# Fantasy heroes and swords



## Mythic Scribes

It seems that most fantasy heroes use swords.  Why is that?  It there some special symbolism or meaning to that weapon?

I tried writing a story with a magic quarterstaff, but it didn't seem right.

What weapons are your fantasy heroes using?


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## Chilari

Guns. One of my characters is a gunsmith, the story is set in a sort of late pre-industrial era, and the weapon of choice is the musket, though some characters have rifles and pistols, and there's a blunderbus in there too.

Swords are a useful device to the writer. They do not require much imagination - everyone knows what a sword is - and they're very cinematic. They can make for very interesting fights, and can be used as a symbol of power, authority, warrior spirit, strength, skill, wealth... all sorts of things. Someone who carries a sword, and can use it, must be special because they're expensive items frequently linked, in Earth's history and mythology, with kings, chivalry and heroes.

By comparison, a gun can be considered boring. There is less flexibility to action sequences with a gun, because it can be over very quickly, and it's less dramatic to have a gun fight because the combatants aren't right up in each other's faces. The thing I like about guns is that they can be a very immediate threat if one is pointing at your face; you can't dodge a bullet like you can dodge a sword. It also means I can play with characters expectations and attitudes when they have a gun - a deadly ranged weapon which can keep a disarmed character from trying to escape because the act of attenpting escape could very easily result in death; but a sword requires the weilder to be in close proximity in order to have any power over an unarmed character. I prefer the futility of a character when presented by a group of potential enemies armed with guns to the equivalent with swords; as I said, there is a much higher chance of failure and death following an escape attempt.

It also enables me to have very sudden, unexpected deaths with no way for the other characters to prevent it, because the character is dead before they're aware of what the bad guy intends. Similarly, the bad guy is dead before he realises shooting a friend to one of the armed characters in the scene is a bad idea, even if that armed character is one of his own men.

Also words. Words are the weapon of choice for a few of my characters (though they also have guns, for the most part). One character in particular has been taught from a young age to be very selective with her words, since it was expected that her husband would be an ambassador or somesuch because she was the king's graddaughter (though not in direct line to the throne - had she married, her husband would have become about the ninth or tenth in line to the throne)


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## Philip Overby

I like to use swords, but I also like to use all other sorts of weapons.  I think martial weapons lend better to extended action scenes.  If that is what you're going for, then use swords, spears, axes, and the like.  

But guns, as Chilari said, don't lend themselves as well to back and forth action.  They can make some dramatic moments and still be used in big, epic battles, but normally it only takes one or two shots to kill someone.  

I like to use guns also because I don't normally like to restrict my worlds to being Medieval or European or Industrial or whatever.  I just think "Hey, I want a guy with a gun."  So he appears.  

But overall in fantasy, the sword has become the weapon of choice because it looks cool, authors like to write about them gleaming and glistening, and having a sword fight is always fun!  (see every fantasy movie ever and Star Wars for good examples.)


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## Chilari

Yeah, Star Wars is a great example of the cinematic power of a sword. In practical terms a sword is inferior to a gun, particularly a laser gun which doesn't require reloading or for that matter any ammo at all, but make it so that magical people can deflect laser bullets with their laser swords, and it's justifiable to have something as awesome looking as a sword in what is, essentially, a science fiction film (or science fantasy to certain purist sci-fi writers I know). They even used the light sabre in the promotional posters - particular episode 3, with Anakin and Obi Wan crossing swords on the middle, and Yado and Mace Windu showing off their light sabres either side. And okay, the light sabre became a symbol of Star Wars as a franchise, but that's because of the symbolic power of the sword motif.


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## Ophiucha

Psh, guns have lots of back and forth if you follow the laws of _Equilibrium_.
Anyway, my characters use guns, mostly because my world is quasi-industrialized. Depends on the area, of course. Small farming villages are more likely to be using muskets, whereas big cityfolk probably have nicer, more 1800s-era guns. There are a few immortal characters, too. Two of them use old weapons - swords and a crossbow - but the other is rather active in the world and uses guns, as well. I think the reason swords are so popular is simply because of the nature of fantasy. Most of it is medieval. Knights in shining armor slaying dragons, Tolkienian, all that jazz. Swords are the obvious weapon of choice. Unless your protagonist is an elf or a dwarf, of course, in which case they would have a bow or an axe. It's just the standard. I don't think it has any other real meaning.


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## Donny Bruso

I think between Chilari and Ophi, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. The sword is the stereotypical fantasy weapon. Everyone knows what it looks like, so instead of describing some weird and complicated weapon you've invented, the author takes the lazy route and just says, "He carried a longsword with a jeweled hilt" or some other such trite nonsense. Face it, as writers, we're kind of lazy by nature. Sure we want grand, sweeping stories that will get publishers beating down our doors for the rights to our next great novel, the one that will be read in English Lit 101 a hundred and fifty years from now, but we want to do it with as little actual work as possible, lol. There is tons of material out there on swords. How they're made, different fighting styles, and so on. There's a museum not half an hour away from me that will teach you how to swordfight from historical sources. Try finding any of that on say a morningstar. Not so easy to find.

