What haven't we talked about?

[Blake Hutchins]

On the longbow/crossbow issue, it's very true that crossbowmen were more easily trained than longbowmen, who had to work on their archery since childhood - not to mention on building up the strength necessary to pull a 6'+ with a 120 lb. draw.  A full-fledged (or should I say 'fletched'?) longbowman was supposedly required to be able to put out twelve arrows per minute and hit moving targets at a range of 60 yards while doing so.  Crossbows were MUCH easier to use and therefore more useful when mustering armies - despite the slower rate of fire.  The problem with the crossbow was that it gave any old low-born guy the ability to blow a knight off his horse.  When you think of the years of training and the expense that went into training a knight, it's no wonder the Pope and the nobility got spooked.

Best,

Blake

[Nick the Nevermet]

[Post removed because I wrote it in a snippy mood & it didn't say anything]

[Brian Leybourne]

There is a sentence in the book that says something like some navigators claim there is another continent past the sea.  There was a short thread, I don't remember it's name, where we had fun speculating about Aztec sorcerer kings invading Wyerth.  That's all.

Actually, that was quite a fun discussion. I even went on to start thinking about that other continent, and peopled it with a few main civilisations, one very Aztec in feel, another quite Incan, and several that were very pacific island in feel (Fijian, NZ Maori, Samoan etc). I should dig that back out sometime.

Brian.