OUT-OF-CHARACTER INFORMATION
Ship Name: The Skewer
Credits: Image 1
Type: Seaship
Purpose: Skirmisher Ram Boat
Consolidation Thread: N/A
Architect: Forged by the shipwrights of the Eshkin Clans
Description: These so-called boats were designed for agility and boarding power, equipped with heavy spiked ramms and, of course, the rattling guns. The vessels are 12 meters long (40 feet), and equipped with dual engines powered by the doomstones' untested power. The dual ratling gun is mounted in a so-called crow's nest above the helm, giving it a 360 view. Beneath the deck is a large carved-out hull space that houses not much more than the required parts to keep the boat afloat. This allows for a substantial number of Eshkin and prisoners to be housed compared to other vessels of this size. The Skewers are kept afloat by large air-filled "balloons" on either side of the vessel. The boat is made of scraps and wood, covered in sharp edges and spikes; its form is rough, and the wood is barely moulded before even achieving its first naval encounter. Most shipwrights wouldn't allow this creation anywhere near the water, but this abomination spewing poisonous gases and bullets carries itself well enough.
ATTRIBUTES
- Defence:Low
- Defensive Elements: Scrap metal plating made from whatever metals can be found
- Speed: Average
- Offence:Average
- Offensive Elements: Dual-mounted rattling guns on each side and the boarding crew
- Durability: Low
- Scarcity: Provincial
- Verminsreach
- TvM Requirement: 4vX
STRENGHTS
Mounted Rattling guns: Shoots many, many corrupted bullets
Empty Hull: Carries many, many rat soldiers
Easy to make: Replace their numbers with many, many new ones
WEAKNESSES
Need fuel: Needs many, many litres of fuel
Not made to last: Will sink or break many, many times
Not made for the open ocean: Many, many Skewers have sunken due to waves or rougher ocean capsizing them
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Skewer was first conceived during the brief and ill-fated “Undersea Expansion Scheme” initiated by Clan Undus in conjunction with Clan Ferrus. The intent: to prove that Eshkin supremacy could extend to water as well as land. The result was an unpredictable, shrieking death-barge, the Skewer. Built in the tunnels beneath the Eshkin port of Neuhaven around 898 AWH. Its hull was scavenged from multiple wrecks, Imperial gunboats, Carthaganian smugglers, and even a captured Eirelunn patrol craft, all crudely bolted together and “improved” with doom-metal plates and scarps. Skewers debuted during the disastrous Assault on the eastern Detekela shore around 999 AWH, where it successfully rammed and sank two patrol vessels before its own doom engine ignited, killing half the crew and blowing itself up into a larger warship. Among Eshkin seafarers, “to serve on a Skewer” is a death sentence and a badge of pride. Models of the ship are displayed (badly) in some Eshkin warlords’ halls as reminders that the Hegemony of Esh can conquer the seas eventually.
