The Tiger Shark class light cruiser appears as a terrestial shark. The only things marring this illusion are its size, the three ballista turrets projecting from its dorsal fin, and the orange and black stripes painted over the entire vessel. The protected ballistae turrets are partialy enclosed within the dorsal fin of the ship. This provides the crews of the ballistae with 70% cover, though it does reduce the firing arcs for the weapons. (180 degrees for the front mounted ballistae, and 155 degrees for the two sidemounted ballistae.)
The ships incredible manueverability is due to the enchantments cast on the fins and tail of the ship, which allow the helmsman to control them with as much freedom of movement as a real shark.
Mounted in the "mouth" of the ship is a "Multi-Ballistae", a magical construct which fires balistae bolts. The device has a fire rate of 1/2, and fires 4 bolts simultaneously from 4 ports spaced five feet apart across the nose of the ship. (Each bolt has a seperate attack roll.) The bolts fired have a range of 6 hexes (3,000 yards) and do 2d6 hit points damage (no hull damage). The device is magicly loaded and fired under control from the helm, though a member of the crew is needed to replenish the supplies of bolts as they are used from its feed hoppers. The device has 4 hoppers, each capable of holding 10 bolts, one for each bolt casting mechanism. (ie if only one hopper contains bolts, only one bolt can be fired at a time.) The automatic loading of bolts can be interupted by the helmsman to allow for loading of special bolts (described below), though this incurrs an extra round between firings. Of course the hoppers could be loaded with specials in the first place, but this usually isn't done as the special bolts are very expencive.
To complement this weapon, "Mage Bolts" where created. Mage bolts are equisitly crafted balistae bolts, enchanted to deliver a spell when they hit thier target. Two types have so far been created, disintergration bolts, and fireball bolts to provide anti-ship capabilities. (A "heavy" load of specials, has 2 disintergration bolts on the outside, and two fireball bolts on the inside, which has the potential for severly damaging even the biggest ship.)
Though designed as exploritory vessel for PC's, it's high maneuverability, heavy armour, and capacity for dishing out lots of damage, would make it attractive to a wide range of people. Though its high cost, and the reluctence of the mage responcible for its design to part with the plans for the fin mechanisms, and multi-ballistae could prove to be a bit of a stumbling block.
This vessel has been designed for a high level party. It's main design criteria was to allow the small group to be able to go spelljamming without the extra NPC's that would be needed for a ship with the capabilities they wanted. It also had to be very distinctive.
