Fantasy Weapons and Cultural Significance 

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Imagine being laughed out of a tavern for being the fantasy equivalent of a weeb.

I'm appreciating all the thumbnails where you're just hiding creepily in the corner.

Now I have sympathy for Conner Macleod, who must of been constantly asked about his Japanese katana for literally hundreds of years.

I just want to say the Grandaddy Tolkien certainly thought about this kind of thing in his world, especially with the elves. A little bit of time is given in The Fellowship of the Ring is given to the differences between Mirkwood elves and Lothlorien elves, like how Lothlorien elves build their homes in trees. One of the things mentioned is that Lothlorien bows are longer and heavier than Mirkwood bows. Legolas, a Mirkwood elves, originally had a smaller Mirkwood bow, but Lady Galadriel gives him a Lothlorien bow as a gift so he uses that from then on. So, elves tend to prefer bows to other kinds of weapons, but different groups of elves have different kinds of bows. The point of this comment is to say that Tokien knew what he was doing.

"You see those warriors from Hammerfell? They've got curved swords. Curved. Swords."

One thing I like the idea of in D&D and Pathfinder style fantasy worlds, where people are professional adventurers and loot or buy the best gear they can find, is that talking about where they got their current weapon is like a handshake.

"Allied soldiers wouldn't wear Wehrmacht helmets." Wehrmacht soldier wearing Soviet winter clothes: "Screw looks, it's cold!"

In the books, king Theodens armory has a bunch of gondorian armor that Aragorn and legolas pick from, and gimli picks a rohirrim shield and helmet that used to belong to Theoden. But that's the king's armory

One point: in a lot of fantasy settings, such as the implied setting for early versions of Dungeons and Dragons, humans are often assumed to be the most ubiquitous and culturally varied of the races. While multiple human nations with varied cultures are to be expected, often elves and dwarves are much more monolithic. Depends on the setting obviously, but sometimes calling something an "elven sword" could make sense if there happens to be only one nation of elves remaining in the known world.

According to ancient Chinese generals, the best weapons for the Dawi/Dwarves are halberds: ”The basic rule of warfare that should be taught is that men of short stature should carry spears and spear-tipped halberd, the tall should carry bows and crossbows, the strong should carry the flags and banners, the courageous should carry the bells and the drums, the weak should serve in logistics, while the wise should be involved in planning." -"Wuzi" by Wu Qi

"That's really weird, can I buy it?" That particular comment on the Englishman's katana killed me.

Take it from a former soldier: -A weapon is better than no weapon. Junk is better than the bare fist. -Gear is adapted to its environment -Gear is also adapted to the user and the user's capabilites and personality -Fashion is a thing -Are you typically fighting alone or are you fighting in a group/line?

Great gag throughout the HBO series Generation Kill. Marine loses his kevlar helmet (a common occurrance in the USMC, as exemplified by the phrase, "Gear adrift, is a gift") and is predictably dressed down for walking around without a helmet. He scrounges a green motorcycle helmet and wears it for awhile, but is predictably dressed down for wearing a non-ballistic helmet. He then acquires an Iraqi helmet and paints it to resemble US camo. On patrol, he is tackled by Marines from another unit, because they believe he is an armed Iraqi soldier 'sneaking up' on his squad.

Another element to the fitting in - training. If you’re training with locals you might adopt their weapons because that’a what’s taught here.

Yeah, the Lord of the rings was pretty forward in having different cultures within the same species. Orcs, elves, humans and even hobbits from different areas had markedly different characteristics and suspicion, animosity and even downright aggression to each other. Never really considered it before.

I love how Matt has gotten comfortable enough in his format to show us how much of a lovable goofball he really is.

I suppose a major thing to consider is how isolated each fantasy race/culture/faction is. The more isolated they are, the likelier they are to use distinct equipment including weapons. Meanwhile, the more two (or more) races/cultures/factions interact with one another, the likelier and more normal it would be for there to be crossover between them; including either their producing equipment influenced from the other, or even their outright using the equipment of the other race/culture/faction's (e.g. acquired through trade, etc). As such, if a fantasy world's races/cultures/factions are quite well interconnected with one another, it would be plausible for them to be using each other's weapons (and other equipment) to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the individual races/cultures/factions and resources available to them and the spheres of influences at play.

