Fantasy Worldbuilding: Weapons & Armor in 4 Specific Settings 

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For the world in darkness scenario, you're guaranteed to have them training hounds or some other animal with a good sense of smell to find the enemy and make a huge racket once they do.

"You want weapons with which you can offend someone from quite a distance away." Keyboard warriors, your time has come!!

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that a fantasy setting might also provide additional tools to use. Like, if you have a bunch of massive dinosaurs you might also have plants developing defense mechanisms specifically against those dinosaurs. Plants are very good at adapting to very specific threats and humans on the other hand are good at somehow really getting into the stuff the plants use to defend themselves and typically end up using it as either a spice, herb, medicine or drug. Like, Coffee doesn't contain caffein just so humans can have a lovely drink in the morning, it's a defense against bugs. So you might, for instance, have plants that defend themselves with pods that release irritant gas on impact which humans might be able to harvest and then use to discourage attacking creatures. Or say you have fantasy-style salamanders that are capable of bursting into flame if you freak them out. Put one into a clay pot and you got yourself a makeshift molotov cocktail. Monster Hunter features a lot of nonsense but one of the things I like about it is its creativity in that regard. Beetles that produce a bright flash of light when they die are used to make flashbangs. Throwing dung at a monster will make it temporarily retreat because the stench is confusing it and it wants to clean it off. Using certain monster organs hunters are capable of fashioning pods that produce very loud noises which can stun certain monsters that are particularily sensitive to sound.

one factor you didn't mention about jungles is the heat. Wearing armor becomes nearly impossible in the tropics. You'll die of heatstroke. This is a big reason tropical cultures used very light weapons and shields, being otherwise mostly naked.

A long scholagladiatoria Video? The evening is saved!

I love that Matt mentioned riding an ogre. An ogre howdah is actually thing in D&D. Goblins with bows and javelins riding it into battle.

Dark world, light can be used as a weapon too. If you are an army adjusted to darkness, having a bunch of bullseye lanterns suddenly opened up and shined on you can blind you pretty effectively.

About additional dragon riders: in the novel series Temeraire/ His Majesty's Dragon, set during napoleonic times, the dragons are crewed by multiple people, a captain, signal officers, gunmen, etc., similar to a ship.

It's just past 2 pm where I am and I was looking at a miserable lunch break. Then I saw a 37 minute scholagladiatoria video just came out.

I've wanted to see something like this from scholagladiatoria for so long.

if you have an environment that makes the characters blind, you can have a helmet that completely covers your eyes

As you described fighting in darkness, it really struck me that a lot of fantasy dwarves fight in a similar way. Tight formations, heavy armor and shields, often using repeating crossbows or other innovations for ranged combat, etc.

I expect videos like this more from Shad, but you're obviously more than capable of making a quality one! If at any point you feel like making another video of this type, just know that you've got a view from me.

“Do you know? Soon migration season for brontosaurus will begin...” “Ok guys, time to prepare our trebuchet!!”

In The Dark Eye RPG, their dwarfs have Dragonslayers, giant spears with razor sharp giant pikes with like 1 meter of tip. Those are used by a team of two dwarves, just like you suggested using against giant creatures. The game even got rules for that.

For forest and jungle environments, you're also going to want something like a machete for cutting paths, and close order combat.

I like the QR code, it helps me find the spot to stop skipping the add for Disguised Gambling Game.

Did anyone else think of Dwarves when he described the more melee-focussed scenario for the "Dark World warfare" concept?

Even in a world of giant sauropods, there still would be plenty of species of all sizes to hunt, So we can't rule out traps and small projectile weapons for for small animals, etc.

