Sword and Weapons Evolution TimeLine Ideas
Aug 27, 2017 3:23:19 GMT
Post by admin on Aug 27, 2017 3:23:19 GMT
Over on the brainstorming thread, we determined that unique firearms are starting to become a thing in our fantasy world.
We also have some guide post and markers along the way of the history we have developed that hints at what weapon technologies would be like in our high fantasy, high magic world.
So let's take a look at the details again and try to see if:
a) What is proposed here makes sense and
b) What unique variants of swords, armor and tactics would likely have evolved in our fantasy world different from Earth
There is a detailed timeline getting close to completion on the main site, but here are some highlight dates and events relevant to the evolution of swords.
About 9,000 years ago, the Elves arrive (from where and how is explained, but to try and keep this thread on topic, I will gloss over some of the details for now).
Anyway, the elves have brought with them technologies such as advanced magic, weaving, fletching, knife making and they have their own very advanced swords that have not changed at all since they arrived - basically, Longswords. Here is an example of one from about 500 years ago, but the basic design was the same.. (the elves HAVE adopted other weapons, but they still make traditional ones the same way as they always have).
2,000 years later - humans arrive on the scene, naked and afraid.. Lol. Well, in a primitive state, but the elves are nice to them and teach them how to make decent hunting bows, and the secrets of steel, though only for knife and arrow making purposes. They do not teach them how to make swords, though clearly they are fascinated by them and try to make by trial and error. They end up with decent daggers, but can't make swords yet - and have no real need as there is no war or conflict yet..
They live happily ever after, for about 1,200 years - guided by elves and protected and watched over by Seraphim. But the golden age ends when someone (and early ancestor of what will later by the Dark Kingdom of Thane) kills another man with either an arrow and a knife.. The golden age ends, man splits into 4 main tribes and off they go..
The most advanced civilization is much like ancient Egypt, and flourished until 4,600 years ago or there-abouts. Axes transform into steel Khopesh, probably something like the Scorpion Swords Khopesh..
They still can't copy the Elven Longswords, but with high quality steel Khopesh like this, they are satisfied for a while. Maybe they did manage to make a few Longswords, but 4,600 years ago - the war in heaven breaks out and the wars basically hit the reset button on everything.
After the 99 year war, not only are all the major cities pretty much destroyed (Lhasa is saved from the worst of it by the Gold Dragon, but it takes a toll on him and he has been slumbering for the last 4,000+ years..) but there is the added problem of twisted humanoids such as Orcs, Hobgoblins. etc plus Abominations created by the Fallen during the war wandering about..
It takes another 1,500 years for humans to claw back territories of their own and get back to where they left off..
2,500 years before the present, the Kingdom of Aeultia is founded - and they change the game because they found the first deposit of Coronatite. As you may recall, alloying Coronatite can produce an inherently magical blade if the weight and dimensions are shortsword length. The blades have an armor piercing quality, only magic armor works - all other armors are about as effective as a plastic trash can.. As such, the armor they use never develops further than a large shield to stop arrows and slow down Coronatite sword thrusts (watch where your arm is positioned, or it will go right in!) as their opponents are also using Coronatite swords.
So they would have fought like the Spartans in many ways, wanting to get in close as possible.. They had Cavalry tii, but the best Cavalry were centaurs, who allied with them from Tauth De and still have an elite shock troop unit loyal to the Empire all this time..
1,600 years ago, the Escians to the West invent the Castir - used from horseback and on foot and they attack the Egyptian style empire.. And win..
1400 years ago - East meets West, in a bad way - and Aelutians with shields, magic armor piercing swords and centaurs face off against light armored, fast moving hit and run style tactics of the Escians..
In response, they build better bows, refine the ballista, catapults, etc and use more pilum and form phalanx formations with long spears.
I think they also would have developed big, non magical horse killing swords. They would experiment with the shortsword design, trying to find a way to give it extra reach. So you would have now magical polearms and shortswords.