My favorite thing in fantasy games are the primitive societies living in huts and wearing loin clothes but they somehow have sophidcated metal weapons unique to their society. Looking at you blizzard.

I don't think fashion is given enough credit in history or fantasy. People like looking good. Everything is not utility.

In Role Playing Games, I think one of the main reasons people pick weapons "outside the norm" for characters is to try to combo it into everything else for maximum efficiency (essentialy "power play")

In the Two Towers the orcs of Isengard have different kit from the Mordor orcs, so even back when JRR was thinking of this. As a side note, what is up with dwarves and axes? Are there a lot of trees underground? Why not hammers and picks?

"This backwards-curved saber blade, if we're 'Frank' about it..." What you did there, I see it.

This is the level of thought that separates a “meh” dungeon master from a great one in role playing games.

Qing dynasty is pronounced, "Ching." I hope that helps for the future!

This is needed for me. I appreciate this. Im trying to figure out how to do cultural arms, weapons, stylings of combat and how to really make it far more interesting, less blocky and more...organic and well alive? I guess? Its a challenge but i always find outside references, ideas and knowledge helps. So wonderful timing

I was waiting for his archaeology roots to show, "It was ceremonial or ritualistic."

It should be of note this also applies to modern arms. For example- Look at the countries of NATO- all the countries use the 5.56x45mm cartridge, yet every country in the bloc has their own design based on the local doctrine and production capability. The L83A2 is a Bullpup like the French FAMAS both are different despite being so similar. Then you have the US with the M4/M16 family of weapons which is of a different set up compared to the L83. Then you got the Poles with their rifles being AK based despite using NATO ammo which is different to the US patters of its rifles. The more things change, the more they are similar to the old days of Italian Knights looking different to that of England. All the technology is similar of all the weapons, yet they all look different. This can also be applied to tanks where NATO countries again have similar technology, but the M1A2 Abrams looks different to a Challenger II, or heck lets throw in the Merkava into the mix as it has similar technology but the Israelis have it designed to the needs of their army and their logistical needs.

As an amateur novelist (nothing published so far), I am heavily influenced by the fact that I am also an apprentice blacksmith and an amateur historian while writing. Knowing how/when/where certain types of weapons or armour is made, helps to somewhat ground the story in reality. I have been working on a "Conan-esq" litterary world now for about 16 years now, and I have done extensive research in order to populate that world with a variety of different cultures (34 so far). Each one influenced by various cultures from history, from 5th century Germanic tribes to 12th century Arabia. And while I have a lot of different characters belonging to these various cultures, and they might carry weapons or armor from another culture, I have put a lot of thought behind why that is and where that character may have acquired said weapons or armor.

I love how you emphasise that it makes little sense for fantasy races/species to be homogenous. Especially when humans are the exeption to that. Treating elves, dwarves, centaurs, unicorn-tiger-folk or any other fantasy species as diverse makes for much more interesting settings anyway. I like giving my species and cultures distinct weapons and armour when worldbuilding and having this reflect in my characters in story writing. It makes a diverse cast more interesting with every member being distinct, and when you break the norm and give a character an unusual item it makes it all the more noticable and memorable. Great video, eh!

