Longswords
Hello, and welcome to this week’s issue of LoreMasters - Your regular source of inspirations, ideas, and homebrew for your TTRPG games. In each issue, I'm going to be bringing you a veritable Heroes Feast of items, spells, podcasts, streams, Kickstarters, and STUFF, so if you like this, please subscribe and pass it on to your close friends and distant relatives.
As always, the main chunk of this newsletter is a homebrew for your game and if you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, come find me on the Twitters.
(Also, please check out my work on DMsGuild)
Weapon Varieties
The din of craft was deafening, the constant overlapping clang of metal on metal, the deep roar of the furnaces, and the sounds of labour.
Ferric lead them through the throng of smiths, to the back of the room, the small area for customers, a rough collection of chairs around a wide table. He laid out a long line of swards, from the huge and black, to one seemingly made from riveted together stubs of other blades.
”Right here dey are lads. We got’s all kinds of craftsmen ‘ere and they makes all kinds o’ swords, what cha want? We got dem hefty goliath boys over ‘ere, or some fine dwarven work, or if ya looking lower, maybe ol’ Gwarr’s work is more your speed eh? Swords for all budgets!!”
Weapon Varieties
So, D&D. A game with so much complexity and things to track, who in their right mind would seek a way to add more complexity to it?
Well, me mostly.
This whole host of options comes from a place of seeking verisimilitude, of wanting to grow the immersion of my game, and to make different heritages and cultures feel different.
The intent is to make the weapons feel like they are born out of the cultures that made them. embody something about it and also reflect the likely crafting styles and abilities - The dwarfs make strong durable weapons, Goblins cobble their’s together for scraps, Goliaths are going to be big and heavy, Elves are lighter and perfect.
And with I also wanted to avoid the pitfalls of making these mundane items that should be magical. I wanted to the differences and advantages to live squarely in the realm of artisan creations, rather than arcane.
This sort of this will bring richness to your games, the make race choices and society more than simply a set of stats.
Whilst these are all just for longswords, there is no reason why the same qualities and adjustments couldn’t be made to all manner of weapons and creations.
Things To Check Out
This is the part of the newsletter where I bring you a few things to check out that inspired me and might inspire you.
Stack O’Dice
In many ways Actual Play podcasts are ten-a-penny right now, so I’m always intrigued when I come across something more unusal. Stack O’Dice is a genuine and well mde Actual Play, but interspersed with that are episodes of worldbuilding, of interviews and all the ephemera that comes around the games we love the most.
Where To Start: As always, the beginning