#i will add more tmrw but basically big howls moving castle vibes

[unicyclehippo]

game night!!! i mentioned this earlier but i wanna talk a little about the ship the party just boarded—i think they really enjoyed it!!!

“The first glimpse you have of this ship is a big green sail over the trees. The second is a big yellow sail, the third a big white sail, and as you’re trying to figure out exactly how it all fits together, the ship turns the bend in the river and past the trees and you can see it in its entirety. The more you look, the more you see, halflings and gnomes and the very occasional half-elf or goblin scurrying up and down rigging, swinging out on rope ladders to dive into the water, calling out orders across the work deck or dares up to the children walking the laundry tightrope. It’s colourful and bustling—far more than a ship, the Loralee Larelli is its own village drifting down the river.”

So the boat is very much inspired by Howl’s Moving Castle and it’s this wonderful cluster of ships and platforms and rooms. I’ll give a rundown of the levels and things that I have built so far.

Underbarge: separated into Storage, Brig, & Trawling. Storage is looked over by the Quartermaster and especially here at the base is extremely important because if anything gets too unbalanced, there is a real possibility that the entire construct could topple. The Brig is two dingy little rooms and the Skipper has the only keys. Trawling is beneath the kitchen/mess hall on Work Deck & it is a well, essentially, that allows people to drop fish nets & crab cages & go diving below. They often use it when they’re travelling through the swamp to look for buried treasure.

Work Deck/ Level One: This is the part of the deck that serves as the base for everything above. A fairly flat boat, a very large barge. Seperated into the Skipper’s Hill, the Haul Arm, the Mess Hall & the School House. At the rear of the barge is Skipper’s Hill—a halfling hill that was moved, undisturbed, from its place and set on the barge. Grass and wildflowers grow over it and a little crooked chimney pokes up the top. It has porthole windows and a little front door and a little letterbox. The Mess Hall & School House are like long buildings on the deck but th walls are able to be folded back like shutters so they can be completely open and are just covered with a roof or they can be closed for classes or whatever else. The Haul Arm is built out from the bank side of the ship and is a sand beast. It is a contraption of wooden legs that are propelled by the wind blowing in its sailed and the Haul Arm essentially functions by walking over the reeds and sand bank; workers who are standing on the Haul Arm have baskets and sickles and they chop reeds into the baskets for weaving.

Halfway between Work Deck and Platform One is the Fishing platform & Laundry platform. Pretty self explanatory but it’s fun to imagine dozens of lines of shirts and pants and dresses flapping in the breeze.

Platform One: Bunks on Port, Crafts on Starboard. As simple as it sounds, the reality of this platform is as dizzying as all the others. There are platforms and boxes and rooms made of scavenged and lovingly repaired driftwood and tent canvas and it looks like they lifted half a low stone fence from a farm to build up one of the platforms. There’s a chicken coop made out of an old carriage, and someone has turned a wagon into lift with a clever pulley system. Some of the rooms have signs nailed or written with chalk that say that they belong to someone but others are open to anyone who needs a bed, and are packed with pallets or hammocks or blankets to sleep under the stars.

Similarly, Crafters on Starboard platform is another jumble. The rooms are on the outskirts of starboard platform one, all pushed to the edges so that the centre of it is a big open space for people to sit around and work together. Some of this platform is also dedicated to storage and the quartermaster’s cabin is here. Wooden gangplanks and rope bridges and rope swings let people move from one side to the other, or up and down, as well as elevator pulleys for those in wheelchairs or injured or carrying things. All anyone needs to do is whistle or call up for a hand and someone will hurry to help. Most elevators also have a hand crank but it is a bit harder to do for yourself and slower than three enthusiastic people hauling on a pulley rope to help you up a level.