And that is how stereotypes get created. "It worked for him/her". Hence dwarves carry axes, elves carry bows, and humans carry swords. Ironically, you can even see a bit of this stereotype in all human fantasy. In A Game of Thrones, Tyrion (a dwarfed human) fights with an axe. Human nature is to take the path of least resistance. Do something memorable and change it up.


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## Chilari

I must admit, I do own two wooden swords. One is a Japanese bokken sword, the other a 2/3 scale replica of a broadsword I bought at Kenilworth Castle gift shop. I don't really have space to use them anywhere, I just like having them. I don't own any replica guns or anything like that, though when I was a little younger I tried to make an arrow with a stick from the garden, a pen knife and some feathers, but it never really worked out.


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## Ravana

The sword is the archetypal fantasy weapon because it has always been a status symbol, so it was nearly always used by the heroes in "fantasy" dating back three thousand years or so–the _Iliad_, the _Mahabharata_, the _Shahnameh_, Arthurian legends.… It was a status symbol because it was expensive: too much metal, requiring careful crafting, and useful for nothing other than fighting… the only people who'd own one were the nobility, those equipped by nobility, or those who'd snagged one as loot from a battlefield. (In fact, carrying a sword could be a death sentence for a peasant, as they only way they could have obtained one was through ignoble means.…)

That having been said: once metal armor became common, the sword was often little _more_ than a status symbol. No matter how sharp it was, it couldn't slice metal armor (it was still great for massacring lightly-armored peasants, of course). This is why those swords that were used in combat continued to get heavier, so that they could cause damage by bashing armor in, whether it penetrated or not (and why most battle swords didn't bother with sharpened tips), right up to the time that metal armor itself became obsolete courtesy of gunpowder… and then the swords suddenly got light again, the tips were sharpened, and we got the beginnings of modern fencing.

Throughout most of history, the weapon the standard infantryman would be carrying was the spear… and possibly nothing else, though most would have some sort of knife as well, probably a personal possession rather than something supplied to him. Better-equipped armies would carry a heavy-bladed short sword as a sidearm, mainly for finishing off downed opponents, for hacking at the other guy's spear, or for use in desperation when your own spear was lost or rendered useless. In many times and places, an axe would be the sidearm, possibly even the main weapon. Polearms, as a category distinct from spears, would have been carried only by wealth-equipped troops: again, their heads were too difficult to make and too purpose-specific for them to be owned by commoners. 

As for the tin-can nobles: they may have owned swords, and carried them, but when they encountered one another in battle they'd be just as likely to rely on a mace (no reason to blunt or bend your valuable sword uselessly: there were always those peasants to pick off later), or some variant thereof: flail, war hammer or pick, etc. Variations of all of these may well be employed by commoners as well, though the ones the nobles used would generally be fancier, flashier, and if they were really fortunate marginally more useful than the ones the rabble carried. Certain farm utensils a noble would never dream of touching make very effective weapons against armored opponents–a mattock will never, _ever_ require a second hit on the same guy, as long as the first was solid: armor won't even slow it down. In fact, that's where it will display its main disadvantage–needing to pry it out after it imbeds itself in the guy's armor (and body). That, plus it isn't terribly useful against someone who _isn't_ armored… sure, it'll do just as much damage if it hits, but odds are if you're up against another peasant, he's going to be carrying something he can hit you with a lot faster than what you're packing.

And never underestimate the utility of a big stick. Particularly against armored opponents: if all you're going to be doing is bashing them anyway, the only question that remains is how much weight you can concentrate at the point of impact. A metal head helps with this, but is hardly necessary.

So, really, swords "seem right" because of the mystique attached to them from, well, our entire written cultural history. Which is as good a reason not to use them as to use them, depending on whether you want to invoke this shared background or want to make a pointed departure therefrom. If the item in question is a major plot point, then make it whatever seems right–and I've created "magical weapons" in almost every form available from global history, plus a couple that never existed just for good measure. (And if you think it's easy to design a weapon nobody else ever has, you clearly need greater familiarity with some of the bizarre things that have popped up at one time or another.…) But if the item is a major plot point, and it _isn't_ a sword, then you will be generating at least some measure a contrast with the reader's expectations as well… so if that isn't part of your goal, and you have no other reason for it to be something different, then it may as well be a sword.


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## Ravana

Chilari said:


> It also enables me to have very sudden, unexpected deaths with no way for the other characters to prevent it



The only difficulty here being that you have to be able to justify when they _aren't_ used–similar to the sort of limits one needs to keep in mind when allowing magic use. 

Of course, guns can be more easily self-limiting, depending on the technological level you're allowing… if it takes twenty seconds to load, can't be carried ready to fire for any length of time, and isn't accurate beyond twenty yards, then, yeah, a gun _can_ cause a sudden, unexpected death–but you can also easily account for why they don't _always_ do this. If, by contrast, you have rifled six-shooters (or worse, magazine-loading rifles), you're going to be hard pressed to come up with combat situations that can be compelling and not feel contrived.

