At 4:52 -0400 06.6.2002, FelixEisen at aol.com wrote: > As a side note, something I (eventually) recognized, and found quite > intriguing: there is no archery on Dragaera. Throwing knives, shuriken, > darts, javelins, they all made it. The bow and crossbow didn't. Hmmm. <rummages around in Dragon for a sec> I sure thought that these were some sort of bow-and-arrow-like weapon: the "javelin shooters" on p.248-9, in the aftermath of which Vlad explains "one of the javelins had fallen about two feet from my right hand ... it was much smaller than the ones we were throwing, and had feathers near the back, and, at the very end, the wood had a small notch." Virt notes that the launchers (she doesn't call them bows, but I assume they are) use "green, bendable wood" with a string. Although I agree that the tradeoff between sorcery and archery is pretty apt, overall. Also, supporting your argument, the "javelin shooters" seem to be pretty uncommon, considering Vlad and Loiosh had no idea what they were, and even Virt didn't recognize them at first. (Xthread: now see, if I'd had an e-book version of Dragon, I wouldn't have had to flip through so many pages -- but on the other hand, as someone else pointed out, I knew the scene I was looking for was at the top half of a right-hand side page, and I don't know if I'd have been able to find that in an e-book. Still, I'm for them, in general terms.) - Nancy.