Чёрная Трирема «Хроданау», Бич Запада / The Black Trireme Khrodanau, Scourge of the West

English

The third of the four black triremes finally has its own high-detail model! This is the Khrodanau, better known as the Scourge of the West. Since the true names of the black triremes were known to so few, these mysterious armoured airships were instead known by sinister sobriquets. Pherazmil was better known as the Harbinger of Anarchy, Zaphnora was better known as the Dark Messenger, and Khrodanau, which terrorised the skies above western Rossbera, unsurprisingly became known as the Scourge of the West. Its true name is also a reference to the west, though you'd have to be at least as nerdy as me to know in what way (I bet my sister could figure it out if I asked her, since all four names of the black triremes combine two of my favourite things).

Before anyone in the west knew that a black trireme was responsible, "scourge of the west" was already a common name for the unknown culprit shooting down any aircraft that tried to fly to the Isle of Baigal. Since Okseetia controlled one half of the island and Sondor controlled the other, both governments initially blamed the other, but it wasn't long before they realised someone else was responsible. It was the Bulmutians who solved the mystery, when by a stroke of luck, they managed to take pictures of an old fortress in the mountains, and discovered a flying trireme parked there. Rin Baigal (location shown below) was nestled in the mountains that separated the islands into two halves, and it was supposedly abandoned three centuries earlier. Neither the Okseetians nor the Sondorians wanted anything to do with it.

How, precisely, that a single black trireme knew exactly where to intercept all the incoming aircraft remained a mystery until the government noticed that all Baigalese fishing boats had strange wires sticking high into the air. These wires were radio antennas connected to extremely simple transmitters. All they did was ping at a fixed wireless frequency when activated. The receiver was aboard the Khrodanau, and since fishing boats tend to fish in the same general area, a ping from a specific boat gave the approximate location.

If you haven't yet assembled the pieces of this little puzzle, what this all meant was that the Baigalese fishermen were telling the Khrodanau where to find foreign aircraft in their skies. Of course, it wasn't just aeroplanes and airships that fell prey to the Scourge of the West, as the Khrodanau also sank a few warships and troop transports... and a hospital ship, because "war crime" is a phrase that has no meaning in the lexicon of chaos. Ocean liners weren't safe either, but anyone who has ever heard of the RMS Lusitania already knew that.

The people of Baigal wanted independence. Their island had been taken over by the Rhûnnish Empire centuries ago, and when the Rhûnnish Empire split into the Alexandrian and Okseetian Empires, the Sondorian Empire took advantage of the turmoil and seized the southern half of Baigal. A group of occultists offered to help the Baigalese in their endeavour to become ungovernable, because it meant that they could study the secrets of Rin Baigal in peace.

This group was led by a chuyinka named Noya Waterfeather, also called Noya the Mystic, who had studied the occult for over a century (in Earth years, he is 136). Years later, he also gained the moniker "Blue Dragon," but that's a story for another time. Here is a very simple figure of him standing atop the bridge of his airship. He is unusually tall, standing at 2 metres (6'7"), hence making the pilothouse appear a bit dinky by comparison.

Meanwhile, this is what he is supposed to look like. Most chuyinki you've seen have only two feathers in their hair, but Noya has four, on account of being a parent. He is the father of Alya Goldfeather, whom you have seen briefly before. Alya, incidentally, eventually comissioned the construction of a diamond trireme called Kříštálëve Oko, which is Okseetian Rhûnnish (a cross between Ukrainian and Czech) for "Crystal Eye," after the name of the massive blue diamond hanging from Noya's choker.

Like all of the black triremes, Khrodanau is armed with two 80-cm missile tubes, four 210-mm cannons, four 147-mm cannons, two 105-mm cannons, and 36 disappearing gun platforms, each of which may be armed with a 77-mm cannon, a 42-mm rotary cannon, or a harpoon launcher. Below is a comparison of the three I have finished thus far, so you can see the differences of their details. Pherazmil is in the middle.

As you can see, the design is basically the same, but each armoured airship has its own unique figurehead, baffles, and conning towers. The fourth, Grugnula, already has its own custom baffles shaped like dragon's wings, but I'm still working out how the conning towers will look in some paper sketches. The figurehead for that one will be interesting to render, will most likely be a separate component (unlike on these three), and I may even have to resort to using a different program. If you want to get some idea what it will look like, here are some links to the old model: https://hive.blog/steampunk/@steampunkkaja/a-challenge-for-my-followers https://www.shapeways.com/product/8D8NVWUSU/trireme-airship-grugnula?optionId=62440476&li=shops

This will be the last 3D model I share for a while. Upcoming projects will include the Wukong-class dropship, Alexandrian flying minelayer, Bulmutian hornet, L-type chaos flying torpedo boat, and various dirigibles. Perhaps I'll share some sketches to show you what these airships will look like. In the mean time, I have plenty of nature photography, metalworking projects, and miniature model experiments (e.g. trying to paint a sailing ship) to share.