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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
 Posted - 21 May 2012 : 19:58:36
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Something caught my eye while watching Planet of the Apes (2001).
About 65 minutes into the film, while a human band raids and attempts to maneuver through an ape military camp, some of the gorilla soldiers are seen using a strange scooplike throwing weapon. It looked something like this - I was immediately reminded of the throwing/catching devices used in the jai alai "disc war" game from the 1982 Tron movie. One gorilla soldier scooped a burning sphere out of a campfire then hurled it a fair distance, where it shattered on impact and spewed forth a nice little blanket of fire and shrapnel. I should point out that the apes in this movie did not possess gunpowder warfare, so I suppose this was a ceramic sphere filled with some kind of flammable oil/fuel mixture. The weapon is seen several times again over the next few minutes, but strangely only used in an ineffective underhand-throwing manner which does little more than provide a lot of good firelight for filming the human escape across a river.
I was unable to shake the notion that this army of gorillas and chimpanzees looked like a fine representation of an army of orcs and goblins. A little too much D&D, I suppose.
But putting aside the usual stupidities of Hollywood action sequences ... this actually seems like a somewhat realistic sort of weapon. I can easily imagine a line of throw-slingers, scooping flaming spheres out of campfires or metal buckets, being able to hurl volleys of these grenades some remarkable distance, even over walls and obstacles. In the Realms, these devices could be made with "greek fire", with smokepowder, or with any sort of alchemical nastiness imaginable. Why, this weapon might even allow formations of (otherwise useless) halflings and kobolds to become something of a real threat in warfare.
These throwing-scoop things are conceptually similar to atlatls but are really an entirely different thing. I wonder if they are basically a short crosse/lacrosse stick variation of the humble staff-sling weapon already available in every version of D&D. I also wonder what sorts of effective throwing ranges and payloads could be expected. Are there any historical examples of these things (like so many other weapons and toys) being used in actual hunting or warfare?
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[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 21 May 2012 20:07:12
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader
USA
2717 Posts |
Posted - 21 May 2012 : 20:11:49
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| Following your idea that tools like these could turn kobolds or goblins into dangerous ranged combatants, I'm wondering if this weapon isn't something dwarves might have thought up? Something that orcs or goblinoids mimicked or stole from the dwarves during raids? |
Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver). |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 21 May 2012 : 21:01:16
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I suppose kobolds, as a rule, are perhaps a little bit too dumb to invent such weaponry and tactics themselves. Yet smart enough to copy them from goblins. This does seem like a perfect sort of weapon for goblins, clever and simple, allowing them to avoid close combat and use their numbers from a safe distance.
I can't see this weapon being very useful in enclosed terrain, in buildings, underground, etc. The throwing motion would require too much space, throwing arcs would be interrupted, the extended range would rarely be needed. This alone would probably discourage dwarves from using such things. Plus, to my mind, dwarves just wouldn't go for this sort of stuff ... they'd much prefer "mechanical" things like crossbows and perhaps wrist-mounted spring-loaded dagger launchers or something. In truth, they'd probably really prefer throwing their axes and hammers while closing into melee with more axes and hammers ... dwarven thinking would probably favour all manner of "proper" siege engines for heavier or longer-range applications which fall outside good old fashioned hack-n-slash melee gore.
Orcs might design their scoop-thrower things more like a cestus; a sort of armoured, bladed or spiked ironfisted punch-dagger claw thing which could easily be used with great effect in close combat situations. Orcs seem to like weaponry which can intimidate as well as it can injure, maim, and kill. Perhaps orogs and other champion sorts might even develop a brutal katar-styled martial art form, with or without the flaming grenade throwing. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 21 May 2012 21:06:51 |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 21 May 2012 : 21:13:52
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| Along these lines ... I imagine a Battlepriest of Tempus, wielding one of these elaborate things as his "Spiked Gauntlet" of office, using it to hurl flaming missiles from his produce flame spell ... it just seems appropriate. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader
USA
2717 Posts |
Posted - 21 May 2012 : 21:23:53
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quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
Along these lines ... I imagine a Battlepriest of Tempus, wielding one of these elaborate things as his "Spiked Gauntlet" of office, using it to hurl flaming missiles from his produce flame spell ... it just seems appropriate.
Yes it does. 
Mayhap even a High Priest or what have you can use an enchanted version of this sort of spiked gauntlet to hurl meteor swarms and the like, to really bring the pain.
I like your analysis of dwarves and orcs vis-a-vis this item. I think the orcish version fits most of all.
Yet I still find myself thinking dwarves could create these, provided they were of a mind to bring the fight out in the open. I must admit my first thought was a line of dwarves on a ledge, their backs to the entrance to their tunnels, who're hurling flaming oil pots onto the heads of orcs below them on the trail. |
Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver). |
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Erik Scott de Bie
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
4598 Posts |
Posted - 24 May 2012 : 20:32:04
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D&D is all about the cool/exotic/ridiculous weapons. Go for it! 
It's a tangential story, but I specifically wrote a character in Ghostwalker just so that I could try and craft a fighting scene utilizing a gyrspike. So yeah!
(For those who don't know, a gyrspike is a longsword with a ball-and-chain flail-style mace attached to the hilt--one of those crazy products of the double-weapon craze in early 3e.)
Cheers |
Erik Scott de Bie
'Tis easier to destroy than to create.
Author of a number of Realms novels (GHOSTWALKER, DEPTHS OF MADNESS, and the SHADOWBANE series), contributor to the NEVERWINTER CAMPAIGN GUIDE and SHADOWFELL: GLOOMWROUGHT AND BEYOND, Twitch DM of the Dungeon Scrawlers, currently playing "The Westgate Irregulars" |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 25 May 2012 : 04:46:36
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Flexible, articulated, and segmented weapons made with chains, ropes, and whippy bits just confuse and enrage me. I like fixed weapon geometries, nice solid chunky pointy sticky sharpy things with nicely constant chopping and puncturing parts ... it's hard for me to make use of a force multiplier which is so variable. Perhaps it's a mental block, I think Hollywood and Ninja legends lied to us, that skill is a tremendous part of properly using things like a gyrspike, but that more damage can be done more easily with less training and a better choice of weapon.
Then again, it's not like I've ever been in the middle of a melee before, unless you count rugby scrums and mosh-pits. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 25 May 2012 04:48:16 |
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Strange weaponry
