"The Armory" Concept (Full Version)

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TJByrum -> "The Armory" Concept (2/2/2014 8:49:38)

I was looking to make a reference thread listing and explaining in short the different types of weapons, armor, and clothing of the medieval era.

As an example, one such topic would be 'Swords'. It would go on to list the materials to make a sword (bronze, iron, steel), how to make a sword, the types of swords (longsword, greatsword, rapier), and so on and so forth. Another example would be 'Armor'. It would list the different pieces of armor (cuirass, helmet, gauntlets, etc), the materials (bronze, iron, steel, leather), the types (steel plate, lorica segmentata), etc.

But I'm not exactly knowledgeable in all of this, which is why I want to make a reference thread. So if anyone has at least some knowledge, please do tell and maybe we can work together and create a reference thread to help people in the future.

I often have a hard time explaining or detailing the way my armor/clothing looks while creating a bio, and it would be nice to have a reference thread.




Riprose123 -> RE: "The Armory" Concept (2/17/2014 15:14:49)

Wow, feeling ambitious much? :P

Are you thinking just weapons and armor just from medieval europe, or from places, like, the middle east or africa. Because that just opens up a whole new can of worms if you want to catalogue all of the weapons.




TJByrum -> RE: "The Armory" Concept (2/17/2014 16:16:36)

Well, I was just wanting to build a reference log. You know, the types of weapons, there uses, how they're made and what they're made from, etc.

But I know that's a tall order, and seeing as no one has posted in this, I doubt it'll happen.




Kellehendros -> RE: "The Armory" Concept (2/17/2014 16:43:21)

If you're looking for a casual reference to various types of weaponry, your best bet is probably a generalized internet search. An exhaustive list of any given category would be an academic effort in itself. A list of everything would be next to impossible without limiting yourself to specific time periods and sources (such as Roman, Bronze Age, etc).

Fantasy weapons and armor add an entirely new dimension to the matter, providing the possibility of weapons and armor of designs and materials that are, to say the least, exotic.

From personal experience, I've found that D&D manuals often provide a good source of information for various weapon types. They certainly don't detail forging procedures or materials, but their descriptions usual give insight into what the weapon is, and ways in which it is used.

Wikipedia can also provide some good information about various types of weapons and armor, and even some tactical insight. Naturally, that is subject to the relative scholarly integrity of the article in question. Still, I have used it from time to time to find a weapon I've been looking for.




TJByrum -> RE: "The Armory" Concept (2/17/2014 16:57:58)

Could you link to some D&D manuals Kellehendros?

And alright, I guess this thread is more or less useless now. I wasn't aware I was getting into something so large.




Legendium -> RE: "The Armory" Concept (2/18/2014 6:38:04)

I made a thread very similar to this a while ago....

At any rate, Kellehendros is correct. It would be nigh impossible to actually document every weapon in existence, much less such a broad generalization of "Swords."
If we were to actually do this, the best bet would be to give everyone a time era to deal with. Like have one person deal with "Swords and similar weaponry during the Roman Era" or "Swords of the Feudal Far East" or "Swords during the Medieval Ages" or "Viking Swords through the Ages" or "Weaponry of the Native Americans" or "Aztec Fighting Styles and a list of their Weaponry with Additional Short Summaries to give you a Basic Idea of what they were like without going into so much detail as to surpass that which Wikipedia can tell you."

Yeah. The possibilities are endless. And then you would also have to do it all over again with the specific types of armor used in these different cultures (This might be doable, since many cultures avoided the use of armor for more agility, such as the Native Americans or Aztecs (Although the Aztecs did use some armor pieces as well), smithing techniques (This would be difficult yet again. Smelting in and of itself is a rather large topic since it's far more than simply throwing some ore into a smelter (Steel, for instance, requires carbon added to iron, and making it high quality steel also requires all sorts of other chemicals. In the documentary I watched, the smith also added glass and some kind of sand), especially with techniques wandering through the countries and constantly changing. Then you have to know about the actual blacksmithing itself, and the different kinds of hammers, quenching techniques and so on.) and naturally, you would also have to repeat the process of documenting types of swords by documenting types of axes, maces, polearms (My god, don't even TRY documenting all of those. You could have a huge riot in which every person had a different kind of polearm.)

Then of course, you would need to add some kind of advice on how to use said weapon and what makes it better or worse than another. That's already quite difficult.

And then of course, magic throws all of your hard work out the window. Since magic systems always differ in every different world, this section is impossible to define until you know where you are and how it works. Because then you need to go back and see how magic would effect the utility of a weapon. There are some things that would be relatively universal, such as magic used to corrode metal, although you would need to research the chemical make-up of that material. And with exotic materials unique to a certain world, it's almost impossible to determine it chemically.

That said, I'm still up to the challenge.




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