(aka "Pedalboat")
by Greg Stone and James StevensThis strange vessel is a gnome modified wreckboat. It looks like a normal lifeboat with two enormous flywheels attached to either side. These flywheels can be made of stone, wood or steel and sometimes other strange materials are used. A set of pedals are to be found, usually below the rudder man's seat. A large gear box is fitted to the bottom of the boat connecting the pedals to the flywheels in an extremely complicated and typically gnomish manner.
The motive force for this boat is produced by working the pedals. This position is called the 'Pedalsman'. Through a complicated set of gears, pulleys and cogs the huge flywheels are spun at high speed. No-one is quite shore of the next bit, even the Gnomes, but the pedalboat uses the inertia of the flywheels against each other to produce its forward motion.
As only the physical strength of the helmsman is being used to power the boat it is much less powerful then magical forms of helms. The ship's rating (SR) is calculated by dividing the strength of the pedalsman by ten and rounding up. This gives a maximum SR of 3. Faster speeds are possible for short periods but the pedalsman must then rest. Spelljamming speeds are impossible. Also the flywheeler is unable to raise itself up out of a gravity plane or fly on a planetoid. It can only move in wildspace and on the gravity plane of other bodies.
If a flywheeler is reduced to 0 hull points (destroyed) there is a chance that the two flywheels will career off in random directions. These flywheels can be up to 8 feet across and weigh 500 pounds making them extremely dangerous projectiles. To determine if they hit anything roll randomly for the direction they go in on a D6. If one of the flywheels passes through an occupied hex, roll to see if the flywheel hits (one of) the object(s) in that hex. Treat them as if they where thrown by a giant.
Due to the tiring job of helming a pedalboat animated creatures are often used. Skeleton pedalsmen are the most common as zombies become smelly after awhile. When speed is essential, golems with their great strength are used.
Attack Ship: Like a wreckboat the flywheeler can be mounted with a medium ballista or more commonly a gnomish sweeper. However, because of its slow speed, it is not used in this role very often.
Bomb Boat: The flywheeler is loaded up with as much smoke powder or greek oil as can be mustered and flown kamikaze style into a target exploding on impact. The pedalsman either goes with down with the ship, teleports off at the last moment or most often the boat in flown by an animated being such as a skeleton or zombie.
Exercise: Amongst the idle rich this craze has taken off. Exercise obsessed well to do have been seen slowly riding around their luxury space yachts. :)
Fairy or Shuttle: Used to move people or goods between ships.
Lifeboat: As per wreckboat.
Racing: A new sport to take off is pedal boat racing. A course set out in the wildspace using rocks and ships. Contestants race against each other for the finish line. Much money is bet on these races and a great deal of prestige can be gained by the riders. The pinnacle of this sport is the Tour de Bral.
Steam Boat: Rumored - A badly injured gnome was found drifting through wildspace. When first found he could only mutter the one phase over and over, "Only one more tiny adjustment". Eventually he recovered from shock to tell a frightening story. His tribe of gnomes was working on a steam driven flywheeler. Still in the prototype stage, they regularly caught fire or exploded.
