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A world without bows and arrows

arboriad

Scribe
Btw, another consideration is that I'd no one has thought this particular thought, and is not going to come up, then it shouldn't get any screen time. In the same way add a world that doesn't have a moon,no one would know to think about it.

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Legendary Sidekick

The HAM'ster
Moderator
In the same way add a world that doesn't have a moon,no one would know to think about it.
I'm picturing a wolf just sitting on a hilltop at night, silently. He never howls. He's on a moonless world and isn't sure why he stares at the night sky without purpose.



Your point isn't lost on me. In my comic, I have a Huntress and in my 4th strip, I planned to give her a bow. Then I said, screw that. It's more fun to draw her brandishing an axe. I just don't like to draw bows. Too elegant, too safe... bring on the stupidly risky hack-and-slash.

I'm not going to say bows don't exist in my world. But they may never show up in my comic either.

So, yeah, the "world without bows" could just be depicted such that the reader doesn't see any bows. Have enough spears and spells so we know ranged combat is a thing, but focus on the melee or on the warriors who get close and personal. (That is, if your reason is a preference to write/show melee but you're indifferent about the world having bows or not having bows.)
 

bgmyhan

Dreamer
Only answer can be found in Zac's snyder's 300. Close valley canyons are the only way in and out and the armies can wreck shop by taking out a few at a time and forcing the army to funnel. Also volcano lairs? we need to bring back volcano lairs.
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
Okay, I'm not going to try to talk you out of it, if your heart is set on it, but I don't understand.

Once long ago, before people were civilized, they were hunter-gatherers. They gathered what fell from trees, and harvested roots, and pulled fish from water either by hand or by spear. They saw wild animals and wanted to eat them. But unlike tigers with claws, or wolves that could run their prey into exhaustion, humans had their minds. So they developed tools to help them hunt. And flat out, a man in the woods with a knife has less a chance of coming home with game, than a man in the woods with a bow, or atlatl, or blown dart.

Again, I'm not trying to say your idea can't work, but I'm trying to understand how they came to flourish if their basic foods weren't hunted with the effectiveness thrown weapons provide. Did they run mammoths off cliffs? I mean, as soon as people crossed the land bridge into North America, mammoth populations decreased because of the huge amount of waste created when forty mammoths fall to their deaths versus one or two harvested to feed a clan. I'm just wondering how your people got food before they were a civilized, industrious society that had the ability to build walls and cities worth protecting with them. Where does their food come from now? It takes a lot of resources to keep livestock in one place. Primitive people in our modern world drive herds to grazing, but if your people live in bigger towns and cities with fortifications, how much grazing would it take to feed that many people? There isn't room for those kinds of flocks, even if you have all small animals like goats, sheep, and rabbits.

So, if your people do not use bows to hunt game that gets fat on its own and then is harvested with bows, I'd think the bigger challenge is in how they survive. Are they all grain-fed? That leads to a lot more problems than people today realize. People don't grow to their full potential without protein provided by meat. Sure, beans and legumes can be eaten, but unlike grain which can be dried and stored, certain other food items are hard to process and store, leaving your culture very susceptible to famine (like the potato famine in wet years, when the potatoes all rotted or were diseased, and all those who survived on potatoes were malnourished and starving). Large populations need certain resources, and livestock needs certain resources, and I'm just wondering how they made it through their own version of a Stone Age without the simplest weapon, the longest lived--the stick with a string on it.

Maybe your culture once had bows, and has since abandoned them, considering them bad or evil. That's fine. Things happen, decrees are made. Maybe it isn't even anything like that. Maybe they cut down all the trees, and now they have none to make arrows from, or something, like Easter Island.

Let's say bows don't exist now, then I'd say the best defense against foot soldiers is a trench. It worked in the great wars, and they even had guns in the early part of the 20th century. When you bottleneck footmen, or slow their charge, you greatly decrease their effectiveness. Spiked pits, traps, snares, caltrops (to lame horses, or maybe even men), moats, chasms with defensible bridges, booby-trapped barricades with alchemical napalm, I mean, I could go on and on. I think there are loads of possibilities, and all of them work well against foot soldiers and aren't reliant on bows never being invented or whatever, but I concur with what others have said, the bigger problem is that someone else who doesn't follow the same rules, will simply appoint from their people a bunch of boyers and fletchers, and the civilized people without bows will be at a disadvantage.

I think the bigger problem is the food source, though. In modern America, few people use bows to hunt or for anything else, because we have better options and less social need, but I can't imagine why a Roman-like civilization wouldn't find it a necessary technology.
 

Drakevarg

Troubadour
Not sure what qualifies as thread necro 'round these parts, but since it's only on Page 3...

Would a world with higher gravity or denser air service as a factor to make people less interested in ranged weaponry? Perhaps people just largely gave up on the idea because ranged weapons don't fly far enough or hit hard enough to be reliable. Obviously this would factor into every other facet of the world, but it's the best I can think of besides, as mentioned, arbitrary divine mandate.
 
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