I have figured (since back in my mid '00s Hikuru game) that there ought to be a spelljamming saddle in our magical arsenal.
We think of flying ships as the natural home of Spelljamming, and for the most part that feels correct - a mage driving a Spelljamming helm can haul a lot more if they can bring a hull with them. But in a world with dragons, griffons, manticores and other flying beasts, those who looked to the skies are going to have seen those flying around long before they laid the first plank of a keel. Maybe not everywhere but certainly on some worlds, inland, it would be far more natural for people to think of enchanting saddles to make their already flying mounts faster rather than trying to make a thing that does not fly (a boat) do something so unnatural.
We can also well imagine that similar to the situation of the Pern novels, with the plethora of monsters that dwell in Wildspace up there, there would be a push by groundling realms to find a way to guard against the threats from the stars with the tools they have at hand. Examples from my own games - large breeds of wyverns with wang-liang riders provided aerial watch from various mountain keeps in one campaign. The grand finale involved the players getting flown over a dormant volcano with an evil dwarven earth-blood refinery. They feather fell from the wyverns down the volcano to grapple with the villains.
Most recently in my current home game, the party found great great grandfathers dragon saddle on the wall of the sealed up throne room and have pressed it back into service. It has been strapped to a skiff but they have been getting good use out of it that way. There was some good mileage gained on figuring out how the thing worked - mostly by Spellcraft, Knowledge (Arcana) and good old fashioned trial and error, none of this Identify spell short-cutting. Memorable tests include strapping the thing across a large water barrel filled with ice, and hovering it while ever greater weights were attached beneath.
Converting it from a 'brute lift' thing strapped to a big wine tun to a useable vessel took some creative scrounging but the party managed to fit themselves out with a Stygian whaling skiff that now can fly. More of their adventures with their flying skiff can be read in high-speed hex-crawling - exploring with flyers. So far there have been a couple of hostile encounters but the party bard has applied cunning spells to win their escape on each occasion so far.
The Crunch Behind the Saddle
In 3.5e we got the medium-sized creature scaled 'Gadabout' - a one-person flitter essentially. We have long had the Huge-scaled Minor Helm, so we are missing the Large scaled Spelljamming Saddle. If the Crown of the Stars wearable spelljamming helm is possible, then a saddle-sized helm seems eminently reasonable.
Since 5e is not great on pricing magic items - it should be a wondrous item, very rare - so I reached back to 3.5e and Shadow of the Spider Moon (Polyhedron #151) to look at what cost-for-capacity would be reasonable. From the 3.5e DMG we have Carpet of Flying (3 sizes) and the Broom of Flying to compare against the Major and Minor helms from Shadow of the Spider Moon. I also put on the Gadabout, another flying item, effectively a tiny immature version of the Elven Man'o'War flying ships.
Interpolating between the 3.5e stats for the Gadabout and the Minor Helm it should cost about 12500 gp, be capable of lifting 2000lbs. This should be enough for most juvenile to young adult dragons, maybe not the reds or golds but at that point you are edging up into needing a Minor Helm in any case.
The specific item that I ended up bring to the table goes:
- It consumes all spell energy of a magic user until they rest to use.
- It does not require attunement.
- Lift capacity is approx 2000lbs.
- Base move is 150/round or 3x as fast as a heavy horse ~ 30 mph which can be sustained indefinitely while the pilot can remain awake.
- Use of the saddle becomes fatiguing after ~ 8 hours.
- Maneuverability is strongly dependent on whatever it is attached to.
- The saddle can accelerate to Spelljamming speeds under the same rules as for helms; outside of gravity wells goes up to ~100 million miles per day.
I would not say it generates a gravity-plane but it would capture an air-bubble. Given that both rider and a large mount will be consuming this bubble of air, for any long voyage in Wildspace something to replenish air will be critical. Second point that leaps off the page, you are paying a serious premium for the portability of Brooms or Carpets of Flying - if you need to shift cargo, Spelljamming helms are far cheaper. On the other hand, your Broom of Flying can take things home on its own so that can be helpful too.
One of the big differences between these two classes of flying device is that the carpets and brooms are agile and self-steering, all the helms bigger than the gadabout rely on the steering capabilities of whatever they are strapped or bolted to. If you Spelljammed a wine-tun (as above) then it has no steering capacity to speak of and will handle as you might imagine a flying barrel would. If strapped to a dragon, as intended, the dragons agility can be coupled with the speed of the saddle for a truly dangerous combination.
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