1300 years ago, Escia develops strong ties with Lhasa, and so they start to get some Adepts and some Jian.
1,100 years ago the Northmen push their way in and while they are in a primitive state to begin with, they quickly adopt every weapon technology they can get their hands on and are especially fond of helmets, heavy hide armor and BIG swords.
1060 years ago, the DeathKnight enters the world. He comes from one of the 12 Kingoms of Thane, just South of Silverleaf. And they have been busy fighting among themselves for nearly 2000 years or so.. Their swords are inspired by the Elves, and they develop heavy armor.. Everyone fights them, with varying degrees of success. Against the Imperial shortswords and halberds, their armor is useless, so they would press the advantage, and also try to emulate the armor they are up against because now more than ever, they need it.
The war ends, the Empire is established - but the question is, what direction do you think that the swords and melee weapons would take from here?
Because we are a sword website and we want swords to be central to everything in our world, firearms should only start to be invented quite recently (perhaps niter is rare in this world, or needed to be created artificially by alchemy).
So by the end of the war, you have heavy plate armor, greatswords, elven longswords (magical), shortswords (magical/armor piercing) and much older swords such as Khopesh, Falcata, etc.
They also would have learned that you can make coronatite into slivers the length and width of a rapier. You would probably want to fling these things at your enemies if you could, but they are expensive and getting harder to replace (the Coronoitite is not discovered in the badlands yet, so you would be reusing it and keeping old weapons for much longer than normal).
The Escians are pretty heavily invested in their Castirs, because they also have adepts of varying levels (an acolyte is probably equal to and match for 3 regular soldiers) but what do you think they would use to supplement them?
What new weapons or variants do you think would be the most common. I think that ‘battle rapiers’ would be a thing - and much earlier than in our world.. After all, they are Armor piercing and almost unbreakable.
They have the technology..
So what do you think they would do with it?
If we discuss some sword evolution from the end of the war against the DeathKnight, assuming its the same players clashing over and over again (which is it is, the Thanes rise up a couple more times, but nowhere near as bad as the first time. Northmen keep on grabbing everything they can and the Escians and the Empire keep going at it for centuries on and off).
Discuss! :-)
We also have some guide post and markers along the way of the history we have developed that hints at what weapon technologies would be like in our high fantasy, high magic world.
So let's take a look at the details again and try to see if:
a) What is proposed here makes sense and
b) What unique variants of swords, armor and tactics would likely have evolved in our fantasy world different from Earth
There is a detailed timeline getting close to completion on the main site, but here are some highlight dates and events relevant to the evolution of swords.
About 9,000 years ago, the Elves arrive (from where and how is explained, but to try and keep this thread on topic, I will gloss over some of the details for now).
Anyway, the elves have brought with them technologies such as advanced magic, weaving, fletching, knife making and they have their own very advanced swords that have not changed at all since they arrived - basically, Longswords. Here is an example of one from about 500 years ago, but the basic design was the same.. (the elves HAVE adopted other weapons, but they still make traditional ones the same way as they always have).
2,000 years later - humans arrive on the scene, naked and afraid.. Lol. Well, in a primitive state, but the elves are nice to them and teach them how to make decent hunting bows, and the secrets of steel, though only for knife and arrow making purposes. They do not teach them how to make swords, though clearly they are fascinated by them and try to make by trial and error. They end up with decent daggers, but can't make swords yet - and have no real need as there is no war or conflict yet..
They live happily ever after, for about 1,200 years - guided by elves and protected and watched over by Seraphim. But the golden age ends when someone (and early ancestor of what will later by the Dark Kingdom of Thane) kills another man with either an arrow and a knife.. The golden age ends, man splits into 4 main tribes and off they go..
The most advanced civilization is much like ancient Egypt, and flourished until 4,600 years ago or there-abouts. Axes transform into steel Khopesh, probably something like the Scorpion Swords Khopesh..
They still can't copy the Elven Longswords, but with high quality steel Khopesh like this, they are satisfied for a while. Maybe they did manage to make a few Longswords, but 4,600 years ago - the war in heaven breaks out and the wars basically hit the reset button on everything.