i love your fantasy series. please keep it up

The “Branded” TV Western starring Chuck Connors could also serve as inspiration for a fantasy character using an unusual weapon. Connors was falsely accused of cowardice and drummed out of the U.S. Cavalry. His saber was broken in half, but Connors kept the shortened blade, sharpened it, and became proficient with it as a weapon. Perhaps a fantasy character could experience a similar false accusation and be thrown out of their elite unit. Their longsword was broken, but they turned it into a shortsword and became deadly with it. One day they will sink the shortened blade into their false accuser and be vindicated, leaving the half-sword buried in their enemy and regaining the right to once again wield the longsword of their former unit. It’s worth looking up the Branded theme song on RU-vid to see how Connors is literally “drummed” out of the Cavalry. The following lyrics are sourced from the website Lyrics on Demand. BRANDED All but one man died, There at Bitter Creek, And they say he ran away ... Branded! Marked with a coward's shame. What do you do when you're branded, Will you fight for your name? He was innocent, Not a charge was true, But the world will never know ... Branded! Scorned as the one who ran. What do you do when you're branded, And you know you're a man? And wherever you go for the rest of your life You must prove ... You're a man! [Third and Fourth Verses:] Stripped of all his rank, Stripped of all his pride, Still he held his head up high! Branded! Friends are a thing unknown! What do you do when you're branded? Can you go on alone? Of his Gen'ral Reed, And the men who died, He can never speak the truth! Branded! That's not the way to die! What do you do when you're branded? Can you live with a lie? Branded!

I think its really lovely that you're still producing fresh and interesting content that makes me think after so many years. Cheers.

It's also important to recognise that the writers/directors (usually) aren't just picking weapons from what is cool, but that the weapons are props that help tell a story about that character. Just like a good movie fight isn't as much about being historically accurate, but wether it aids in telling the story

Hipster elves talking about sword fashion. "You're carrying That!? That's so last century."

Btw, Hungarians used saber in the time when Arab have straight swords (9th century) and mamluks came even later; Seljuks in the 11th cent.

Explanation: Conan picked up and thought this was good choppa!

I think you used the word "Qin/Qing" when referring to the Chinese sword, and you pronounced it as "queen" or perhaps "Quin". In Chinese, the "Q" is pronounced quite similarly to "ch" in English (but perhaps a little closer to the front of the mouth, but that's not super important). So you could probably pronounce it as the "Cheen/Ching Dynasty" and not be too far off, depending on if you were saying "Qin" or "Qing". Cheers. I hope this helps.

Hungary didn't "adopt" Ottoman swords, there was western influence that popularized the double edged blades in the centuries preceeding the Ottoman invasion, but the traditional curved sabres were in the region well before any Ottoman influence, both the hungarians and the avars before them had sabres as you mentioned (as did many other eastern cultures mainly because it was preferable to straight blades when it comes to horseback fighting). The Ottoman invasion repopularized the old, out of fashion hungarian sabre, but the true unique Ottoman sword styles like the yatagan were quite different and didn't stick around.

What I lack in fiction and movies in general is often a sense of practical history. By that I mean that you may live in a city with some fancy stone houses in the new style, but most homes are still timber frame as they were built for centuries. Elite troops may have the newest weapons and styles, but the average soldier may have some repaired hairloom...

Genuinely appreciate you calling out that fantasy races should be addressed as cultures rather than 'races' or 'species'. This is a helpful video for fantasy authors/game makers and dungeon/game masters to avoid making their worlds full of weird monocultures and then the generic 'fantasy mishmash' - thanks for making it!

Some good points there on cultural identity of fantasy environments and i can definitely see it working for large masses of people, like communities, kingdoms, armies and so..... but individual adventurers? I think on-the-move small scale mercenary groups would act in a much more pragmatic manner then organized armies. Basically, i imagine them using either what's immediately available or seams to get the job done in the best way possible. Self expression and ego manifestation may also play a part, like outlandish or exotic styles, colors and materials. In other words all the things usually frowned upon in social structures that rely on global rather then individual identity.

In the book The Two Towers there' a discussion between Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli of the different styles of armor and weapons used by the orcs they and Boromir have just killed, and they conclude based on those items that the orcs they're facing aren't a single unit but a mix of orcs from Mordor, Isengard, and Moria.

You seen those warriors from Hammerfell? They've got curved swords. Curved! Swords!!

Thank you so much for videos like these. It helps me so much when trying to give help to friends that are trying to world-build in a fantasy setting!

