Ducks Redux

From: Stewart Stansfield <stu_stansfield_at_nnlaNEakhhGNXFbveXX9HC4G92ioaWfppDYNfXcKIDESv28MH8Agvb7EEjSvJ>
Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 03:31:59 -0000


I've been thinking a bit on 'duck warrior colour', i.e. the fun bits that accompany evisceration and general violence. Outside of Humakt and crossbows. How they fight, and why; what they wear, and why; what weapons they use, and why; how they distinguish themselves visually and otherwise... bits like that.

Headgear is a fun way to add colour, and I was trying to think of ways to develop some duckish individuality. I'd used Phrygian-esque styles in the past (sometimes going to full-on Pan Tang), and was playing with the curvature, when I thought...

Snails. Big snails!

Yum! (For ducks, that is...)

http://games.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/ImmoderateGloranthaQuest/photos
/view/44fa?b=6

A. A drake warrior (c. 1600) in Heroic or Quackford Panoply. He wears what would later be called a Type IIIb mollusc-helm, made of bronze, with a bronze mail neck-guard and minimal decoration. The armoured mantle of leather and bronze across the shoulders is common among duck warriors, as a focused defence against downward blows from larger creatures. The falcata-style sword has a heavy, curved, singleedged  blade -- commonly used in a manner that aims to cripple a mansized  foe with severe injuries to the anterior quadriceps and posterior tendons, it can sever a man's leg at the knee if of good quality and wielded with sufficient force. The shield provides the main article of defence; it is large and typically fairly heavy, being required to deflect blows of considerable moment issued from height. Its convex wooden frame is plated with a thin sheet of bronze. The shield itself is decorated with the rune and depiction of the Many-Mawed Mother: a demon who is usually considered to be a duckish version of Gorgorma, said to possess eight-hundred and eightyeight  fanged bills. He also wears a typical durulz back-banner, marked with colourful feathers. Banners provide not only a mode of identification and personal expression, but also an atavistic link to myth and (when waxed) some further control in the water.

http://games.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/ImmoderateGloranthaQuest/photos
/view/44fa?b=7

B. A drake noble (c. 1614) wearing a Type IIa mollusc-helm, wrought from an actual snail-shell. Most mollusc-helms ware bronze; actual examples of this form are relatively rare, and usually retained as valued heirlooms. Image reconstructed from a pebble mural preserved in the ruins of Stone Nest.

http://games.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/ImmoderateGloranthaQuest/photos
/view/44fa?b=8

C. A duck of some import (c. 1580s; note the neck-rings common to many wealthy female durulz) wearing a Type VIa ceremonial helmet famously taken as booty by the Lunars in 1613; also known as the 'Carmen Miranda helm'. (*sigh* I knew it wasn't going to last.)            

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