I imagine an army of blind ninjas with walking sticks feeling for each other then beating the snot out of each other. Seriously, trained birds that screech when at the target, then veer off for arrows. Arrows that whistle so others can hit the same target area. Moats so you can hear the enemy coming. Purposefully laid leaf/branch beds for alarms. Trained dogs/cats for guiding through such traps and alarms

When it comes to fighting in a completely dark environment id say the best example were the German Celts who faced the Romans in the black Forrest; They used edged wooden weapons, painted their weapons and bodies black, were taught to be silent, and had a lot of horns/screams/phycological warfare Also fire bombs like jars of burning alcohol can make great distractions

Dino world: crewed spears? Look at the original Land of the Lost's "Flyswatter". Dark world: slingers with clay pots of phosphorescent dye to mark your enemies would be used.

I think if you're constantly having to deal with the threat of dragons, dinosaurs and large terrasaurs you're going to find poison weapons very quickly, that and flame weapons, like a simple molotov made from alcohol, grease, ect.

In the completely dark world, I imagine conventional warfare would eventually become completely ritualised to a point where it's just about showing who is the stronger side rather than starving out the opposing side. This has happened historically between certain peoples in different parts of our own world where maybe resources weren't so easy to come by. I also imagine that stuff like battles are not going to be a thing, since you don't really know who you are hacking at. Non-conventional warfare would probably resemble a lot of what we see today. Small operations to take small targets. Btw. If weapons develop from hunting equipment, maybe weapons would start to resemble fishing gear, since they sure as day aren't going to be getting a lot of sunlight on their skin.

A big thank you from all of us fantasy world creators! We’re certainly looking forward to more on these kinds of topics! 😃👍

In a dark world, I see armies lighting up large areas of the battlefield to deny them to the enemy and draw them into an area to their advantage.

Matt, you're not the only one who's thought that dragons should have more than one person on them for combat. There's a book series called Temeraire that's set in the Napoleonic era where dragons not only exist, but are a part of the world's militaries. In the books, all but the smallest of dragons has a crew of varying sizes, depending on the size of the dragon. Most of the crew are gunners, but I think there are a few other misc. positions as well.

I imagine people in the dark would quickly develop well armored mobile spotlight towers. Just as we use spotlights to aid pursuers of criminals today, they'd have men rotating polished metal mirrors to track as much of the enemy as they can so that missile weapons can be aimed at them.

The jungle scenario sounds like many of those constraints would also apply to close urban environments

"You don't want to light yourself up." Kind of like tracers work in both directions."

I find the prospect of signalling particularly interesting, especially as even though you can tell where a sound is coming from when things are calm, it's extremely hard for the human brain to tell the direction of sound when things are stressful, distracting, or very loud - exactly like any battle. That makes copying enemy signals far more effective than they can ever be on regular Earth. The musician corps effectively becomes signallers and psy-ops combined; you have your own signal corps giving complex orders on very distinctive instruments, with musical trills to identify specific formations before each order, the formation leaders also have a musician with a much simpler instrument acknowledging orders and passing simple contact information, with all complex messages sent by runners. Every formation's officer and adjutant, and the entire musician corps is required to have perfect pitch and good hearing. Meanwhile, the other half of your signal corps is listening out for enemy signals, with a wagon loaded with all the different types of instrument the enemy may be using, either to blast the same instruments chaotically as the enemy does to disrupt their signals, or if one of your best musicians thinks they've cracked the enemy's patterns, to try and disrupt them. Naturally, if your signals are compromised, or if the enemy signals team is obviously superior to you, you bring out the loudest instruments you can and don hearing protection to try and create such a complex and unearthly racket that nobody on the battlefield gets any musical signals. At the same time, the light cavalry is on orders to try and locate the enemy musicians behind the lines, because charging them smashes enemy communications, and if you overrun them quickly enough, allows you to take their instruments and compromise their entire force's signals, requiring them to rewrite and retrain all their musical codes.

I know what I'm watching after work!!

Night world. Mines under castles were often fought in. Look at the siege of Vienna.

I’d push back on the point about having multiple people on a dragon. Their primary weapon is so much more effective than anything a rider could use to the point where they’d serve almost no purpose. Additionally, their primary defense is their flight, any additional weight means less speed, slower maneuvers and less flight time.

