An Armoury

Picture stolen from Matthew Adams

1 - Paddycrook

A traditional tentacled head attached to the dried and hardened penis of the jabobo. Originally a tool of the Kairnic herdsman who could use the flexible shaft to thwack wayward or aggressive animals or, if herding larger and more leathery stock — such as the muscular and often dangerously amatory jabobos themselves — can use the barbed metal head to grab, pull and lock limbs.

Cattle raiders soon discover that this tool is equally suited to taking them to task as it is the herds. The dried shaft can cut through unprotected skin and the barbed head will shred the soft flesh from anything it grabs.


2 - Absinthe Knuckle

You might be surprised that among the Absinthian plainsmen there is a huge societal stigma against killing. One might wonder, considering their notoriously warlike ways of carrying on against the city-states and each other, how this is possible. The answer is via a very generous interpretation of killing. They execute their criminals by placing them atop their high totems and waiting for them to fall off to their deaths, as they see it, by their own hand. They kill at range, by the wind's whim. They grasp their swords in the ice-pick grip of these Knuckles, creating a degree of separation from the deceased.

They are a pragmatic people, not to be stopped by generations of folk tradition.

3 - Iron Keys

An iron key for the iron gates of the Halls of the Castigator, ceremoniously held by every guard of the prison-city. They don't fit any extant lock and are instead used as symbols of office and massive flails.

The city is unchanged since before the fall of the Great City and its separation into scattered city-states divided by rubble and killing fields. The guards still guard and take prisoners, as they ever did, from the cities, secure in their ancient duty under the The Veracious Lawgiver and of their their indispensable position as neutral castigators among the roiling Empires.

Though they do have to stop the occasional prison break via siege.

4 - Fetch

Associated with the criminal class of Yongardy, who carry these openly as a sign of intent when the mood takes them.

They are a simple weapon best suited for alley ways or the narrow corridors of the manses of the rich. Simply put, they are a pair of knuckle dusters with a thin, strong, wire between them (used for garotting or general entanglement) and a spike set on one end. Typically used to ambush or grapple, they can also be utilised one handed as a wild and unpredictable flail, possibly keeping your perusers at bay.

5 - The Butterfly

Named not for its attractive shape and suprisingly pliable build, but its famed ability to "butterfly" opponents, splitting them from collarbone to pelvis, popping them open in spectacular fashion.

They were originally made by the warrior society/priesthood of Mayse, based on the apocryphal tale of early followers failing to penetrate the thick shells of the soldiers of the Snail God, buckling and bending their swords as they thrust at their twisted armour. Mayse, on seeing this failure and desperately desiring the high snail priests skull be bashed upon his temple steps, taught his followers to fully split their pliable swords and hack at them, thus shattering the shells and plunging into the rich goo beneath. Ever since then they have shunned piercing weapons as being inferior and suspiciously dastardly.

6 - Bucolicannon

All servants who attended The Raging Vizier in his troubled twilight years were required to wear one of these for their own safety. The Vizier, a world renowned and ancient sorcerer, was caught in the throes of a degenerative senility, one which would forget and then remember the spells of his youth and vomit them forth at the most unfortunate times.

So, rather than risk another 40 years of sleep, or the opening of a hellmouth, his chief page came up with the genius plan to equip every member of his staff, from the kitchens to the gentlemen of the privy chamber, with a helmet mounted blowgun full of powerful sedatives. Even with their arms turned to eels and their legs detached and arguing, they can roll on their side and safely subdue the doddering old coot.

Since his tragic demise others have seen the possible applications of them. If only the chief page, or in fact any of his household, had survived the lifehook he placed on them. Some say they're chasing him still, naked down the halls of the underworld.