed and thrown overboard on the ships.
- Further on that previous point: many members of a species called Msvetas scavenged the corpses in the deeper waters where the bodies were thrown and developed a taste for human meat. They now go into much shallower waters and will hunt, kill and eat humans, so now everyone has to cling even closer to the coast because certain individuals were scum and/or didn't think through their means of corpse disposal.
Nickname
Monarch's Ship, Biggest Ship, Royal Partyboat
Designation
RLS - Royal Lamaran Ship
Motto
Fear the Monarch
Manufacturer
Owning Organization
Price
It's never been sold before, but it would be one hell of a lot.
Rarity
Unique
Beam
343 meters, also not counting any things sticking out of it.
Length
897 meters
Height
187 meters
Weight
I'm not gonna do all that maths but... a lot. Also stuff is constantly being added so it increases with time.
Speed
27 miles per hour in still water and on a windless day. Knowledge of the winds and waters allow for greater speeds, with its record high being 103 miles per hour during a storm.
Complement / Crew
Varies on the occasion, but if it's being moved around for showing off in peace time usually 43 actual crewmates in addition to the Monarch's bodyguards and so on.
Cargo & Passenger Capacity
Can carry thousands of people at a time or carry massive cargos, the latter of which it's often leased out for during peace-time.
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This ship is completely insane but, given what you've told me about this world it somehow fits in pretty perfectly. I like how it uses members of lots of different magic families to run properly.
Propaganda wise are we looking at a "look what we can achieve together" or "I command the will of all magic families, you cannot stand against me" or both?
Given that it going on tour around the country's coasts so much is like 90% an act of glorified intimidation, I'd say it's much more "got magic families, no ***ing with me". That said Lamara doesn't have all the magic families... far from it.
I gotta update the Lamara article for how many more magic families there are now.