Matt, in the ninja / ninjutsu arts, darkness is a friend. In a dark world, we'll use warriors who have bonding with canine, feline, or even owl partners. Once the position of prey or enemies are determined, the hunt begins.

A thought pertaining specifically to a circumstance where humans would be in regular contact with dangerous megafauna such as dinosaurs would be that this is one of the few settings where prominently spiked armor is a meaningful utility. In essence, it would be the sea urchin defense: rendering a potential meal very unappetizing to large predators under threat of being exceedingly stabby in the mouth.

Assuming that you can’t see in the dark, but lived largely in darkness, I’d think that things like lantern pikes & lantern shields would become quite popular. You might also see some development of phosphorescent minerals into types of paint to coat weapons and armor. I imagine glow in the dark or color lamp heralds would be very important for preventing friendly casualties.

A 'tail gunner' on a dragon would be a good idea: someone sat on its hind quarters shooting arrows as the dragon passes over (and defending against any other dragons attacking from the rear). Don't think I've ever seen or read that.

regarding flying threats, that's one thing I like about the Warhammer Fantasy aesthetics is they have those iron spikes on the roofs of their buildings. I always imagine burghers being neurotic and assuming if you don't have a spikey roof a manticore is going to swoop down in the night and yank your kids out of their beds and fly off with them... and the fact that such is probably highly unlikely but still theoretically possible adds even more flavor to the setting and the theme of pervasive fear which characterizes the Old World.

The darkness thing is interesting. Modern small arms warfare is often at night, and often with no night vision equipment. There is a lot of interesting tactical thought to gather from the doctrines in use for that. Staying in cover, advancing fast, overwhelming simultaneous attack. Tactical use of light. Diversions. Lots more, that is well worth researching.

In darkness, maybe a whip would be a useful tool or weapon. Not in groups, obviously, but whirling them around gives you decent auditory and tactile feedback about everything in a few meters radius.

Matt, this video was a godsend. I'm a fantasy writer and I was working on my second book today and struggling hard with the culture of a particular subrace of elves that I only hinted at in my first novel. Thanks so much for the brilliant video. Sincerely, a long time fan and amateur fencer. Cheers.

In darkness, at least if defending a position from an attack coming from a predictable direction, snares would be really useful, and they could certainly evolve from hunting too.

Btw, there are probably also not many blind fantasy writers, though their stories could be really interesting.

0:52 Holy crap you just hit me with the Nostalgia hammer.

For the total darkness scenario: I think we'd see an increase in support systems. Horns, trumpets, passwords would be wide-spread, as well as ways to create and transport light quickly. Skilled navigators would be absolutely crucial, since it is so easy to get lost in the dark. I think it would be most plausible to march in darkness and when fighting breaks out, set up fires in the rear and around key points to make beacons for rallying to if things go sideways. It would also be plausible to light up part of the army, say the center, as a bait and then hiding your wings in the darkness. Another interesting idea would be to light up the enemy. Say, once you've located the enemy, find a way to throw something at them that will burn on the ground for a long time. Maybe large balls of wick or thatch? Or jars of something flammable? Then the enemy's position would be on fire, visible to every archer within a mile and, since they would be standing next to the light sources, the enemy would be pretty much night blind. Also in general I think smaller, easier to co-ordinate forces would predominate and war would mainly consist of surprise attacks and raids, with big chaotic battles being the rare exception.

In the darkness world, people would throw long range, sling-like, Molotov cocktails to lite up the ennemi.

My 2 bits: spears and bows everywhere. Large animal mounts: lever-powered machine gun crossbow (see: Jorg Sprave); or, at least, "wall-mounted" chu-ko-nus. Jungle/hevaily forested: large, heavy, curved knives (kukri, falchion, machete), light basic "crossbows" - for readiness of shot. Sauropod environment: Once you have the "recipe", black powder is very easy to make. Thus, blunderbuss: with a choice of heavy damage, single shot, or light damage, large area spray shot. Also - there is probably a large supply of potassium from the manure. Finally, flying mounts: something I always wondered why nobody has thought of, and which I used in many successful DnD battle campaigns: strategic bombing with multiple fist-sized rocks!

