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People were partially blaming d&d for the wank because d&d calls an arming sword a longsword and it confuses people. D&d doesn't do katana wank was the point.
Cliches you can't stand
- Thread starter Mithras
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DezoPenguin
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- USA
Definitely not me. I was referring to the mythological attributed awarded to the katana in fiction, the ideas that it was physically superior to Western weapons and would slice right through them or shatter them, that it was so sharp that it would bisect steel and that a hair dropped on one would part under its own weight. Basically the idea that the Secret Arts of the Mystic East
made weapons far beyond what grunting Westerners could manage.My experience with D&D katanas was rooted in the 1st Edition AD&D, with Oriental Adventures, where the katana was a one-handed weapon that did 1d10/1d12 damage to small-medium/large opponents, as opposed to the longsword (which in that rulebook included blades such as the Japanese tachi, the Chinese jian, and so on) which did 1d8/1d12. It was a minor statistical advantage, but the big deal was the samurai class feature that treated their family sword as magical weapons of increasing power as the character leveled up (the point being that a samurai's daisho was supposed to be treated as part of their honor, and not set aside because they'd looted a spiffy +3 frost brand tachi off some oni they'd killed*).
*Pause for snickering about Susanoo-no-Mikoto, the original Dark Souls player cutting dragon tails for new weapons**.
**Additional pause for "Eureka!" forehead-slapping moment to realize that probably actually is the origin of being able to cut off dragon tails for weapons in Dark Souls.
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
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- The far side of tired
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- Whatever
The funny thing being that neither the Kusanagi nor the weapon Susanoo used to cut it out of the Orochi were Katana. Hell, they weren't even curved swords.
DezoPenguin
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- USA
Tell me about it! The number of mythologized depictions which get that wrong... @_@ (Though at least, I suppose if one is using the mythical Kusanagi instead of the real-life historical artifact, at least one can argue that magic swords pulled out of dead hydra-like calamities' tails can change their properties to suit the needs of the setting and story. But it's still a cop-out.)
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I didn't think there was a proper description for Suzanoo's own sword, but yeah, Kusanagi was a jian, wasn't it?
Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
- Location
- MI, USA
Up until the Renaissance, and even then it was Arabian involvement. The Ulfbert swords were Nordic smiths, but the metal itself was imported from the Middle East, or at least made in accordance with the process used there. This is because they were Damascus steel blades. Made by nordic people. The Vikings were the terror of much of Europe, but the traders using the longboats in the off season (in so far as there was an off season for raiding) would go basically anywhere but Asia for trading. Hell, they gave a go at colonizing the Americas and failed due to not being willing to go far enough south to find the actually tolerable coasts. In the sense of "is not 80% horrifically hazardous stone".I mean, the best swords were always Arabian, but let people be dumb
Of very important note is that most of the 3.5 crit rate boosters are actually multipliers. An 18-20 crit rate weapon turns into a 15-20 crit rate with the Keen enhancement or Improved Critical feat, meaning a trivial investment gives you a one in four chance of landing a critical hit.
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
Not really? I'm given to understand the Kusanagi is one of an ancient pattern of Japanese sword, the Jian is a Chinese one developed far later, IIRC.
- Location
- The Old Dominion
It should be noted though that damasus steel swords were made from Wootz steel which imported from India for more than a thousand years and indeed said steel was apparently was imported throughout Asia, Europe and the middle east as it was considered to be the finest in the world.
Though different periods and areas seemed to have different prized steels for instance for republican and imperial Rome the prized steel was apparently Noric steel from Noricum which since 500 B.C. had been a center of a major steel industry after the local iron was found to produce a superior steel. Apparently the ore in the region was especially high in manganese while lacking phosphorus allowing for the production of a steel that was famed and prized for its hardness.
I don't like it when undead show up at a graveyard in a fantasy setting. Mostly because after the third time this happened everyone would probably stop leaving corpses lying around and start burning their dead. The only way a graveyard would exist is if everyone was pretty sure the corpses wouldn't rise to attack them. If anything, a graveyard should be the one place in town safe from an undead attack because every inch of ground has been so thoroughly consecrated.
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- Somewhere
I'd like to point out that when D&D uses this trope, it usually involves a long term plan where the necromancer in question has been stripping away the protections for weeks/months prior because they actually DO consecrate everything. Except that one time in Bloodstone Pass, but that was direct intervention by Orcus which is not something the average town should expect.
- Location
- The Old Dominion
Or at the very least they should post guards if things like Necromancers are known to exist to prevent the desecration of the graveyard and the raising of the dead by unholy magic though its is a graveyard in a place that is abandoned that is more understandable.
DezoPenguin
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- USA
Or it's the long-abandoned graveyard of some ruin or the like where all the other evil stuff going on has presumably created the conditions where the undead start crawling out of the ground, not something that happens while people are actively being buried there.
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- Somewhere
Exactly. You generally only see the "instant army from graveyard" in movies.
The Englanderish
Schrödinger's Kuudere Kitty Caliph(a)
- Location
- Califat de Chats
Or if Necromancy is not common (or heck, is even a brand new unprecedented thing).
- Location
- Russia
Or maybe burning bodies ends up in ghosts instead of zombies
DezoPenguin
Text Wall
- Location
- USA
I'll take corporeal undead over incorporeal undead nineteen times out of twenty. And the twentieth is a lich, which doesn't count anyway.
- Location
- Somewhere
Ghosts are so much worse than zombies. Just seeing one can kill you in a d&d based world
- Location
- BaWü
In TDE there is a nice demon pact gift, that allows you to raise everything in a given radius that could possible interpreted as a body. It only costs you your soul and I think some ten or twenty sentient sacrifices to the head demon of necromancy. It works pretty great on old battlefields or graveyards and I think at least one army was made this way.
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- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Nah, pact gifts don't require sacrifices. Though as you descend into the Circles of Damnation, you might get some dark gifts cheaper if you sacrifice some clerics of the opposed god, or generally advance the archdemon's plans. Also, that wouldn't be enough for an entire arm. For that, you 'd need the Magnum Opus of Thargunitoth, which is an event that is supposed to happen only every century or so, if that.
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- Somewhere
There was a similar thing in d&d 2e, but only the current High Priest of Orcus could do it, and only if he had the amulet that is his badge of office in hand (taking that away from him ends the spell and they all shamble back to their graves)
- Location
- BaWü
I meant the magnum opus, this is why I thought of the sacrifices.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
This is also how it works in Warhammer fantasy.
Gardens of Morr are generally nearly completely safe from Necromancers, Vampires, and Liches. The unconsecrated dead left to rot on battlefields, died in the wilds, were not deemed worthy of proper burial, or were interred in pre-imperial barrows though are a completely different matter. Greenskin, Skaven, Dark Elf, Ogre, and Chaos worshipper corpses also don't get any protection.
KingseekerFreyr
Currently kingseeking...
- Location
- In a void!
I only like the Katana's are better trope if it's over the top like this:
