[@vietmyke] The Word Court's special tasks office is planning to secretly provide the party with a corvette capable of Upper Lift travel. Unfortunately, civilians don't really have access to Upper-Luft tech, most of the time, on account of the Heavens' Eyes ban on civilian use of Floatstone. You can spruce up your character's military record if you like, but he's honestly fine as he is. I don't intend any of our characters to be legendary either way, and his engineering skills should be more than enough to keep us afloat.

[@Deadnaut] Dryads live basically as long as their trees do. Their trees, however, receive shortened lifespans as a result. Your typical dryad will live between 100-130 years, a similar lifespan to a half elf. As for their connection to nature in general? Somewhere between the two things you just said. They experience a connection to nature in general, but their tree is special. They're not adverse to sailing in ships made of wood, but they're not comfortable seeing woodlands cut down. For this reason, they tend to avoid the Iron Dominion.