The Astral Talon

Here it is. The other ship. It's called the "Astral Talon". The purple crystals are for propulsion, and the red ones are for firing weapons.


The Reddish metal bit on the chest is hard to make out, but it's the cargo bay doors. There are smaller tall rectangular doors in the mouth and at the back of claw that holds the cockpit. I figured pictures of those might be a bit boring, though. To board the ship, the Eagle lowers its mouth to the ground and opens it. You walk up the lower beak to the back of the throat. Then you pass through the Eagle's body (above the cargo bay) to the steps up to the fuselage. Then you reverse course to the front of the ship and pass through the door in the back of the large claw into the cockpit sphere. As you can see, this ship is much larger than you might expect for a single pilot fighter (As is the steampunk ship I posted earlier.). I think it says something about the philosophy of the larger setting- ships are seen as things to be made beautiful and grand.


It's a fast and maneuverable ship that's powered by the spirit of an Eagle. In fantasy terms, it's like a golem. All of the Thraxian (the ancient world planet) ships are powered by animal, elemental or monster spirits, and resemble the spirit powering them. Its weak defenses and mediocre basic attack (called "Lesser Eldritch bolt") are more than compensated for by its speed. If it needs to do a lot of damage quickly, the eagle spirit inside can astrally project and fly through an enemy ship. The catch is that the Astral Talon (the ship) is left defenseless and cannot be maneuvered until the spirit returns. It will maintain speed, however. It also has a screech attack and the ability called "Phase Astral" that lets it go insubstantial and invisible (phasing into the astral plane) for short periods of time. This last ability will probably have a fairly long cool down, but imagine being chased by an enemy, Phasing Astral, and slowing down so your enemy passes through you (he can't see you, but you can see him through a haze), then speeding up, dropping the insubstiality, and attacking from behind. I think that could be cool.

This is the cockpit, and since the opalescent texture is so nicely transparent, I plan to do a Greco-Roman-styled interior that will be visible from the outside. It will likely be a ring of pillars with a throne in the middle, with magical looking controls for the pilot.

This last one's a bit dark, but I'm including it for completeness.