The weapons thread

[lazyredragon]

Just helping out disclaimer this is hella long

So you want to give your character a weapon? Good on ya mate!

Weapons are great! They add action, epic battles and even development arcs for your character.

In some instances they even become characters themselves especially if they are stuff like fantasy beasts or an anthropomorphized weapon (really hope I'm using that word right)

So lets start off simple.

To choose a weapon you need like 4 things, feel free to add others.

1. The era they are living in
2. Amount of time it'll take to learn
3. Character personality
4. Artistic liberties

 

[lazyredragon]

Era-

Dates are important coz they dictate a lot of things in this case weaponry Is a wide thing.

Depending on your story era has a lot of options to influence you

• MC weapon is from a Different time (instant cheat)
• Mc weapon is from a different world,
• Mc chooses to learn current era arsenal, best for martial arts (personal fave)

---also consider we're not talking only physical stuff here magic and cultivation and beasts count too---

DIFFERENT TIME

so your guy or gal is in a different time and they just so happen to have brought something with them.

Could be a phone, could be a tank or a grimoire or mutant plant or even a dinosaur, that's you to decide but this will dictate a lot more than most bargain for.

Such a thing is too easy to make OP so you'll have to genuinely develop the character to be more than "that guy with an *insert weapon*"

It's an extension of the character, not the whole character.

 

[lazyredragon]

Time
Actually, of all the features this is my second favourite sure you can always say character was born with innate talent making them the legendary Master of *Insert incredible thing*

But the other route has what i like to call; heart.

(I'm kinda biased on this coz i like the second one more)

I.e in Star wars when Yoda trained luke he had talent but he wasn't natural at it we saw him fail get up and get better it made him human, that's what route 2 is for.

It makes for great inspiration plot lines as

“A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.” — The Empire Strikes Back ,Master Yoda

And FUVK do i love it!!

He didn't need absolute mastery he just needed enough to get him to where the story needed him to be.


Route 1 goes for awe! If a character is naturally great at something awesome like sword fight he is removed from the human light and kinda becomes a demigod, people wanna be him and what not.

Personally, this is one of the reasons i cannot stand Superman.

Batman will forever be bae.

In short long mastery time = relatable character

Short mastery time - awe-inspiring character

 

[lazyredragon]

character personality
This dictates a lot and is probably why i made this thread.
a character especially a unique one should have a unique weapon most people get off scot-free when they take your average weapon ie sword and make it a gift from the heavens to chose the one true king (Excalibur) or give them magic attributes.

but this is fiction so anything can be a weapon (Seriously a guy once weaponized flies in a smut fic it was rather disturbing).
to pick one go on your characters strengths and also what he needs to work on (Weak points) give a super angry guy Nunchaku and watch as he tries not to smack himself in the face eventually he might learn to calm the fuck down or give him an axe and let him /her go nuts.

for characterization, it falls to

1.Purpose of the character (What you need him to do)

2.strengths (What he can do)

3. Weakness (What he cant do)

also greatly affects the type of weapon like if your going for a noble type of feel go for a sword, though the reality aspect is this, fancy sword moves don't fit especially with broadswords the aesthetic is nice but its super heavy instead bludgeon your enemies in a fit of rage, also worth noting broadswords are better for jabbing but katanas are the best for slish slashing
if you want a fusion go for a Jian,
Another factor should be character fighting style more muscle and strength reliant characters should really have heavier weapons including but not limited to

lochaber axeand morning star mace! look at this beauty you can see a gladiator crushing your skull in half with it and you won't even be mad! A brutish weapon not typically used by monarchy rather but left for their strongest soldiers the axe especially being dually lethal by having a spike purpose being stab and hack at the top you would expect a character wielding this to look like Jojo

but you can always switch it up. Stealth characters rely on inconspicuousness reserved for the more quiet guys we got

• Tessen (鉄扇) were folding fans with outer spokes made of heavy plates of iron which were designed to look like normal, harmless folding fans or solid clubs shaped to look like a closed fan. Samurai could take these to places where swords or other overt weapons were not allowed, and some swordsmanship schools included training in the use of the tessen as a weapon. The tessen was also used for fending off knives and darts, as a throwing weapon, and as an aid in swimming.
• Daggers
• poison darts
• bow and arrows

so to sum up let's use an example

I need a character to win a tournament, he is fast but not very strong, he is not a legendary master but can handle himself well relies on street smarts, can win but not fairly.

for such a guy arm him with a longsword and a hidden weapon (I'd go for a poisoned dagger, if you want to add angst it can be a gift from a family member or lover whatevs) since he can't win fair let him win the only way he can by trickery

 

[G3cko]

I'd say that one of the more important things to consider is how you'll treat armour.

What kinds of armour is available for the masses? Does plate armour exist? Is it reserved for the upper class or does everyone wear it? What metals are used for creating armour and weapons?

Essentially, the better armour there is, the fewer weapons can be considered viable. A steel arming sword is only really good against flesh unless it's razor sharp which would allow it to cut through a gambeson, while a poleaxe and other crushing weapons will have a much easier time of incapacitating an armoured foe. I'd be willing to understand that a well-made adamantine sword can cut through steel plate.

