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Description
Expanded my previous take on this, as well as tweaking the lengths in some cases. This is, for now, the definitive weapons design sheet for Falling As They Might , my long-standing historical fantasy property.

Beauty and Bands - Yisrayl's rapiers, also known as the Screaming Sword and Razor Sword. Originally each had a rather ill-advised gimmick; Beauty's fuller perforated the sword from one side to the other (see character design here ), which allowed it to 'scream' as it was swung, however it would also make the blade absurdly fragile. In the new design it simply has a reed integrated into the fuller. Previous versions also lacked the quillons and knuckle guard. Bands was originally conceived as four blades fused together, having eight edges in a star shape. In its current incarnation Bands is simply an ornamented Pappenheimer rapier, as befits a sword commissioned in Vienna.

Vittor's Rapier - As-yet-unnamed, as was Vittor Chalcedonay himself for a long time, rejoicing instead in the name 'Italian Noble'. Of late he has threatened to become a more major character, necessitating a rethink of his character design and weapon. For this revamp I went with a swept hilt rapier, replacing the rather weird, fragile-looking basket hilt in the previous char sheet.

Kimura (Chimera) - Yisrayl's father, confusingly named Israyl, wielded Kimura, initially described in my notes as a 'fencing longsword' (possibly an arming sword though it looks nothing like it). The design also left plenty to be desired, with inward-curving spikes on the inside of the guard (!) and sculpted serpents entwining around the ricasso. As reimagined here, Kimura is a single-edged saber after the English backsword, with a false edge for thrusting; the spikes on the guard have been reinterpreted into a swept hilt. The caduceus has been shown in a dotted line; it occurs to me that if it were spring steel and aligned as shown it could actually be useful in envelopment.

Prospero's Rapier - At one point, I was fairly confident that the Prospero of the Scottish School (the fencing school protagonist Yisrayl is running away from) should wield a Turkish yataghan with a bone handle. However, on realising that the yataghan is approximately half the length of the rapiers his opponents would be using, I had to drop that idea; not a bad thing, as it creates a more uniform look to Scottish School blades; cup hilt rapiers with long quillons and knuckle guards.

Mia's weaponry - Mia's signature weapon has formerly been the 'thion', a fantasy punch dagger with needle-like blades. The presence of a trigger on the handle may even have indicated I intended for them to be hypodermic syringes, or for it to be possible to detach one of the spikes and leave it embedded in the opponent. While a re-imagined thion has a certain steampunk appeal to it, I also worked up a design based on a real Indian katar that incorporated two small flintlock pistols. The idea, one presumes, is to fire, turn the katar over, and fire the other side. This, I think, works quite well for the character as well as making her the only gun-user amongst the main cast. The katar is possibly oversized; this is meant to be a weapon she conceals in her tradesman's bag.

Durandal - The Carolingian-type blade used by Asahel Rowley, who very roughly plays the role of Rowland to Charlemagne's, er, Charlemagne. Confusingly, it isn't designed after the historical Durandal; that would be Glorious, Meram Soroman's sword, which for a while was 'officially' 'Hauteclere Dyrumdali' (Hauteclere/Durandal), fusing two separate paladins' swords into one. I haven't untangled this particular knot of references yet.

Cortana - Yes. Yes, I know. It amused me. Cortana/Katana is used by Yohji Amaru, who roughly plays the role of Ogier the Dane. At one point this was two swords, a cliché as all get out anime reversed katana, and an utterly impractical straight-edged 'backsaber' with an absurd back spike.

