Sword
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Swords are probably the most commonly used weapon in Fantasy, especially by main characters. While certain fantasy races have certain specific weapons associated with them (Dwarves and Axes, Elves and Bows), all of them will make use of swords at least on the sidelines.
Real life shit: A sword is a melee weapon comprised of a long, sharp blade and a hilt to hold it with. In the real world, the blades of swords normally range between 50 to 150cm long and typically weigh between 1 to 4 kilograms, depending on the size and composition. Numerous variants of swords exist and have been employed since some ancient Mesopotamian metalworker decided to make the blade of a dagger much longer than usual.
Pros and cons of being armed with a sword
Pros:
- Swords have a cutting bit and a stabbing bit, so you can kill different things in different ways.
- Swords are also balanced, so you won't cover your delicate little brow in as much sweat when you're killing things.
- All-metal weapons are harder to break
- Getting hit with a sword hurts a lot.
Cons:
- You can't build shit or chop down trees with swords
- Spears, polearms, and other special weapons do that one task better than the sword does, if you couldn't guess that already.
- Weapons made entirely out of forged metal cost a lot
- You can't hunt well with a sword
Types of Swords
Oldfag
- Khopesh: The ones who made the pyramids made this one. Good for hooking peoples in the goobar.
- Kopis: The drunken philosopher faggots made this one. Only choppy on one side.
- Gladius: The golden road people made this one. Very stabby.
Newfag
- Arming Sword: Small, often paired with board.
- Longsword: Bigger, perfected by fascists and Nazis
- Greatsword: Zweihander if you're a Nazi. Even bigger and slower.
- Falchion: One-handed, one-edged, heavy.
Weeaboo
- Katana: Like longsword, but fatter and shorter. Made from stronk nippon steel
- Gunto: Is like Kalashnikov, but is sword.
- Tachi - Oldfag Katana for horsemen. Longer and straigter.
- No-Dachi (or O-dachi) - Nippon greatsword.
- Legendary Blades: Good sword made by good smiths.
- Jian: Smaller faster arming sword.
- Dadao: Chink speak for Big Knife. Basically a falchion
Choppas and Dakka
Gunpowder means no armor means skimpier swords.
- Flamberge: Wavy sword, good for blocking the tiny rapiers everyone else had.
- Flambard: Bigger wavy sword, but waves are used for better choppiness.
- Cutlass: Choppy sword used on choppy seas.
- Rapier: Light, stabby, and a fancy hit for blocks.
- Pistol Sword: It was a heavy rapier, and therefore retarded.
- Sword Bayonet: Slightly heavier gun that is now a spear. Somewhat less retarded.
- Sabre: Cavalry sword. Became obsolete when cavalry became obsolete.
Double wielding
Used pretty much only after gunpowder, when swordfights were more about showing off than killing things.
Pistol and Sword
A rare moment when Rule of Cool (almost) meets up with reality. You wail on someone with the sword, shoot, then keep wailing because reloading is hard.
Swords in Fantasy
Swords are probably the most commonly used weapon in Fantasy, especially by main characters. While certain fantasy races have certain specific weapons associated with them (Dwarves and Axes, Elves and Bows), all of them will make use of swords at least on the sidelines. Swords are probably the most commonly used weapon in Fantasy, especially by main characters. While certain fantasy races have certain specific weapons associated with them (Dwarves and Axes, Elves and Bows), all of them will make use of swords at least on the sidelines.
Races tend to make use of swords like so:
- Humans will make use of whatever sword associated with their real world cultural counterpart. Medieval European analogs will make use of longswords and arming swords, with rapiers and suchlike for bandits and rogues (especially if they have a Spanish streak to them). If it is a Middle Eastern analog, expect scimitars and variations on that theme. Are you on the high seas with pirates? It's cutlasses all round. If it's an East Asian analog, you will definitely see some katanas as well as other Japanese blades, with dao and jian coming up as well.
- Dwarves will make use of a variety of heavy broadswords to accompany their more traditional axes. More reasonable Tolkienian dwarves would arm their main troops with an arming sword and shield combo, because axe swings in small spaces doesn't end well.
- Elvish Swords are either leaf-shaped and curved, with lots of fancy engraving.
