Editing Fantasy Armor (section)

== A Mild Digression about Ceremonial Armor ==

In Real Life, armor was usually divided into practical and ceremonial armor. Practical armor was intended to actually be used (i.e., protect a dude (or dudette, as the case may be) from that spear or knife in the middle of an actual melee). Ceremonial armor was intended to look good. This resulted in occasional wild differences between the two, such as the ridiculous codpieces mentioned above. That is not too say that no piece of ceremonial armor has ever been used in battle: there are more than a few surviving examples with marks of wear, though the circumstances of their incurrence are not always clear.

Fantasy armor is usually inspired by the ceremonial armor, as that's what was usually put into artistic depictions and survived long enough to be put in museums. This is reinforced by seemingly period-accurate reproductions taking their inspiration from both sources.