Firmament 1107 — Occult-Futurist Dirigible “The Steed of Conquerors”

A large dirigible with a crew of 70, this vessel of the Occult-Futurists was responsible for delivering many of the earliest spies, scouts, and saboteurs to their inland bases of operation. It now sits moored to the Low-Hanging Firmament. The Occult-Futurist command thinks it is lost (and suspect the Merchant-Industrialists are responsible despite a struggle to find evidence of this, putting red tape in many diplomatic efforts), but in truth the captain of the vessel made the decision to try to establish a base of operations here without notifying his own superiors.

Gideone Fontanari (he/him) fancies himself an explorer and believes that successfully starting a fort here will guarantee him the fame and wealth that allow a heroic retirement away from Riccamino. His crew are more skeptical. Some think his commitment to the Occult-Futurist cause is weak and he is attempting to betray the military he serves, while others less patriotic blame their predicament on overzealous fanaticism. A group of 14 has begun meeting in secret to plot either mutiny or escape, and hopes to swell its ranks. Unfortunately, a group of die-hard loyalists to Gideone make up the majority of the engineers on board, so the ability to keep the machine aloft remains a problem to this effort.

The dirigible is anchored by long cables to both 1106 and 1007, allowing smaller balloon-ferrys (4 on board, not steerable if not attached to a cable) to bring scouting expeditions to the shore.

25 of the crew are trained and equipped with rifles, and the ship has 2 larger mounted guns, one on either side. These allow the craft to defend itself from other airborne threats and bombard ground positions, though without access to new supplies they are hesitant to use their ammo.

Occasionally scouts are sent to barter for food with the Spiderweb-Goddess Vara in 0705, trading copies of machine schematics for various paste-like substances of nutritional value but unidentifiable origin. Vara is generous with these trades, and the crew are teaching themselves novel ways to prepare their strange new foods.