Scorpion Chain - One of the most ridiculous pieces of weaponry in the FATM universe, and not something I can easily tone down. The Scorpion Chain is basically a 4-5 inch box, incorporating spring-loaded scythe blades and a guillotine. As you can see I roughly worked out where it all goes when it's not being used, and it turns out it pretty much goes up the length of your entire forearm. The 'chain' itself has always been depicted as a four-leafed clover affair, strung with piano wire (which my younger self appeared to think cut through things like a magical chainsaw). A fingerless glove somehow controls the direction and speed of the chain in flight; I have very roughly figured out how it does this by positing that the four fingers contain rings which are linked to the cardinal wires via a pulley system; moving the fingers slightly increases the tension on the wire, which would certainly apply some very small force to the chain. The thumb actuates the guillotine mechanism. No idea how you perform the 'macros' that one is supposed to be able to do to midflight (including to 'expand the chain into a cloud of razorwire', which I think has probably had its day and can be retired as something the Scorpion Chain can do), unless it has something to do with the knuckle discs. Alternate ideas for the chain include a more genuinely dangerous razored look; along with more historical options for the head (perhaps used by less experienced users).

Michitariru - Charlemagne's initial sword. Yes, it breaks apart into two sabers with absurdly skinny handles. Again, not much I can do with it - the symbolism (guess) has become pretty integral to the plot. Incidentally, this (or at least half of it) was what I thought KJ Parker's backsabre from the Scavenger trilogy looked like, until I re-read the book. And it is amusing that we now have an Eastern sword with a Western name and a (god knows) sword with a Japanese name.

Joyeuse: Joyeuse has always been an absurd, Buster Sword-esque hunk-o-crap, based on the sword that came with an Iron Man (?) bootleg toy 'Captain Rider'. The problem is, its size and completely anachronistic appearance have become baked into the plot, making it difficult at this point to revise. It's supposed to have a solid gold core to make it weigh even more. The handle may still not be long enough.

Flammberge - Charlemagne's sword after Joyeuse gets totalled by Glorious during the fight with Meram Soromon. It's based on an actual flammbard zweihander. Charlemagne, of course, uses it one-handed as a rapier, with his hand near the pommel.

Katai's Saber - I don't think I've ever drawn Katai, the French (?) bandit who makes life difficult for Yisrayl & co. However, she now has a sword, which is something between a French cavalry saber, an English spadroon, and a Russo-Japanese saber. It looks hilariously tiny next to the rapiers but that is actually real-size.

Chisleu's weapons - Again, I'm somewhat limited in what I can do with Chisleu, given that it's fairly important he use wire. For some time he's used two weapons - initially two weights with a long length of wire between them (not totally crazy; the manriki is a historical example of something similar, albeit with a chain rather than wire) with a reinforced gauntlet to allow him to manipulate the high-tension line, then switching up to a rather less plausible weapon; a pair of gloves incorporating eyelets, through which are passed lengths of wire from reels on the back of his hands. Somehow he can use this to defend (holding the wire taut between his fingers to parry) and attack (flinging the wire out at high speed). I've incorporated a brake mechanism that would be actuated by tugging sharply on the wire; this would lock the wire taut for defensive purposes; he would then pull the lever on the side of the reel to release it for one or both reels, allowing him to fling loops of it at his opponents.

The Rolling Blade - the still-unnamed blade used by the Caliban. Previous versions have depicted the Rolling Blade as a single piece of steel, with no thought as to how it would be made, and creating a huge weak point where the circular blade is attached. Part-way through this revamp I was struck by the realisation that one would draw out a very long billet and then curve it out and around to create the circular area. The tip need not be attached to the main blade and it would be probably lose flexibility to do so. It's still an absurd, unusable sword-like object, but hopefully a bit more plausible than in previous incarnations, especially with the addition of the secondary grip, based on a Zweihander. I've shortened this since I last posted it, which hopefully makes it marginally more controllable-looking as well as needing 'only' a six-foot blade to start with.

Armander's Hoggseax - This presented me with some issues - in previous sketches this basically looks like a lightsaber, with a big bulky cylinder giving way to a single-edged blade with a convex tip, and very little guard. I scoured the Interwebs for plausible historical counterparts that could be vaguely related to Armander's Hyperboreal origin, which is vaguely German-Danish-Norwegian. Two possibilities presented themselves; a Kriegsmesser, sans guard, which is probably too long, or, more intriguingly, a hoggsax ('hewing sword', bastardised by myself into 'hoggseax' to get the Anglo-Saxon 'seax' in there), a single-edged Viking blade that looked very different to the Norman-type double-edged swords people are used to seeing them use in fiction. Add the chunky vestigial guard his sword has always had and voila, it looks pretty much identical to what I've been drawing him with.

Caliban's Claymore - Note: not the same Caliban (Adahn Chilezar) who wields the Rolling Blade. This is the Caliban of sixty years previously (name undecided), who fights Charlemagne. It's - well, it's just a claymore. Pleasingly it looks like it could go toe-to-toe with Joyeuse, which is Charlemagne's weapon at this point.

Glorious - The long-overdue-for-a-rename arc boss Meram Soromon wields Glorious, a sword which is actually based on Durandal, incorporating as it does the tooth of St Peter in the pommel, the blood of St Basil in a reliquary in the hilt (both somehow embedded in crystal), the hair of St Denis padding the tang, and the handle bound in the raiment of the Virgin Mary. The original design for Glorious wasn't too bad - a fairly close approximation of a hand-and-a-half/bastard sword. I slimmed the hilt down, turned the quillions around so they can actually parry properly.

Bellanndonner's Greatsword - No name, although Sauvagine is a possibility (see Durandal and writing myself into a corner on which characters represent which Carolingian paladins). Bellanndonner bashed this thing out of a ploughshare (which in the FATM world is the tines of a combine harvester); twisting the tines into a handle and crossguard. It should look pretty crappy, though it stands up to Flammberge.

Two alternate versions of Joyeuse, based on the French coronation sword , which MAY (and only may) have an authentic Charlemagne-era hilt hiding under the gaudy gilt abomination added in the 12th century. The blade was probably replaced in the 18th century. The first design here is roughly to scale - the second is a claymore-sized version of the same blade, which could plausibly do some of the stuff Charlemagne currently does with the aforementioned Buster Sword-a-like.

Description
Expanded my previous take on this, as well as tweaking the lengths in some cases. This is, for now, the definitive weapons design sheet for Falling As They Might , my long-standing historical fantasy property.

Beauty and Bands - Yisrayl's rapiers, also known as the Screaming Sword and Razor Sword. Originally each had a rather ill-advised gimmick; Beauty's fuller perforated the sword from one side to the other (see character design here ), which allowed it to 'scream' as it was swung, however it would also make the blade absurdly fragile. In the new design it simply has a reed integrated into the fuller. Previous versions also lacked the quillons and knuckle guard. Bands was originally conceived as four blades fused together, having eight edges in a star shape. In its current incarnation Bands is simply an ornamented Pappenheimer rapier, as befits a sword commissioned in Vienna.

Vittor's Rapier - As-yet-unnamed, as was Vittor Chalcedonay himself for a long time, rejoicing instead in the name 'Italian Noble'. Of late he has threatened to become a more major character, necessitating a rethink of his character design and weapon. For this revamp I went with a swept hilt rapier, replacing the rather weird, fragile-looking basket hilt in the previous char sheet.

Kimura (Chimera) - Yisrayl's father, confusingly named Israyl, wielded Kimura, initially described in my notes as a 'fencing longsword' (possibly an arming sword though it looks nothing like it). The design also left plenty to be desired, with inward-curving spikes on the inside of the guard (!) and sculpted serpents entwining around the ricasso. As reimagined here, Kimura is a single-edged saber after the English backsword, with a false edge for thrusting; the spikes on the guard have been reinterpreted into a swept hilt. The caduceus has been shown in a dotted line; it occurs to me that if it were spring steel and aligned as shown it could actually be useful in envelopment.

Prospero's Rapier - At one point, I was fairly confident that the Prospero of the Scottish School (the fencing school protagonist Yisrayl is running away from) should wield a Turkish yataghan with a bone handle. However, on realising that the yataghan is approximately half the length of the rapiers his opponents would be using, I had to drop that idea; not a bad thing, as it creates a more uniform look to Scottish School blades; cup hilt rapiers with long quillons and knuckle guards.

Mia's weaponry - Mia's signature weapon has formerly been the 'thion', a fantasy punch dagger with needle-like blades. The presence of a trigger on the handle may even have indicated I intended for them to be hypodermic syringes, or for it to be possible to detach one of the spikes and leave it embedded in the opponent. While a re-imagined thion has a certain steampunk appeal to it, I also worked up a design based on a real Indian katar that incorporated two small flintlock pistols. The idea, one presumes, is to fire, turn the katar over, and fire the other side. This, I think, works quite well for the character as well as making her the only gun-user amongst the main cast. The katar is possibly oversized; this is meant to be a weapon she conceals in her tradesman's bag.

Durandal - The Carolingian-type blade used by Asahel Rowley, who very roughly plays the role of Rowland to Charlemagne's, er, Charlemagne. Confusingly, it isn't designed after the historical Durandal; that would be Glorious, Meram Soroman's sword, which for a while was 'officially' 'Hauteclere Dyrumdali' (Hauteclere/Durandal), fusing two separate paladins' swords into one. I haven't untangled this particular knot of references yet.

Cortana - Yes. Yes, I know. It amused me. Cortana/Katana is used by Yohji Amaru, who roughly plays the role of Ogier the Dane. At one point this was two swords, a cliché as all get out anime reversed katana, and an utterly impractical straight-edged 'backsaber' with an absurd back spike.

Scorpion Chain - One of the most ridiculous pieces of weaponry in the FATM universe, and not something I can easily tone down. The Scorpion Chain is basically a 4-5 inch box, incorporating spring-loaded scythe blades and a guillotine. As you can see I roughly worked out where it all goes when it's not being used, and it turns out it pretty much goes up the length of your entire forearm. The 'chain' itself has always been depicted as a four-leafed clover affair, strung with piano wire (which my younger self appeared to think cut through things like a magical chainsaw). A fingerless glove somehow controls the direction and speed of the chain in flight; I have very roughly figured out how it does this by positing that the four fingers contain rings which are linked to the cardinal wires via a pulley system; moving the fingers slightly increases the tension on the wire, which would certainly apply some very small force to the chain. The thumb actuates the guillotine mechanism. No idea how you perform the 'macros' that one is supposed to be able to do to midflight (including to 'expand the chain into a cloud of razorwire', which I think has probably had its day and can be retired as something the Scorpion Chain can do), unless it has something to do with the knuckle discs. Alternate ideas for the chain include a more genuinely dangerous razored look; along with more historical options for the head (perhaps used by less experienced users).

Michitariru - Charlemagne's initial sword. Yes, it breaks apart into two sabers with absurdly skinny handles. Again, not much I can do with it - the symbolism (guess) has become pretty integral to the plot. Incidentally, this (or at least half of it) was what I thought KJ Parker's backsabre from the Scavenger trilogy looked like, until I re-read the book. And it is amusing that we now have an Eastern sword with a Western name and a (god knows) sword with a Japanese name.

Joyeuse: Joyeuse has always been an absurd, Buster Sword-esque hunk-o-crap, based on the sword that came with an Iron Man (?) bootleg toy 'Captain Rider'. The problem is, its size and completely anachronistic appearance have become baked into the plot, making it difficult at this point to revise. It's supposed to have a solid gold core to make it weigh even more. The handle may still not be long enough.

Flammberge - Charlemagne's sword after Joyeuse gets totalled by Glorious during the fight with Meram Soromon. It's based on an actual flammbard zweihander. Charlemagne, of course, uses it one-handed as a rapier, with his hand near the pommel.

Katai's Saber - I don't think I've ever drawn Katai, the French (?) bandit who makes life difficult for Yisrayl & co. However, she now has a sword, which is something between a French cavalry saber, an English spadroon, and a Russo-Japanese saber. It looks hilariously tiny next to the rapiers but that is actually real-size.

