Weapons and Armor
Textile Armor
The most basic and common type of armor in the Ancient Lands is textile armor, which is made from several tightly packed and glued together layers of cloth that become stronger and tougher than leather. Simple armor of this type consists of a breastplate and armored skirt, but it can also include shoulder guards and protection for the arms and legs. Better made and more expensive suits of textile armor are often covered in an outer layer of leather that keeps water from getting inside the fabric.
Textile armor is used almost everywhere in the Ancient Lands except for the steaming jungles of the south where the hot and humid climate takes its toll on the glues and greatly increases the chance of rot and molds.
Hide Armor
While most leather is not durable enough to withstand spears and arrows, some rare beasts have hide that is strong enough to make efficient armor. Found mostly in southern lands, hide armor is often made from crocodile skin, wyvern hide, or the carapaces of giant beetles.
Scale Armor
Scale armor is the most common form of metal armor and also the most simple to make. Scale armor is made by sewing numerous small metal plates on a backing of leather in an overlapping pattern and because each of these scales is very small and not subject to a lot of stress, they can be made from relatively low quality iron that can be found almost anywhere. Scale armor made from bronze is also not uncommon and works just the same, but is generally more expensive. Most suits of scale armor cover at least the chest but may also protect the shoulders or include a scale skirt that protects the upper legs.
Chainmail
Chainmail is made from thousands of small metal links that are connected together to form a flexible yet very strong fabric that is practically impossible to cut through. Below the chainmal comes a layer of padding that not only makes the armor less uncomfortable to wear, but more importantly reduces the impact of clubs, spear thrusts, and axe blows, that can still break bones even without piercing the chainmail itself. While narrow tipped arrows can quite easily pierce chainmail by breaking just one or two links, the padding works remarkably well in keeping the arrows from penetrating deeply and causing serious injuries. Lighter chainmal armors cover only the torso and have short sleves that end just below the shoulders, while heavier and more expensive ones also have half- or full-length sleves and a slit skirt that protects the legs.
Since the metal links are relatively delicate they need to be made of quality steel that is made by gnomes and some elves and kaas clans in the north.
Lamellar
Lamellar armor is very similar to scale armor but more advanced and sophisticated. In lamellar armor, each metal scale is not just sewn to the leather backing, but instead tightly laced together with all the other scales next to it. This makes the whole armor a lot stiffer and stronger and allows to effectivly make rather large sheets of metal from smaller individual plates.
A simple suit of lamelar armor consists of only a breastplate while the rest of the body is protected by either textile or hide armor. A full suit of lamellar armor also includes shoulder guards, protection for the upper arms, and slit skirts to cover the upper legs. Lamellar armor is almost always made by gnomes, but they often make them to be sold to elves and kaas, while some of the most advanced lizardfolk clans also have developed their own techniques.
Shields
Shields are easy to make and also very cheap, while at the same time providing a significant amount of protection, which makes them by far the most common and widely used type of armor. Most shields are made from wood and covered in hide or leather to increase their durability and keep them from splintering.
Almost every warrior who does not fight with a bow or a glaive carries a shield into battle, and even those often prefer to have a light shield at hand if they have to fall back to their axes and swords.
Daggers
Daggers and knives are by far the most common type of weapon and almost every person has at least one. In addition to being a weapon that can be easily carried around all day, they are also tools with countless possible uses and in most places are considered part of everyday dress rather than weapons of war.
Spears
The weapon used by most warriors of all the races is the spear. It's very easy to make and requires only a small amount of metal to make a powerful weapon that can kill almost any beast and pierce most types of armor with a strong thrust. Less common are glaives, which have a longer blade designed for slashing rather than thrusting, and halberds that are similar to long hafted two-handed axes with a spike for thrusting at the end.
Spoiler
Shortspear: 1d6 piercing, one handed, 10 sp
Spear: 1d8 piercing, two-handed, 20 sp
Glaive: 1d10 slashing, two-handed, 80 sp
Halberd: 1d10 slashing, two-handed, 100 sp
Javelin: 1d6 piercing, ranged, 5 sp
Bows
In addition to javelins, the most important ranged weapon is the bow. Bows come in all shapes and sizes but most hunters, scouts, and mounted archers stick to more averaged sized ones while the more powerful longbows are almost always found in the hands of elite archers of high rank.
Clubs
Clubs are carried as secondary weapons by many warriors of lower rank who can not afford axes or even swords as secondary weapons to their spears. While essentially just heavy pieces of wood, they still have no problem with breaking bones and killing fully grown warriors. Maces are more expensive variants that have added heads of heavy iron bands near the end that makes them even more devastating. Large two-handed version of the mace called greatclubs are somewhat slow and quite heavy, but often found in the hands of strong and powerful warriors who use them to fell even the best amored foes.
Axes
Handaxes are often carried by warriors as backup weapons and are not much different from the common woodworking tool and they are often used for either purpose interchangeably. Battleaxes have much longer cutting edges but are significantly thinner than logging axes, which makes them more effective in cutting through armor and penetrating deep into their foes bodies. Some kaas wariors use larger two-handed versions of the battleaxe that are probably the most powerful weapon used anywhere in the Ancient Lands, but they require great strength and leave the weilder wide open to attacks. They are rarely used in individual combat but mostly in larger battles in the hands of shock troops that have other warriors to watch their backs.
Swords
Swords are relatively rare and become even more so the larger they get. Because of the limitations of bronze and the types of steel used in the Ancient Lands, the length of swords is relatively limited, but there is not much difference between individual swords made of either material. By far the most common types of swords are short swords, which are shorter than a mans arm in total length. They are similar to very large daggers and often used as backup weapons as their range is significantly shorter than that of spears carried by most warriors. More expensive and as such more rare swords are longswords and scimitars. They are of similar size but can be either straight and with two edges, or curved and with a single edge. Either of the two types is mostly used by elves. In the south, many lizardfolk warriors of high rank also carry falcatas, very heavy iron swords that resemble single edged cleavers with the thickest point of the blade near the tip, which allows for very powerful chops like an axe. As they make very effective weapons to penetrate armor, they have also found their way into the hands of dark elves and humans that live close to the lizardfolk jungles.
Ranged Weapons
Other weapons that are found in many places of the Ancient Lands are the boomerang, dart, and sling. Boomerangs are used mostly by dark elves who use them to stun enemies and prey from significant distances with a heavy blow. While they rarely kill anything but the smallest animals, they are very useful to weaken or slow a target before engaging into combat. Elves in the north use darts for similar purposes. Smaller ones consists of metal tipped wooden needles to deliver poisons, while larger ones take the form of heavy iron spikes thrown at the enemy as a distraction before attacking them with another weapon or getting a chance to escape. Slings may not look like much but are actually rather difficult to master and can cause tremendous damaged in the hands of a skilled slinger. Stones hurld by slings can punch through lighter armor and even penetrate deeply into the bodies of unarmored foes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sktarq
Its not that you have to work the mechanics out now but by having a framework in mind you don't want to create something that later becomes very difficult to deliver on when the time for mechanics rolls around.
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I still don't see the problem. There's nothing particularly strange or unusual about the components that make the world and how it works.