I don't tend to find any issues with any racial/cultural influence on my gear in my RP games, but it always feels a bit harder to fit into the immersion when I find my character gaining some fancy magic weapon way better than what I already have, but is described by my DM/GM as being significantly different from what my character is used to using. The rules say I can use that weapon just as well as any other, even if I can see no reason for my character to have seen much of such a weapon, let alone be skilled in such a different fighting style it would require.

Matt is such a loveable guy He`s like a rlative abroad, who you talk to in Skype few times a week xD

Matt and Shad always up in here churning out content for us Dungeon Masters. Thanks!

The exception, of course, being the spadroon as it is the universal weapon for everybody. Even orcs.

I’ve been watching your channel for years and this is my favourite video! I enjoy all your content but this one is so validating for how I think about fantasy!

"Allied soldiers wouldn't wear Wehrmacht helmets." A lot of Polish partisans during Warsaw Uprising wore German helmets, because such a captured helmet was the only helmet they could get.

When world building for D&D I always like to also take the alignment system into account.* Less variation across time and distance for more lawful races, like dwarves and hobgoblins, more for chaotic ones like elves and orcs. Plus some "just because" in places, like humans, say, just because one of the strengths of humanity is an uncommon degree of adaptability or whatever, so they vary more than other races. On the other end, perhaps dwarves vary even less, depending on how fantastical you want to get; maybe they are very set in their ways, and change at the pace of mountains. Then you need to account for lifespans as well, as that will impact cultural shift... *Obviously that thing isn't realistic, but in a fantasy world where Good and Evil are quantifiable to a degree they just aren't in the real world, and divine beings provably exist, it's something that should be considered.

An interesting video with a lot of ideas to think about. Coming from a roleplaying point of view, in my experience, a lot of players want to create characters with characteristics and equipment that sets them apart from whatever the norm is in their fantasy society without seeing the value in starting as what would be more typical for their culture and setting where the story takes them. There can be too much "I wanna be cool". I like the idea of social consequences for having outland equipment.

Another well done video Matt, very informative. Small (haha, after I wrote this) quibble when it comes to Races vs. Cultures, and truth be told the fantasy genera often uses one as a substitute for the other, or as proxies for 'real world' groups, so do some other groups. Races are typically differentiation based on recognizable physical morphological traits (akin to species) , ie how you visually recognize a Human, from and Orc, Dwarf, or Elf, most commonly, but also from more extreme forms like Troll, Minotaur, or Centaur. Culture is a psychological grouping, based on recognizable ideological 'symbols' often expressed physically via artifacts, like clothes, food, weapons, tools, and buildings, but also things less physical like language and beliefs by which the group identifies. Often this is a divider between subraces (really cultures) of a race. High/Light/Sun Elves vs, Dark Elves, vs. Feral/Sylvian/Green/Wild Elves. All are of the Elven race, but are different cultures. Race: Hobbit (H. sapiens trichotópódius) or Elf (H. sapiens gracilis/nobilis) Culture: Gondorian or Rohirric. Problem arises in that many fantasy races, also are typically also culturally different from other races, in LotR Elves and Dwarves for example always seem to stand apart from one another physically and culturally. Yet some others like Hobbits/Halflings and Humans, can blend so easily into each others cultures as to be hard to differentiate, other than physically (size).

I think a nice example would be the Aiel in *Wheel of Time* using spears and bauernwehr-esque big knives because of historical (some forgotten) and cultural reasons and they frown upon the use of swords in spite of having the tech and knowledge to build them. Best regards Raoul G. Kunz

I strongly recommend reading the Dies the Fire series by S.M. Stirling regarding weapon choices and martial arts systems developing in a fairly high-pressure environment.

You're a gold mine of ideas and an excellent teacher for those like me willing to write history based novels. Thank you sir.

