Odin/Harvest Goddess

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Harvest Goddess, the Wandering Granary

During the height of the First Age the Deliberative commissioned a vast fleet of gigantic ships, troop carriers, battleships, cruisers and their attendant cargo ships. Many of these great ships were lost to the Usurpation, scuttled by Terrestrial crews or annihilated by Solar fury, and fewer still survived the great waves of the Wyld following the Fair Folk invasion. One such ship however, a lowly granary ship, survived with her entire crew largely intact, mostly do to the undignified nature of being posted to guard a gigantic floating greenhouse, an insult few Solars would accept, considered too lowly for even Terrestrials.

Despite being considered a wallowing, inelegant beast by the First Age savants who designed and built her, the Goddess would be considered a wonder by modern standards. Built on the principle of a great barge, the Harvest Goddess is a full two miles in length, with a width just under a quarter of that. Rising a full eighty feet above the waterline and descending another sixty below, the ship gives the impression of a monstrous piece of driftwood covered in glass barnacles when viewed from the sky, as the sun glints of her thousands of adamant sky domes.

Beneath those enchanted domes grow acres of wheat, barley, corn and sugar cane, as well as many strange crops lost to the Age of Sorrows. One of many such ships, the Goddess was designed to provide supplies for the gigantic warships of the First Age, putting to sea for years at a time and taking her own mobile farming village with her. When the other ships of the line were lost in warfare with the Fair Folk, the Goddess was spared such a dark fate. With her granaries nearly full and no more First Age dreadnoughts to service, the ship wandered the Western ocean, searching for nearly a decade before giving up hope of finding her lost fleet.

Now the ship travels the tiny islands of the Far West, carrying the descendants of her original crew from islet to tiny islet, trading for exotic fruits and grains and occasionally taking on new passengers, who eventually become part of the ever growing farming community. It is said that the crops of a thousand islands grow beneath the crystal domes of the Goddess, no mere boast for such a venerable ship. Due to the ever growing population of the ship, new cruder additions have been made to the outer edges of the decks, giving the Goddess a slapdash, clapboard look. These new structures are not particularly beautiful, but they are well made and sturdy, reflecting the simple needs of people happy to be well fed and relatively safe.

The ship has been known to range as far East as Wavecrest, but only in direst need or to escape the worst of storms, as the village elders who make such decisions fear attacks by the Lintha and other pirates. Anyone who visits the ship must obtain permission from the elders and will be assigned a sponsor among the farmers, who is responsible for the visitor’s comfort and conduct. The only trades available on the ship are those required for basic living and agriculture, such as a black smith, carpenter or midwife, and the various savant-tradesmen who are mostly only needed for basic repairs as the ship largely takes care of herself. Should the ship ever come under attack, she will immediately cast off and try to run. Few Second Age vessels can hope to catch her, as she was designed to keep pace with the swift ships of the First Age should the need arise.




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