Weaponry and Armor in the Broken Kingdom

The Broken Kingdom's warrior culture makes it home to a wide variety of weapons, including experimental adaptations on old proven designs. While the occasional smith may dabble into what is called Technomancy in the Kingdom, such weapons are not readily available. Krak weapons, chemical weapons, and biological weapons are strictly absent from the Kingdom and anyone found to be working on such things find themselves quickly vanishing into the Cathedral. In a similar vein, crossbows tend to be considered siege weaponry and tend to be only kept in fortifications with archery being the primary method of ranged combat in the field.

## Armor

### **Rider's Plate**

The heaviest armor in the Broken Kingdom, this armor is designed for the Armored Riders. Not designed for marching, the plate armor is relatively restrictive in movement and tires its wearer quickly when dismounted. In the ideal situation battles will end quickly before the dismounted warrior can tire. Following the Great War, these suits have begun to feature pressed plates in the Ashed style as a means of dealing with Krak weapons as tensions rise with the Circle.

### **Plated Brigantine**

Stout plates riveted to heavy leather, these coats of plate are stylish and able to be donned by the wearer without assistance. Worn over mail, this heavy armor offers almost as much protection as the full armor of a Rider at a much reduced cost and weight while offering greater maneuverability. The favorite armor among those who stand at the fore in a battle, with even armored riders generally prefer to wear this armor when not explicitly riding out to war and battle. While not as costly as a Rider's Plate, the plated brigantine is more than a casual investment into equipment and as such tends to be found mostly among craftsmen and other more wealthy individuals who naturally wish the best protection they can afford. Professional fighters and crusaders from the Broken Kingdom generally prefer plated brigantine over Rider's Plate due to the comparative ease of upkeep and repairs when having their armors serviced away from the Kingdom.

### **Scale Brigantine**

A more lightweight version of the plated brigantine, this armor is perhaps the most common armor to be found in the Kingdom. The generally lightweight and small steel plates lined in the hardened leather of this suit server the wearer well, but lack the ability to halt direct strikes in the manner of the heavier plated brigantine. Such armor however is very affordable, easily massed produced, and when worn over mail as intended can stop many thrusts, cushion chopping and bashing attacks, and finally grant near immunity to slashing strikes.

### **Mail**

Standard mail made in a number of different weaves, this armor is generally considered to be an incomplete suit to be worn by those who are truly on hard times or who have truly reached an age to no longer be able to bear another layer of protection. Due to the nature of the mail, it often finds itself also being used and incorporated into street clothing and costume styled armors for parade and pageantry events. Most mail in the Broken Kingdom is capable of protecting from slashing strikes and glancing blows, but leaves something to be desired against powerful projectile weapons and direct chopping or thrusting attacks.

### **Hardened Leather**

Worn almost as easily as gambersons and street clothing in the Kingdom, hardened leather armors are often found among the most passive sections of society and among the most aggressive. Quite effective against the slashing attacks of swords and generally stout against knives and weapons of opportunity, this armor is good for self defense in the urban areas of the world but offers nearly no protection against true battlefield weapons, arrows, or direct blows. Like with mail, the ease of forming this manner of armor leads it to be a favorite for incorporation into street clothing and costume styled armors.

### **Training Leathers**

These weighted armors are worn by the youth of the Kingdom as an almost permanent juvenile uniform. Consisting of hardened leather, with iron and wooden inserts sewn into it these suits are intended to be heavier than normal armor to help the youths build up their endurance and muscle mass for service in the Kingdom's militia armies should it ever be needed. The exercise leaves most youths comfortably able to march a full day in scale brigantine while carrying their other battle gear without exhausting themselves too extensively.

### **Gambersons**

Padded and/or layered coats, these textile armors are extremely common and normally form the bottom layer of many heavier suits. Offering reasonable protection against light slashing attacks and smaller weapons, such quilted armors are typically regarded as a "better than nothing" option or an armor of convenience. Gambersons find the greatest use in the kingdom being worn for protecting the body when working with sharp tools and performing labors which hazard cuts and other wounds but still allow for the warm clothing to be worn.

### **Layered plate**

**Layered plate** or **pressed plate** is a method of creating plates of metal that are more resistant against **krak weaponry**. Layered plates are plates of metal that have been forge welded together, and often consist of a layer of soft metal such as low carbon iron, or in rare occasions, lead, welded, poured or otherwise formed on top of a plate of hardened steel. This creates a cushioning layer to absorb the impact of a krak weapon projectile. These plates are often thicker and heavier than normal armor segments, and usually reserved for the breastplate, faceplate, or codpiece.

This armor is rarely needed against krak weaponry as only nations such as the **Circle** reliably produce krak weapons that can pierce thick iron armor at a distance. These pieces are credited to being first produced for **Ashed mercenaries** and later found their way to the **Stone Kingdom** where smiths rapidly adopted the process.

## Pole-arms

### **Guard Swords -**

These two-handed swords are too large to be used in the normal manner of swords, requiring them to be wielded more akin to a polearm or long-axe. Typically called greatswords elsewhere in the world, guard swords are typically employed against other polearms, Armored Riders when dismounted, and body-guards.