For a better example in fantasy I can give you Aventuria the world of The Dark Eye p'n'p. Lots and lots of cultures, weapons, clothing, armor for each of them. Was playing with my group, when our warriorpriest wanted a new helmet. The guy was from a mixture of Persia/India and inside a dwarfen hold. Took him 3 hours to explain to the blacksmith how he wanted the helmet and what a turban was... Hillarious stuff

The USMC Officers sword is based off of the sword presented 1st LT O'Bannon for actions taken in the battle of Derna(1805) and is the sword worn by officers to this day.

Talk of the character carrying a katana reminded me of the Hammer Film, "Captain Kronoss, Vampire Hunter"

Also always remember to be equipped for the mission. It's very difficult to carry a Sarrisa in room to room fighting.

Thanks for saying what needed to be said about weapons and culture in gaming. You have very salient points which I agree with. Mahalo and Aloha.

Great video Matt and as always, great food for thought. As I write I find that I am guilty of sinking too far into the psyche and motivations of my protagonists (and their antagonists) but you remind me not to forget the thoughts and reactions of the other citizens of the world. Important! It strikes me that a weapon, or armor, or maybe even some other talisman like jewelry might be worn as a badge of honor (or intimidation) or ... perhaps as a “curse” or a burden to be Bourne. Something which will forever mark the person as an outsider - a manifestation of a past they can not escape? Great stuff - thanks Matt!

When Conan meets Belit, REH describes his kit, which consists of various pieces he'd acquired in his travels. It doesn't take much to acknowledge regional or ethnic variants in clothing, armor, weapons, tools, and so on. That should be the minimum.

Interesting! I'd love to hear more about how geography, culture, and how people learn how to fight shape the types of weapons and armour they would use.

Those 20 minutes just flew by, hehe. I am really looking forwards to your full reviews of the Darksword duo, the Squire in particular! Cheers

In Indian epics, the most important weapons are the bow and the various arrows that go with it.

I was practicing my Miao Dao when Matt suddenly took out his! LoL...Happy Birthday Raid!

Definitely a fun concept to think about, the WWII point is a really good one too. There's no telling how many items of cultural significance changed hands throughout the war, especially at the end. In E.B. Sledge's wartime memoire "With the old Breed" he talks at length about the different things the Marines would loot off of the Japanese after combat. One of the most prized things they could find would be a Japanese pistol, and Sledge talks about a few of the pistols they found on campaign. You wouldn't expect a farmer from Iowa to carry a highly decorated Japanese pistol, but maybe if his father claimed it on campaign and it's a highly prized family heirloom.

I once had a D&D character who was a swashbuckling bard who had travelled far and wide. He dressed much like you would expect a swashbuckler to except he carried a katana. The story behind it was that he had traveled to the distant lands in the east (we were playing on the forgotten realms setting) and was gifted the sword by a lord as reward for a task that he had completed. The events of the campaign were such that most people had more pressing concerns than some dandy with a weird sword but I was happy that I came prepared with the explanation if it came up.

In THE ONE RING rpg, your CULTURE determines your starting choices of weapon skills. Bardings choose between mastery of great bow and spear OR all swords and spear. Mirkwood Elves choose between all Spears OR mastery of bow. Their special cultural weapon is a BOW not a Great Bow bc they favor the smaller more wieldy weapon in the forests. Every culture has 3 special gear - either a weapon, armor of type, or shield type. They also help fit their culture to be wildly different than others. Love it!

My biggest pet peeve is when they give a main character a Katana for no reason at all. No one else in their world setting uses it, but the MC has a damn Katana. Just.....just, why? Variety is fine, not everything needs to be uniform, but we all know why the author chose a Katana.

