Codex Revision One

> " With their flesh wrapped in steel's might, they slaughtered our kind. Our desperation to find an answer to their impenetrable armor came from the War-God himself! Kelm's gift to man was a mighty blade forged with the sole purpose of bringing unrelenting death to those who would think themselves invincible. The age of the kelv has come, and with it comes the fear from true '*faith in steel!*' "
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## The Ideology

Something I think we need to express is how we conceptualize weapons, armor, and other equipment that we use in fighting. It can help to illuminate why we make certain policies concerning armor and weaponry:

**Best Version of Itself** - What we mean by this is that weaponry, shields, and armor are the best versions of that piece. Meaning we make certain assumptions that all swords are made from quality steel, properly forged, hardened, and sharpened. We don't get to assert that the owner of a weapon made it poorly, and therefore the sword would bend when it was used, thus causing no damage.

The same applies to armors. We make the assumption that chainmail is the best version of itself and that plate armor is properly hardened and constructed.

So once we work under these principles, a few truths start to manifest themselves. But we have to make some compromises for game-play. It would be silly to have plate armor be immune to all blue sword damage, just like it would be silly to have shields be immune to red sword damage. So we come up with a way to make the armors you wear have an advantage.

If you're unfamiliar with what it feels like to wear full coverage armors, you can familiarize yourself with some Verdish Armor History found here. But if you're experienced at wearing armor, you'll know that armor is not always easy to fight in, it **can** be highly restrictive and quite heavy. In Verdite's quest to promote realistic armor we seek to have your armor resemble some historical benefits.

The approach is generally "In the spirit of realism"

## The Revision

   As it stands now, we believe the armor laws will push heavy red weaponry further and further into obscurity. So in order to ensure that there are weapons that strike fear into a plate-user we want to empower the heavy red class.

As such we are introducing a new weapon class:

### **Black Damage**

Black damage comes from using a heavy red weapon two handed. It deals red damage with a bit of an added benefit. Meaning:

* Black damage ignores Leather
* Black damage ignores Chain
* Black damage is blocked only once by plate
* Black damage breaks a shield in two hits

#### **Black Weapon Requirements**

* Must weigh 32 ounces
* Must be at least 54 inches long
* Minimal core thickness of 2/3"

These standards are based off of the current Nodachi build, allowing just a tiny amount of wiggle room to make a nodachi approximately 3 ounces lighter and 1-2 inches shorter.

As it stands right now the following standardized weapon designs would be considered black weapons: Nodachi, Kelv, Naginata, Dai Naginata, Glaives, etc.

Since all of our weapons are physically black, to mark these weapons, we would simply mark them with **two** strips of red tape.