Re: cultural weapons?

From: nichughes2001 <nick.hughes_at_...>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 10:48:08 -0000

>
> Teshnos: ?????
>

In terms of real world analogies I look mostly to Southern India and South-East Asia when coming up with ideas for Teshnos. Its also worth bearing in mind the apparent influence of the sky pantheon on Teshnan beliefs and culture.

Both of which us to having the spear and/or the composite bow as the primary weapons of foot soldiers. One-handed spears for use with a shield could also be thrown as javelins, two-handed spears would normally be too long for such use. Bows would be heavily recurved and quite powerful and long-ranging, nobles might have quite elaborate and very expensive bows. Spiked bucklers are another suitable weapon for full-time fighters, either archers or for those wielding one-handed spears.

Swords would be popular as secondary weapons and especially amongst nobles although they might vary from the sort of weapons you see in Dragon Pass, I would have them straight-bladed and single-edged like a malay pedang.

To add a little more interest you can have wavey-bladed daggers like the Indonesian/Malay keris - its worth looking into some of the myths and legends about these for magical weapon ideas.

Hunters could use blowpipes rather than bows, especially hunters who are essentially "tribal" peoples assimilated into Teshnan culture. Alternatively you could decide that the blowpipe is a preferred hunting weapon because the bow is a noble weapon the use of which for hunting would be seen as slightly unworthy.

One last point, Teshnans should probably be not much use at massed combat. They should have ambush/skirmish skills rather than massed combat abilities. I doubt if there are any heavy infantry in Teshnos and the only heavy "cavalry" appear to be those mounted on elephants.

YGWV of course.

--
Nic

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