Keep in mind that, in historical settings, the kind of gun described above would be more of a status symbol–or the equipment of a professional army–and would be far more expensive, difficult to produce and harder to come by than even a sword would be. Which doesn't mean it has to be that way in your world… but you'll probably want to consider the implications of any deviation you do make in this matter.


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## Chilari

Don't worry, I do apply such resrictions to my guns. The particular case where I have a couple of characters being shot dead quite suddenly is at short range - within a single room, in fact - with different guns while the victims are standing still. An earlier scene has a character missing with a rifle because he's in a hurry, and not having another shot because he doesn't have time to reload. In fact I anticipate having several situations where a character is effectively unarmed because his or her gun isn't loaded or just got wet, or where one character has a rifle and another has a tiny little pea-shooter of a pistol.

Though following this discussion I am tempted to have a character carry a sword which they never use, and later reveal that this is because it's badly made and only for show, or not real at all, but a hilt and a sheath. Or have a character try to use a sword but discover too late that it is no match against a loaded pistol 20 feet away.


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## Donny Bruso

Chilari said:


> Or have a character try to use a sword but discover too late that it is no match against a loaded pistol 20 feet away.


 
Makes me think of Indiana Jones, hehe.


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## Ravana

Chilari said:


> Or have a character try to use a sword but discover too late that it is no match against a loaded pistol 20 feet away.



Infantryman: "You brought a _knife_ to a gun fight?"
Marine: "You brought a _gun_ to a knife fight?"
Special Forces: "Hey, check out this nifty knife and gun I got off those two guys over there.…"

Yep, sounds like you have a handle on the guns. As I said, it's the same with magic: you need to be able to explain why _everybody_ doesn't just go around using them to blow each other away. Fortunately, for guns, there's plenty of historical record to fall back on. Those considerations are why swords continued in use for so long after the introduction of handheld firearms… and similarly why bayonets were developed, and continue in use even in today's age of reliable firearms and ammunition. As I've pointed out to others: "Swords don't run out of ammo."


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## Mdnight Falling

ooOOooo nice question! The heroes in my book are using everything!  Well really it depends on which hero you're asking about . Some use nice sharp pointy things, others are magick based, and others use hand to hand, some don't fight at all LOL. It really depends on what kind of fantasy we're talking about. When I think of fantasy, I think of elves and dwarves and whatnot, not guns and tanks. I won't even read modern fantasy unless it's something like Twilight LMAO.


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## Ravana

One clever piece of writing I've seen in the not-too-distant past had an APC and crew "falling down a rabbit hole" (or however the author worked it… Brian Daley, the _Coramonde_ books, if anyone's interested). Not something that's destined to be a "modern classic," but an interesting example of what can be done mixing the modern and the fantastic.


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## Mdnight Falling

I will have to check it out.. 

as to modern weapons in fantasy works.. I'm not a fan... I like the old fantasy not modern fantasy better in my writing... swords, natural ability, magic, etc... Later for tanks bombs and guns >.<


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## Mdnight Rising

i dunno something about a  sharp edge of steel that gets my blood pumping..  i too am more into  old fantasy versus modern fantansy


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## Mdnight Falling

Mdnight Rising said:


> i dunno something about a  sharp edge of steel that gets my blood pumping..  i too am more into  old fantasy versus modern fantansy


 
Says the man with the aresonal of sharp pointy things sitting in the closet LOL


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## Ravana

Mdnight Falling said:


> Says the man with the aresonal of sharp pointy things sitting in the closet LOL


 
Closet? Why on earth would you keep them in a _closet_? Too hard to get to that way.


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## Mdnight Falling

Ravana said:


> Closet? Why on earth would you keep them in a _closet_? Too hard to get to that way.




We have a 9 year old who likes sharp pointy things and a 4 year old who likes weapons LMFAO! so we have to keep them out of reach x.x! at least till we get some show stands to hang them on the wall


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## Falunel

Seconding the reasons discussed earlier. It's not just embedded into the writer's mindset, though- it's also in the reader's mind that the primary fantasy weapon is a sword, and that anything else is just... out of place. One of the dangers of making up a brand new weapon is that it won't "stick" with the reader unless it's pulled off well; the stranger and more unfamiliar the weapon, the more difficult it becomes for a reader to visualize it in a scene, and the bigger the chance is of breaking the "willing suspension of belief."

Now, the question of why the sword continues to endure can be a sort of chicken-or-egg dilemma; does the theme persist because the writer is too lazy to invent a new weapon, or because of an unreceptive audience? I'd place it with both, though probably a bit more with the writers.

