Friday, September 30, 2016

What Does Your Weapon Look Like?

I've been watching a lot of Man At Arms: Reforged. A friend got me in with the episode where they make the blade from Kuromukuro and show more traditional techniques for forging a Japanese blade. Since then, I've powered through a number of episodes, and I've really enjoyed how they work to make the weapon functional (to some extent) while also being decorative.

It occurred to me while watching that decorative but functional weapons, especially like what they're making, is also a staple in RPGs. Magic swords, awakened blades, items crafted by legendary smiths, these are all found in near every table top game. Heroes may always have swords, but what does that sword look like? Link's Master Sword looks different from Saber's Excalibur and neither look like Aragorn's Anduril.

There can be a lot of character in a weapon, the appearance, the size, the color, how it's outfitted.

So what does your character's weapon look like, if you know?

At present, I'm still working through it with my characters. My primary one in play, Mirumoto Rei has two weapons that were the weapons of another character I played. The names are Hyourinmaru and Senden.

The name Hyourinmaru means Full Moon, but it also has association with Ice. It's also the name of Hitsugaya from Bleach, and they share this name for reasons relating to their abilities. I picture Hyourinmaru as a weapon with a silver pommel cap, pale grey wraps, a silvered tsuba (hand guard) and habaki (the metal fixture around the base of the blade.) The steel of the blade is smooth and polished with no hamon or forge lines, almost like a pool of frozen liquid metal.

Senden I'm not sure of yet.

What about you?

2 comments:

  1. A character I have for Star Wars is a bounty hunter with a flair, and she has a signature pair of pistols that she wears. Right now one is broken, and the other scratch repaired which adds to the character a lot.

    They are a pair of heavy blaster pistols with a thick solid cylindrical muzzle, leading back to a silver barrel chased with black pattern work that swirls in water like patterns. The body of the pistol is black with gold chasing with similar patterning on it, with the grip and accents on the body of the pistol are a deep red almost mahogany wood. One of them has a welded barrel replacement near the body of the gun that scars the beautiful chasing, and the other has been cut fully in half and is just held together in the holster.

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  2. Description and names are important for weapons, my halfling in Out of the Abyss has a thin dagger which earned the name "Liver Taster".

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