Chisleu's weapons - Again, I'm somewhat limited in what I can do with Chisleu, given that it's fairly important he use wire. For some time he's used two weapons - initially two weights with a long length of wire between them (not totally crazy; the manriki is a historical example of something similar, albeit with a chain rather than wire) with a reinforced gauntlet to allow him to manipulate the high-tension line, then switching up to a rather less plausible weapon; a pair of gloves incorporating eyelets, through which are passed lengths of wire from reels on the back of his hands. Somehow he can use this to defend (holding the wire taut between his fingers to parry) and attack (flinging the wire out at high speed). I've incorporated a brake mechanism that would be actuated by tugging sharply on the wire; this would lock the wire taut for defensive purposes; he would then pull the lever on the side of the reel to release it for one or both reels, allowing him to fling loops of it at his opponents.

The Rolling Blade - the still-unnamed blade used by the Caliban. Previous versions have depicted the Rolling Blade as a single piece of steel, with no thought as to how it would be made, and creating a huge weak point where the circular blade is attached. Part-way through this revamp I was struck by the realisation that one would draw out a very long billet and then curve it out and around to create the circular area. The tip need not be attached to the main blade and it would be probably lose flexibility to do so. It's still an absurd, unusable sword-like object, but hopefully a bit more plausible than in previous incarnations, especially with the addition of the secondary grip, based on a Zweihander. I've shortened this since I last posted it, which hopefully makes it marginally more controllable-looking as well as needing 'only' a six-foot blade to start with.

Armander's Hoggseax - This presented me with some issues - in previous sketches this basically looks like a lightsaber, with a big bulky cylinder giving way to a single-edged blade with a convex tip, and very little guard. I scoured the Interwebs for plausible historical counterparts that could be vaguely related to Armander's Hyperboreal origin, which is vaguely German-Danish-Norwegian. Two possibilities presented themselves; a Kriegsmesser, sans guard, which is probably too long, or, more intriguingly, a hoggsax ('hewing sword', bastardised by myself into 'hoggseax' to get the Anglo-Saxon 'seax' in there), a single-edged Viking blade that looked very different to the Norman-type double-edged swords people are used to seeing them use in fiction. Add the chunky vestigial guard his sword has always had and voila, it looks pretty much identical to what I've been drawing him with.

Caliban's Claymore - Note: not the same Caliban (Adahn Chilezar) who wields the Rolling Blade. This is the Caliban of sixty years previously (name undecided), who fights Charlemagne. It's - well, it's just a claymore. Pleasingly it looks like it could go toe-to-toe with Joyeuse, which is Charlemagne's weapon at this point.

Glorious - The long-overdue-for-a-rename arc boss Meram Soromon wields Glorious, a sword which is actually based on Durandal, incorporating as it does the tooth of St Peter in the pommel, the blood of St Basil in a reliquary in the hilt (both somehow embedded in crystal), the hair of St Denis padding the tang, and the handle bound in the raiment of the Virgin Mary. The original design for Glorious wasn't too bad - a fairly close approximation of a hand-and-a-half/bastard sword. I slimmed the hilt down, turned the quillions around so they can actually parry properly.

Bellanndonner's Greatsword - No name, although Sauvagine is a possibility (see Durandal and writing myself into a corner on which characters represent which Carolingian paladins). Bellanndonner bashed this thing out of a ploughshare (which in the FATM world is the tines of a combine harvester); twisting the tines into a handle and crossguard. It should look pretty crappy, though it stands up to Flammberge.

Two alternate versions of Joyeuse, based on the French coronation sword , which MAY (and only may) have an authentic Charlemagne-era hilt hiding under the gaudy gilt abomination added in the 12th century. The blade was probably replaced in the 18th century. The first design here is roughly to scale - the second is a claymore-sized version of the same blade, which could plausibly do some of the stuff Charlemagne currently does with the aforementioned Buster Sword-a-like.