In the dark world setting, there might also be an emphasis on wrestling and daggers. Basically trying to grapple the enemy and keep him pinned while you stab him repeatedly. Especially if both/either are wearing heavy armor against those archers anyway.

"if you cant move very fast you want weapons you can offend people from a fair distance away" ... Twitter?

Very cool video! An excellent take on riding dragons is the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. It's the Napoleonic wars, but with dragons. They are treated as essentially sentient airborne ships, with a full crew of bombers and gunners and ensigns and officers and everything.

This was fun, Matt. I'd also suggest Joerg's natural rubber slingshots, or even his 'instant Legolas' might appear in a fantasy jungle setting (yes, I know it's just a variant of your missile weapon idea). In the case of a dark environment, I think flash-powder would be used to dazzle and disorient the front ranks in an engagement, possibly even as part of the missile weapons (or maybe as an adaption of lantern shields?). Communications in the dark? Well, we already use coloured flares.

Let's say i'm a pterasaur for a moment "humans, they are quite dangerous! But they are so warm and tender too.... let's get breakfast!"

Something I could see developing as a hunting weapon in the dark environment would be things that cause damage to your prey while also preventing it from escaping. Things like a spear crossed with a mancatcher, barbed spears, or even better things like barbed tridents. I think you would also likely see an increase in the use of things like nets and bolas. The addition of things like bells to an arrow could be useful. Even if you don't injure the person a couple arrows with bells on them stuck in their shield or armor may help you locate your enemy.

This video has been massively helpful. I have been working on a sword and sorcery, dungeons & dragons setting with a dinosaur based ecology in the bronze age.

I feel like the darkness scenario would result in a lot of friendly casualties

Nice! It helps me mindstorm my story where the world is covered by fog, and the dangerous creatures in the fog are not clearly visible at day but they glow in the dark. However murder in my world is taboo, since dead people's soul give birth to humanoid fogeasts, increasing the danger of the fog. So not many war between humans here. I think in the dark dogs are very important for their sense of smell and hearing.

As someone working on a novel based in a thick forest, where small woodland creatures must defend themselves against huge beasts, while contending with an ever-increasing magical darkness... thank you for this video. And all of your videos for that matter.

*DARK SUN* , 2nd ed AD&D, like brutal Bronze Age world, city states surrounded by hellish deserts, where metals are extremely rare obsidian weapons are about the best for most folks, animal spikes and teeth etc are commonly used psionics are common, so In my games I ruled that folk who could "temper" obsidian stone etc to make it "tough" were very valuable and that's how the city states could still have arms/armour of worth vs the appalling monsters I used to make Dark Sun (and Spelljammer) are, you can see some of it on my Deviantart page, same nom de plume: SilverbladeTE wa sinspired by the awesome artist "Brom" who di dthe official art for Dark Sun and you showed another of my fave D&D artists, the first fantasy pic you had on video, Matt, that was by Clyde Caldwell (love the way he painted gems!) :)

I'm working on building a fantasy world for an rpg I'm making. This was very useful information to have. As always, Mr. Easton, you are invaluable.

The most interesting thing to me when thinking about fantasy world building is the variety of materials available. Say there's some fantastical large creature with incredibly durable / hard hide or scales. That's potential armour crafting material, and could change how the humanoid culture that makes use of it approaches conventional equipment. Or teeth and claws becoming parts of spiked or bladed weapons. Thrilled me to no end to hear you expand on the idea briefly.

In darkness I would think that a stick/cane + another meleweapon would be very common, use the stick to find your way and when you feel/ hear/ see (if its a lowlight enviroment rather than a nolight one) you whack it with your weapon. Rushing in would probably not be an option if you are not on a completly flat and even surface, you would hurt yourself by slipping and falling way before you got to the enemy :p

Where would I be without your guidelines.... Thank you so much, you're a star!

