Airship Conflict Behind the Screen
The ship is not the setting. The ship is a character with a wound count.
Airship combat in Mar de Oro is not a tactical simulation. It is a scene. The ship has condition, position, and command. Each round should change at least one of those three things, or the battle has stopped being a story and started being noise.
Condition, position, command
| Element | What it tracks | How to change it |
|---|---|---|
| Condition | Ship condition by subsystem: hull, rigging/lift, crew, weapons, and Éterlumin - the five clocks in the Airship Builder and Encounter Tracker. | Called shots, successful broadsides, special damage, Éterlumin events. |
| Position | Altitude, bearing, weather exposure, distance to terrain. | Piloting actions, engine damage, storm effects, collision. |
| Command | Who is giving orders, how well they are being followed. | Bridge hits, morale damage, leadership actions, death of officers. |
Condition is what the Airship Builder and Encounter Tracker records as clocks - Hull, Rigging/Lift, Crew, Weapons, and Éterlumin. Position and Command are not clocked; they are yours to narrate, changed by piloting, leadership, and the fiction of the moment.
How each faction fights
| Power | How they fight | What the GM should show |
|---|---|---|
| Albion | Fast strike, disruption, cloud approach, command-breaking fire, false flags. | A quiet sky, missing signals, a sudden angle of attack, a ship that was above or below before they knew it. |
| Valdegracia | Heavy line, formal dominance, armored endurance, authority through presence. | A slow terrible approach, disciplined broadsides, officers who treat order as a weapon. |
| Duchy of Heller | Concealment, deniable movement, captured assets, black sloops, improvisation. | A ship no ledger admits, lights cut at the right moment, crew who do the hard thing without speech. |
| Pirates | Ambush, boarding threat, ransom, opportunistic retreat. | False distress flags, sudden grapples, a captain already calculating cargo against escape. |
| Church assets | Protection, containment, escort, crisis command rather than fleet doctrine. | Solaris guarding a person or site, priests demanding quarantine, armed restraint until restraint fails. |
Airship damage menu
| Damage | Immediate effect | Escalation |
|---|---|---|
| Rigging torn | Speed and turning worsen. | Masts strain, sails foul, crew exposed aloft. |
| Signal deck hit | Orders delay or fail. | Allied ships act on old instructions. |
| Lift-lung cracked | Ship lists and loses controlled height. | Pressure rises elsewhere, valves sing, emergency venting. |
| Éterlumin line ruptured | Burns, glow, crew panic, local instability. | Fire risk, resonance, loss of lift, chamber response. |
| Keel band damaged | The ship answers slowly. | Frame groans; altitude control becomes dangerous. |
| Magazine threatened | Crew diverts to containment. | Captain must choose between guns and survival. |
| Captain or signal officer down | Command confusion. | Faction doctrine collapses into individual courage or cowardice. |
Track these as clocks in the Airship Builder and Encounter Tracker; use the descriptions here to narrate what each hit feels like.
Battle rule of thumb
Each round of a major sky battle should change one spatial fact, one ship condition, or one command fact. If nothing changes, the battle becomes noise.