Items · Melee Weapons · Non-Magical
Khawarezmian Papersword
Some call the Khawarezmians primitive. Paperswords are not made of paper or parchament. They are made of thin sheets of bone laminated together. It takes expert craftsmanship to make them. They are anything but primitive.
Full Item Description
The Khawarezmians live on a rocky jungle peninsula which is covered almost entirely by incredibly thick, primordial jungle, filled with strange things which are not seen anywhere else, throwbacks to a time when jungles such as this covered the entire world, and were filled with the magic of the Outer World.
The Khawarezmian jungle is also very lacking in a resource which is extremely common in lands north of it in Ageratos proper- iron. The Khawarezmians ration what iron they have for very special purposes. For many things such as armor and weapons, the Khawarezmians do not use iron, instead using the pliant yet strong bone of a gigantic beast of the deep jungle known as the Root Behemoth.
To make paperswords, the Khawarezmians take splintery sheets of the bones of the Root Behemoth, and, through special processes, pare them down to paper-thin, translucent sheets (hence, papersword), gluing them together into bone-yellow blades of extremely thin bone. These swords are extremely light and fast to the hand, but they are also fragile, and used as slashing weapons rather than as blocking tools.
Magic/Cursed Properties
None. This is in the Special Weapons, Non Magical thread.
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- Interesting Weapons- Non-Magic Michael Jotne Slayer
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- Interesting Weapons- Non-Magic Michael Jotne Slayer linked by MoonHunter
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I like it.Does a warrior have more then one of them? A few blows from a mace or warhammer would shatter this weapon into splinters of bone.
How about a sturdy shield?
I like this idea. I read a series of books once that had this very same concept in it. I liked it then and its nice to see it again in useable form.
What some people fail to realize a lot of old/ ancient cultures used simple techinques for weapons and armor. Not because they were technologically inferior. Look at the incans/ mayans/ aztecs. They built acoustically sound temples yet used wood and stone for armor and weapons. They made some of the most memorable treasures of gold and stone plus advanced math and calenders, yet had stone aged type of armorment.
Why? Because it worked and they had a lack of knowledge for smelting metals, much less the availability of ore to use as weapons.
I like it, I have a thing for 'Simple background items' and this is definitely one of my faves.
Yes, this is cool!
This is a good one. As I happen to have a world with few sources of iron or wood usable for weapons, the paperswords are a very useful creation.
Question: they may be good for slashing, what about stabbing? Some creatures may not be repealed by surface wounds, a little depth-treatment can solve many issues. Will these swords fracture upon impact, and leave pieces of them in the wound? That could be nasty...
Given the material's tendency to flex and its brittle qualities, I think a stab attack using a papersword would have limited usefulness; it would probably just bend, unless you could, as you said, shatter the sword inside the wound.
Just a theoretical question: could one make a bigger (and presumably sturdier) sword from the same material?
The Scythians did something similar. Not having access to iron, they would make their "scale-mail" armor by slicing the hooves of (dead) horses into very thin strips, then sewing them together in an overlap fashion. Not quite bone, but similar idea
An interesting concept, and I can;t help but wonder if they could perhaps reinforce these blades for stabbing by placing a slightly thicker slab of fire hardened wood (or obsidian stone?) at the center.
These would make for a memorable and interesting addition to any traders weapon inventory.