Airships are sometimes confused with spaceships, or seen as something of high technology. Airships are in fact not advanced technology. There is no harnessed electricity in the Great Realms, nor are there devices like hydraulics. Airship technology would resemble something from the 19th Century.
At the heart of an airship are the engines. Makou Combustion Engines resemble an earthly diesel engine, a device made of iron with pistons inside that drive a crank shaft which powers the vehicle. The engine works on the same idea of a diesel engine which is compression. Fuel is placed inside the piston chamber and compressed. The air and fuel combination heats up under compression and explodes, driving the piston. Once the engine is started, it will run under its own energy and compression. These engines are started through a series of pulleys, cables, springs and weights. Original airships involve a key and lever system. A lever is pulled several times which tightens up several springs and raises several weights. The key is placed in what is known as the ignition, which in fact is nothing more than a secure triggering system. The key is turned which releases the tension of the springs and weights, which drives a series of gears and cables that turn the makou engines over. A newer system found on most modern airships involve only the key. The springs and weights for startup are drawn into position with a secondary system of springs and weights when the ignition key is turned to off. The off position includes another trigger which cuts the fuel to the engines, thus turning them off.
Airships have undergone several transformations in the devices used to levitate and float these ships. The original airships use a large blimp device which is filled with Makou Gas #2. These blimps were built half metal and half canvas and was connected with the main airship. Shafts and gears ran into the blimp allowing engine propellers to be placed on the blimp itself, along with rudder systems. Battle Cruisers and War Cruiser Class Airships utilize this type of system. Flotation and levitation for any airship is a balancing act. It is said a perfectly floated airship can be lifted off the ground by a single dwarf. Cargo Airships on the other hand are floated. So without cargo, they would float away.
'Second Generation' airships as they are called use a totally different floatation system, such as the Highwind Class airships. These airships use a series of pipes and chambers built within their hull to float and levitate the airship. Without the blimp flotation device these airships prove to be much faster and have evolved into another class known as the 'Single Seaters'.
Not all races embraced Makou Technology in the belief that by using the lifestream as an energy source, they were possibly killing the planet. Such claims were mostly heard from the Blue Haven Kingdom, a government of the elven kind. The Stormchaser Class airships were designed using a more natural form of Makou, the crystalized Materia created by the lifestream. Stormchaser airships use materia for floatation and typically use natural or magical means to move, such as sails or magical spells. Ironically these airships were not possible until the creation of Makou Technology, as large quantities of materia was not common in nature, but form rapidly within the Makou Reactors.