Hopefully that made sense. ^^;


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## Mdnight Falling

Well put Falunel.. If I wasn't so lazy I could probably create some new and exciting weapon.. but yeah.. nu -.- I have way too much stuff on my plate  as it is then to spend hours trying to design a new thing and make it believable LMAO


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## At Dusk I Reign

Tom Riddle said:


> It seems that most fantasy heroes use swords.  Why is that?  It there some special symbolism or meaning to that weapon?


It's probably phallic. Most things are if you listen to the experts. Personally, I've never created a character who used or needed a sword. Ravana is right in that in pre-history a finely-wrought sword was a symbol of status, but I doubt that's what's going through the mind of most authors who use them as a symbol. I've always thought a spear was a more effective weapon, but that's just me.


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## Ravana

Mdnight Falling said:


> We have a 9 year old who likes sharp pointy things and a 4 year old who likes weapons LMFAO! so we have to keep them out of reach x.x! at least till we get some show stands to hang them on the wall


 
So? Put the kids in the closet. 

I have cats, not kids–for any number of reasons. Not least of which being that I'd be the one sticking the weapons in the kids.… Seriously, though: there's no way you're going to be able to keep the weapons away from the kids–they're far too ingenious, and will find ways to get at them if they really want to. Far better to teach them how to handle the weapons properly; if they learn proper respect for them, they won't want to handle them. That, plus since they do get to handle them from time to time, they won't constitute a "temptation" as they otherwise might.


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## Ravana

At Dusk I Reign said:


> Ravana is right in that in pre-history a finely-wrought sword was a symbol of status, but I doubt that's what's going through the mind of most authors who use them as a symbol.



Naah, most aren't using them as symbols, I'm sure. The point was that most people have been conditioned to _expect_ swords as the weapon of choice, based on their own literary (and/or historical) experiences… writers included, so they rarely look past them.


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## At Dusk I Reign

Ravana said:


> Naah, most aren't using them as symbols, I'm sure. The point was that most people have been conditioned to _expect_ swords as the weapon of choice, based on their own literary (and/or historical) experiences… writers included, so they rarely look past them.


 That's probably true. Sad, but true.


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## Philip Overby

I think it would be awesome if there was a fantasy novel with no weapons.  Like no one used them because they grew accustomed to besting their enemy with their own two hands.  Then people would have giant epic wars with people just punching and kicking the crap out of each other.  And a guy could punch a dragon in the face.

I call it Dragonpuncher.

Now that I would read!


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## At Dusk I Reign

Phil the Drill said:


> I think it would be awesome if there was a fantasy novel with no weapons.


My current novel contains no weapons. That's no doubt due to some subconscious aversion to weaponry, but it doesn't make the actual writing any good. Be careful what you wish for; you might end up with the dross I produce on my word processor.


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## Donny Bruso

@Phil - What a coincidence, I'm working on a story about a man who walked up to a dragon and punched it in the face. I'm calling it 'Lunch' lol


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## Mdnight Falling

Ravana said:


> So? Put the kids in the closet.


That's beautiful! If it wasn't against the law I so would LOL



Ravana said:


> Far better to teach them how to handle the weapons properly; if they learn proper respect for them, they won't want to handle them. That, plus since they do get to handle them from time to time, they won't constitute a "temptation" as they otherwise might.


This is a good point and we have been teaching the nine year old how to use the bows.. but we're still iffy about him about him messing with the swords. The 4 year old.. we tried today in fact to show her how to shoot a bow, but she didn't want to learn  >.<


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## Ophiucha

My story basically doesn't have any _fighting_, save for on the first page. There is some one sided gore (magical), but mostly it's a very character-based story, and the action is at a minimum. Of course, there _are_ weapons, they just don't happen to get much use.

I would personally like to see a story where muskets or Medieval hand cannons featured prominently. If they have guns, they are modern (or at least post-musket) guns. Usually something cowboy-esque, or even just a shotgun. I'd like to see a story where you get to make one shot, then you have to stop, put in your gunpowder and bullet, stuff them down, and then shoot again until eventually giving up and stabbing each other with the little knives at the end.


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## Mdnight Rising

:::chuckles:: i think the kids would  drive each other nuts int he closet so that the boy would kick out the door......LOL  just my opinion....lol . She will want to try one day or another give her time


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## Mdnight Falling

I know I know.. and I agree those two... well yeah LMMFAO! I bet she'd let us teach her how to use a sword


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## Mdnight Rising

oh no doubt......LOL.  too stab her older brother when he being mean to her.......LMAO!


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## Mdnight Falling

Mdnight Rising said:


> oh no doubt......LOL.  too stab her older brother when he being mean to her.......LMAO!


 
-rolls- OMFG I can so it >.< She'd come into you and tell you she did it too LOL


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## Ravana

Ophiucha said:


> I would personally like to see a story where muskets or Medieval hand cannons featured prominently.



Nothing says "cool" quite like a wheellock. It's the sort of thing that makes you wonder why the Industrial Revolution didn't take place two centuries earlier.