This stuff about fantasy characters in fiction or in roleplay taking any type of weapons has a lot to do with two things: 1st: Since these weapons are not in (military/common) use anymore, people don't think about how and where they were produced, they just see a "catalog of ancient stuff from wich to pick". This is the same when people are building LARP weapon. They'll see some outlandish design in a video game and try to recreate it and bring it to the fight without thinking what is the culture of their character. 2nd: RP and fantasy writers are often stuck in our individualist understanding of society in wich people could just "Chose to become adventurers". They chose their gear like one simply chose a consumer product and are portrayed or played with complete disregard for the origin of the character (the farmboy trope, or, even more frequent trope in RPGs the "son of a blacksmith whose entire village was killed by orcs"). They don't understand that a character must be included in its social network: They must have their relatives, they most likely have some form of authority ruling over the lands who ask stuff from them like ressources or military service. etc. All of this is not very well understood in our society in wich you are never forced to have the same job as your parents, and in wich you can move in any town or city you like without anyone ever asking any questions. I was the organizer of a LARP game and I tried to bring something like "class" but more in the sense of "socio-economic class" rather than the DnD class, creating advantages for the "Farmer" class: People who would just come, wouldn't fight and just have a good time in the LARP could chose the "Farmer" class and their mere presence on the LARP would create ressources. There were already a non-negligeable pool of players who would only come for the Role-play and didn't like fighting. I also had "Artisan" and "Merchant" class. The concept was COMPLETELY foreign to most of my players and even some people in my organising team.

Shadiversity: "You could make a series out of this!"

Love how consistent you are with uploads!

That is a beautiful longsword. Now, as for early medieval Scandinavians, they were infamous for going everywhere, but also for adapting their enemies' or employers' gear. A Swede that had gone east looked very different from a Dane that had gone west, even though their own culture and arms and tactics was very similar. For 15-20 years the Eastern look has dominated amongst us reenactors because of the many well-researched graves from Birka that people could just copy a set from, because things bought in Poland and Russia from our craftsman friends there are cheap. And because it is already tailored to the full contact fights we do in "Eastern Style" (the name is a hint to its origin). The past five or so years there has been a growing demand for "Western" themed sets (from myself included), but the research of those are harder. Fortunately skilled archeologists amongst us (like my good friend Lars Grundvad - the guy excavating Fæsted), are on the case and I love seeing what they come up with. However, I am 50 (fortunately I look younger and can still portray an active fighter), and if the warrior I portray has raided Francia, The Cordoba Caliphate, England and Ireland, and taken a trip down Russian rivers; how would he look? We know that famous warriors would flock to magnates who would reward them the most and had the greatest reputation, so it is quite plausible. And what about the famous Jomsvikings with their base in Poland amongst the Slavs and most of their activities in Denmark, Norway and England? How would they look.

Good video! Definitely played through this thought experiment over 3 decades of running D&D games. It’s interesting to look back at how I dealt with this at 12, and how that differed from 22, 32, and 42 as my understanding increased and worldview and experience grew. Personally, I tend to approach everything with curiosity, so it was tough not to have a town full of curious, well-meaning inhabitants! 😂 Or, go the way of TV/movie troupes. I found that I had to spend a lot of time putting myself in the situations of the NPCs and just reason out my mood, desires, fears, and think about how I’d go about solving those issues in my limited context, and thus what were my current conflicts? I learned that the conflicts were a great way to generate interest and motive etc., and that tied all the neighbours into a web of intrigue. Who were the allies and enemies of each other. But, if you create a really interesting community, the players won’t want to leave (except the murder-hobos), but it’s kinda great because they get attached to the town and will go out of their way to save them from threats, which means the DM has leverage of the characters - always helpful to pull a story along! Immersion is a thing and as a DM, you’re competing with cell phones, games, and TV for player’s attention...

I'm pretty sure the exact details of how a pikeman got hold of a katana should remain a Noodle Incident. It could never live up to the excitement it generates

so its been 2 years since the curse of Raid Shadow Legends started haunting the internet, and it has still not been destroyed

my choice: fireballs from my fingertips and death rays from my eyes

I thought most weapon sets were chosen based on the task ahead in reality and games ? I guess I’m just used to proper games from 15 years ago?

Well, there's a multiplier for Reputation points game designers obviously didn't think about. Reminds me of the bit in The Thirteenth Warrior when Banderas' character turns a Viking sword into a "knife".

Almost two minutes in, I was afraid we weren't going to get an ad for Raid.

Differing equipment between different races / cultures is also a quick and easy method of visual storytelling.

All those sponsors should pay you extra for how much effort you put in those ads xD You mentioned that somebody using strange weapons could attract the attention of the locals. It reminded me the Witcher - he was carrying two swords instead of one, and he was carrying them on his back, instead of normally. And the locals were indeed wondering why.

Sir you should write a film about that guy in Warwickshire with a katana, I'm heating up the popcorn already, love your videos. Keep them going.

One video game that features every culture having it’s own armor and weapon styles is Elder Scrolls Online. While the ten major cultures (including not only 4 human cultures but also 4 elven cultures as well - orcs being considered a type of elf in the Elder Scrolls universe) all have the same 3 types of armor, the same 6 types of melee weapons, a shield, and a bow, every culture has a distinctive cultural theme of it’s own for each of these items.

Always love your videos. I've learned a TON in the past year about arms and armor because of you. This topic however is a great cross over for me as I'm old enough to have played D&D before there were "editions" of it...let alone video games. I'm often surprised how wrong modern fantasy games get real combat SO wrong. BUT, I've always been thrown of by "unreal" things in fantasy games...which weird since it is just fantasy!

It's common for players to just loot anything for its stats and go around with disjointed sets of arms and armour. Iconography based on such characters would never make sense to those studying it in the future. Comparatively, imagine future archaeologists trying to explain why an Irish man from the 21st century was buried with a Persian sword, a Scottish shield, and a Japanese dagger. "It must have been highly ceremonial..."

There are lots of reasons why the elfin swords might be distinguishable from swords of other kindred. In many stories elves have a distaste for iron, so elfin swords from any elfin nation would be made of other materials. In Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts & Three Lions, the elfin weapons must avoid a cruciform shape as the elves are opponents of Christendom. And in lots of stories, people are only familiar with the local elves, so it would not be unusual for them to call weapons of the local elves simply “elfin” because they simply don’t know that there are elves elsewhere that use a different style.

In my fantasy story set in a bronze age a people group due to region uses sharpened dragon scales pitched into wood like aztec weapons.

+scholagladiatoria *Thanks for raising the issue of Identification Friend or Foe Time **8:10**.* I worked on a now-shelved contingency novel in the 1990's where the Officer-of-Marines (USA) main character is, among other duties, an exchange officer with the Ground Self-Defence Force (JPN), and one exercise is on an island shore of the Inland Sea (JPN); I envisioned the GSDF helmets featuring upturns at both temples consistent with the 冑 Kabuto of the pre-Meizi soldier class (who were trained in, among other skills, archery with the composite longbow).

One of my steampunk cosplay is a faux Canadian/British officer he has an India saber that he carries because he lost his sword while defeating a Kraken, it is still stuck in the beast. He then had to replace it and he was in India at the time.

I read that William the Bastard made all his troops replace their non Norman style accoutrements for standard Norman equipment ie Nasal helm, byrnie, straight double edged sword and spear.

My Saturday just got better. Thanks Matt.

This makes a lot of sense. Although I think that most most people playing low level characters in table top rpgs tend to keep their starting weapons pretty generic, because they are hoping to replace them with something better. And when they do get their better weapon they’ll have a story about how they got it.

I like the idea of adopting foreign arms and armour if it is better than the one you got, like in LotR, Bilbo has non-Hobbit sword and armour("Made by the Elves, you know"), and British officers in India would recognize the quality of Wootz steel swords, while Indian princes would later appreciate the quality of German-made steel that allowed good swords made in quantity for a lower price than local swords.

Role play weapon choices are often the result of really dull ‘this one does more damage’ or ‘this one can use my dex modifier’ which leads to really flavour free characters.

"Every born before 1960 was a backwards superstitious beast-man."

It's not just weapons, and it's not just in fantasy stories. When I rode a Triumph motorcycle I was constantly being approached in parking lots by old guys who just had to get a look at a foreign bike that wasn't made in Japan.