After the 99 year war, not only are all the major cities pretty much destroyed (Lhasa is saved from the worst of it by the Gold Dragon, but it takes a toll on him and he has been slumbering for the last 4,000+ years..) but there is the added problem of twisted humanoids such as Orcs, Hobgoblins. etc plus Abominations created by the Fallen during the war wandering about..
It takes another 1,500 years for humans to claw back territories of their own and get back to where they left off..
2,500 years before the present, the Kingdom of Aeultia is founded - and they change the game because they found the first deposit of Coronatite. As you may recall, alloying Coronatite can produce an inherently magical blade if the weight and dimensions are shortsword length. The blades have an armor piercing quality, only magic armor works - all other armors are about as effective as a plastic trash can.. As such, the armor they use never develops further than a large shield to stop arrows and slow down Coronatite sword thrusts (watch where your arm is positioned, or it will go right in!) as their opponents are also using Coronatite swords.
So they would have fought like the Spartans in many ways, wanting to get in close as possible.. They had Cavalry tii, but the best Cavalry were centaurs, who allied with them from Tauth De and still have an elite shock troop unit loyal to the Empire all this time..
1,600 years ago, the Escians to the West invent the Castir - used from horseback and on foot and they attack the Egyptian style empire.. And win..
1400 years ago - East meets West, in a bad way - and Aelutians with shields, magic armor piercing swords and centaurs face off against light armored, fast moving hit and run style tactics of the Escians..
In response, they build better bows, refine the ballista, catapults, etc and use more pilum and form phalanx formations with long spears.
I think they also would have developed big, non magical horse killing swords. They would experiment with the shortsword design, trying to find a way to give it extra reach. So you would have now magical polearms and shortswords.
1300 years ago, Escia develops strong ties with Lhasa, and so they start to get some Adepts and some Jian.
1,100 years ago the Northmen push their way in and while they are in a primitive state to begin with, they quickly adopt every weapon technology they can get their hands on and are especially fond of helmets, heavy hide armor and BIG swords.
1060 years ago, the DeathKnight enters the world. He comes from one of the 12 Kingoms of Thane, just South of Silverleaf. And they have been busy fighting among themselves for nearly 2000 years or so.. Their swords are inspired by the Elves, and they develop heavy armor.. Everyone fights them, with varying degrees of success. Against the Imperial shortswords and halberds, their armor is useless, so they would press the advantage, and also try to emulate the armor they are up against because now more than ever, they need it.
The war ends, the Empire is established - but the question is, what direction do you think that the swords and melee weapons would take from here?
Because we are a sword website and we want swords to be central to everything in our world, firearms should only start to be invented quite recently (perhaps niter is rare in this world, or needed to be created artificially by alchemy).
So by the end of the war, you have heavy plate armor, greatswords, elven longswords (magical), shortswords (magical/armor piercing) and much older swords such as Khopesh, Falcata, etc.
They also would have learned that you can make coronatite into slivers the length and width of a rapier. You would probably want to fling these things at your enemies if you could, but they are expensive and getting harder to replace (the Coronoitite is not discovered in the badlands yet, so you would be reusing it and keeping old weapons for much longer than normal).
The Escians are pretty heavily invested in their Castirs, because they also have adepts of varying levels (an acolyte is probably equal to and match for 3 regular soldiers) but what do you think they would use to supplement them?
What new weapons or variants do you think would be the most common. I think that ‘battle rapiers’ would be a thing - and much earlier than in our world.. After all, they are Armor piercing and almost unbreakable.
They have the technology..
So what do you think they would do with it?
If we discuss some sword evolution from the end of the war against the DeathKnight, assuming its the same players clashing over and over again (which is it is, the Thanes rise up a couple more times, but nowhere near as bad as the first time. Northmen keep on grabbing everything they can and the Escians and the Empire keep going at it for centuries on and off).
Discuss! :-)
