Recent content by DMThaane

A lot of this should be guided by the tone you're going for. Functionally many different things can fit and if you have no set idea of what you want then the question is what works best for the atmosphere. Something hideous or alien immediately throws the story in the deep end, with the two...

Clearly Vom Tag allows easy access to the pommel so it can be unscrewed and used to end your opponent rightly. This would make it the most superior of all guards, as Kingdom of Heaven taught us.

So since initially posting I've actually read about the subject of the original post and some are seriously disputing the findings, notably an associate professor in Medieval Islamic art and archaeology. Here's a compilation of her tweets on the subject...

Pedantically that's only evidence for contact between Vikings and the Eastern Orthodox church, since the Hagia Sophia was an Orthodox church at the time, although serving in the Varangian Guard would mean that a lot of Vikings would have had rather pointy contact with various Islamic peoples and...

You can't really have a human conqueror 'forget' how to farm because even if they don't do it themselves they'll just force the people they conquer to farm, even turning conquered territories into 'breadbaskets'. You can have a conqueror grow so large and urbanised that it can't sustain its...

The only weapon I can think of that might match the description is the Chinese flying guillotine but its origins, nature, and use are all pretty murky and I've never seen a theory that makes them look even remotely practical as a weapon. As or other weapons, the impractical but wacky lantern...

The Sims? Non-violent? Oh how the denizens of this world would weep if they were to suffer one skerrick, one jot, one iota of the suffering I have reigned down upon sims in one incarnation or the other. Building's have burned, assassinations have been arranged, swimming pool ladders have...

I don't really get 'hyped' for a number of reasons but to see the sadly barren RTS genre and a franchise I was practically raised on and that helped encourage my love of history and mythology getting a new entry does warm this virtual general's bloodstained soul. Now here's hoping they craft a...

If you can make iron swords you can make iron bars. If they have the availability of materials and the desire to create such a dungeon then they'd appear to have the means.

Actually, you raise a good point with the puffer fish that I hadn't considered. If you had the spikes be extendible so they could be pushed out when needed and then withdrawn into slots or casings within the ship you could extend them to maximum length when creatures were sighted and then pull...

By dint of logic this would appear to undermine the passive defence of spiked hulls since a creature needs to attack you to realise attacking you is a bad idea and by that point it may have already damaged your hull. Considering that the spikes will also create drag, leave you more vulnerable to...

I see a lot of suggestions for avoidance and not a lot on simply murdering the damn things. Man didn't get to the top of the food chain by passing up the opportunity to murder any inconvenient predator we came across. Interesting historical side-note, did you know that the first record of the...

I actually find the gods you've presented far more interesting as reflections of the people in your world, as examples of how they conceptualise and rationalise who they are and the world they live in. They seem such an interesting commentary on how these people see their place in their little...

Another solution would be to focus on the father instead of the son. Vlad II Dracul would already have to take a different path to power due to the changes in your timeline and he was a member of the Order of the Dragon. He even tried to run to Poland at one point but it seems the Hungarians...

I noticed you didn't mention culture; how people greet each other on the streets or the proper etiquette when sharing a meal. How people interact with the world and each other will usually provide context to the rest, helping it all fit together. Without knowing the story your writing I can't...