Or so: Leonardo da Vinci designed a tank, a helicopter, a steam-powered cannon, submarines and several flying machines and gliders. Most would not work if forced to rely _exclusively_ on accepted physical principles–but that's what magic's for, right? On the other hand, he also designed a bridge across the Golden Horn in Istanbul that was declared impossible when presented in 1502… but which Turkey is now considering constructing, exactly to the original plan; so much for what we "know." But I think it'd be interesting to have da Vinci's tanks take the field against the "invincible" heavy cavalry of the time period.

Archimedes was credited–perhaps incorrectly–with creating a "heat ray" to set approaching ships on fire, as well as far better-attested designs both military and otherwise. A couple centuries later, Heron of Alexandria had a number of inventions which, if less "romantic" than weapons, included the earliest (verifiable) steam engine and the world's first vending machine. And if you want to wonder about how long-delayed the Industrial Revolution _really_ was, look up "Antikythera Mechanism" some time.

As for a story–albeit not "fantasy"–that features muskets, there's always _The Three Musketeers_.


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## Mdnight Falling

Ravana... where'd you learn about all this stuff? I wanna do some research  Do you have any books you can reference for me so I can do some leisurely reading?


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## Ophiucha

Can't go wrong with Alexander Dumas, eh?

@Falling; I can't say about Ravana, but I mostly just spend tons of hours on the internet clicking about Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. Oh, and watching QI. Watch a season of QI, and you will have more trivia under your belt than the entire Jeopardy series could provide.  Plus, it's British.


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## Mdnight Falling

Ophiucha said:


> Can't go wrong with Alexander Dumas, eh?
> 
> @Falling; I can't say about Ravana, but I mostly just spend tons of hours on the internet clicking about Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. Oh, and watching QI. Watch a season of QI, and you will have more trivia under your belt than the entire Jeopardy series could provide.  Plus, it's British.


 
what's QI? I don't trust Wikipedia since Anyone can post on it.. seriously it's not like a smart people only thing >.<


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## Ophiucha

Mdnight Falling said:


> what's QI? I don't trust Wikipedia since Anyone can post on it.. seriously it's not like a smart people only thing >.<


 
It is also very heavily moderated and well cited, if you wanted external resources. There was a study done that said Wikipedia was in fact MORE accurate in many areas than Encyclopedia Britannica, the one which is regulated by a select group of people. And QI is a British quiz show (QI stands for Quite Interesting), where they give off rather obscure and interesting information on a wide variety of subjects, and they have a section at the end called General Ignorance where they ask a question with a seemingly obvious answer that is actually wrong.

As for books, if you want them, that just sort of depends on what you want to know. I mean, there is at least one book on anything but no book on everything - not even a 80 book encyclopedia can cover everything. For fantasy reference, I have a book on pre-1600 military weapons and tactics, a book on pestilence and plagues, and a very comprehensive encyclopedia on mythology.


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## Mdnight Falling

LOL I know what you mean about books.. I think I might look into the weapons book I know more useless information on greek and roman mythology then any single person in the world should >.< and I have a HUGE book on fantasy lore from around the world.. it's one of my favorite reads LOL but I'm not good with weapons and the such.. Hence why I stick to what I know x.x swords, daggers, maces, spears, bows, etc though it does get boring to write with the style of battle scenes all the time


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## Ravana

Astonishingly, Wikipedia has actually come to be quite reliable, as others have noted. I was briefly involved as one of the "everyones" contributing to it (mostly just correcting grammatical errors.…), and I can tell you from experience that there are innumerable people who absolutely _hover_ over the thing, checking up on every change made to articles within their personal sphere of experience/obsession, and who will notice and reverse any illicit or questionable change within minutes of its being made. No, you shouldn't use it as a primary source (especially if you're taking one of my classes!  ); on the other hand, _no_ encyclopedia makes a good primary source, because no encyclopedia _is_ a primary source. I use Wikipedia to fact-check on things I want to find out (or remind myself of) quickly; if I feel I'm going to need to back something up, I can (and do) use the citation list in the article as a jumping-off point for further research. 

Where do I learn all this stuff? Oh, no, you're going to make me say it, aren't you? The horror, the horror.…

"I read a lot." (No! Not the Comfy ClichÃ©! Aaaaahhhh.…)

Seriously: that's pretty much it. I'm an information sponge. I know a bit about everything because I _want_ to know _everything_ about everything–which is impossible, but as impossible goals go, it's one of the better ones to have. I have stronger and weaker areas; historical weaponry is one of the stronger ones (thank you, RPGs and SCA), but I'm just as interested in astrophysics, paleontology, languages, and law, and only marginally less interested in irises (the flowers, that is), antidepressants, and shiny rocks. I guess that's the key: become interested in something, and you'll learn about it; since just about everything interests me.…

(Don't ask me computer questions. Or cooking questions. Even then, I may know the answer… but those are two things I am _not_ interested in, apart from the effects they may have on my storytelling. Cooking, at least, can generally be avoided; computers are a bit trickier, if you're writing SF.…  )


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## Ophiucha

Ravana said:


> Cooking, at least, can generally be avoided.