I absolutely love including dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals in my fantasy stuff like d&d and typically treat them as just normal animals in this setting. I love doing this and having way more biodiversity in my worlds. I was so happy to hear your thoughts and elaboration on how to treat them in world building.

For a battle in darkness, I wonder if they could launch glowing projectiles (like balls of flaming pitch, greek fire bombs, gunpowder incendiaries, etc) into the enemy ranks. Light them up, which either exposes them to volleys of missile fire, or forces them to leave their position (potentially breaking up formations, which could be devastating in darkness).

Scholagladiatoria just designed a fantasy dwarf army on accident at the end there lol.

I love how coming from ... You fight in darkness... We ended up with basically a description of dwarves. Bulky armour, big Shields, maces and axes, close formations.

Fightcamp 2021 3-person pike team duels and blindfold pitched battles. Can’t wait!

These four scenarios checked all the boxes for a setting I have. Convenient.

Yours is one of my favourite youtube channels, but I am so glad you aren't in my D&D game.

in the case of a perpetual darkness scenario (particularly on somewhere like a massive underground cave system) maybe replicate the way ants fight, with weapons like the asian Sasumata or fantasy mancatcher: a pole mounted with fixed prongs or an articulated trapjaw head. Also a lot of rope and diverse climbing implements adapted to combat. We could also adapt stuff from cave dwelling animals like the whip scorpion, a flexible cane that acts like antenna

Something else to remember in a jungle world which could make a vast difference: available materials can make a very big difference. If the whole place is a jungle, you might not have advanced metallurgy.

Spear can also be used as a fishing weapon. I have seen big clubs used in the Amazon, but they were eminently ceremonial. Modern "fortifications" are subterranean, I think that would be the norm if giant dangerous flyers are around.

For the first time it occurs to me that (depending on the size) a domesticated dragon would be manned exactly like how the military mans multicrew aircraft. Dragon riders could include a pilot, navigator, weapons officer, defensive countermeasures officer, ammunition manager, and even cargo loadmaster. Turns out airborne operators are basically dragon riders already.

In darkness: - A massive spotlight which blinds the opponents - Arrows tipped with fire/bioluminescent material to reveal the target's position - Simple traps which would be a lot harder to see than in daylight - An opaque glass ball filled with burning oil that you swing around on a chain (you don't have to aim exactly) which shatters when it hits someone and causes them to catch fire - Circular shield walls - If underground, castles would be pretty much redundant because you're already surrounded by stone - Sound-based weapons which cause surprise and confusion

Thanks for that Matt! I think I might have poked you with (and then deleted) the question that maybe prompted this video! You gave me some food for thought.

This is a really great video! Providing actual examples makes the concept behind your worldbuilding suggestions much more understandable.

I like the point you make about survivability. It seems to me like a lot of people think that only the best armor "works" when in reality even simple footwear drastically changes things and anything is better than nothing. Not every potential bother is ground zero of a magical nuclear blast. Sometimes your light pants and shoes preventing minor cuts and scratches on your legs and feet allows you to focus on the task at hand, avoid greater danger, and slay the alien robot dragon.

With the darkness scenario there may also be a lot of use of traps, throwing down caltrops etc, luring people in with sound, then springing on them in their unfavourable position. As you said you would probably want to fight in close formations, so you can stick with your allies, and know who your enemy is, you will perhaps even be holding onto each other. People would probably also find a way to distinguish themselves vocally, where in our world they would do so visually, so you would get a greater language difference perhaps between tribes/ cultures. Just in general there would be a lot of trickery to draw the enemy to you, or to force them to give away their positions, or lure them into positions that are more favourable to you. Essentially it would be whoever can get the drop on, or initiative first wins.

I remember that the German role playing system (DSA) had description and rules for crew operated anti-dragon pikes.

