Travel

The sky ships
In a sky filled with islands, you can’t simply walk from place to place, but luckily there are plenty of alternatives. The most common way is by ship, as passenger, crewmember, hitchhiker, or in any kind of illegal ways.

Most of these ships float because of the use of floatstone. In the early days, a ship used to have one or more large chunks of floatstone below deck, but this proved to be an unreliable and a bad strategic method. These days, the most popular way to is to grind it into small splinters and distribute floatstone on the inside of the hull. A ship receives a bit more floatstone than it needs needs to float, so in its neutral state in tends to rise higher in the air. This elevation is countered by a mechanism to moisturize the floatstone splinters. With this mechanism, the ship can elevate, sink or stay at the same level. To get around, most of these ships use some sort of contraption with sails, capturing the wind to travel across the void. Other use propellers powered by steam engines or even captured elementals.

Because of the high price of floatstone, these kinds of ships are not available for everyone. Those with a smaller budget often use hot air balloons in various models and sizes. Although this form of flying transportation can be crafted relatively easily, they tend to be vulnerable and hard to navigate with.

The Anduin have developed a different solution for this problem. Because the silver elves loathe mining the earthbergs, they use the sacred Galidor trees from Belodién. These white trees are as light as air and are shaped by magic and molds while they grow. One ship exists out of roughly 20 Galidor trees grown into each other. In a way the silver elves actually grow their ships, and the trees still grow once the ship has left the earthbergs. The larger the elven ships are, the older the trees.

Mounts of the Small Ring
Another common way of getting around is riding trained animals; in a world where horses are mostly unknown are gryphons, hippogriffs, giant birds and dragon-kin great mounts. Flying mounts are great for short distances fast, but when flying over open space, fatigue of the mount can be dangerous. Most mounts act nervous or even insubordinate when guided into the big emptiness of the void. In general, the easiest to train are the hippogriffs, and are frequently used both as beast of burden as mount. However, most species of hippogriffs are nervous and easily panicked, making them not suitable for battle.

More popular on that frontier are the gryphons. There are a broad variety of gryphon species across the void, from the sturdy and aggressive blackbeaks till the quick and gallant snowtails. Because they are natural predators, they are excellent for aerial combat and can be trained to attack together with its rider. Gryphons are intelligent creatures, and the best trained can even understand a language or two.

Dragon-kin are far away family of true dragons, but have animal intelligence and none of the known dragon powers. They are violent, stubborn and harder to train than gryphons, but are great mounts when kept under control of their rider. Dragon-kin come in various sizes, and the larger ones are known to be able to carry up to 10 armed men.

Other mounts are less common, but giant birds, bats, insects and magical constructs aren’t unheard of. The void is filled with a diversity of rare flying beasts, and mortals who have the skill and courage to tame them are even rarer.

Other ways of travel
But the usage of ships or mounts isn’t the only way to cross the big emptiness. With the world filled with magic, other options are open for those who are willing to pay the price. The elite spellcasters have ways to transfer themselves or others across the void. However, they are not eager to help everyone who needs a teleport spell. Mainly they only want to use their talent is such a trivial way, when there is much to gain for them with their service. There are also rumors that the archmages of the Medina own portals in all their towers, making travel between them quick and tireless.

The Minori have another unique way to travel distances, they still own artifacts from their lost civilization that makes them able to shift to the ethereal plane and back. In the dimension of ghosts, they are able to walk across the sky as if it was land. Although this way of travel is everything except safe, the Minori tribes seem to stay longer and longer in the ethereal plane. With this longer time of peace in the small ring, an upcoming trend is Hitchhiking as an exciting and cheap way of travel. Hitchhiking trough the void means making many promises, calling favors, helping others out and loaning out your skills. For example, minstrels often hitchhike in exchange to entertain them along the way.

Runegates
Scattered across the void, travelers find ancient stone constructions in the shape of a ring covered in draconic runes. These gates from a forgotten time are known are the mysterious runegates. These constructions are supposed to be linked with each other, but they seem inactive. Only a couple of times people succeeded to activate and travel between them, but their true mechanisms hasn’t been figured out. The best-known runegates are in below the surface in Midland, in the center of Celemir and in the mountains around Thorncombe. It is also known that some runegates are in dangerous locations like Pandora, Grave point and the burning city of Acropolis.

Navigating
When sailing through the void, most ships tend to stay within visual contact of the earthbergs to make navigating easy. But when ships need to cross open sky, more tools are necessary. A compass, detailed maps and a turn calendar is required to measure the ships location between Midland and the small ring. A turn calendar is a reference sheet that displays the location of each earthberg in the small ring in every month. While these are normally on paper, more elaborate versions exist. The Dwarven -crafted turnglobes are clockworks spherical maps that display the complete small ring and its turn location accurately till the day.

Falling down
The greatest fear for any sailor, adventurer or traveler is to fall. And there are both magical and practical ways to prevent it. Theoretically, because there is no ground, those who fall will keep falling until they hit something or reach the lower parts of the underdark. If they keep falling, they will become unconscious by oxygen loss and shock until the underdark will swallow them whole.

To prevent this, sailors working on deck have a lifeline: a strong rope tied to their belt to save them if they fall overboard. The wealthier travelers carry a protective amulet that can trigger a single feather fall spell to ensure even more safety. These amulets come in many shapes and sizes and there are also pricier variations on the market with other spells; like air walk or fly.