- Orks carry choppas. What did you expect?
Busters
Named after the "Buster Sword" from Final Fantasy VII: these "swords" are basically what happens when a human finds a giant's dropped dagger. In reality these weapons would be downright stupid to wield, as their heft and size would make them impossible to move properly, and, if you got to move it at all, your enemy would be done with your gut already. In fantasy, however, all bets are off and the lore can make up a proper explanation for why that particular universe need these fuckheug weapons; the previously mentioned Final Fantasy VII, for example, bullshits us that the sword is "not as heavy as it looks," and is an almost entirely ceremonial weapon that Cloud is fucking stupid enough to wield with regularity. (It does, in a brief flirtation with sanity, have some weight-saving cutouts... that are then stuffed with magic rocks.)
Examples could be the Iron Kingdoms, who have a type of sword called "Caspian Battleblades", very heavy, dull swords with a head that spikes out to either side broader than the blade, made crucial for warfare because of all the heavy armour walking about, and tend to have lots of cut-outs in the blade's center to reduce its weight. Berserk's Guts also wields an ordinary Buster Sword, though he's super-humanly strong, has a mechanical arm, and regularly battles giants and demons.
You see, human muscle and bone ability to generate and carry physical force is limited, and most importantly limited is the windup distance to apply this force. Therefore by linearly adding more mass to the sword you'd gonna linearly decrease acceleration and henceforth the final speed. But the kinetic energy of the sword is not lineally dependent on speed. In's quadratic, meaning if you have the sword twice the mass than the regular one you're going to swing it twice slower and with only half of the impact force behind it. This is a reason you'd never see a guy wielding a zveihander in one hand - it's completely possible (the thing is only 3kg at best), but without the two-handed grip no matter how strong you are you'd be better with a faster arming sword.
Gunblades/Pistol Swords
As mentioned before, were an idea that started in Ye Olden Times of the 16th century, where a flintcock or revolver pistol was given a blade or bayonet attachment to so that the user could get the benefits of two weapons in one system. It evolved from the idea of mounting daggers on pistols, which had a bit more practical sense in comparison (with daggers being as short as they are, it was highly feasible for you to fire a shot and use it as a stabbing weapon if your opponent is still alive with ease).
Ultimately the idea of a pistol sword was just a fad, it never caught on with everyone as the concept made the sword too bottom-heavy, making it unwieldy to have when you fought a person with an actual sword and hard to aim as a pistol, due to the fore-end of the weapon being too heavy to accurately aim. All in all, it failed in every regard where the rifle+bayonet combo succeeded since its inception.
Final Fantasy VIII, however, took it a step further and made a sword with a fucking pistol-grip for a handle, a revolver's chamber built into the hilt, and a long, rifle-like barrel welded to the flat side of its one-edged blade. Though, this is offset by the fact that the weapon isn't meant to be fired in the traditional sense at all; all bullets fired by a gunblade are blanks, intended to set the blade oscillating such that it cuts through monsters and other opponents better, like a chainsaw.
Oscillating blades
Also known as: "vibraknives," "high-frequency blades," and so on, these are blades made so that they vibrate at such extreme speeds that they weaken the molecular bonds of the material being slashed, translating into the blade being able to cut things that a normal sword would snap against and making them nearly indestructible in the process. As if you haven't guessed, this is exclusive to sci-fi. Doesn't work in the nofunallowed real world because the vibrations would wreck the hilt and the holder.
Mechanically-powered weapon
Chainswords and the like. Using practical analysis on this device not depicted as practical tells us the required power of the motor is too high to be possible any time soon.
Magical materials
MAAAAAGIC rocks, for MAAAAAGIC swords!
- Thunderbolt Iron: Swords made from space rocks. Space rocks may or may not be special in your setting.
- Cold Iron: It's magic iron, that wards of magic shit. Not much else to say.
- Silver: For killing ghosts, werewolves, and other fun-loving monstrosities.
Super Sword
Super Swords are a broad category that include weapons made with advanced technology (Lightsabers, Necron Phase swords), Magic (Shardblades from Words of Radiance), divine origins or just are the product of super duper swordsmithing abilities (your memetic Katana). They cut through anything that isn't another supersword or a plot-relevant wall.