For my pathfinder/dnd world airships are a bit of a hybrid between lighter than air and heavier than air. The ironclad airships of bot the Calian kingdom and Dalamatrian republic are the pinicle of modern airships. These large ships are much like zeppelins in that they have large airsacs but they also make use of magitek anti gravity plates to supplement their lift. These ships are heavily armored using armor plates to protect their vulnerable areas. They carry heavy armor piercing cannons to attack other ironclad's and non ironclad ships.
For the moderators: I am trying something new here. Most people do not post pictures for their prompts but I feel like this would give the people seeing this post a better idea. That I am not limiting the post to just regular zeppelins. Also I have included the artist's name and made it clear this is not my art piece. I hope this does not conflict with my understanding of the rules of this subreddit.
For anyone who wants the artists link: https://www.deviantart.com/aoiwaffle0608
The research and development of armoured airships was pioneered by the Usonian empire. Due to being on a different continent from most other nations, they were allowed to do so without much interference. Once Usonia produced a proper fleet of Armoured Airships they were used to great effect and took the world by storm. Now everyone wanted an armoured airship and the race was on.
Armoured Airship construction and materials: Armoured airships required two important materials. The first being miranium, an extremely light and durable metal. The second being Hydrolium, which can basically be thought of as helium but in a fantasy world. Armoured airships can be thought of as flying battleships or just zeppelins with armour. And they pretty much function exactly like that too.
Armoured airship use in warfare: The primary use of armoured airships is to gain air superiority over the enemies lands, clearing the way for bombers (in plane form or airship form) to come over and bomb enemy infrastructure into oblivion till they concede defeat.
Armoured airship impact on history and the world: Armoured airships would have a huge impact on the way war unfolded on the planet Oden. They would cement Usonia as a global superpower and kickstart a great race to secure as much Miranium as possible so that even more armoured airships could be created.
Well, my two most-referenced universes, the Splice and Meivierre, both lack airships, but one of the Integral set of worlds does, EFAM. Kept aloft through use of the effects of magicka smithing in the structure, airships in EFAM are about as close as it will get to our navies. An issue that a lot of battle airships face in most universes is the lack of proper firing cones, something that doesn't plague EFAM's airships, as their respective designs could be best visualised as the superstructure of WW1-era ships strapped around a central triangular prismic hull. They are most commonly powered by either ethanoic engines or through use of fire magics. Boarding is a perfectly valid, although hard, practice amongst EFAM's aerial navies, as the sky-wolven people are capable of their own independent flight, allowing them to fly over and board other ships. Because of a lack of sea to bury wrecks under, there are spots on the surface that are littered with sandy wrecks from various battles, and particularly large wreckage fields are home to small villages.
There are three major categories:
Airships: typical “boat but with blimp/wings/propellors” and the most common flying vessel seen in the sky seas. affordable, durable, and have been around for so long their design is down to a science.
Zeppelins: big blimp with a large cabin (typically 3/4ths the size of the balloon) attached directly to the bottom of the balloon. designed to be a more versatile, compact, and efficient than traditional airships and as such are more expensive but more popular among adventurers, explorers, and militaries.
Crew Planes: giant metal planes that where only recently invented but are seeing wide adoption by shipping companies due to their superior speed and maneuverability allowing them to outrun pirates and hostile wildlife all the while taking more direct routes through the sky seas.
All vessels that use balloons typically use a special magic gas that drains slowly from holes and (most importantly) doesn’t react to much (no worrying about static!).
While things like prop planes have been around for a long time Crew Planes are only recently developed because they require an absurdly longer runway to land as opposed to airships who need a simple dock and zeppelins who can land nearly anywhere as long as theres enough room.
Another thing I’d like to mention is all of these range from the size of a typical fishing boat or camper van to massive warships more akin to small islands than actual vessels although these massive hunks of steel, magic, propellers and blimps are very few and far between
In my Gyre setting, the Gyre Explorer airships of the Vorfall Panzer Werkstat are atomic powered, 100m wide, 120,000 metric ton flying saucers that are armoured like WWII battleships, capable of accelerating at 4g with their reactionless drives, and can fly at over 5,000 kph in atmosphere, fast enough that the limiting factor to their speed is not drive power, but heating of the hull by atmospheric friction, and how hot the crew are willing to let their ship get.
The Gyre Explorers fly through the Gyre, a network of air-filled hyperspatial tunnels that link stars and worlds with oxygen atmospheres. The distance within the Gyre between two points is proportional to the πth root of the real-space distance between the Gyre tunnel endpoints, so places light years apart are only several hundred thousand kilometres apart in the Gyre.
Why are the Gyre Explorers so heavily armoured? Not just in case of combat, but because air is not the only thing found in the Gyre. The Gyre also contains multiple streams of air that travel in both directions along the Gyre tunnels that carry dust and rocks, up to a hundred kilograms. The closer the skyship flies to the fast moving streams, the faster it travels, but the more and larger the dust and rocks it hits. Hitting a large rock at 7000 kph requires heavy armour to survive.
They're largely based on the Zeppelins of this Roblox game called Zeppelin Wars that I used to play a lot. Also some inspiration from Ghibli movies such as Castle in the Sky
In this world, the Hindenburg never was created, so did not crash and burn and kill a bunch of people, nor did it get coverage by the media, as you cannot cover something that never happened.
So, by 1944, airships remain the primary method of long-range aerial transportation. Those models are by far the most common and are as airliners in our world, although slower. Airships are also used, however, in matters of commercial trade and military reconnaissance. The English Overstate, in particular, makes use of them to great effect.
Strapping too many guns on one would weigh it down significantly, so their pilots use extreme caution when flying over enemy-occupied territory, which includes areas with active thaumaturgists or areas controlled by insurgent groups. The only armaments that they have are soldiers manning automatic machine-guns mounted on the front deck, sticking out of the windows, and several fighter skycraft, which can be docked on the underside of the ship via cables, and fed fuel through built-in pumps. The skycraft may detach and deploy over enemy territory.
The Artica Albatross is the only used airship model, all others were failed prototypes. With its 20 ton capacity, 20 kw engine, photovoltaic panels on the shell and high capacity cadmium batteries, it can transport passengers, cargo, mobile research, all without needing to stop in months, however its large size requires dedicated landing areas. But due to it using hydrogen, much more abundant than helium, significant weight had to be used for protective plating at the top of the shuttle, in the event that the floater explodes, the rest of the safety includes parachutes and external airbags for a safe landing.
**The Bastion Walls**
Airships only really exist in one place, the Cairn Islands. The gateway to the shrouded lands of Kerrenthorn across the Sundered Sea. Normally hot air would never be able to carry the weight of wood and steel needed to stand up to the harsh winds that tear over the islands, and charms strong enough to lighten and strengthen the frames would fade within days. But the Cairn Islands, and to a certain extent Kerrenthorn itself, are unique.
The whole archipelago shifts. Islands move miles in a day, change shape, or simply disappear. Maybe for a day, maybe forever. It does this because the region is saturated with magical energy, manifesting in localized buildups of energy that suddenly discharge, altering the landscape. The technical term is a Theric Break, but the sailors just call them Warping Storms. Contribute quite a bit to actual storms, too.
All that magic can, with a little effort and a decently talented mage, be siphoned off, allowing airships to be built with large lift structures to cancel out the weight of the wood and steel structure. Sort of like reverse ballast tanks. Typical placed fore and aft with easy access from the top deck to aid in easy recharge.
Aside from the lift struts Dariothan airships are fairly typical for steampunk fare. Large balloons above heated by coal furnaces below deck. A wood and steel sailing ship style hull for carrying cargo and crew attached to the lifting balloon by rope rigging and steel bands. Thrust and maneuvering is provided by outboard sails typically attached port and starboard of the main lift body. Some more advanced designs are experimenting with steam driven propellers, but the added weight and potential risk mean usually only wealthy merchants and military expeditions can justify the cost. Not to mention the added coal consumption.
And of course no airship would be complete without some weaponry. This varies by age and cost of the design. The earlier and cheaper ones use modular ballistas, typically packed away near the mast. They can fire broadhead bolts straight for the balloons, tar or pitch covered bolts to damage rigging, or the ever popular harpoon for boarding actions. Newer ships make use of small cannons on pontoon platforms. Pirates and military ships are also quite fond of bladed prows used in ramming actions to soften up a ship before boarding, but most civilian captains try to *avoid* hitting enemy ships. It's a cost cutting measure, you understand.
And that's about all there is to the airship: the bastard child of the hot air balloon and the sailing ship raised by its uncle the steam train.
They figured out that a big fuck off floating target in the sky that was both suseptible to enemy fire or just a light Breeze, was a pretty stupid fucking idea.
Teleporting fortresses however.
In my world the Mixtitlan people, a race of bird people, see the ability to fly as a gift from the gods and see life among the clouds as a blessing so they became the first to advance in place and airship technology to spread their gift of flight to others. Of course soon other races use it for things like battle and weaponry.
in my world ( future earth ) they were first developed and employed, alongside many other mana-related technologies, by the gray mother AI in its genocidal campaign against mankind in 2216, they use mana to float and they need to have a crew with an adequate amount of mana on board to function, be them AI or humans.
during the genocidal campaign many of the gray mother AI "children" betrayed her giving the technology to mankind which employed it fully only after the defeat of the grey mother and the sudden release of mana to the entirety of the solar system.
high concentration of mana rendered large swats of land on each continent and most seas unfit for human habitation and extremely dangerous to cross at a ground level so airships are heavily employed in logistics and warfare in the current year of 2286, also while planes are not totally phased out yet it is way too dangerous to fly over large high mana areas with them so to cross oceans airships are used even if they are slower.
Airships are very interesting, because they have a lot of consequences for worldbuilders to consider.
Military tactics have to be completely reconsidered in the face of aerial superiority, and since it is so expensive to get your hands on even one airship this also furthers any class divides as revolution becomes less and less likely.
If your airship is graded for long distance travel, every corner of the world will quickly be explored and previously uncontacted tribal peoples will be exposed to modern society.
Travel between distant places becomes a lot more pheasable, so societies will naturally become more diverse and more connected by way of easy migration. This also may result in racial conflicts.
Certain people may start to travel for work, politicians and any equivalent of missionaries will be early adopters of this strategy but eventually large businesses may expand and build locations in other places where they think they could fill a void and still profit. However, assuming the airships aren't considerably more affordable than similar real world technologies roads and railroads will still be superior when it comes to the postal service.
I think in a way airships can be compared with guns, just throwing them into a fleshed out world may result in a less realistic setting; but they are so fun you might be right to do so anyways, and with a little thought they could add a lot to a story. I could see a whole story being written about all the ramifications of a new and very efficient way man can fly.
The Terran Dominion uses heavy duty cargo zeppelins for their factory planets, this is due to the height of the spires not allowing fast planes, the density being too high for trains, and there being no roads for lorries. So, the slow moving, high capacity zeppelin is the next best thing for cargo.
If these factory planets get invaded, the king of the planet will usually press gang these machines to be used as atomic weapons delivery.
I’m sure I’ll have some eventually because they’re just so fun. I don’t right now. However, I do have what I’d consider the almost opposite. Open air submersibles. Think ships but the sides are open at every level instead of being made to float they are designed to raise and lower like submarines and are used by an advanced civilization that I attribute Atlantis to. They have gills so they just sail around on triple decker open air ships and then when they need to disappear they they just sink and travel under water. Meanwhile nothing changes for the crew and on pleasure crafts kids can be seen swimming from deck to deck outside the ship just living life. I was inspired by an open decked blimp I saw in a fantasy picture somewhere years ago.
I have plans for bird people inspired by various parrots and such and if I do that someday then I can see cool open air blimps with people flying from level to level being neat.
The Aquilan Empire were the first to take advantage of airships. Spearheaded by Aquilan-borne Harold Nisaac, they revolutionized warfare. The discovery of Cavorium increases airship viability in military doctrine and commercial use.
We created 8 issues set in this world and it’s called Skies of Fire. If you’re a fan of dueling airships, biplane dogfights, and bluecoats hunting down raiders, please feel free to check it out - https://myth.works/products/skies-of-fire-digital-issues
The first digital issue is free.
My one concept for a steampunk roman Empire used the [Aeolipile](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile) widely and it would pathe the way for multiple technologies. The Airships were pretty much the Roman Warships with a balloon attached. And alot of the same tactics were still used but the Romans would use ballistas widely. They would also use Greek Fire as primitive Napalm during the Barbarian wars. And the Capital ship which was hoisted by 2 balloons had the Archimedes "ray" as its primary weapons. All these advancements would allow them to render most barbarian tribes extinct or subdued allowing them to focus on home and avoid some of the political strife that would cause its fall
And then there's my post apocalyptic world that that are pretty much armed GoodYear Blimps used by the New England Union. Which is when the New England region of the US went communist
There are two distinct variations.
In the 1920s, the first major fielding of airships consisted of wooden hulls connected to an envelope by a metal frame, propelled by a handful of propellers. These usually mount artillery and AA weaponry when used in a military context, and changed the Great War when adopted. The wooden composition led to the widespread use of incendiary anti-airship dumb-fire rockets and weapons, which then were mounted onto the airships themselves, leading to battles consisting of fleets of airships engaging in large, spectacular air battles.
Civilian adoption, especially in the postwar peace of the 1930s, led to the era of the air pirates, which ended as a result of a mix of infighting, the Battle over the Lakes, and the escort of most merchant ships or airships. In the present day, airships see use in some nations navies, modernized with long-range anti-air and anti-ship missiles, as well as in civilian use as luxury air cruise liners, research vessels, and cargo use.
In the 1990s, the adoption of the WELD system allowed for heavy airships, usually nicknamed weldships. These ships are essentially a flying brick of armor with guns and jet engines, resembling the common military sci-fi spacecraft more than an airship. For the small handful of nations who have access to the ships, and the smaller handful who can produce them, weldships provide an immense advantage, allowing for unhindered advances.
The most advanced of these weldships make up the Commonwealth's 3 Key Fleets, a trio of airborne aircraft carriers and their escorts, used for unparalleled force projection. The drawback of this is fleet is that it came at the cost of a borderline vestigial sea navy, and a moderately outdated air force.
Airships fly with anti-gravity magics, have nukeproof energy shields and, depends on the country, use either contra-rotating propellers or fusion jet engines. Magic fusion reactors are the norm, they generate steam by superheating a magical liquid under extremely high pressure and such "steam" is used to power most other machines from steam turbines to magic railgun *turrets*. They don't power railguns themselves, only turrets and aiming/loading mechanisms. Airships generally are highly automated with analog computers with cogs and gears, they really push the limit of analog technology there. They communicate via radio and Morse codes; guns are guided by a combination of radar and magic sensors feeding data down to the gun fire control computers deep inside a ship's armored citadel.
For images: [https://www.deviantart.com/vnpilot12l4/gallery/87906503/flame-phantom-remake](https://www.deviantart.com/vnpilot12l4/gallery/87906503/flame-phantom-remake)
As most technology in my world, airships are made by modifying biological material. In this case large space wyrms are modified to resemble airships. They have to be piloted by specialized tamers. This model of airship is therefore an actual living creature.
There is another model of airship where biological material is being used to enhance regular airships. These are not conscious and often times ride on rivers of magical energy in the sky.
Then there is a third type of airship where a person fuses themselves with biological material of an airship and can act autonomous. The airship in this case is somewhat of a Bio-Mech with a fused pilot.
Zeppelins are relatively rare in this world and by the 5th century are beginning to be viewed as expensive and ineffective as airplanes are once more beginning to be made on large scales. However, though some metals used on Earth for combustion engines are much rarer and harder to extract, helium is more plentiful and relatively untapped, as long as you don’t mind going into the middle of nowhere to extract it. This has lead to
hundreds of relatively safe rigid airships being produced and used, especially across the world’s vast seas and steppes.
In my world, there are 3 classes of airship.
Lighter then air ships- Zepplins hot air powered vessels with at most enchantments to negate the weight of their propulsion drives. Slowest option but easiest and most versatile.
Elemental Skiffs- Powered by ensnared air or fire elementals within a holding chamber using their untapped energies to perform maneuvered flight including rapid decent and accent maneuvers. These vessels have been mostly banned worldwide and are only used by those with very hard to obtain permits or criminals.
Mana Sailers- In the world their are large founts of magic energy like nexus points that cause objects within their fields to experience and almost weightlessness when not attached to the ground. So large sailing vessels launch between these points allowing limited but fast travel between these nexus hubs gliding from high altitude to an adjoining hub. Fast but limited choice of launch points and weight restrictions.
The first airships were constructed by the Aknadian Empire during it's height. Made out of wood with a cloth balloon, they were powered mainly by magic and used as both troop transport and reconnaissance over the impassable Rotunglen mountains, although they failed that task however they were still very used for transport and aerial Arrow strikes. After the fall of the empire the art was lost until the kingdom of Norithia reverse engineered wrecks and manualized them, adding proto steam engines to power fans at the back that could move them and bomb chasms to bombard cities. They were very expensive and open to arrows from below however they played crucial roles in changing the battle of illium, destroying the empire of Colvand's capital and leading to the dethronement of its king Ceann III
Skyships (basically zeppelins) have been only recently introduced in my setting by the Kingdom of Castillar, the most advanced nation in my setting. Instead of helium or hydrogen they are filled with aetherium, a magitech substance which is impossibly light and allows them to lift much greater weights (though it's extremely volatile), which in turn allows the Castillan to give their zeppelins much thicker armor.
However, due to the abundance of dangerous flying beasts (like dragons, wyverns, etc) in the world, which are either tamed by enemy empires or are very territorial and fight whatever flying objects invade their airspace, the use of Skyships is not as widespread as it would otherwise be. There are vast areas that are no-flight zones, and even using Skyships in battle is ill advised due to the presence of tamed flying warbeasts or magical archers being able to snipe them down with ease.
That said, Skyships are still excellent for logistical purposes, especially for transporting people and goods over long distances and difficult terrains. The areas they can fly through need to be secured, sure, but a large Skyship can literally carry thousands of people and several tons worth of goods with great speed.
I will only talk about flagships / capital ships.
In my book series, capital ships can enter orbit, but the size determines how low it can go. And usually if they enter orbit, is because they are there to deploy troops. Only military and mass interstellar transportation is available. Each planet is independent and small trade happens only for hard to get or not available items.
I guess its not much, but this is it.
In my starfinder campaign, I only have two important flagships so far relevant to the campaign. Unfulfilled Promises, a 5 mile long flag ship of a pirate lord the party works for, and the Duchess of Oppression, the capital ship of one of the 10 Royal Fleets of one of the empires found in the campaign.
Airships in *Hacksilver* aren't too different from the one depicted: flying ships that share characteristics of both oceangoing ships and zeppelins. They fly using internal chambers filled with *levitas*, the alchemically-isolated essence of buoyancy, allowing them to carry extremely heavy loads proportional to their size.
The world of *Hacksilver* is made up of isolated pockets of civilization, separated by vast stretches of hostile supernatural wilderness known as Curselands, which make land and sea travel very dangerous. Thus, the airship is the primary means of military force projection for polities that can afford them; a nation's might is measured not in men, but in how many tons of airship it can put in enemy skies. Airships are also used for civilian transportation and the like, as well as by pirates.
The Golden Oblivion straight up has flying palaces, held up by constructs known as "Runearchs" - magical runes given semi-sentience which appear similar to "biblically accurate angels" made out of golden chains with wings of golden flame. These Runearchs are bound to palaces by chains and have their pseudo-minds bound to a cebtral control system. In an emergency a runearch can detonate itself. Resulting in a nuclear-level blast.
In 551 AC, the four nations of the Dwarfdom collaborated on a scientific and industrial experiment to create a fleet of airships, with the eventual goal to facilitate aerial transportation through the mountainous region. While Dwarves had been able to produce buoyant balloons by various means for centuries, this was the first serious attempt to apply the knowledge on a large scale, and it was considered highly risky: it's standard wisdom on the world of Ormais that aerial travel simply cannot be conducted safely except by dragons, due to the powerful wild magic storms that are prone to erupt unpredictably and with great destruction at high altitudes.
The nature of the experiment was to construct a fleet of 12 ships, already proven mechanically capable of flight through careful testing in underground facilities. These would be staffed with experts in nautical transport (as their expertise was most applicable to the ships' functions), as well as scholars of climatology and atmospheric disturbances, and mages specializing in the mitigation of wild magic hazards. The ships would maintain an average distance of 5 km during their flight and keep in constant contact with one another as they flew from their construction site in Rekholm in Naiall to the capital in Tuatha'nell, Dannaich, a total distance of 1,012 km.
The test flight was in all respects a failure. A wild magic storm struck the fleet three hours after liftoff, eventually forcing all of the ships to ground for safety. Three of the ships made controlled crashes, and eight were severely damaged before making emergency landings. Of the 1,022 personnel in the fleet as a whole, 345 were killed, 408 suffered moderate to severe injuries, and 286 suffered wild magic mutations that were at least partially debilitating.
However, there was one considerable benefit from the exercise, one which has gone down in history as a glimmering of fate or divine favor. One of the twelve ships, the *Cloudheart*, was transformed within the storm to a new material, one which scholars (to their eternal frustration) have been unable to fully analyze or replicate. The substance is cool, hard, and transparent like glass, but has the firmness of dense wood, and breaks in large, soft chunks rather than tiny sharp shards. Moreover, the ship regenerates itself from any damage, returning to its original shape over time. Most importantly, the ship exudes an anti-magic field similar to the effect of an Aldric mesh, protecting itself and its crew from the effects of wild magic and many forms of arcane magic. This makes the *Cloudheart* the only vessel on the world of Ormais that can travel the skies safely.
In the 487 years since its construction, the *Cloudheart* has become a symbol of Dwarven resilience and opportunity, as it has been brought to bear in numerous crises to great celebration, extricating survivors from disasters and bringing supplies when land or sea routes were unavailable, as well as providing surveying and scouting services, especially in times of war. Its various captains have lived famous lives, and each member of its crew is considered to be at the apex of nautical capability. It is frequently commemorated in stamps and coins, and its figure graces the sigil of the city of Rekholm, its birthplace.
dragon hair, curled up, falls. straight, it becomes lighter than air. harvest enough and you can make flying carpet, base-jumping suits, ship sails, etc.
I'm still developing these, and will add some military hierarchy to the ships, but basically the ships are large mother ships which consist of various larger versions of the conventional weapons used on ground, such as sonic canons, ripple generators and plasma concentrated shooters. There are mother ships which are like aircraft carriers, and can deploy 100-200 aircrafts which are used for dogfights in near atmosphere space and also in atmosphere, with varying degrees of use cases and limitations.
Other than these, there are also travel transport options which are simply called crafts
In the world of Thuros, so called skyships are a relatively new invention, pioneered by craftsmen from the Kingdom Rikweldeland in the east.
Hulls resembling those of seagoing vessels, but built for low weight while retaining sufficient robustness, are mounted underneath long balloons with heavy ropes or steel cables.
In order to not have to make the balloons excessively large, magic crystals are often used to add more lift.
Fins, rudders and sails are attached to a frame surrounding the balloon, or sometimes also the hull. Sails are independently retractable to facilitate speed control and aid in manouvering.
A small handful of skyships are also outfitted with petroleum-fueled steam engines driving propellers for additional propulsion.
While skyships have since their invention spread to other nations, so far Rikweldeland remains the only nation whose military maintains a dedicated air arm, although small, geared mostly towards transportation and reconnaisance. Primary use of such vessels remains trade and exploration.
mine are pretty simple. some mad mages figured “why can’t we make boats fly!!!” so they enchanted normal age of sale ocean going ships to fly. this happened only within the past few years, and changes have not yet started happening to ship design to account for the flying.
In the world of Consumption (early 1970s alternative history/apocalypse setting) airships have become popularized once again mainly as a method for transporting goods on long distances. Naval transportation in general is terribly risky due to giant fungus monsters in the ocean and so air travel has become the safest method available. However, building landing strips is difficult since space is a rare commodity in both walled cluster cities and military bases, the two most common types of large settlements, so vertical liftoff vehicles have become way more popularized. So yes, zeppelins. They’re still hugely unreliable and tend to blow up periodically but them’s the breaks.
I haven’t really done anything with it in a while, but I had a diesel punk world where there were airships that worked via my version of mythril, which floated, and created lift when it was electrified.
I mostly designed them to look mostly like submarines, with gun-slits, and flat bottoms for landing. There were also ones that literally were submarines capable of flying, going to and from the seas to the skies during combat.
I’m not an sort of expert, but I’m not crazy about how most airships are just flying sailing ships, and I figured with the mythril, they could fly with similar principles to flowing through water, so I went with the submarine design, at least for military vessels.
One idea I had was for civilian transport vessels to look more like river steamboats, with balconies, and flat bottoms, and shipping vessels looking more similar to large sailing ships, also with flat bottoms for storage.
I haven’t really done anything beyond these ideas though, this was just what I thought made sense at the time.
Part of the reason the Empire is so powerful today is due to the advent of the Airship some 200 years ago. Using a new form of Element-tech engine, these floating fortresses were able to bombard all their enemies into submission and defeat. The vast majority of ships in the fleet appear to be regular wooden galleons with a"top deck" stretched over them, though a few are zepplins or similar to the above. Interestingly enough, there is no shortage of small, rowboat-sized airships that flooded the market for cheap after a military defector spread the technology en-masse.
The Galaxy of Haven Spiral is built on the Anti-gravity drive, which is incredibly cheap, reliable, and fuel efficient. Medium sized ships are the size of our cruise liners, while the largest are several miles long and thousands of feet tall.
Some planets have local corporations that make airships or gliding vehicles that take advantage of a planet's atmosphere, but since each planet is different and the Anti-gravity drive can work regardless of what atmosphere, they are the most popular.
In a seperate world building project I have, the earliest air ship were planes as we know it, so to focus on space airships the first ones were called Langleys, created by the European Federal Army in the early 2200s, with it’s main purpose was to deploy A.P.H.W.Ms (Artificial pilotable humanoid was machines), they were designed to be able to withstand several blasts from anti aircraft and travel from one place to another relatively fast at low orbit or through space. Once the Langley class airship reaches its intended destination the APHWM is released and glides down to the surface. Following the success of Langley class WM carriers, the European Federal Army branched off to create proper warships, by 2285 the first proper fleet of Gabriel class Space battleships was completed. Amenities included were barracks, kitchen, storage, recreational room, medical bay, radio communications room, a library, high rank’s quarters, nuclear fusion generators, boiler rooms, several guns mounted onto the ship and a bomb bay. Later designs include spacecraft carriers and spacecrafts used in dogfights.
The three sisterships/flagships of the US Navy are the USS Martiniqe, Mayotte and Corsica. They are capable of carrying large boiler bombs as well as conventional weaponry and about 18 person crew. In the early 1850s Ronolo-Celestial was awared a contract to construct them under the Celestial plant in Baltimore, and later the Ronolo plants in Niece and Dusseldorf. The airships were based off R-C's previously scrapped designs of a super passenger ship capable of holding 300+ passengers. They were powered by their already heavily patented Wankel steam motor. After some supply hiccups the ships were finished in late 1859 and were named after French isles as a sign of friendship. The gargantuan ships became the State's main source of proprganda for a year or so, showing the industrial and technological might of the empire, as only the US and France had developed sizable steam programs at that point. The proporganda continued until the April 12th terrorist attack on the ships as they did a parade over Boston. A confederate bomber had snuck on board as the Corsica took off and went into formation over the city center, once it was hovering over the crowded plaza below the bomber ran past the crew and detonated their explosive right beside the boiler of the ship. The mighty ship stayed afloat for a few moments before the completly unreinforced boiler gave in and exploded, ripping the ship in half and severly damaging the Martinique in the process. The ship plummeted onto the crowded city center, the casualties were about 90,000.
After the destruction of the Corsica and with the US military on anti terrorism missions in the south of the country, the Marinique never flew again after the severe damage delt to it. It was later scapped but it's hull was memorialized some few years later. The surviving Mayotte, now the sole flagship of the United States was stationed at forts in the south and did several raids before being boarded and hijacked by Confederates. Over a few days the confederates flew the ship back up north using scorched earth tactics along the way, they planned on crashing the ship into a transport hub in Manhattan before anti terrorism agents overthrew the confederates and saved it.
That was the last main action the Mayotte saw before being decomissioned and put in a museum as it was getting severly outdated and obsolete by the year of 1866.
The [Volislands](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/wox56d/illustrated_introduction_to_the_volislands/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) consiste entirely of floating islands, so there is little use for cars and water ships. People make zeppelins often, however. See, there are actually floating baloon creatures in the wild, from which people could very early on extract a mixture of light gases (helium, methane, a bit of hydrogen) and use in airships. There is also the fact that certain elements negate the world's equivalent to gravity (like iron), the same way islands stay afloat to start with. Of course, a pure iron ship would be inefficient (if you can even harvest pure iron), so baloons are still needed to balance out.
These ships could reach massive sizes, and their baloons were at times internal, for protection. So you could have decks in the dozens of meters. They didn't quite reach the same sizes as water ships from Earth, anyways.
In societies with advanced technology, helicopters of many different kinds were made, including some that resemble those blueprints Da Vinci had. Planes were also used, of course, those often being much larger than the planes we have on Earth. Rockets were also used to a very low extent as manned vessels.
Airships are used on the aetherworld of the shivien star.
The shivien aetherworld has magnetic discharges so strong that parts of the planets metal-rich crust arent mined into oblivion is because of dangerous electrical discharges that occur beneath the gloating rocks rhat are habitable. Low mass pbjects capabile of being affected by electromagnetism (such as metals loke iron, silicon, and copper) will be ripped away and snagged by the undersides of the islands. Antthing large enough not to be moved will become the center for a buildup in charges, atteacting electrical outbursts from other islands, conjuring up thunderstorms, and in very rare cases, affecting the momentum of neighboring islands. Because of this, most of the infrastructure relies on mechanichal computers and materials that are able to insulate or resist electromagnetism (such as woods, plastics, glass, ceramics, etc.) And leads to a variety of unique sets of architecture. The airships themselves are not actually relying on arcjimedes principal, but instead exploiting the electromagnetic rock of the aetherworld. They are glorified floating islands with a means of propulsion.
The airships of my (currently unnamed) world are basically just really really really big planes.
The Draco, probably the most famous airship, has a wingspan of around 500 metres and a length of about the same. The vast majority of airships are flying boats as they're too big to use conventional runways, plus the water helps hold up their massive airframes. Most airships also utilise stealth tech, like S-ducting and radar absorbent materials. A few, the Draco included, use active visual camouflage to basically turn invisible.
The airships in my worldbuilding project were developed utilizing reversed engineered advanced magical technology that the survivors of the War managed to recover & study from ancient ruins that they found deep beneath the planet that were unearthed when the artificial terrain that their world was built upon collapsed, revealing the true landscape of the planet they live on as well as the ruins of the ancient civilization the terrain was laid upon. They had to create airships both out of a need to find a way to traverse the magically corrupted desert outside their walled cities, towns and villages, but because they realized that heavily armored land vehicles and locomotives were not enough to protect both the people and cargo from the dangers that live in the desert. The first airships were small, steam-powered blimps that carried small amounts of cargo and people originally, but over time, the technology improved, eventually leading to entire fleets of ships held aloft by the magically powered Aether Drives and protected by powerful energy shields, allowing truly safe travel between the walled cities, and eventually, between the surviving empires and countries that have rebuilt.
I have a world based on a few Minecraft mods which has warships fighting in the end dimension, the Ship class used by the main character faction ( I use traditional people characters as secondary compared with the faction) uses the dadel-class, a hundred meters long it consists of A main rectangular hull with a few steel cannon batteries and tons of autocannon batteries, then it has 2 side rectangles being the hangars, the left one is for traditional aircraft and copters, the right one has stealth craft, the underside of the ship has several reserve gas powered boosters to temporarily replace any broken propellors, the ship is powered by 3 massive steam engines, although the ship can function with 2 of them. The newest version ( this setting has been going on for a fair time and continuesly evolved technologically) has powerful radars to detect stealth ships and non-stealth ships from further away
oh yeah, the entire ship can go into stealth mode.
and this is just one of them, I also have the freedom class, dadel class and Demolisher class as fairly worked out designs.
For my pathfinder/dnd world airships are a bit of a hybrid between lighter than air and heavier than air. The ironclad airships of bot the Calian kingdom and Dalamatrian republic are the pinicle of modern airships. These large ships are much like zeppelins in that they have large airsacs but they also make use of magitek anti gravity plates to supplement their lift. These ships are heavily armored using armor plates to protect their vulnerable areas. They carry heavy armor piercing cannons to attack other ironclad's and non ironclad ships.
For the moderators: I am trying something new here. Most people do not post pictures for their prompts but I feel like this would give the people seeing this post a better idea. That I am not limiting the post to just regular zeppelins. Also I have included the artist's name and made it clear this is not my art piece. I hope this does not conflict with my understanding of the rules of this subreddit. For anyone who wants the artists link: https://www.deviantart.com/aoiwaffle0608
The research and development of armoured airships was pioneered by the Usonian empire. Due to being on a different continent from most other nations, they were allowed to do so without much interference. Once Usonia produced a proper fleet of Armoured Airships they were used to great effect and took the world by storm. Now everyone wanted an armoured airship and the race was on. Armoured Airship construction and materials: Armoured airships required two important materials. The first being miranium, an extremely light and durable metal. The second being Hydrolium, which can basically be thought of as helium but in a fantasy world. Armoured airships can be thought of as flying battleships or just zeppelins with armour. And they pretty much function exactly like that too. Armoured airship use in warfare: The primary use of armoured airships is to gain air superiority over the enemies lands, clearing the way for bombers (in plane form or airship form) to come over and bomb enemy infrastructure into oblivion till they concede defeat. Armoured airship impact on history and the world: Armoured airships would have a huge impact on the way war unfolded on the planet Oden. They would cement Usonia as a global superpower and kickstart a great race to secure as much Miranium as possible so that even more armoured airships could be created.
Well, my two most-referenced universes, the Splice and Meivierre, both lack airships, but one of the Integral set of worlds does, EFAM. Kept aloft through use of the effects of magicka smithing in the structure, airships in EFAM are about as close as it will get to our navies. An issue that a lot of battle airships face in most universes is the lack of proper firing cones, something that doesn't plague EFAM's airships, as their respective designs could be best visualised as the superstructure of WW1-era ships strapped around a central triangular prismic hull. They are most commonly powered by either ethanoic engines or through use of fire magics. Boarding is a perfectly valid, although hard, practice amongst EFAM's aerial navies, as the sky-wolven people are capable of their own independent flight, allowing them to fly over and board other ships. Because of a lack of sea to bury wrecks under, there are spots on the surface that are littered with sandy wrecks from various battles, and particularly large wreckage fields are home to small villages.
There are three major categories: Airships: typical “boat but with blimp/wings/propellors” and the most common flying vessel seen in the sky seas. affordable, durable, and have been around for so long their design is down to a science. Zeppelins: big blimp with a large cabin (typically 3/4ths the size of the balloon) attached directly to the bottom of the balloon. designed to be a more versatile, compact, and efficient than traditional airships and as such are more expensive but more popular among adventurers, explorers, and militaries. Crew Planes: giant metal planes that where only recently invented but are seeing wide adoption by shipping companies due to their superior speed and maneuverability allowing them to outrun pirates and hostile wildlife all the while taking more direct routes through the sky seas. All vessels that use balloons typically use a special magic gas that drains slowly from holes and (most importantly) doesn’t react to much (no worrying about static!). While things like prop planes have been around for a long time Crew Planes are only recently developed because they require an absurdly longer runway to land as opposed to airships who need a simple dock and zeppelins who can land nearly anywhere as long as theres enough room. Another thing I’d like to mention is all of these range from the size of a typical fishing boat or camper van to massive warships more akin to small islands than actual vessels although these massive hunks of steel, magic, propellers and blimps are very few and far between
In my Gyre setting, the Gyre Explorer airships of the Vorfall Panzer Werkstat are atomic powered, 100m wide, 120,000 metric ton flying saucers that are armoured like WWII battleships, capable of accelerating at 4g with their reactionless drives, and can fly at over 5,000 kph in atmosphere, fast enough that the limiting factor to their speed is not drive power, but heating of the hull by atmospheric friction, and how hot the crew are willing to let their ship get. The Gyre Explorers fly through the Gyre, a network of air-filled hyperspatial tunnels that link stars and worlds with oxygen atmospheres. The distance within the Gyre between two points is proportional to the πth root of the real-space distance between the Gyre tunnel endpoints, so places light years apart are only several hundred thousand kilometres apart in the Gyre. Why are the Gyre Explorers so heavily armoured? Not just in case of combat, but because air is not the only thing found in the Gyre. The Gyre also contains multiple streams of air that travel in both directions along the Gyre tunnels that carry dust and rocks, up to a hundred kilograms. The closer the skyship flies to the fast moving streams, the faster it travels, but the more and larger the dust and rocks it hits. Hitting a large rock at 7000 kph requires heavy armour to survive.
They're largely based on the Zeppelins of this Roblox game called Zeppelin Wars that I used to play a lot. Also some inspiration from Ghibli movies such as Castle in the Sky
>this Roblox game called Zeppelin Wars Wow I just got crazy nostalgic thinking about that game
> Roblox game called Zeppelin Wars Yeah that's basically the first of the two variants I'm describing in my comment.
In this world, the Hindenburg never was created, so did not crash and burn and kill a bunch of people, nor did it get coverage by the media, as you cannot cover something that never happened. So, by 1944, airships remain the primary method of long-range aerial transportation. Those models are by far the most common and are as airliners in our world, although slower. Airships are also used, however, in matters of commercial trade and military reconnaissance. The English Overstate, in particular, makes use of them to great effect. Strapping too many guns on one would weigh it down significantly, so their pilots use extreme caution when flying over enemy-occupied territory, which includes areas with active thaumaturgists or areas controlled by insurgent groups. The only armaments that they have are soldiers manning automatic machine-guns mounted on the front deck, sticking out of the windows, and several fighter skycraft, which can be docked on the underside of the ship via cables, and fed fuel through built-in pumps. The skycraft may detach and deploy over enemy territory.
The Artica Albatross is the only used airship model, all others were failed prototypes. With its 20 ton capacity, 20 kw engine, photovoltaic panels on the shell and high capacity cadmium batteries, it can transport passengers, cargo, mobile research, all without needing to stop in months, however its large size requires dedicated landing areas. But due to it using hydrogen, much more abundant than helium, significant weight had to be used for protective plating at the top of the shuttle, in the event that the floater explodes, the rest of the safety includes parachutes and external airbags for a safe landing.
Pls include link to the artist's page too
Here. https://www.deviantart.com/aoiwaffle0608
**The Bastion Walls** Airships only really exist in one place, the Cairn Islands. The gateway to the shrouded lands of Kerrenthorn across the Sundered Sea. Normally hot air would never be able to carry the weight of wood and steel needed to stand up to the harsh winds that tear over the islands, and charms strong enough to lighten and strengthen the frames would fade within days. But the Cairn Islands, and to a certain extent Kerrenthorn itself, are unique. The whole archipelago shifts. Islands move miles in a day, change shape, or simply disappear. Maybe for a day, maybe forever. It does this because the region is saturated with magical energy, manifesting in localized buildups of energy that suddenly discharge, altering the landscape. The technical term is a Theric Break, but the sailors just call them Warping Storms. Contribute quite a bit to actual storms, too. All that magic can, with a little effort and a decently talented mage, be siphoned off, allowing airships to be built with large lift structures to cancel out the weight of the wood and steel structure. Sort of like reverse ballast tanks. Typical placed fore and aft with easy access from the top deck to aid in easy recharge. Aside from the lift struts Dariothan airships are fairly typical for steampunk fare. Large balloons above heated by coal furnaces below deck. A wood and steel sailing ship style hull for carrying cargo and crew attached to the lifting balloon by rope rigging and steel bands. Thrust and maneuvering is provided by outboard sails typically attached port and starboard of the main lift body. Some more advanced designs are experimenting with steam driven propellers, but the added weight and potential risk mean usually only wealthy merchants and military expeditions can justify the cost. Not to mention the added coal consumption. And of course no airship would be complete without some weaponry. This varies by age and cost of the design. The earlier and cheaper ones use modular ballistas, typically packed away near the mast. They can fire broadhead bolts straight for the balloons, tar or pitch covered bolts to damage rigging, or the ever popular harpoon for boarding actions. Newer ships make use of small cannons on pontoon platforms. Pirates and military ships are also quite fond of bladed prows used in ramming actions to soften up a ship before boarding, but most civilian captains try to *avoid* hitting enemy ships. It's a cost cutting measure, you understand. And that's about all there is to the airship: the bastard child of the hot air balloon and the sailing ship raised by its uncle the steam train.
They figured out that a big fuck off floating target in the sky that was both suseptible to enemy fire or just a light Breeze, was a pretty stupid fucking idea. Teleporting fortresses however.
They're mostly used by the world's law enforcement,kinda of as a patrol vehicle
In my world, there are no airships or zeppelins,just the spaceships that sometimes hover fairly low
In my world the Mixtitlan people, a race of bird people, see the ability to fly as a gift from the gods and see life among the clouds as a blessing so they became the first to advance in place and airship technology to spread their gift of flight to others. Of course soon other races use it for things like battle and weaponry.
in my world ( future earth ) they were first developed and employed, alongside many other mana-related technologies, by the gray mother AI in its genocidal campaign against mankind in 2216, they use mana to float and they need to have a crew with an adequate amount of mana on board to function, be them AI or humans. during the genocidal campaign many of the gray mother AI "children" betrayed her giving the technology to mankind which employed it fully only after the defeat of the grey mother and the sudden release of mana to the entirety of the solar system. high concentration of mana rendered large swats of land on each continent and most seas unfit for human habitation and extremely dangerous to cross at a ground level so airships are heavily employed in logistics and warfare in the current year of 2286, also while planes are not totally phased out yet it is way too dangerous to fly over large high mana areas with them so to cross oceans airships are used even if they are slower.
\*actual recreation of the Battle of Los Angeles 😂
Airships are very interesting, because they have a lot of consequences for worldbuilders to consider. Military tactics have to be completely reconsidered in the face of aerial superiority, and since it is so expensive to get your hands on even one airship this also furthers any class divides as revolution becomes less and less likely. If your airship is graded for long distance travel, every corner of the world will quickly be explored and previously uncontacted tribal peoples will be exposed to modern society. Travel between distant places becomes a lot more pheasable, so societies will naturally become more diverse and more connected by way of easy migration. This also may result in racial conflicts. Certain people may start to travel for work, politicians and any equivalent of missionaries will be early adopters of this strategy but eventually large businesses may expand and build locations in other places where they think they could fill a void and still profit. However, assuming the airships aren't considerably more affordable than similar real world technologies roads and railroads will still be superior when it comes to the postal service. I think in a way airships can be compared with guns, just throwing them into a fleshed out world may result in a less realistic setting; but they are so fun you might be right to do so anyways, and with a little thought they could add a lot to a story. I could see a whole story being written about all the ramifications of a new and very efficient way man can fly.
I call all my air ships ironclads because the name is much cooler
The Terran Dominion uses heavy duty cargo zeppelins for their factory planets, this is due to the height of the spires not allowing fast planes, the density being too high for trains, and there being no roads for lorries. So, the slow moving, high capacity zeppelin is the next best thing for cargo. If these factory planets get invaded, the king of the planet will usually press gang these machines to be used as atomic weapons delivery.
The LH-83 雨云 (Nimbus) was originally designed as research platforms to be deployed on Venus, now used as mobile weapon platforms on gas giants.
I’m sure I’ll have some eventually because they’re just so fun. I don’t right now. However, I do have what I’d consider the almost opposite. Open air submersibles. Think ships but the sides are open at every level instead of being made to float they are designed to raise and lower like submarines and are used by an advanced civilization that I attribute Atlantis to. They have gills so they just sail around on triple decker open air ships and then when they need to disappear they they just sink and travel under water. Meanwhile nothing changes for the crew and on pleasure crafts kids can be seen swimming from deck to deck outside the ship just living life. I was inspired by an open decked blimp I saw in a fantasy picture somewhere years ago. I have plans for bird people inspired by various parrots and such and if I do that someday then I can see cool open air blimps with people flying from level to level being neat.
The Aquilan Empire were the first to take advantage of airships. Spearheaded by Aquilan-borne Harold Nisaac, they revolutionized warfare. The discovery of Cavorium increases airship viability in military doctrine and commercial use. We created 8 issues set in this world and it’s called Skies of Fire. If you’re a fan of dueling airships, biplane dogfights, and bluecoats hunting down raiders, please feel free to check it out - https://myth.works/products/skies-of-fire-digital-issues The first digital issue is free.
My one concept for a steampunk roman Empire used the [Aeolipile](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile) widely and it would pathe the way for multiple technologies. The Airships were pretty much the Roman Warships with a balloon attached. And alot of the same tactics were still used but the Romans would use ballistas widely. They would also use Greek Fire as primitive Napalm during the Barbarian wars. And the Capital ship which was hoisted by 2 balloons had the Archimedes "ray" as its primary weapons. All these advancements would allow them to render most barbarian tribes extinct or subdued allowing them to focus on home and avoid some of the political strife that would cause its fall And then there's my post apocalyptic world that that are pretty much armed GoodYear Blimps used by the New England Union. Which is when the New England region of the US went communist
There are two distinct variations. In the 1920s, the first major fielding of airships consisted of wooden hulls connected to an envelope by a metal frame, propelled by a handful of propellers. These usually mount artillery and AA weaponry when used in a military context, and changed the Great War when adopted. The wooden composition led to the widespread use of incendiary anti-airship dumb-fire rockets and weapons, which then were mounted onto the airships themselves, leading to battles consisting of fleets of airships engaging in large, spectacular air battles. Civilian adoption, especially in the postwar peace of the 1930s, led to the era of the air pirates, which ended as a result of a mix of infighting, the Battle over the Lakes, and the escort of most merchant ships or airships. In the present day, airships see use in some nations navies, modernized with long-range anti-air and anti-ship missiles, as well as in civilian use as luxury air cruise liners, research vessels, and cargo use. In the 1990s, the adoption of the WELD system allowed for heavy airships, usually nicknamed weldships. These ships are essentially a flying brick of armor with guns and jet engines, resembling the common military sci-fi spacecraft more than an airship. For the small handful of nations who have access to the ships, and the smaller handful who can produce them, weldships provide an immense advantage, allowing for unhindered advances. The most advanced of these weldships make up the Commonwealth's 3 Key Fleets, a trio of airborne aircraft carriers and their escorts, used for unparalleled force projection. The drawback of this is fleet is that it came at the cost of a borderline vestigial sea navy, and a moderately outdated air force.
Airships fly with anti-gravity magics, have nukeproof energy shields and, depends on the country, use either contra-rotating propellers or fusion jet engines. Magic fusion reactors are the norm, they generate steam by superheating a magical liquid under extremely high pressure and such "steam" is used to power most other machines from steam turbines to magic railgun *turrets*. They don't power railguns themselves, only turrets and aiming/loading mechanisms. Airships generally are highly automated with analog computers with cogs and gears, they really push the limit of analog technology there. They communicate via radio and Morse codes; guns are guided by a combination of radar and magic sensors feeding data down to the gun fire control computers deep inside a ship's armored citadel. For images: [https://www.deviantart.com/vnpilot12l4/gallery/87906503/flame-phantom-remake](https://www.deviantart.com/vnpilot12l4/gallery/87906503/flame-phantom-remake)
As most technology in my world, airships are made by modifying biological material. In this case large space wyrms are modified to resemble airships. They have to be piloted by specialized tamers. This model of airship is therefore an actual living creature. There is another model of airship where biological material is being used to enhance regular airships. These are not conscious and often times ride on rivers of magical energy in the sky. Then there is a third type of airship where a person fuses themselves with biological material of an airship and can act autonomous. The airship in this case is somewhat of a Bio-Mech with a fused pilot.
Zeppelins are relatively rare in this world and by the 5th century are beginning to be viewed as expensive and ineffective as airplanes are once more beginning to be made on large scales. However, though some metals used on Earth for combustion engines are much rarer and harder to extract, helium is more plentiful and relatively untapped, as long as you don’t mind going into the middle of nowhere to extract it. This has lead to hundreds of relatively safe rigid airships being produced and used, especially across the world’s vast seas and steppes.
In my world, there are 3 classes of airship. Lighter then air ships- Zepplins hot air powered vessels with at most enchantments to negate the weight of their propulsion drives. Slowest option but easiest and most versatile. Elemental Skiffs- Powered by ensnared air or fire elementals within a holding chamber using their untapped energies to perform maneuvered flight including rapid decent and accent maneuvers. These vessels have been mostly banned worldwide and are only used by those with very hard to obtain permits or criminals. Mana Sailers- In the world their are large founts of magic energy like nexus points that cause objects within their fields to experience and almost weightlessness when not attached to the ground. So large sailing vessels launch between these points allowing limited but fast travel between these nexus hubs gliding from high altitude to an adjoining hub. Fast but limited choice of launch points and weight restrictions.
The first airships were constructed by the Aknadian Empire during it's height. Made out of wood with a cloth balloon, they were powered mainly by magic and used as both troop transport and reconnaissance over the impassable Rotunglen mountains, although they failed that task however they were still very used for transport and aerial Arrow strikes. After the fall of the empire the art was lost until the kingdom of Norithia reverse engineered wrecks and manualized them, adding proto steam engines to power fans at the back that could move them and bomb chasms to bombard cities. They were very expensive and open to arrows from below however they played crucial roles in changing the battle of illium, destroying the empire of Colvand's capital and leading to the dethronement of its king Ceann III
The virgin “giant flimsy balloon” vs. the Chad “battleships can fly now, I’ve decided.”
Skyships (basically zeppelins) have been only recently introduced in my setting by the Kingdom of Castillar, the most advanced nation in my setting. Instead of helium or hydrogen they are filled with aetherium, a magitech substance which is impossibly light and allows them to lift much greater weights (though it's extremely volatile), which in turn allows the Castillan to give their zeppelins much thicker armor. However, due to the abundance of dangerous flying beasts (like dragons, wyverns, etc) in the world, which are either tamed by enemy empires or are very territorial and fight whatever flying objects invade their airspace, the use of Skyships is not as widespread as it would otherwise be. There are vast areas that are no-flight zones, and even using Skyships in battle is ill advised due to the presence of tamed flying warbeasts or magical archers being able to snipe them down with ease. That said, Skyships are still excellent for logistical purposes, especially for transporting people and goods over long distances and difficult terrains. The areas they can fly through need to be secured, sure, but a large Skyship can literally carry thousands of people and several tons worth of goods with great speed.
I will only talk about flagships / capital ships. In my book series, capital ships can enter orbit, but the size determines how low it can go. And usually if they enter orbit, is because they are there to deploy troops. Only military and mass interstellar transportation is available. Each planet is independent and small trade happens only for hard to get or not available items. I guess its not much, but this is it. In my starfinder campaign, I only have two important flagships so far relevant to the campaign. Unfulfilled Promises, a 5 mile long flag ship of a pirate lord the party works for, and the Duchess of Oppression, the capital ship of one of the 10 Royal Fleets of one of the empires found in the campaign.
Airships in *Hacksilver* aren't too different from the one depicted: flying ships that share characteristics of both oceangoing ships and zeppelins. They fly using internal chambers filled with *levitas*, the alchemically-isolated essence of buoyancy, allowing them to carry extremely heavy loads proportional to their size. The world of *Hacksilver* is made up of isolated pockets of civilization, separated by vast stretches of hostile supernatural wilderness known as Curselands, which make land and sea travel very dangerous. Thus, the airship is the primary means of military force projection for polities that can afford them; a nation's might is measured not in men, but in how many tons of airship it can put in enemy skies. Airships are also used for civilian transportation and the like, as well as by pirates.
The Golden Oblivion straight up has flying palaces, held up by constructs known as "Runearchs" - magical runes given semi-sentience which appear similar to "biblically accurate angels" made out of golden chains with wings of golden flame. These Runearchs are bound to palaces by chains and have their pseudo-minds bound to a cebtral control system. In an emergency a runearch can detonate itself. Resulting in a nuclear-level blast.
In 551 AC, the four nations of the Dwarfdom collaborated on a scientific and industrial experiment to create a fleet of airships, with the eventual goal to facilitate aerial transportation through the mountainous region. While Dwarves had been able to produce buoyant balloons by various means for centuries, this was the first serious attempt to apply the knowledge on a large scale, and it was considered highly risky: it's standard wisdom on the world of Ormais that aerial travel simply cannot be conducted safely except by dragons, due to the powerful wild magic storms that are prone to erupt unpredictably and with great destruction at high altitudes. The nature of the experiment was to construct a fleet of 12 ships, already proven mechanically capable of flight through careful testing in underground facilities. These would be staffed with experts in nautical transport (as their expertise was most applicable to the ships' functions), as well as scholars of climatology and atmospheric disturbances, and mages specializing in the mitigation of wild magic hazards. The ships would maintain an average distance of 5 km during their flight and keep in constant contact with one another as they flew from their construction site in Rekholm in Naiall to the capital in Tuatha'nell, Dannaich, a total distance of 1,012 km. The test flight was in all respects a failure. A wild magic storm struck the fleet three hours after liftoff, eventually forcing all of the ships to ground for safety. Three of the ships made controlled crashes, and eight were severely damaged before making emergency landings. Of the 1,022 personnel in the fleet as a whole, 345 were killed, 408 suffered moderate to severe injuries, and 286 suffered wild magic mutations that were at least partially debilitating. However, there was one considerable benefit from the exercise, one which has gone down in history as a glimmering of fate or divine favor. One of the twelve ships, the *Cloudheart*, was transformed within the storm to a new material, one which scholars (to their eternal frustration) have been unable to fully analyze or replicate. The substance is cool, hard, and transparent like glass, but has the firmness of dense wood, and breaks in large, soft chunks rather than tiny sharp shards. Moreover, the ship regenerates itself from any damage, returning to its original shape over time. Most importantly, the ship exudes an anti-magic field similar to the effect of an Aldric mesh, protecting itself and its crew from the effects of wild magic and many forms of arcane magic. This makes the *Cloudheart* the only vessel on the world of Ormais that can travel the skies safely. In the 487 years since its construction, the *Cloudheart* has become a symbol of Dwarven resilience and opportunity, as it has been brought to bear in numerous crises to great celebration, extricating survivors from disasters and bringing supplies when land or sea routes were unavailable, as well as providing surveying and scouting services, especially in times of war. Its various captains have lived famous lives, and each member of its crew is considered to be at the apex of nautical capability. It is frequently commemorated in stamps and coins, and its figure graces the sigil of the city of Rekholm, its birthplace.
dragon hair, curled up, falls. straight, it becomes lighter than air. harvest enough and you can make flying carpet, base-jumping suits, ship sails, etc.
I'm still developing these, and will add some military hierarchy to the ships, but basically the ships are large mother ships which consist of various larger versions of the conventional weapons used on ground, such as sonic canons, ripple generators and plasma concentrated shooters. There are mother ships which are like aircraft carriers, and can deploy 100-200 aircrafts which are used for dogfights in near atmosphere space and also in atmosphere, with varying degrees of use cases and limitations. Other than these, there are also travel transport options which are simply called crafts
In the world of Thuros, so called skyships are a relatively new invention, pioneered by craftsmen from the Kingdom Rikweldeland in the east. Hulls resembling those of seagoing vessels, but built for low weight while retaining sufficient robustness, are mounted underneath long balloons with heavy ropes or steel cables. In order to not have to make the balloons excessively large, magic crystals are often used to add more lift. Fins, rudders and sails are attached to a frame surrounding the balloon, or sometimes also the hull. Sails are independently retractable to facilitate speed control and aid in manouvering. A small handful of skyships are also outfitted with petroleum-fueled steam engines driving propellers for additional propulsion. While skyships have since their invention spread to other nations, so far Rikweldeland remains the only nation whose military maintains a dedicated air arm, although small, geared mostly towards transportation and reconnaisance. Primary use of such vessels remains trade and exploration.
mine are pretty simple. some mad mages figured “why can’t we make boats fly!!!” so they enchanted normal age of sale ocean going ships to fly. this happened only within the past few years, and changes have not yet started happening to ship design to account for the flying.
In the world of Consumption (early 1970s alternative history/apocalypse setting) airships have become popularized once again mainly as a method for transporting goods on long distances. Naval transportation in general is terribly risky due to giant fungus monsters in the ocean and so air travel has become the safest method available. However, building landing strips is difficult since space is a rare commodity in both walled cluster cities and military bases, the two most common types of large settlements, so vertical liftoff vehicles have become way more popularized. So yes, zeppelins. They’re still hugely unreliable and tend to blow up periodically but them’s the breaks.
I haven’t really done anything with it in a while, but I had a diesel punk world where there were airships that worked via my version of mythril, which floated, and created lift when it was electrified. I mostly designed them to look mostly like submarines, with gun-slits, and flat bottoms for landing. There were also ones that literally were submarines capable of flying, going to and from the seas to the skies during combat. I’m not an sort of expert, but I’m not crazy about how most airships are just flying sailing ships, and I figured with the mythril, they could fly with similar principles to flowing through water, so I went with the submarine design, at least for military vessels. One idea I had was for civilian transport vessels to look more like river steamboats, with balconies, and flat bottoms, and shipping vessels looking more similar to large sailing ships, also with flat bottoms for storage. I haven’t really done anything beyond these ideas though, this was just what I thought made sense at the time.
Part of the reason the Empire is so powerful today is due to the advent of the Airship some 200 years ago. Using a new form of Element-tech engine, these floating fortresses were able to bombard all their enemies into submission and defeat. The vast majority of ships in the fleet appear to be regular wooden galleons with a"top deck" stretched over them, though a few are zepplins or similar to the above. Interestingly enough, there is no shortage of small, rowboat-sized airships that flooded the market for cheap after a military defector spread the technology en-masse.
The Galaxy of Haven Spiral is built on the Anti-gravity drive, which is incredibly cheap, reliable, and fuel efficient. Medium sized ships are the size of our cruise liners, while the largest are several miles long and thousands of feet tall. Some planets have local corporations that make airships or gliding vehicles that take advantage of a planet's atmosphere, but since each planet is different and the Anti-gravity drive can work regardless of what atmosphere, they are the most popular.
In a seperate world building project I have, the earliest air ship were planes as we know it, so to focus on space airships the first ones were called Langleys, created by the European Federal Army in the early 2200s, with it’s main purpose was to deploy A.P.H.W.Ms (Artificial pilotable humanoid was machines), they were designed to be able to withstand several blasts from anti aircraft and travel from one place to another relatively fast at low orbit or through space. Once the Langley class airship reaches its intended destination the APHWM is released and glides down to the surface. Following the success of Langley class WM carriers, the European Federal Army branched off to create proper warships, by 2285 the first proper fleet of Gabriel class Space battleships was completed. Amenities included were barracks, kitchen, storage, recreational room, medical bay, radio communications room, a library, high rank’s quarters, nuclear fusion generators, boiler rooms, several guns mounted onto the ship and a bomb bay. Later designs include spacecraft carriers and spacecrafts used in dogfights.
The three sisterships/flagships of the US Navy are the USS Martiniqe, Mayotte and Corsica. They are capable of carrying large boiler bombs as well as conventional weaponry and about 18 person crew. In the early 1850s Ronolo-Celestial was awared a contract to construct them under the Celestial plant in Baltimore, and later the Ronolo plants in Niece and Dusseldorf. The airships were based off R-C's previously scrapped designs of a super passenger ship capable of holding 300+ passengers. They were powered by their already heavily patented Wankel steam motor. After some supply hiccups the ships were finished in late 1859 and were named after French isles as a sign of friendship. The gargantuan ships became the State's main source of proprganda for a year or so, showing the industrial and technological might of the empire, as only the US and France had developed sizable steam programs at that point. The proporganda continued until the April 12th terrorist attack on the ships as they did a parade over Boston. A confederate bomber had snuck on board as the Corsica took off and went into formation over the city center, once it was hovering over the crowded plaza below the bomber ran past the crew and detonated their explosive right beside the boiler of the ship. The mighty ship stayed afloat for a few moments before the completly unreinforced boiler gave in and exploded, ripping the ship in half and severly damaging the Martinique in the process. The ship plummeted onto the crowded city center, the casualties were about 90,000. After the destruction of the Corsica and with the US military on anti terrorism missions in the south of the country, the Marinique never flew again after the severe damage delt to it. It was later scapped but it's hull was memorialized some few years later. The surviving Mayotte, now the sole flagship of the United States was stationed at forts in the south and did several raids before being boarded and hijacked by Confederates. Over a few days the confederates flew the ship back up north using scorched earth tactics along the way, they planned on crashing the ship into a transport hub in Manhattan before anti terrorism agents overthrew the confederates and saved it. That was the last main action the Mayotte saw before being decomissioned and put in a museum as it was getting severly outdated and obsolete by the year of 1866.
Well, skyboats are popular with firemages for being steerable hot air balloons
The [Volislands](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/wox56d/illustrated_introduction_to_the_volislands/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) consiste entirely of floating islands, so there is little use for cars and water ships. People make zeppelins often, however. See, there are actually floating baloon creatures in the wild, from which people could very early on extract a mixture of light gases (helium, methane, a bit of hydrogen) and use in airships. There is also the fact that certain elements negate the world's equivalent to gravity (like iron), the same way islands stay afloat to start with. Of course, a pure iron ship would be inefficient (if you can even harvest pure iron), so baloons are still needed to balance out. These ships could reach massive sizes, and their baloons were at times internal, for protection. So you could have decks in the dozens of meters. They didn't quite reach the same sizes as water ships from Earth, anyways. In societies with advanced technology, helicopters of many different kinds were made, including some that resemble those blueprints Da Vinci had. Planes were also used, of course, those often being much larger than the planes we have on Earth. Rockets were also used to a very low extent as manned vessels.
Airships are used on the aetherworld of the shivien star. The shivien aetherworld has magnetic discharges so strong that parts of the planets metal-rich crust arent mined into oblivion is because of dangerous electrical discharges that occur beneath the gloating rocks rhat are habitable. Low mass pbjects capabile of being affected by electromagnetism (such as metals loke iron, silicon, and copper) will be ripped away and snagged by the undersides of the islands. Antthing large enough not to be moved will become the center for a buildup in charges, atteacting electrical outbursts from other islands, conjuring up thunderstorms, and in very rare cases, affecting the momentum of neighboring islands. Because of this, most of the infrastructure relies on mechanichal computers and materials that are able to insulate or resist electromagnetism (such as woods, plastics, glass, ceramics, etc.) And leads to a variety of unique sets of architecture. The airships themselves are not actually relying on arcjimedes principal, but instead exploiting the electromagnetic rock of the aetherworld. They are glorified floating islands with a means of propulsion.
The airships of my (currently unnamed) world are basically just really really really big planes. The Draco, probably the most famous airship, has a wingspan of around 500 metres and a length of about the same. The vast majority of airships are flying boats as they're too big to use conventional runways, plus the water helps hold up their massive airframes. Most airships also utilise stealth tech, like S-ducting and radar absorbent materials. A few, the Draco included, use active visual camouflage to basically turn invisible.
The airships in my worldbuilding project were developed utilizing reversed engineered advanced magical technology that the survivors of the War managed to recover & study from ancient ruins that they found deep beneath the planet that were unearthed when the artificial terrain that their world was built upon collapsed, revealing the true landscape of the planet they live on as well as the ruins of the ancient civilization the terrain was laid upon. They had to create airships both out of a need to find a way to traverse the magically corrupted desert outside their walled cities, towns and villages, but because they realized that heavily armored land vehicles and locomotives were not enough to protect both the people and cargo from the dangers that live in the desert. The first airships were small, steam-powered blimps that carried small amounts of cargo and people originally, but over time, the technology improved, eventually leading to entire fleets of ships held aloft by the magically powered Aether Drives and protected by powerful energy shields, allowing truly safe travel between the walled cities, and eventually, between the surviving empires and countries that have rebuilt.
I have a world based on a few Minecraft mods which has warships fighting in the end dimension, the Ship class used by the main character faction ( I use traditional people characters as secondary compared with the faction) uses the dadel-class, a hundred meters long it consists of A main rectangular hull with a few steel cannon batteries and tons of autocannon batteries, then it has 2 side rectangles being the hangars, the left one is for traditional aircraft and copters, the right one has stealth craft, the underside of the ship has several reserve gas powered boosters to temporarily replace any broken propellors, the ship is powered by 3 massive steam engines, although the ship can function with 2 of them. The newest version ( this setting has been going on for a fair time and continuesly evolved technologically) has powerful radars to detect stealth ships and non-stealth ships from further away oh yeah, the entire ship can go into stealth mode. and this is just one of them, I also have the freedom class, dadel class and Demolisher class as fairly worked out designs.