Morrigan's Wings: Non-Combat Rules

"Good girls go to Heaven, but the bad girls go everywhere!" -Meat Loaf, Bat out of Hell II

This section provides rules for Morrigan's overland travel, diving, gliding, stealth hunting, etc.

Travel

Morrigan has two Travel flight modes:  Sustained and Sprint.  Carrying creatures or heavy things is a modification of Sustained travel.

Sustained Travel

Morrigan can fly like a bird, reaching great heights and flying at speeds similar to other overland travel options.  Her maximum sustained travel speed, without burning a Spring charge, is 80 ft./turn (16 squares/turn), or about 9 miles per hour.
This rate is equivalent to mounted overland travel when remounts are available.  If traveling with a grounded party, she can stay airborne for any or all of their travel.  No horse for her, no thank you!
Flying is energy-intensive and more than an hour or so will incur an eating event during her breaks.  This effectively doubles Morrigan's food requirements for the day.

Sprint Travel

Sprinting is generally reserved for "Oh, shit!" moments when a short distance must be covered rapidly.  Her maximum speed is 60 mph for a number of minutes equal to her Strength attribute times 1.5. (Ex: With STR of 10, she can sprint for 15 minutes.)
Sprinting is tiring!  She is grounded for six minutes for every minute of Sprinting.  (Ex: A 10-minute Sprint requires a 60 minute no-fly period after.)  Also, she must eat a snack or take a short rest to re-enter Sprint.
She has two Sprint charges per long rest.  Burning both precludes additional Sustained travel flight until a successful long rest.  Into the wagon with the rest of the ground-pounders!

Implications

"Choices are easy, consequences are hard!" - Mathematically, Chain-Sprinting cannot outdistance Sustained travel over the course of a day.  A single Sprint can just eke out a distance advantage, but does burn that precious Sprint charge and set up conditions for a Chain-Sprinting-related loss of distance.

Carrying Creatures or Heavy Things

Morrigan is a performance racing athlete, not a weightlifter.  However, she can carry up to a Medium Creature, or a similarly heavy object, for a number of turns equal to her Strength Attribute.
Her maximum speed is her Sustained travel speed of 80 ft./turn (16 squares/turn).
This activity burns a Sprint charge, with the usual requirements for re-entering Sprint.  Each turn spent carrying in this manner in this manner incurs a six minute no-fly period.  All other Wing actions are allowed during this time.

Gliding

With a wingspan of over twenty feet, Morrigan can make for an impressive sight in the air.  That said, gliding is quiet and lacks the movement that catches the eye, so the proper conditions allow for hunting opportunities among the unwary.
Morigan has two Gliding flight modes:  Simple and Hunting.  Both can initiate Combat.
Note: Simple Gliding is effectively the mechanism for Sustained travel flight, but may need some details in special situations.

Simple

Simple Gliding is merely trading height for speed with the occasional wing-beat to overcome air resistance.
Without wing-beats, the potential/kinetic exchange is governed by physics, and works out to a ration of 5ft. of altitude to 20 ft/turn of speed.  Usually, her maximum speed for distance travel is the usual Sustained travel speed.  But, with this mechanism, higher speeds can be attained.  (See the Diving rules)
Morrigan can always bleed speed without gaining altitude (E_total drops), and can attain speed without lowering altitude (E_total rises).  Losing energy requires no extra motion, but adding energy will require some flapping.  This has implications for Hunting. (see the Hunting rules)
Note:  Combat can only be initiated when Morrigan's speed is at or below the usual 80 ft./turn limit.  (See the Diving rules)

Hunting

Hunting Gliding is Simple with appropriate Stealth checks.  A surprise melee attack from Stealth does not incur an attack of opportunity as Morrigan glides past.
After such ana ttack, if she is no longer eligible for Stealth (target still alive, others saw her, etc.) then she must land on her next turn or burn a Combat Flying Charge.  (see the Combat Flying rules)

Diving

Morrigan can trade gravitational potential energy for that blessed hair-raising kinetic energy  Speed, baby!  It's all about the speed!

Height/Speed Trading

The usual physics governs the exchange:

v = sqrt(2gh), where g = 32 ft/sec²

Ex: A 200-ft drop can yield a speed of 113 mph in less than four seconds!

Implications

Thrill-diving isn't all fun and games, you know!  (Bring a spatula.  Some assembly required.)
"No time to chat!" - Fast flying precludes initiating Combat, and any external initiating event may knock Morrigan out of flight.  She must succeed on a Concentration check or she falls according to the Feather Fall rules.  She still enters Combat, is instantly slowed to Combat Flying speeds, and must burn a Combat Flying charge to stay airborne.  If she does not wish to continue via Combat Flying, she voluntarily descends according to the Feather Falling criteria.
"G-forces rule!" - Fast flying precludes rapid turning.  Morrigan can make a single 45-degree course change per turn.  Avoiding trees and other obstacles incurs a Difficult terrain check.  Narrow routes, such as a city street, incur a single check per necessary course change.
"Air resistance is a fucking drag!" - Morrigan, despite her lean and long cross-section, will lose high speeds rapidly.  The decay rate is proportional to initial speed, costing 10 percent of her maximum base speed per turn until she slows to 16 squares/turn.  This yields a maximum high-speed distance of 4.6x her initial; turn's distance over one minute.

Charge Summary

• Combat Flying:  2/short rest
• Sprint/Carry:  2/long rest

Thrill Diving 101:  From the top of the Old East Tower

Morrigan wants to dive from the top of the Old East Guard Tower in the Upper City of Baldur's gate.  The tower yields 200 feet of diving clearance before she enters street-pizza territory.  The basic equation is:

x_f = x_i + v_it +(1/2)gt²

This yields the two relevant equations of motion we need at the bottom of Morrigan's dive, namely "how fast" and "how much time":

t = sqrt(2x_i/g)   and   v_f = gt

Using 200 feet for the initial height and 32 feet per second per second for gravitational acceleration, we get a drop time of 3.53 seconds and a flat final speed of 113 ft/sec.
This speed converts to an initial turn's distance as 136 squares, and a maximum glide distance of 625 squares over one minute.  However, if Morrigan is diving down a city street in the Upper city, she had better pull up a bit since that street is probably not 3,125 feet long!  So, if 5 feet of altitude trades for 4 squares/turn in speed, and the buildings she must clear are no more than two stories above the bottom of her arc, then she trades 20 squares/turn for 25 feet of altitude (an extra five to clear her boobs, it'd be a shame to shear those off!), yielding an initial turn's distance of 116 squares and a total rooftop-skimming distance of 533 squares over one minute, or about a half-mile.
Keeping in mind that Sprinting is a mile over a minute, she could have doubled her cumulative speed by simply burning a Sprint charge.  But, this is far cooler!