Equipment of Alnwich: Armor

Thus far in this series on the equipment commonly found in and around Alnwich, I've discussed weapons. Today, we switch gears and take a look at what a typical warrior wears for protection. In other words - armor.

Equipment of Alnwich: Shields

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Today, shields. There are a wide variety of shields available in Alnwich, largely thanks to trade and Usking soldiers stationed at the garrison. From the blade-edged Curonion targes of the southern lowlands of Usk to the local Norling shields of pine and hide, Alnwich sees them all.

Equipment of Alnwich: Swords & Spears

The first installment of equipment of Alnwich offered up a variety of polearms for the PCs to buy. Today, I'll further expand weapon options to include all of the sword and spear varieties common in Usk, and thanks to the Royal Mercantile Syndicate, are also available in Alnwich.

To begin with, it is worth noting that the Skidafolk traditionally used spears and axes as their primary weapons of war. It wasn't until contact with Usk that they began to make swords, and even then, those were of the typical straight and pointed Usking variety. It wasn't for some time that the curved swords of the Arnathian horsemen made their way to the distant North.

The typical spear of the Skidafolk is a little higher than a man with a significant blade backed by a crossbar. Often called a boar spear, these prevent enemies from running themselves through to reach the wielder. Skidafolk also used barbed throwing spears to disable enemy shields before a charge. Longer spears and spears with broader blades were also used by some tribes and are seen with sufficient regularity to be noteworthy.

House Rule: Melee Weapon Skills

When it comes to weapon skills, GURPS has them in spades - so much so that entire articles have been published in Pyramid Magazine (R.I.P.) about how to reduce their number. For the purposes of feaux-medieval old-school hack-and-slash gaming, we need primarily concern ourselves with the plethora of melee weapon-related skills.

For starters, all combat skills also have an Art version and a Sport version. The former refers to weapon demonstrations that look pretty (think martial arts demonstrations that aren't actual combat), and the latter are those used for sports rather than combat (think modern fencing). The inclusion of these two melee weapon skill categories triples the number of melee skills.

Equipment of Alnwich: Polearms

Polearms, polearms, polearms! All polearms must go. At the Liver Splitter, we’re slashing polearm prices in half! This is a polearm blowout! Make us an offer on our vast selection of polearms! We got long polearms, short polearms, local polearms, foreign polearms, keen polearms, sharp polearms, dull polearms, big polearms, little polearms, bloody polearms, clean polearms, dirty polearms, cutting polearms, stabbing polearms, hooked polearms, infantry polearms, chain polearms, horse polearms, wood polearms, Arnathian polearms, fake polearms! If we don’t have it, you don’t want it!

Few weapons in history have had the staggering variety and dizzying complexity as polearms. How does this mesh with dungeon-delving fantasy? Extremely well! Hack and slash players are notorious for tricking out their weapons and squeezing every ounce of utility from them. Few weapons in history have had the breadth of utility that some polearms offer. They can stab, cut, bash, trip, disarm, ensnare, dismount, grapple, etc., and if you have the bad luck of breaking the head, you’re still armed with a staff. That’s pretty nifty delver-bait.

So how many of these are available in Alnwich? A lot of them. They’ve got bills, fauchards, guisarmes, vulges, partisans, ranseurs, spetums, military forks, sovnyas, halberds, poleaxes, and more. They’ve got battlefield weapons, dueling weapons, and ceremonial weapons. They’ve got combination weapons and specialized weapons. So why would a community on the edge of the world boast such variety? For one, they are a very warlike people; only one of their deities isn’t at least a minor god or goddess of war. For another, polearms trace their roots to farming implements, making them readily available nearly anywhere. While I know that may not be enough for historical enthusiasts to content, but if picking nits is your thing, this isn’t the game for you, anyway.

How am I handling all of this variety? Am I making stats for all of these and more? Yes and no. While GURPS Low-Tech offers a pretty good variety of polearms from around the world, it still lacks some of the weapons I mentioned above. But that’s where GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2 – Weapons and Warriors comes in. It provides the backbone of what I used to develop the polearms I’ll eventually get around to mentioning. Where LTC 2 didn’t yield satisfying results, I fudged numbers until they felt right, but I generally tried to avoid doing this.

Before I go much further here, I’d like to address the definition of a polearm for the purposes of this post. I’m looking at weapons that involve putting something dangerous on a long stick that aren’t just spears or just axes. Some of these could fit into a couple of categories, but that’s because the definition of a polearm is vague. What’s worse is that many polearms are basically smaller weapons on longer sticks, for example, the bardiche. So bear with me as I go through these. Just because they don’t meet your idea of polearms doesn’t mean they don’t meet someone else’s.

Polearms of Alnwich

What polearms are available in Alnwich, specifically? I’ll go ahead and list them out, with references to their descriptions in Low-Tech, where applicable.

Bardiche A large axe head, with either a spiked upper tip or additional spear head atop the shaft, mounted on a long haft. The handle, while short enough to technically use from horseback, is more typically used by infantry.

