scSkiff — the settlers' skiff

A clinker-built North Sea faering, seven metres on the waterline: the boat that carried the first people out to the pillar and never left. It is the one made thing in Saltcrown that is not the tower.

It does three jobs at once. It is the opening's subject, before there is any city to look at. It is the human scale the granite is measured against — the tower reads as enormous because a boat is moored under it. And because it floats, it rides the tide up the side of the tower for the whole run: the one thing in frame that is glad the water is rising.

local Skiff = require("art.staging.scSkiff")
local boat = Skiff.build(parent, "sc_skiff")

build(parent, name?) returns the boat's root. Everything under it is temporary, so nothing it makes can be baked into the scene. Local space is +X to the bow, ±Z the beam, and y = 0 is the waterline — put the root on the water and the boat sits right.

What it is made of

A solid tarred shell with a cone at each end for the double-ended silhouette, three clinker strakes a side lapping outward over it, a gunwale rail, floor timbers, three thwarts, raked stem and stern posts, a furled sail lashed to its yard, two oars shipped inboard, the settlers' crates and cask, a coil of rope, an anchor — and a lantern in an open four-post cage with its own warm point light, which is the only warm thing in a cold grey frame.

The game.staging slice drives its position: it holds station off the tower at the waterline, rolling and pitching on the swell, and comes in from open water during the opening.