Minovian Skimmer


Minovians have some fancy, artistic, and unique ships to say the least. A typical example is the Minovian Skimmer. The basic shape stems from a centuries old Minovian design of their water bound sailing ships on Minerva before the Outsider wars. Which itself is patterned after a Nijoeway (a now extinct Minovian fish that could hold itself above water on its fins and use its tail to propel itself across a pond or small lake with its tail fin.) The four pontoons are what kept the boat afloat. Although the main hull was patterned after a more common sailing boat, its keel never truly touched the water, but was designed to float for emergency purposes if the struts ever somehow broke.

In place of the cloth sails that would have graced the water based version of the ship, the Minovians have built a tower with a meditation area in a shape that they find most harmonic. This is where you will find their Intellect Helm. The ship derives power from the restful mind of a Minovian giving his unused brain power sort of speak to the helm. Although only one Minovian is needed to power the ship in this way, it is most common to have 2-4 meditating in the room with one Minovian at a time taking a break as is needed. No one has been able to replicate an Intellect Helm, or get it to work for some other race as they seem to be specifically attuned to the Minovian brain patterns.

A casual observer of one of these ships will note that there are no sails and should therefore be rather hard to maneuver in atmosphere and energy consuming while in the Phlogiston. These statements could not be further from the truth. The Minovian Skimmer has an excellent maneuvering rating for its size due to special, invisible force sails that emit from the black skylight on top of the tower. They are linked into the Intellect Helm, though are somehow individually powered. The system is not strictly magical and will work in Magic dead zones, though it may have a diminished affect in a psionic low area. The force sails can stretch and position into whatever shape needed to make the most agile of turns or billow out to gain the best effect from catching the flow of the Phlogiston.

Minovian ships are not known to be armed. They seem to take a peaceful and defensive state of mind when dealing with trouble, counting on their speed and maneuverability to keep them away from danger. Even so, there are rumors that they do have some sort of electric generating device on board that can fry ships in a heartbeat if needed. A favorite tactic of the Launchers is to lie in wait outside a shipping lane out of site, or perhaps behind an asteroid or some other form of debris. They then quickly maneuver into place, and fire their Dart rockets from a far distance. While the vessel under attack deals with the undead threat now onboard their ship, the Launcher or an accompanying ship will pull up next to the vessel and unleash a horde of undead soldiers to kill everything in site and take the ship.