Bill Low-Tech, p. 55.

Bill, Dueling Low-Tech, p. 55.

Fauchard Little more than a weaponized scythe with a spear attached, it can deal brutal slashing blows and double as a spear in formations. A hook is sometimes added to the back of the blade to create a fauchard-fork. Cost and weight aren’t significantly affected, but this enables the use of Hook and inflicts 1d-2 cutting damage. The smaller Dueling Fauchard is often used in personal combat.

Glaive Low-Tech, p. 56.

Glaive, Dueling Low-Tech, p. 56.

Goedendag A large two-handed club with a sharpened spike protruding from its end and multiple spikes lining its striking surface to form makeshift flanges. It can be used to thrust like a spear or crack armor.

Guisarme Descended from a farming implement, this polearm sees a sharpened hook combined with a spike atop its pole. Guisrmes are mostly used for unhorsing cavalry and are often combined with other polearms.

Halberd Low-Tech, p. 56.

Halberd, Dueling Low-Tech, p. 56.

Military Fork A two- or three-tined spear that evolved from the pitchfork. It’s not very good at penetrating armor, but it is devastating against the unarmored.

Partisan This pole weapon straddles the line between polearm and spear. It consists of a broad spearhead with a pair of sharpened crescent-shaped blades below the main blade. The backs of these blades curve upward and prevent impaled foes from running themselves through to reach their attacker.

Plansion A large two-handed club with a sharpened spike protruding from its end. This lets the wielder both swing and thrust with the weapon.

Pollaxe Low-Tech, p. 60.

Ranseur The projections on this partisan-like weapon are not sharpened for slashing, but they are large enough and curved to catch enemy blades.

Sovnya This polearm consists of a falchion-like blade mounted atop a pole usually about the height of its wielder. While similar to a glaive, the blade is not as heavy, and the weapon handles more gracefully.

Spetum A spear with wide, curved prongs that assist with disarming.

Note that while this excludes the great proliferation of combination polearms that existed. This is intentional. I attempted to provide the basis on which those can be made using LTC 2 because, frankly, there are just too many combinations to produce statistics for. Players are more than welcome to ask for these, and I may will provide them as loot or random things laying around the weaponmaker’s shop.

More GURPS Stats for Polearms

Here I will provide my GURPS stats for these weapons. Note that not all weapons that fit the definition of “polearm” are used with the Polearm skill.

Polearm (DX-5, Spear-4, Staff-4, or Two-Handed Axe/Mace-4)

Weapon	Damage	Reach	Parry	Cost	Wt	ST	Notes
Fauchard or	sw+5 cut thr+3 imp	2, 3* 1-3*	0U 0U	$150 –	12 –	13‡ 12‡
Fauchard, Dueling or	sw+4 cut thr+3 imp	1, 2* 1, 2*	0U 0U	$120 –	8 –	11‡ 11†
Guisarme or	thr+3 imp thr-2 cut	2, 3* 2, 3*	0U 0U	$115 –	8 –	11‡ 11†	[7] Hook. [2 7]
Partisan or	thr+4 imp thr+3 cut	1, 2* 2	0U 0U	$120 –	4.5 –	10† 10†	[13] Blades.
Sovnya or	sw+2 cut thr+3 imp	1, 2* 2	0 0	$100 –	6 –	9† 9†

Spear (DX-5, Polearm-4, or Staff-2)

Military Fork two hands	thr+3 imp thr+4 imp	1* 1, 2*	0U 0	$80 –	5 –	11 10†	-2 to hit. [7 14 15] -2 to hit [7 14 15]
Partisan or	thr+4 imp thr+3 cut	1, 2* 2	0U 0U	$120 –	4.5 –	10† 10†	[13] Blades.
Ranseur	thr+3 imp	1, 2*	0U	$140	4.5	10†	[7 13]
Spetum two hands	thr+2 imp thr+3 imp	1* 1, 2*	0 0	$80 –	4.5 –	10 9†	[7 13] [7 13]

Two-Handed Axe/Mace (DX-5, Axe/Mace-3, Polearm-4, or Two-Handed Flail-4)

Weapon	Damage	Reach	Parry	Cost	Wt	ST	Notes
Bardiche or	sw+4 cut thr+3 imp	1, 2* 1, 2*	0U 0U	$100 –	8 –	12‡ 12†
Goedendag or	sw+5 cr thr+3 imp	1, 2* 1, 2*	0U 0	$100 –	10 –	13‡ 12†
Plansion or	sw+4 cr thr+3 imp	1 1	0U 0	$50 –	5 –	11† 10†

[1] Can be thrown.

[7] Can strike to disarm (p. B401) without -2 to hit for using a weapon with a non-fencing skill.

[13] Prongs prevent an impaled foe from running himself through to reach his attacker; see Holding a Foe at Bay (GURPS Martial Arts, p. 106).

[14] Target at -1 to Dodge, +1 to Block or Parry.

[15] Damage has a (0.5) armor divisor.