[Circle of Hands] Letting go of the "morning star" ...

[Ron Edwards]

I just remembered I hadn't linked to this: "Me and my morning star" or as one commenter rightly put it, "Chains are fucking terrifying." I'm posting it here because G+ posting vanishes into the ether and there are some bits I want to keep.

Plus I'll chat happy about this weapon any time, so carry on with that if you'd like.

[Nyhteg]

Link doesn't work for me, but I'd love to hear you talk about the morning star, for sure. :)

[Ron Edwards]

Shoot, this is that stupid "circles" thing at G+ again. I hate that. Anyway, here's the post:

I doubt I'm alone, or rather that my fifteen-year-old self was alone, in fantasizing about the weapon I called the "morning star." I learned about it from games like Melee and books like Battle Circle: a handle with a single chain and hefty spiked ball. Bad ass, I said. The fantasies bordered on fetish. I had no doubt that if transported to a fantasy realm, I would become its foremost warrior, armed with one of these, mother fucker. (Details such as my incredible near-sightedness and reliance on thick spectacles could be solved ... maybe the process of transportation to said fantasy realm cured it, or something.)

I was sort of confused about the term, though, because sometimes people said "mace," and then there was this thing called a flail, and I had already begun to suspect, darkly, that the AD&D manuals were perhaps not the go-to encyclopedia of weapons lore after all.

It is painful to let go of one's dreams, but I now understand that maces have no chains but are metal-flanged clubs, that morningstars are effectively spiked maces, and the thing I fantasized about was one of the many variants of the flail. You can see in the Circle of Hands playtest manuscript that I am still in recovery, as it uses the term "chained mace." I need to do something about that.

I learned a bit more, and maybe inferred or made up even more, in my thinking about the weapon for the Crescent land. I'd already realized that well over half the weapons one expects to see in a fantasy RPG weren't appropriate - they were designed to deal with plate armor and intended for use in the context of lance, pike, and grapeshot, as well as existing in an entire infrastructure of social status and war which doesn't apply to the Crescent land. The very metal they're made of is beyond the range of Crescent land technology. Granted, in a fantasy setting you get to do what you want, but grounding it in 11th century central-northern Europe was really working for me and I've stuck to it.

Anyway, my vision of the flail for the Crescent land is described a bit in the text, but here's some more. The handle is about a foot long and very sturdy. At one end are one to four chains, pretty long - I'm thinking over two feet, even three feet long. The links aren't big heavy manacle things but rather small and light from my fifteen-year-old self's perspective. Their end-pieces are not big scary blocks or spiked balls, but merely weights, either a featureless sphere or even just a bigger link. (the image is not quite like this but more like it than anything I've seen in a fantasy RPG)

Being considerably more experienced in hitting people and being hit than I was back then, I now regard this thing I'm describing with genuine fear. It's not about aiming the heads at any specific target. The guy is whipping you with the chains, and there is practically no such thing as a miss. It's stunning, agonizing, and demoralizing. It goes right around shields. Take it across the fingers and you drop whatever you were holding. Take it across the face and you lose teeth, get a broken nose, and are blinded, possibly permanently. Take it across the skull and it's a concussion and a laid-open scalp. Wearing a helmet? Congratulations, you are now double-concussed and deafened. It is an example of pure weaponry (transformed agricultural implement or no), in that you don't assess it against a stump hammered into a field, as it works only and all too well against human tissue and the human nervous system. It has none of the bad-ass romance of my misnamed "morning star," in fact, it might be the least romantic weapon I've ever seen. A Hells Angel would find it perfectly suitable.

I'll link to the image I used to, when I find it.

P.S. Ralph says it's OK to call it a "chained mace."

[glandis]

I'll have to see if I can track down images, but I'm pretty sure the cover of Monsters! Monsters! and a "Morningstar and Chain"-wielding (that's what the Germans called it, apparently) tailed devil/goblinish character in some Tunnels & Trolls-associated book were the source of my early fixation with such weapons. An not-chained morningstar is still plenty cool in my book - maybe I care more about the spikes than the chains?

Although, the Hussite war flail (like, 1400's, so not really CoH-relevant) grabbed my attention at some point, which although a short chain, is all about the, um, swinging/smashing bar. BTW and aside: there's also the Hussite war-wagon, which made its way (probably via a number of (mis)interpretations, like maybe in Brian Daley's Corramonde books?) into the heartbreak that is my World of Bithe.

Speaking of weapons in CoH - Ron, I assume you're familiar with the Ulfberht and Ingelrii swords, and are excluding crucible steel 'cause you want to, not because you think you have to? I mean, plenty of scholarly uncertainity and almost-impossible to judge rarity are involved, but your 10th-11th century Nordic-Germanic timeframe makes such weapons at least as possible as mace-and-chain ...

[Miskatonic]

Very much on the same page as Ron with the disillusionment about what a "morning star" meant, and the subsequent re-education in more accurately historical weaponry.

Whenever I hear the term now, I keep thinking about the illustration I saw in one weapon book of a "Holy Water Sprinkler" (How grim is that joke?) with primitive gun barrels fitted into the head. Obviously, too late in era to go with Circle of Hands, but I've always wanted to work one of those into an RPG.

Oh! Here's a gem of a quote I just found:
"M. Demmin says, the name Morgenstern, by which it was known in Germany and Switzerland, was derived from the ominous jest of wishing the enemy good morning with it, when they had been surprised in camp or city." Now that sounds pretty Circle of Hands.

[Ron Edwards]

From the comments at G+:

Ralph Mazza informs us the weapon is 14th-15th century, but I decide to let one thing slide due to the Rule of Cool.

Ezio Melega wins the internets by informing us that the Italian word for the weapon is mazzafrusto which not only ties into the above-named gamer's name but also means "whip mace." Fuckin' rad.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Gordon,

I'm sticking with carburized steel as the local product and letting crucible steel be a stone's throw in the future for the Crescent land. Since the setting is a region and not, you know, a whole "fantasy world," I have no problem with better technology being utilized off the map, if someone wants to. My limited understanding of the Ulfberht swords is that imported steel was involved in their making - perhaps this is an excellent model for "hidden knowledge" in someone's game. I'd be especially inclined to have such stuff show up in Spurr, with several steps of transfer from afar.

[Jonas Ferry]

I'm sticking with carburized steel as the local product and letting crucible steel be a stone's throw in the future for the Crescent land. Since the setting is a region and not, you know, a whole "fantasy world," I have no problem with better technology being utilized off the map, if someone wants to. My limited understanding of the Ulfberht swords is that imported steel was involved in their making - perhaps this is an excellent model for "hidden knowledge" in someone's game. I'd be especially inclined to have such stuff show up in Spurr, with several steps of transfer from afar.

This YouTube video was listed as related to the sword-and-shield instructional video linked from different places. I was surprised by how interesting it was, as I didn't know anything about Ulfberths before. The documentary is part archaeology, part historical speculation, and part modern recreation of the techniques used when creating them. I especially liked the discussion of the benefits of flexible swords. I should say that I get my historical information from Wikipedia, so the doucmentary may be totally off base for all I know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbLyVpWsVM