Description
Formians who travel the spaeways do so in leviathans, living vessels (considered awesome-sized animals) that can support hundreds inside themselves and innately spelljam. Leviathans are natural creatures, and some few people can raise them to serve as ships. The formians have evolved a pilot-subrace of their kind to link with the leviathan, installing helms to fuel the ship with prisoners and slaves so that it doesn't have to, and thri-kreen insert spelljammer helms to link psychically with them. Humans need to wait till formians take the ship, then take it from them and rig control collars that take control of the pilot and leviathan.
Void cruisers are built to take full advantage of the plane-gravity physics of wildspace, and are equipped with dual decks, rigging, and deck weapons. This increases both firepower and maneuverability, but it also denies the crew planetfall. Most races, because of the difficulty coordinating central commands to both decks, usually avoid dual-decked ships. Githyanki eliminate that difficulty with their psionic powers, but if a non-psionic race were to attempt it, maneuverability and coordinated attacks would suffer.
Formians grow and engineer these ships to move large numbers of themselves through wildspace and the phlogiston. They consider it a member of the Hive akin to a myramarch, and will defend it to the best of their ability. It is not seen as property by them. The thri-kreen view them as sentient organisms doing them a favor, and know that they are rare to come by. They, too, defend their leviathans to the best of their abilities. Humans, on the other hand, often view them as beasts of burden, able to supply large crews for months, self-sufficient in regards to air, self-repairable, and capable of carrying huge quantities of cargo, plus the can naturally spelljam, if they choose. Humans will capture these ships when formians lower their guard, and will then enslave the pilot with their arcane-made contol-collar.
Crew
Formians are hive-organisms, and they travel in large groups, sometimes in excess of 300, but then with no cargo, when they travel at all. Thri-kreen often travel in smaller groups, often 10 to 60, and humans may be anywhere from 5 to 40, though long-held human leviathans may have crews around 80 to 100, but not often.
Regardless of who has a leviathan, transport duty is what it often does. It takes formians to new or existing colonies, thri-kreen to new places, and humans between bases. Military-minded individuals will often use them to carry lage quantities of troops and gear.
Ship Uses
Transport: As said above, leviathans are used often as transports and cargo barges.
Leviathans can land on the ground, but it can be difficult in anything comparing to a normal planet's gravity. It takes several rounds to land, and the strain, plus its own mass, force a landed leviathan to wait for two hours after landing to be able to take to space again. For the purposes of landing, anything within 100 feet of a hard surface counts as having landed, and while they can levitate while resting, escaping atmosphere must wait. This timespan is often used for unloading, so it is often less an inconvenience than it might initially seem. Areas of lesser gravity, such as asteroid bases, do not incur this waiting period.
Who is using it often decides what power system is installed. Leviathans can naturally spelljam, which they efer to as starbursting, but when controlled by others, however, helms are often installed to allow the ship to save energy. Formians use life helms (powered by captured slaves) and rarely major helms, if a queen will be aboard. Thri-kreen often use series helms, and human thieves often use the already present series helms or major helms, installing whatever they want to if they wish.
Other Configurations
Stellar Monastary: The thri-kreen who use leviathans often use them as a monastary or temple, training their physical bodies and mental prowess. Some even consider them holy places.
Collared Leviathan: Some of these vessels have been taken from their formian and thri-kreen masters. It is most often humans who do this, and when they do, they rig the ships with massive, external control collars. These magical or psionc devices allow the captors to control the ship's pilot, and to a lesser extent, the ship herself. Though not totally brainwashed, it does make the pilot and the leviathan more favorably disposed toward their programmed master. Humans use them as mobile bases and troop/cargo transports.
Infested Leviathan: One leviathan has been found to be infested with a vile disease, its insides half-consumed. The pilot has been driven mad, and has itself been partially consumed (disarmed), somewhat affected by the plague but alive, and the ship seems to be adrift, but those who go aboard this derilect often regret it. The ship was captured by humans, collared, and then later conquered by an alhoon, who then ate the brains of the human crew. Many of the crew became zombies and ghouls, and a few who didn't die instead became morgaunts, infected by a vial of the plague the alhoon brought along. The alhoon has also performed some of its "experiments" upon former crew members and prisoners, and there may be some very strange things aboard. The alhoon has severed the pilot formian's neurocluster, breaking it free of the dying ship's control, and rigged part of the control collar to a wrist device that it uses to control the hulk itself, through its psionic power. The ship is dying, but the morgaunt's disease, coupled with its own immune system, is somewhat keeping it alive, though it is going mad from pain. This ship has standard human ship weapons, but doesn't launch cutters (these having been eaten already and are devoured before they regrow). It is also to weak to starburst most of the time. From outside, the ship looks like a damaged, drifting, decaying collared leviathan, hull breaches visible. It does, however, still have an intact air envelope, so people can go aboard. Inside, nerves and wires hang out of torn walls and panels, sparking and chewed. In several areas, morgaunts and ghouls can be seen chewing on these wires. Anyone with telepathy or trying to communicate to the leviathan directly will feel the shear pain of its madness and condition, and will be affected as if by ultrablast (the alhoon, being undead, is immune to this problem). The alhoon master of the vessel keeps the areas around the entry points clear of monsters, so that those who come aboard come in far enough to be sealed in before they can escape. Current estimates register roughly 15 morgaunts, 20 zombies, 40 ghouls, one formian (the pilot), and the alhoon.
Leviathan
Awesome Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 30d4+179 (300 hp)
Initiative: +4 (Improved Initiative)
Speed: Fly 1,350 ft. (good)
AC: 30 (–16 size, +0 Dex, +36 natural)
Attacks: None, 2 pincers (thri-kreen), or weapons banks (humans)
Damage: None, pincer 4d12, or see above
Face/Reach: 80 ft. by 160 ft./20 ft.
Special Attacks: None (formian), Cutters (thri-kreen), or Weapons (humans)
Special Qualities: DR 25/+3, air envelope, fast healing 15, telepathy
Saves: Fort, Ref, Wis
Abilities: Str 38, Dex 10, Con 27, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 19
Skills:
Feats: Alertness, Combat Reflex, Dodge, Endurance, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Large and in Charge*, Leadership, Lightning Reflex
Climate/Terrain: Any space
Organization: Solitary or mother and child
Challenge Rating:19
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral (with good tendancies)
Advancement:
These benelvolent behemoths drift the spaceways. These creatures do not like violence, and usually only fight to defend themselves or their children
These beasts are trully huge, large enough to serve as ships for others, and larger than most other ships they may encounter.
Special Attacks: Leviathans are pacifistic, and have no real combat capability of their own. They can release cutters, small dronecraft that they grow within themselves, as defenders. Formians allow them to remain this way, as that is how they form, but thrikreen attach two pincers for combat ability, and the leviathans don't mind too much. Humans load on weapons, and leviathans do not approve of this, but that's what control collars are for.
__Cutters: Leviathans can release up to twelve cutter attack-craft from their port and starboard launchbays. These small, fast creatures are armed with dual cannons (equivalent to two wands of lightning that can each fire 1/round. Their own bioenergy means they have unlimited charges. If destroyed, one can be regrown within a month.
__Spells: Avangions have the spellcasting abilities of a 20th level wizard.
Special Qualities: Along with their specail qualities from their class levels, avangions gain the following ones.
__Telepathy (Su): Leviathans can communicate with anyone within it who has a language, though it itself does so mostly with pictures and images, rather than words.
__Damage Reduction (Ex): Leviathans are large and hardy, granting it DR 25/+3.
__Fly (Sp): Leviathans are naturally bouyant and they can naturally fly in any environment, including space.
__Air Pocket: Leviathans can breathe carbon dioxide and phlogiston, and it generates an envelope of air around it as it exhales. As long as it is conscious, this envelope is maintained, hence it is self-suffient in regards of air for a crew.
DRD (Su): Similar to its cutters, leviathans grow things within them called DRDs (Dependant Repair Drones). A DRD can levitate at will, and has an appendage that can cast cure serious wounds (leviathan and other DRD only) and magic missile (one missile) at will, and lightning bolt (ruins it). They also act as clairaudience/clairvoyance for the pilot (if any). They are designed to assist in internal repairs of the leviathan, an to a lesser extent, as internal defenders. They take a day to regrow, if they are destroyed, but a leviathan can only maintain up to 20 at a time.
Spelljamming Ability (Su): When not within 3,750 feet of 10-ton ship/object or within an atmosphere, leviathanss have the innate ability to spelljam across great distances of wildspace, and wild leviathans prefer this method. When not moving at spelljamming speed the leviathan moves by flight. When controlled by others, however, helms are often installed to allow the ship to save energy. Formians use life helms (powered by captured slaves) and series helms, while human thieves and thri-kreen often use the already present series helms or install major helms.
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