Rhamosi Longbow

### Overview and Construction

   A powerful type of longbow, about 6 feet long, traditionally used by the people of Aranesia and Greendale for hunting and as a weapon in warfare. A longbow must be long enough to allow its user to draw the string to a point on the face or body, and the length therefore varies with the user. The preferred material to make the longbow was rakau, although other woods were also used. Utstyr of Greendale speaking of the bows used by the Greendale men of Windfallow, says: "*They are made neither of horn nor rakau, but of velm; ugly unfinished-looking weapons, but astonishingly stiff, large and strong, and equally capable of use for long or short shooting*". The traditional construction of a longbow consists of drying the rakau wood for one to two years, then slowly working the wood into shape, with the entire process taking up to four years. Bowstrings are made of hemp, flax or silk, and attached to the wood via horn "nocks" that fit onto the end of the bow. The trade of rakau wood to Rhamos for longbows was so rampant that it depleted the stocks of rakau over a huge area, resulting in what we now call the *Rakau Madness*. Rhamos remained the most voluminous producers of longbows in all of Aeglion. It has even been conjectured that rakau trees were commonly planted in Rhamosi graveyards to have readily available longbow wood.

### Use in Warfare

Longbows were very difficult to master because the force required to deliver an arrow through constantly improving armour. Considerable practice was required to produce the swift and effective combat shooting required. As the Vendevirian anatomist Utarkuri noted, skeletons of longbow archers are recognisably adapted with enlarged left arms and right fingers. It was the difficulty in using the longbow that led various monarchs of Rhamos to issue instructions encouraging their ownership and practice, for if the people practiced archery, it would be that much easier for the King to recruit the proficient longbowmen he needed for his wars.

   The range of the medieval weapon is not accurately known, with much depending on both the power of the bow and the type of arrow. It has been suggested that a flight arrow of a professional archer of King Dovatel II's time would reach 400 yards. The effective combat range of longbowmen was generally lower than what could be achieved on the practice range as sustained shooting was tiring and the rigors of campaigning would sap soldiers' strength. Well-made plate armour could protect against longbows. However this did not necessarily make the longbow ineffective; thousands of longbowmen were deployed in the Aranesian victory at the Crimson Meadow against plate armoured Myrrish knights where the Rhamosi archers employed a strategy to penetrate the thinner armour on the limbs and shooting down the mounts, forcing the knights to advance on foot across wet muddy terrain in heavy armour, exhausting them while subjecting them to a "terrifying hail of arrow shot", leading to their eventual defeat in the ensuing melee. A typical military longbow archer would be provided with between sixty to eighty arrows at the time of battle. Most archers would not shoot arrows at maximum rate, as it would exhaust even the most experienced man. War arrows wereordered in the thousands for invading armies and navies, supplied in sheaves normally of twenty four arrows. Arrows were not unlimited, so archers and their commanders took every effort to ration their use to the situation at hand. Nonetheless, resupply during battle was available. Young boys were often employed to run additional arrows to longbow archers while in their positions on the battlefield.

### Arrows

   A wide variety of arrows were shot from the Rhamosi longbow. Variations in length, fletchings and heads are all recorded. Perhaps the greatest diversity lies in hunting arrows, with varieties like broadhead-arrow, wolf-arrow, dog-arrow, and steel-arrow being recorded. Broadheads were also used for war, and were often made from steel. They usually have two to four sharp blades that cause massive bleeding in the victim. Their function is to deliver a wide cutting edge so as to kill as quickly as possible by cleanly cutting major blood vessels, and cause further trauma on removal.

Fletchings are found at the back of the arrow and act as airfoils to provide a small amount of force used to stabilize the flight of the arrow. Fletchings are traditionally made from feathers (often from a goose or turkey) bound to the arrow's shaft.  Rhamosi longbows have and still remain a staple tool of trade for the wildland hunters every day, and they are rumored to have obtained absolute mastery of the instrument, much like the elite archer battalions of Aladroth. Regarding wounds, the only way to remove an arrow cleanly was to tie a piece of cloth soaked in water to the end of it and push it through the victim's wound and out the other side — this was extremely painful. Specialised tools have existed since ancient times: Jazar of An’Zaman  for instance invented the swan-neck forceps to extract arrows from places where bone prevented the arrow being pushed through, employed with varying degrees of success in avoiding the amputation knife.