Cloudsplitter

Full Item Description
A rickety-seeming vessel, the very sight of Cloudsplitter is enough to give a brave man pause. A roughly oblong frame of iron piping is wrapped in grimy canvas, while three strange prongs, not entirely unlike the head of an oar project forth from its front. Huge and ungainly, what they call the wings of the craft are two twisted rectangles that project out hugely from the body of it. Yet, miracle of miracles, it flies.

History
All his life, Valanch had dreamt of flying. For hours on end, he woud watch the birds, and study their wings. He would throw things through the air, noting which stayed in flight the longest. And, as the second son of a wealthy merchant, he had the chance to play with his father's money.

From the rules of aerodynamics he eaked out from his observations, he built his first craft, but with no engine, it could never fly, but was instead limited to the glide.

Magic/Cursed Properties
Cloudsplitter flies. Sort of. It's the take offs and landings that suck. And the flying part, too, really. Cloudsplitter's needed propulsion comes not from the effectively ornamental crude oil fired prop engine, but rather, from the Shard of the Storm embedded into its hull. It is lifted and dragged along by the miniature tornado that forms at the vertex of the prop when it is in action. The pilot must continually fight the vessel, to keep it from tearing into an inescapable dive.

Further, as it it caught at the edges of the vortex it creates for itself, it is not uncommon for forced landings to occur - perhaps one in three flights does not end at its intended destination.

The pilot who masters such a vessel rarely maintains hold of his ego or courage, and he will begin to seek greater and greater rushes in daring the storm to take him. Eventually, it always does.