For the darkness scenario you could have volleys of slow-burning fire arrows with parachutes packed into them, something like star shells, to light up the battlefield. Around your fortresses, castles, etc. you could put pits and trenches full of flammable material that well trained archers could hit with fire arrows, maybe with some sort of braille-like inscriptions on the castle walls to denote direction and distance.

darkness scenario had me thinking of ways to light up your enemy or environment without necessarily lighting yourself up specifically. Something like clay pot molotov cocktails, or fireball catapults maybe? Something like Greek fire might be much more useful there

I respect to variances in the setting of fantasy genre, I really enjoyed seeing *Carnival Row* seek to do a mash of steampunk and fantasy albeit the majority of weapons featured were late 19th century firearms, which are probably the most effective option available.

First and foremost, it is really nice to see someone prominent in the historical martial arts communities embracing the fantastic elements of fantasy and speculating from the reality within the fantasy, rather than just saying "pff, these arms and weapons of a fictional world don't match real world historical equipment!" About darkness, quick note, it doesn't need to be total darkness either. Consider that from dusk to absolute darkness levels there is a huge gradient. I do disagree with you about ranged weapons in such environments though. 1 on 1 hand to hand fighting in the dark is doable, but a melee is too darn chaotic. It is chaotic in bright sunlight, several times worse at night. I think that ranged weapons would become very important, and diverse. You'd have noise making ones to signal or potentially reveal enemy positions if they react. "Shotgun" effects would likely be rather common, and they don't even need to be strongly lethal (throwing caltrops or things that stick to clothes and skin and make the enemy less efficient in fighting and moving). Chemical and "gadget" warfare would definitely get stronger, using smells, smoke, light and even electricity or acids. And of course, the ability to set the enemy on fire (or their general direction), very effective. And if stuff like bioluminescent plants and fungi, or mineral luminescent is available, expect that to be used and abused. Traps, both of the damaging and the enemy is here alert kind, would absolutely be used heavily. More over, I think that guerrilla and "fortress" warfare is much more likely to dominate. If you can't see the environment, you have to get to know it by other means, such as shaping the environment yourself so you know it. You either create it by erecting fortifications and forcing the enemy to attack you at your strongest and your controlled environment (could be mobile too, see roman camps), or you prepare the area itself via setting forward traps, obstacles and creating safe paths that you know about but the enemy doesn't.

Re the fantasy world setting of predominant darkness: check out "The Night Land" by William Hope Hodgson. It is a tremendous work of fiction, or certainly of imagination, and was first published in 1912. The main weapon of the knight-like people is an extendable pole arm with a spinning blade on the end that gives off light as it spins. Obviously magic type stuff is involved.

Hey, Matt! Here are my ideas for a world submerged in darkness : -the main thing is psychology and conflict changes. I think there might be a good amount of selective pressure towards working together. To the degree that humans are actually glad to meet or wellcome a stranger. Strength in numbers. That happened several times in hour history. One example is the white of the eye. Only humans have it from all apes. It makes noticing intent from distance easier. We evolved to trust each other. -there will be conflict inevitably though. Dogs that dont bark but have a keen sense of smell would be a preferred breed. Any animal that will silently alarm you of an unseen danger would be a win. -assasins! The reason we have warfare on grand scale is that we cant send assasins all the time. That scenario will provide a great opportunity for the opposite. There might not be open big scale conflicts at all. Or at least they will be rare. I can imagine that even bug scale battles can be fought silently with "ninjas" running around and backstabbing each other. Imagine the horror of hearing people die all around you in complete darkness. You wont find who won for quite some time. Another very interesting topic would be mountain kingdoms/dwarven kingdoms or dungeons in general. I can imagine plenty of nasty ways to kill a bunch of people trapped in a tunnel. Also quite a lot of ways to smoke a bunch of dwarves out of their mountain. Dwarve to goblin conflict can be pretty savage.

For the darkness one I think stars would be important because they will provide a little bit of light which will help with our nature night vision we already have, but things like fire will become limited because if it was to go out you wouldn’t be able to see properly for a while till your nature night vision comes back. You could use it as a weapon as you could launch something like a flare into the air which would blind your enemy before you rush them to attack. you would just have to make sure your troops eyes are covered while the flare is still going but after it goes out you would uncover them and rush them and attack them while they can’t see. To counter flares you might see people wearing eyepatches so if they get flared they can take it off and still have one good eye to see out off.