And you seem to have a misconception about swords being heavy. Even a sword bordering on being a greatsword, the Zweihander, doesn't usually weigh more than 3,5 kgs. European medieval swords were really light. I'm quite confused about what you refer to when you say "broadsword" so I'll assume you refer to an arming sword or a knightly sword, which is usually considered to be a one-handed sword, but the average arming sword doesn't weigh more than 1,1 kgs (2,5 pounds) according to a quick google search.

The tl;dr of things is that viable weapon choices are restricted based on available armour, the metals used, and European medieval swords weren't heavy.

 

[lazyredragon]

And lastly, artistic Liberties which is fancy talk for go ham on dat!

here we can focus on
aesthetic
Modifications

Though we are discussing literary works you can always add AESTHETIC, take Damascus steel, for example, these swords were the stuff of legend

for you artsy types the swirls caused by the forging process were gorgeous

for my science bros they hard carbon nanotubes making them a hundred times stronger than your average sword in the era

 

[Phantomheart]

I always like to use weapons that seem unconventional in my stories. (Note: these are more for short arc usages where a character might arm themselves with an improvised weapon for a few chapters.)
Here's a list of some of my favorites:
1. Knitting Needles
I connect knitting needles to the hobbies of my characters, as usually they are artistic in some way. One of my DnD characters uses knitting needles as a replacement for daggers.
2. Sewing needles
The human body is actually quite fragile, if you can locate the liver or any other important internal organ, you can cause internal bleeding and contusions, and if the needle is covered in poison, then it's even better.
3. Artist's paintbrush
Classic: jab someone in the eyes with the back end of a paint brush. Because how paintbrushes are designed, the end of the brush are usually narrow and pointy.
4. Shears
Just like scissors -- snip snip
5. A literal hoe
Someone tries to steal your lettuce? Bash 'em in the head.
6. Calligraphy pen
If you want your character to be a little classy but unconventional or just a bit hot headed, traditional calligraphy pens actually can draw ink into a small reservoir, you can create a vicious image with how the blood flows inwards into he pen or something.
7. Jewelry
Choking someone with a necklace or stabbing someone with a hairpin is always fun.
8. Flowers
Lot of poisonous flowers and relatives of poisonous flowers. Did you know tomato leaves are poisonous? Yup, the tomato plant is a cousin to the poisonous belladonna. Sniff, Sniff, and you're dead.
9. Food
Puffer-fish :).
10. Candy
A spoonful of arsenic helps the medicine go down!~

 

[Jemini]

And lastly, artistic Liberties which is fancy talk for go ham on dat!

here we can focus on
aesthetic
Modifications

Though we are discussing literary works you can always add AESTHETIC, take Damascus steel, for example, these swords were the stuff of legend

for you artsy types the swirls caused by the forging process were gorgeous
View attachment 805
for my science bros they hard carbon nanotubes making them a hundred times stronger than your average sword in the era

Actually, that is incorrect. Spring steel is still stronger than damascus steel. Still, the real truth about damascus steel is even more interesting but far more simple once you know about it.

Damascus steel, as well as Japanese folded metal swords (which are essentially the same technique from two different regions of the world) used a high-carbon iron called "pig iron." Pig iron is essentially the worst and lowest quality iron out there. Damascus steel and Japanese folded metal swords are techniques discovered in regions where this pig iron was the only iron they had to work with.

In these regions, they discovered that if you heat up the iron when you mix it into the steel, the temperature that gets the iron red-hot is also enough to burn off the impurities in the pig iron. It turns gasious or liquid while the useful metals are still solid. Therefore, if you hammer it flat, and then fold it over, that will beat out some of the impurities.

The more times you fold the blade, the more impurities you get out of the steel. And, therefore, the stronger the steel becomes. However, there is a point where it's too much, because the carbon which is part of what makes the blade stronger also gets burned off. This is why Damascus steel can only be made from pig iron. Pig iron has such an absurdly high carbon content that by the time you have beaten out a good enough portion of the impurities, there will still be plenty of carbon left to make for a strong sword.

After a great deal of experimentation, they learned that the happy medium between enough folds to get rid of the impurities and too many folds to the point where you are loosing too much carbon is around 6-10 folds. So, the standard is right in the middle of that, an 8 fold blade.

Again, if you happen to be blessed with the materials necessary to make cast spring steel like Europe was, spring steel will beat Damascus steel for strength any day. However, it's still very very impressive that they discovered a technique to make some trash iron like pig iron into a functional sword strong enough that it can actually compete with cast spring steel.

(FYI: What I mean by "cast" spring steel is that northern Europe also had developed the technology necessary to completely melt iron down to a molten state, which allowed for the ultimate removal of impurities and the ability to add in the amount of carbon they wanted. After this, they could just cast the steel into whatever shape they want. Cast steel is actually the ultimate technique for producing the strongest steel possible. Then again, theoretically, it might be possible to combine the techniques and add an over-abundance of carbon to the molten steel and then apply the folded metal technique for additional removal of impurities, but by that point you are getting to a point of deminishing returns where the extra effort doesn't really justify the minuscule results.)