 
This is hilarious to me because the only major subplot of my novel is about food.


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## Ravana

As to specific books on historical weaponry: I'd have to look. So much of it has come in bits and dribbles from a variety of sources that I'm not sure I even _have_ a single, moderately comprehensive reference work. (Oh: and you will run into considerable terminological variation from one text to another, too, so this can be somewhat frustrating at times… which may be why I can't recall a definitive text on the matter.)


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## Ravana

Ophiucha said:


> This is hilarious to me because the only major subplot of my novel is about food.


 
Hee hee. Each to his own. I like Brust (well, "adore" would probably come closer), admire his evident in-depth knowledge of the subject, and would be happy to eat a meal he'd cooked… but doubt I'll ever employ that level of detail about food in anything I write. 

Unless, of course, the story requires it. Which I could easily happening, no matter how much I tried to avoid it. In which case, I'll delve into my own limited storehouse of knowledge, figure out what I still need to know, and go learn it.

(P.S. One of my current side-projects at the moment is–you ready for this?–editing a friend's manuscript for a cookbook.…  )


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## Donny Bruso

The advantage to cooking in a story is you get to foist the actual work off on one of your characters, and just announce the results. Either it's edible and fantastic, edible and awful, or just inedible. And... No cleanup! Woot! The downside of course is you may sit there after writing the scene and go 'You know, that would be really good about now...'


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## osimur_wil

Swords are a symbol of war, knightly honor, and chivalry. The longsword is a symbol of nobility that has survived far beyond its obsolescence. 

Also, because of stories such as those of King Arthur, magic swords are something of a shorthand for heroic purpose combined with the previously mentioned nobility.


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## DragonOfTheAerie

This is an interesting topic...

I don't think any of my main characters use swords. My weapon of choice is typically knives for them. Knife fight scenes are way more intimate and risky feeling than sword fight scenes, so I really like writing them in action, but I don't think that's the real reason. My main characters usually aren't heroes and leaders who fight for their countries. Typically, they are people blending into the large scheme of things, fighting for those they love. Could the choice of knives as a weapon reflect that? Interesting...


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## DragonOfTheAerie

But also, when I think about it, the number of characters I have that actually use physical weapons is quite low. The greatest weapon of many is their mind. 

Or their powers. Or their dragon.


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## R.H. Smith

I like guns specifically for all the reasons mentioned above, though my love is in that 'in your face' type of assault. For me, there is nothing more exhilarating than two people fighting to the death, sweat and blood flying around, the ring of metal on metal...you get the gist. But!!!! (yes, there's a but) My weapon of choice is either mace or morningstar, as opposed to a sword. My swords always have similar traits: they are always curved, (don't like broadswords as they take too much time and energy to wield) have blood grooves, can be held one or two handed. With the mace, it's about hearing and seeing the 'crunch' of someones face being caved in  I also like dark, bloody and gory (realist here).


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## TheKillerBs

R.H. Smith said:


> (don't like broadswords as they take too much time and energy to wield)



What? Broadswords don't take too much time or energy to wield — if they did, they would have never seen the battlefield.


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## Malik

R.H. Smith said:


> My weapon of choice is either mace or morningstar, as opposed to a sword. My swords always have similar traits: they are always curved, (don't like broadswords as they take too much time and energy to wield) have blood grooves, can be held one or two handed. With the mace, it's about hearing and seeing the 'crunch' of someones face being caved in  I also like dark, bloody and gory (realist here).



If you like realism, then I would strongly suggest that you visit the Ask Me About Swords thread in Research. Most of what you're talking about above regarding swords is wrong. And it's often written wrong in fantasy, which is why we have the Research section on this board.

A broadsword and a curved sword take exactly the same energy to wield. It could be argued that a good longsword or bastard sword takes less.

The difference is the way you fight with it. If you use a medieval longsword like a scimitar, well, you're gonna die. A two-handed longsword is a miracle of engineering: it has a peculiar center of gravity that keeps the point directed at the opponent no matter which way you move the base, which is the key to fighting with it. You can parry through all of your guards and wards and still be inches away from stabbing your opponent the whole time. Longsword fights are scary fast and have zero margin of error. A good longswordsman can give a rapier fencer a very bad day with a sword three times the size.

The business end of a Type XX greatsword -- one of those honkin', five- or six-foot, six- to eight-pound suckers -- is alarmingly nimble. You maneuver the point by levering it with one hand on the pommel; they're not swung like sledgehammers. It's just as fast as the longsword. Maybe faster if your opponent has good feet. A good Montante or Spadone fighter is a nightmare to work against.

There is no reason to have a two-handed curved sword. I've handled a two-handed falchion (really more of a kilij with a chopping tip) that had a slight curve, but it was a fantasy weapon made on a custom, one-off deal. That second hand, as discussed above, is used to lever a big sword, not to swing it like a bat. The falchion made use of this because it carried its weight far forward. The percussive center on a curved sword is usually too far back to make proper use of a pommel as a secondary grip. I can see how a long handle with a heavy pommel could be used as a counterweight on a really heavy curved sword (like a kilij), but I'm not aware of any two-handed techniques for scimitar or saber. I could be wrong, but I've been swordfighting for about 30 years, now, and I've never heard of such a thing. If you have examples, please post them; I love finding out new things.

If you want to use a two-handed scimitar, cool; you've got your work cut out for you, though, designing a combat system around it is going to take some effort.

Morningstars -- if you're talking about chain flails -- are slow. Actually, technically, the end moves very fast, but in combat, speed is a function of perception and a matter of stripping away excess motion. A snake doesn't move any faster than you do; it just has no wind-up or tensing before it attacks, so it seems very fast. Your eye is conditioned to key in on preparatory motion. This is the same reason a boxer's jab will lay you out before you see it: no excess motion.

It's the blow you don't see coming that ends you. The problem is that you have to keep a flail moving, or you have to telegraph the hell out of your blow to get it moving. Your opponent sees it coming; he knows exactly where it's going to be, and he has about a week and a half to decide what to do. Your best bet with a chain flail is to wait until your target is doing something else -- fighting another opponent, adjusting his armor, making a sandwich -- and then hit him with it. It's a useless weapon except in the heat of battle when you can catch someone not looking. Come at me with nunchuks sometime and I'll show you. 

Lastly, there is no such thing as a "blood groove." The removed material from the spine of a sword is called a fuller, and it serves to lighten and stiffen the weapon. Sword spines were typically iron, and the edges steel. The fuller helped lighten the sword and give the iron section less chance of bending in a fight.


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## TheKillerBs

The katana and nodachi are two-handed curved swords, although the jury's still out on the nodachi ever having been more than just a ceremonial object.


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## Malik

Valid. I do like to pretend the katana never existed. I see it in far too many fantasy novels written by katana / anime fanboys, cutting through armor like it's a lightsaber. Which is where I snarl and throw the book away.

I was thinking more along the lines of a backsword, Khopesh, or Kilij, that carries its center of gravity in (or in front of) the curve. You are correct, though.


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## TheKillerBs

Man the khopesh is so awesome yet unused because very few people know about it. One of the biggest injustices of fiction.


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## Malik

TheKillerBs said:


> Man the khopesh is so awesome yet unused because very few people know about it. One of the biggest injustices of fiction.



Such a weird weapon, too. It makes no sense in my hand. I mean, I get what it's supposed to do; I just have no freakin' idea how to get it to do it without getting killed in the process. The rotational inertia makes it want to jump out of your hands when you swing it. I don't know how you'd keep the thing tracking through a cut unless you had forearms like Popeye. 

A swordsmith buddy who made one and let me play with it believed that they were originally made out of bronze (and maybe even copper) and the design had something to do with the material. Anyway, there's probably a reason that the design was abandoned three thousand years ago.


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## ThinkerX

My characters weapons...

Most of the knights are proficient with lance and broadsword, though a few prefer battle axes.  

Others are either current or former members of quasi-roman legions, with training in short swords, spears, javelins, and more recently, bows and crossbows. Newly introduced: exploding crossbow quarrels. 

Carrying a sword or bow in civilized lands without proper authority is grounds for immediate arrest.  Highborn can flaunt this rule if they care to do so.  Hunters in rural areas can have bows, bodyguards and caravan guards can have clubs, short swords, and bows or crossbows...if they have the permits.  Otherwise, its improvised stuff - staffs, knives, maybe the odd hammer or ax.


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## Malik

There are reasons to use a curved blade. My deployment rig includes a shovel-edge Khukri, AKA "The Death Spatula."

















As a boxer, I wanted a piece that would penetrate soft armor, and yet let me punch reflexively with it. Tinker came up with this nasty little bastard, drawing on the Khukri for a variation on his NSFK (No **** Fighting Knife). 

The curve and the angle of the handle versus the blade is such that the point tracks with the major bones of the arm during a thrust; you can put your whole body behind it and there is no impact on your wrist. In an ice-pick grip, the leading edge of the blade is at 90 degrees to the major bones of the hand and arm. If I get my bell rung, I can still shell up into the same guard that I've used since grade school and box with it.


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## TheKillerBs

Malik said:


> Such a weird weapon, too. It makes no sense in my hand. I mean, I get what it's supposed to do; I just have no freakin' idea how to get it to do it without getting killed in the process. The rotational inertia makes it want to jump out of your hands when you swing it. I don't know how you'd keep the thing tracking through a cut unless you had forearms like Popeye.
> 
> A swordsmith buddy who made one and let me play with it believed that they were originally made out of bronze (and maybe even copper) and the design had something to do with the material. Anyway, there's probably a reason that the design was abandoned three thousand years ago.



