Captain's log, supplemental: Our spies in the Dream State Design Bureau have confirmed that the latest deck plans are a fake; the "shearing ram" depicted in these plans is in fact their new mind lance weapon. Obviously, the mind flayers are creating several deck plans, each with minor differences, to ferret out spies in their midst. Luckily they still haven't caught on. I've drafted an accurate description of the craft and sent it to Naval Intelligence for review, and kept a copy in my log for posterity.
-Captain Icarus, EIN Arrow of Justice
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Triop fins enable the craft to obtain a maneuver class of A at the expense of velocity. |
Most presentations of space navies describe mighty warships with a power that instills shock and awe in those that oppose them. The same presentations pay little attention to support vessels that play a vital role in the common defense. But it would be disastrous for the EIN or other forces to ignore this seemingly insignificant Illithid Lance.
This vessel consists of a fully enclosed wooden framed hull with ceramic armor plating that's shaped like a giant seashell or unicorn horn. Two dorsal masts sprout through the shell amid-ships and at the bow that serve as psychic antennae. The bow is tipped with a braided piercing ram that's typical for a mind flayer ship. Its ram has a built-in ramming prow to reduce collateral damage taken by the Lance. Special maneuvering sail fins, like those on the Triop, give excellent maneuverability. And while a single medium ballista at the bow provides apparently token self-defense, the large, lance-like protrusion mounted on the ship's keel is the bottom portion of the craft's main weapon.
A mind lance is a powerful device with both magical and psionic enchantments. It consists of the dorsal psychic antennae, the ventral lance-like protrusion, and a specially designed series helm, all of which are connected via psychic conduit. The ventral protrusion is actually just a steerable psychic antenna. It enables the crew to aim their psychic power (for those powers that require aiming) without exposing the mind flayers to danger. To spot enemy targets from inside their ship, the helmsmen simply make good use of that "out of body experience" provided by all helm designs.
The series helm, when connected to the mind spear, is specially designed to channel and amplify the illithids' mental powers. It also links their psionic reserves (PSPs) into a central pool from which any helmsman may draw upon. There are seven links in the series helm, one for each mind flayer. Any number of links may be allocated to the psychic antennae or allocated to propulsion. Of course, to move the ship requires at least one link in the series helm devoted to propulsion. It takes one turn to switch a series helm link from propulsion to the mind lance, or vice-versa.
A typical Illithid Lance has a number of enchantments that drastically improve its ability to escape detection, including invisibility, silence, and non-detection. Such enchantments enable the vessel to get close to its targets without being detected. Though a silence enchantment should impair ship operations, keep in mind that the mind flayers communicate through telepathy and can relay messages to the slave-crew. Finally, another enchantment, levitate, keeps the ship afloat near a celestial body even when there are no crew manning the helm.
The crew consists of a seven mind flayers who man the combined helm and intelligence stations. Six of the Illithid crew are accomplished psionicists, and one is a wizard or other spell caster (they all, of course, have innate psionic talent). They carry a number of charmed slaves as expendable troops, weapons crews, entertainment, and meals. While 3 slaves man the sails and take care of other shipboard duties, slaves don't play as vital a role on the Lance as they do on other Illithid ships.
PsiOps: The Lance-class corvette is primarily a platform for psychological and psychic operations. This ship and its crew are tasked with disrupting enemy fleet communications, demoralizing, disorienting and confusing enemy crews, inciting fear, panic, and riots in unsuspecting townsfolk, feeding disinformation to rival governments through operatives (a.k.a. possessed slaves), and gathering intelligence. To carry out their work, the mind flayers don't use crude ballista or piercing rams. Instead, mind flayers use the most powerful Illithid weapons in their arsenal: their minds, amplified by a mind lance.
Each link in the series helm that is devoted to the mind lance assembly increases the range of psionic-based powers by 1 hex (500 feet). Thus, three helm links allocated to the mind lance increases all psychic powers to a range of 3 hexes (1,500 feet). Additionally, where a power normally affects one person, psychic amplifiers in each helm link increase the power to affect one crew unit (5 Small to Medium-sized creatures, 2 Large-sized creatures, or 1 Huge-sized creature). Area-effect powers are doubled in size for each helm linked to the device. Note that only one psionic power may be used at a time through the lance, and only the mental powers of those sitting on helms linked to the device are available. Also, any psionic power may be used through the mind lance, including innate powers and any powers gained from psionic-based classes.
When attacking an enemy ship, the Lance approaches invisibly and matches speed. Using the mind lance and their innate detect thoughts and astral projection powers, the mind flayers look for targets of opportunity amongst the target's crew. A combination of charm monster, telepathy, and suggestion brings several crew-units under Illithid control while the Lance remains invisible. When the timing is right and they've gathered their forces, the mind flayers unleash their new slaves upon an unsuspecting crew. If all goes well, then the Illithids will likely have a new addition to their fleet as well as more slaves to consume. If not, well, a quick mind blast and/or amplified plane shift by the helmsmen will move the ship out of harms way.
By leaving off all the enchantments (except levitate, and possibly invisibility and silence) as well as the psychic antennae and the mind spear, the Lance becomes considerably cheaper to produce. Stripped down, the Lance has other uses on the drawing board.
Corvette: Adding a dual-mount chin turret and a pair of bombards turns the Lance into a corvette capable of raiding other vessels. The cannons are always crewed by slaves since the mind flayers won't get their hands dirty on such crude weapons. Corvettes could also serve as small courier ships and smuggler vessels.
Fleet Resupply: Nondimensional trunks and/or holds of holding turn the Lance into a fleet resupply vessel. While not able to access nondimensional space out in the Flow, resupply operations are typically carried out in wildspace.