### **Halberds -**

These polearms are about three quarters the length of a pike and sport both the long piercing head of a swear and the heavy head of a battleaxe, often offset by a hook or a spike. Too unwieldy to be used with one hand, these weapons are typically used in block formations by heavily armored Kingsmen or inter-spaced in pike formations to provide an answer for enemies who slip between the pikes.

### **Lances -**

Lances come only in one variety in the Broken Kingdom, heavy. Typically tipped with steel spearheads and often-times mounted with langets at least partially down the shaft's length to help delay breakage, these weapons are universally designed to be tucked underarm and braced with the rider's body, putting horse, rider, and armor in force behind the weapon with even glancing blows from the tip of the weapon rending gaping flesh wounds and knocking enemy combatants about. While the length of lances varies, the average is twenty feet in length, allowing the weapon to clear a path for the steed coming behind it. Kingsmen are known to utilize even longer lances however, when charging pike formations, at time engaging in almost comical arms races during campaigns as the length of lances and pikes grow to ridiculous proportions.

### **Pikes -**

The longest of polearms, these elongated spears are more than twice as long as the typical spear in the Kingdom and are used in two hands. Typically deployed in block formations of armored men, sometimes with halberdiers deployed among the block and at times with Pavise shield-men at the fore, the pike serves one function only: preventing the enemy from entering the area behind it.

### **Poleaxes -**

Typically measuring the same in height as the average man, these weapons are the multi-tool of the battlefield. They offer a spike for spear-like thrusting attacks, an axe head for cleaving blows and a hammer head for armor crushing strikes. Outside the kingdom, one of the heads may be replaced with a pick-head, but the choice is wildly unpopular in the Kingdom. All of this killing power is put on a five foot haft and fastened to it with langets that at times can be placed to reinforce the entirety of the weapon.

### Spears -

Cheap and easy to make, the most difficult part of forging the weapon is acquiring the four to eight foot shaft the spear-head and counterweight are attached to. These weapons provide reach, and the flexibility of use with a shield.

### Spear Swords -

A testament to human ingenuity, when posed with the question of if one should use a spear, or a sword to kill another human someone in antiquity said "why not both?". The result is the spear sword, a short spear haft usually a meter in length, capped with a swordblade of some manner likewise a meter in length, this allows the weapon to be used as a short-spear, choked up on and used as a short-blade, or without a shield it can be wielded as a two handed sword.

## Shields

### Battle Shields - These full-sized shields are cut in the kite or heater style and are the standard carried by Kingsmen heading into battle.

Short-Shields - These half-sized shields are typically found in the round or heater style and normally found among Kingsmen who do not head to the line for their battles, but rather chose the bow as their primary weapon. They also can be found carried with oath-swords or other one-handed weapons as a backup for those who primary opt for larger two-handed weapons due to the ease with which they can be transported, even if they are not as convenient as a walking shield or buckler.

### **Line Rippers**

**Line rippers** also called **The Ashed special** is a specially designed shield made for the purpose of breaking apart other shield formations, particularly those of Ashed mercenaries operating withing the bounds of the Broken Kingdom or abroad when encountered on crusade.

The shield s designed as a nearly flat design with several large hooks on the top and one side. The proper use of said shield is to rush a formation, hook the opposing shield, and pull. This turns what was a organized battle into a contest of pure strength and leverage. The goal is to pull the formation apart layer by layer and is often referred to as "peeling the potato"

### Walking Shield -

These bucklers are made slightly larger than those normally found outside of the kingdom and consist of a center boss, a wooden body, a metal ring around the edge of the shield, and metal reinforcements joining the ring to the boss. The wooden and metal sections tend to be well decorated, as is the style for most gear in the Kingdom.

Pavise Shields - These large heavy shields are typically used with two hands or impaled into the ground with the stout spike at the bottom and rotated with one, or two hands. Used in formations, these shields are able to create a wall in front of more vulnerable targets and can be used with full shields raised overhead to form shelters against enemy arrow fire.

## Swords

### Brood Sword -

These single-edged bastard swords are extra weighted to help build up the user's endurance and lend extra chopping power to their strikes. Intended for primary use with a shield, the hilt of the sword while long enough to use in two hands, doesn't over the sort of leverage found on a true longsword. These swords are typically cycled back into the population when Broodlings come of age and swear their Oath of Stone, or carried out of the Kingdom by a Broodling who chooses not to swear their Oath.

### Oathed Sword -

These single-edged longswords are the most common in the Kingdom. They're carried widely by men and women alike and are typically made to be used in either one or two hands. Most people in the Kingdom become so accustomed to wearing these blades even when in finery that they may feel more naked without the sword than without clothing.

### Rider's Sword -

Double-edged, and heavy these blades are meant to be used from horseback. While anyone can own a double-edged longsword, it is considered poor form for anyone but professional warriors and Riders to carry them in lieu of an Oathed Sword.

### King's Sword -

The largest example of longsword in the realm, these massive weapons can only be wielded properly in one hand by the strongest members of society. Made to the limit of size which still allows for use like a normal sword, they are often called warswords outside of the Broken Kingdom. The Kingsmen call them King's Swords because they are modeled after the Truest King's own blade.