Oh man, I am so jealous. I'd love to get my hands on one of those and swing it around a bit. Yeah, they were definitely made of bronze, considering they never made it to the Iron Age... From what I understand, they were developed from axes, so I would assume that's how they would be used but considering I've never tried, I really can't say much. I like to think that rather than completely disappearing, the khopesh developed into similarly curved blades such as the kopis.


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## Malik

TheKillerBs said:


> Oh man, I am so jealous. I'd love to get my hands on one of those and swing it around a bit. Yeah, they were definitely made of bronze, considering they never made it to the Iron Age... From what I understand, they were developed from axes, so I would assume that's how they would be used but considering I've never tried, I really can't say much. I like to think that rather than completely disappearing, the khopesh developed into similarly curved blades such as the kopis.



It's so weird; the moment you cut into something with it, it breaks away from your wrist. I honestly don't know how it worked.


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## Gurkhal

I'll just throw in that my characters use all kind of weapons but given that I don't feel that I have enough knowledge about them, I try to avoid going into the details in the writing.


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## TinyHippo

I'm trying to use weaponry that makes sense in my stories. 
Medieval fantasy: Spear/shield and longbow all day long. Simple because those weapons put some distance between you and someone trying to kill you. The biggest part of your thinking during an epic battle, like the ones we tell, would be "How can I avoid dying?"


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## Chessie

This is precisely why my characters use daggers and short swords: because I'm familiar with them and won't seem like a total idiot to my readers. Carry on.


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## Garren Jacobsen

I have a pretty broad range of weapons. My Nano 2016 character will use both a sword and a six shooter. One mc used talismans and swords in a world of iron man like suits and space stations. Another mc in a different world uses WW2 era weapons. Yet another will use Colonial era muskets. Whall the guns? Because I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning.


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## SaltyDog

Tom Riddle said:


> It seems that most fantasy heroes use swords.  Why is that?  It there some special symbolism or meaning to that weapon?
> 
> I tried writing a story with a magic quarterstaff, but it didn't seem right.
> 
> What weapons are your fantasy heroes using?



One uses a short sword, another uses a rapier, and still yet another uses an arming sword.  Basically my characters use a wide variety of steel weapons.  No firearms though, and (So far) nothing that includes gun powder.

Swords are seen as a "Noble weapon."  All the good knights and kings use them, so naturally a stereotype of the good guys main weapon being a sword would spring up and become wildly used.  And hey, swords are also cool. (Who doesn't want to read about a massive knight in armor go sweeping through a bunch of enemies with an even larger sword?).  We can instantly picture them in our minds eye.  They are, I see, the standard weapon of fantasy.


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## mecg_romancer

I'm using swords as status symbols for the most part, as the main character for my short story even though Hes a knight He lacks a sword because He lost all his family's land etc. He instead uses a war mattock which is a cross between a mattock and an axe, it also makes more sense for my world building as He's just as often fighting monsters with tough natural armor as he is fighting squashy humans.


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## halisme

My culture doesn't have the romanticised view of swords. They like hammers and bows, and see swords as a sidearm at best.


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## Tom

One of the cultures I'm writing about, the Yianlai, fight primarily from horseback, so spears and bows are their favored weapons. Swords are seen as something to be used if you've been unhorsed, which is seen as shameful. If you lose your sword and have to resort to daggers--well, that's _ultimate_ shame. My MC uses a bow when on horseback, but when fighting on foot he favors daggers for their versatility and speed. It also gives him an advantage due to that cultural view of swords and daggers; most opponents figure he's desperate and has already been halfway beaten, and underestimate him because of it. A Yianlai secondary character, Aeyu, fights with a quarterstaff she was given by another character. I wanted to give her a weapon that no other Yianlai character fought with, to show that she is breaking from tradition and declaring herself different. 

Another culture in the same story, the Vazkyrohk, uses swords almost exclusively in combat. They come from a far northern climate that can't sustain large numbers of horses (especially war horses), so cavalry fighting is not something they're used to. Some also favor staves or spears instead of swords, especially warlocks, whose weapons also function as foci for their magic. This culture is not as big on bows as the other, seeing ranged weapons as somewhat cowardly. Fighting face-to-face is the most honorable form of combat in their society. The main Vazkyrohko character, Miekkhal, uses a stave at first, but later discards it in favor of a sword. I used the weapons switch as a metaphor for his reconnection with his roots and culture.


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## Demesnedenoir

You don't need a romanticized view of swords for them to be a prevalent weapon... they became romanticized in large part because they are extremely effective both offensively and defensively, although some would depend on tech level. They are a sidearm (in many cases literally) and the best ones until the advent of the revolver... single shots just weren't that great. 

Swords of one sort of another are seen throughout pretty much every dominant culture in the world... there's a good reason for that.



halisme said:


> My culture doesn't have the romanticised view of swords. They like hammers and bows, and see swords as a sidearm at best.


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## TheKillerBs

Slings. I just remembered this. My ranged nomad (sort of) conquerors are slingers, mostly because for such a prevalent weapon for very a long time in history, they are rather underrepresented in fiction.


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