An example of fantasy where fortifications were built with flying threats in mind is in the Malazan Book of the Fallen: we learn about an ancient civilization that used to build all their cities above ground, but very suddenly started enclosing and tunneling after they pissed off a bunch of dragons (and eventually built flying fortresses inside of big floating rocks)

Preferred animal to ride into battle? Shai Hulud! Best in the deep desert of course. As for the dinosaurs, well the large ones could be dealt with by keeping the areas around your villages clear of cover and having proper fortifications. The ones to be worried about are the little ones that hunt in packs or swarms. Think of them as land piranhas.

Love the last setting. Thats so fun to think about. I think the most realistic scenario for that kind of world is that you are fighting under ground for what ever reason.

That's why I love the lizardmen in Warhammer, those big dinos have multiple skinks shooting from the back.

I'd love to see a vid on your ideas on how above ground castles would be designed in a world with flying monsters to worry about. Both how a traditional castle might be modified for a new threat and how one would be designed from the ground up for dealing with both anti-air and assaulting armies.

A world set in the dark would be interesting. Because the eye needs to re-adjust to the dark after looking at light, causing momentary blindness, fire might be a prominent weapon either in the form of flaming arrows or braisers trailing the main group. Perhaps helmets would have ear holes in favour of eye holes and heavy armour would be uncommon (because it's hard to hear anything else). Alternatively it might become more like world war 1 tunnel fighting, where the two sides scrabble around in the dark for some difference in uniform and then shank their opponent.

I think there's an interesting thing that was not mentioned by Matt on the topic of riding large creatures. Large creatures can carry large weapons. I'm talking sticking a polybolos on an elephant. A LOTR Oliphaunt, being the size of a castle tower, could carry a very large weapon, or an array of smaller crew served weapons. Essentially, the large creatures could be living tanks, or landships, depending on their size, they don't have to be relegated to just carrying dudes with bows. I know I've seen a few depictions of ogre-like large bipedal creatures carrying large weapons on their backs, like the cannon gronn in WoW.

In Alan Dean Foster's Flinx series, there is a book which has a large section where the protagonists spend a lot of time in a place deep deep underground. The tool users who live there usually run away from enemies, but a common adaptation there is light as a weapon. Imagine having complete darkness and then someone lights you up with a strobe light.

That fourth one was interesting to me. Modern warfare and self defense theory crafting involves a lot of low light combat in tight quarters. If you're kicking in a door and storming a house going from daylight into relative darkness all while fighting, you don't have time to fiddle with night vision, so you turn on your gun light. If you're prepping your home for defense against nocturnal invasion you'll want to be able to see and if you can disorient the attacker with the same tool, even better. Bullpups were designed to make rifles shorter but still able to have long barrels; they keep velocity and accuracy up while minimizing the physical footprint. If it's dark because it's underground to hide from dragons this might be an idea to explore. Lantern shields that can be closed to hide the light and opened at the last second to illuminate and blind the enemy. Ways to maximize damage while minimizing size. Maybe it's post apocalyptic because dragons were designed for war by DARPA, and the remnants of humanity hide underground and raid each other with war dragons but need bullpups with flashlights/torches on them to raid the base once their dragons have broken them through the perimeter.

For the dark world scenario it could be a smart tactic to have super bright lanterns to blind the enemy. Maybe even on poles to hoist them over your own troops as spotlights, keeping the light and wielder of the light safer. Of course this will only be effective when you are close enough for hand to hand combat or shorter range missile weapons. Love the video, super cool to think about

A permadark landscape would benefit from the weird yet cool lantern shield. Edit: he mentioned them

I darkness I think strong tight formations (shield walls, phalanx etc) might possibly be considered to reduce the chance of targeting fellow soldiers.