The Voyage of the Wayfarer

The Wayfarer is on a mission for the ministry; heading to the far city of L'Trien in the south, where they must deliver a special cargo. Captain V'Throx is handling the helm, joined by his long time first mate and girlfriend Alana, and a mysterious character dressed in black and red. Officially a business woman traveling to the south, unofficially an operative of the crown's ministry in a secret mission to L'Trien.


The Wayfarer is an ship capable of both flight and water surface navigation; and this is not planet Earth. It's a world called Arthemis. Thousands of years ago humans from planet Earth colonized space and expanded into the far reaches of the galaxy. Arthemis was once a human colony. However something bad happened a few years after Arthemis was settled. Contact with other colonies was lost, and no ships ever returned. Since the colony was still very young, the inhabitants did not have the capability to build starships themselves, and so their society evolved following a very peculiar path. That was a long time ago...

The ship has two pieces of uncommon, very advanced, yet archaic technology. An ion rocket engine is attached for horizontal navigation, this makes it very fast in the air. Since it does not have a hot air balloon attached to it like other airships, it offer less friction at high speeds. This has both high and low points; since it needs an antigrav unit to hold altitude, and if it were to fail by any chance while in flight, the ship would drop like a hammer.

Other airships have hot air balloons attached and manual/steam propellers. This allows them to float in the air relatively safe and without the need of an antigrav unit. The tradeoff is, it makes them slower and prevents them from having sails; thus making them less maneuverable and much slower in the water.

The antigrav unit offers a much higher service ceiling for the Wayfarer than a hot air balloon, even if the ship's wooden structure or lack of a pressurized cabin make it impossible to go much higher. It still offers a decisive advantage in air to air combat. Such technology has been preserved by a few selected and powerful covenants in Arthemis. Much of the knowledge from those times still exists, however the resources and materials needed for manufacturing are very, very scarce. As a result most of the populated areas have to rely heavily on wood and coal, fueling steam based engines. Captain V'Throx managed to procure a device only by gaining the favor of the ministry. Civilian ships and even many warships do not have access to advanced tech.


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Notes: Since I had an artblock, I went completely nuts. I've never really liked steampunk, but I can live with the flying ships, and I'm going for a really crazy mix of stuff. Think WoW's outland, mixed with Paul Anderson's The Three Musketeers, mixed with Firefly, mixed with Trinity Blood and some Xena+StarTrek --I'm doing the character profiles next.

I may add more details to this image in the future, since Daz Studio 4.6 now allows me to render small portions of a whole image, while keeping the proper render size.