Skysoarers of the Taxlatl

Fearsome, it was, and huge. A vessel of gleaming black metal perhaps forty feet long, with a great wing extending on either side - like those of a giant bat. It rose into the air silently, and then with a whooshing sound and a belching of white smoke from its tail, the wings began to move it. It circled the city slowly, and all the time the head of the thing moved about surveying the city below. At one point, I could see there were two lizardfolk sitting in that small head thing... I fear for us and our fair enclave in the trees should a fleet of these monstrosities be unleashed upon us.

— Elven eyewitness report of only sighting of a skysoarer

As the fortunes of the adherents of the The Gods of Coercion began to fail during the The Great Strife, and it started to become apparent that they would not prevail, the Taxlatl people of the city of Taxl gra Alakha began developing a vessel they hoped would turn the tide of war back in their favor. The few sages who have made it their life work to study the details of the god-war agree it was likely that the imminent release of this technology was the impetus for Berdea and his followers to sink the city into what would become the festering swamplands of the Feywood Fen. The technology that the The Gods of Consent and their adherents were so fearful of was what the Taxlatl called the Garakhissa, which translates loosely to Sky Soarer in Commonspeech.

Description

The Skysoarer was to have been a fully maneuverable airship capable of carrying warriors through the sky and over the heads of enemy combatants. The only known descriptions of the vessel come from reportings by a lone Elven monitoring patrol that caught a glimpse of one being tested over the city. Unlike the designs currently being worked on jointly by Awkwana and Seafarer Dwarves - with more than a bit of Gnomish assistance - the Taxlatl airship was not modeled after a sea-going vessel. Inspiration for design and propulsion were taken from the forms of the great dragons.
Two large wings made of metal struts stretched with a flexible leather were affixed to a roughly cylindrical body in which the occupants rode. A cockpit for the pilots was attached at one end by an articulated neck. The pilots could move this neck from side to side or up and down to give the pilots the best possible view of their surroundings. A finned "tail" provided some stability. The complete vessel vaguely resembled a dragon - or possibly a pterosaur such as were used among Taxlatl for long-distance communication.

Propulsion

It is believed that the vessel relied upon levitation magic to become airborne, but once off the ground, the large wings were capable of flapping to provide forward impetus. The Elven reports spoke of gouts of smoke or steam rising from the vessel body once the wings began to move - this suggests some sort of Gnomish steam engine technology.

Maneuverability

Observations of the test flights suggested that the ship's direction was controlled by selectively flapping one wing or the other, much as a boater would use oars to move through the water. It was unclear whether changes in altitude were accomplished by wing propulsion or by adjusting the levitation magic; it is likely both were employed.

Weapons

There were trapdoors visible in the underbelly of the cylindrical body of the vessel, suggesting that bombs of some sort could be dropped from above onto a foe. Alchemical bombs delivered in this way would have been quite devastating; a number of vessels with the ability to drop fire, acid, or other bombs could devastate an enemy formation.

Legacy

As mentioned, the only known record of these airships is the eyewitness report filed by a small group of Elves doing reconnaissance on the nearby Taxlatl city during the god-war. While that report was never widely disseminated, and may even have been actively suppressed by the Elven leaders at the time in order to keep fear from spreading, the few sages that are aware of it firmly believe that the discovery of this weapon about to be deployed is what drove the priests to petition Berdea for a special response - the response that resulted in a section of the forest being turned into the swamps of the Feywood Fens, and the city of Taxl gra Akhassa being sunk below the surface of that marshland.

Whether or not records containing details of how to construct and fly these ships still exist somewhere beneath the fetid water of the swamp is a mattere of speculation.

Credits

Character images in sidebar panels by RPGDinosaurBob using HeroForge™.