Overview[]
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Extremely quick and agile | Expensive |
| Require little or not crew | Difficult to transport passengers |
| Can carry a large amount of cargo | Impossible for anyone other than a skilled mage to operate |
| Very hardy, capable of punching through an adolescent Junraka at full speed | Navigators and established trade routes are necessary, as you can't see where you're going. |
Design[]
Vakir are designed to cut through the water. Extremely narrow at the tip, they get wider as the go down, with the passengers and captain residing in the middle, until they get to the back, where most of the ship's cargo is stored. Made from pieces of ebony held together by a mage, they are intricately decorated with spirals that cover the entire craft. They can be quite luxurious - but more often than not are near barren inside, as they are extremely fast, and are used primarily for transporting goods, not people. Because of their design, they are very costly, and are typically used to transport cargo not trusted in the hands of conventional ships - typically drugs, weaponry, and sensitive technology.
Operation in Water[]
The Vakir use Kinetic Magic to push themselves under and through the water, cutting through it like paper. Typically, the captains of these ships are the ones who power the ship, using their own Magic to drive the ships through the water. Anyone else on board is usually either being ferried from destination to destination, or is a manual labourer, used for nothing more than getting the cargo off the boat.
Use in War[]
The Vakir can be used as a very destructive, if costly, weapon in warfare. Vakir are more than capable of sinking warships at high speeds, and have been used as projectiles in last resort defenses, being hurled through the air. Vakir used in this way are often filled with magical explosives, doubling as shrapnel bombs, as well as direct impact. However, given the large cost of a Vakir, their use as projectiles is very rare, and only used when all other defensive options are exhausted. There have been no recorded use of Vakir as weapons in an offensive attack, though use of smaller, cheaper ebony shards have been employed in explosive devices the world over.