Bryan Newell writes: >Issola, hc pg 88 - "It was long for a knife and short for a sword. >Impractical in every way, and was probably not even balanced all that well, >most likely being a bit blade-heavy. This, of course, was useful for >chopping away in battle" > >Issola, hc pg 98 - "It was a narrow blade, very light and useful-feeling in >my hand, about eighteen inches long, and not nearly as blade-heavy as I'd >suspected it would be." > >Issola, hc pg 245 - "It fit my hand like an additional finger, like it >should have been there all along, or maybe it had been there all along and >I'd never been aware of it." Interesting. Almost as if Vlad is being "seduced" by the blade. But yes, 18 inches is a perfectly respectable size for a main gauche. (though I use a main droite). >Per fencing.net, the epee is the closest of the three modern fencing weapons >(epee, foil, sabre) to what was actually used in medieval times. Um. Sorta; Epee is just french for "sword". Sabre is actually closer in use, since it's a cut primary weapon. OTOH, what was used in "medieval times" isn't really relevant to dragaera -- vlad's weapon choice seems to be a light rapier (ie, probably 30-36 inches long, light as a feather), and he's trained with fencing sabre. [and the last time I started talking about what this means about weapon's technology in modern Dragaera/Fenario (or wherever in the east Vlad's family comes from), Steve threteaned to write a rant about historical accuracy in fantasy] >So, an images.google.com search for "epee and dagger" returned the >following: > >http://www.imperialweapons.com/swords/iberia/1032-GT.JPG The dagger is an 18 inch flexi-dagger (well, 17.5, as you say), which is one of the types of blades used for renn-style fencing. But the blade is nowhere near an epee -- it's a schlager blade [um...designed for menseur, the German dueling game that the brow scars and monicles come from], used as a -rapier- simulator, with the blade mounted sideways the edges of a rapier should be lined up with the quillions, but in this case, they seem to be at 90 degrees to it; no, I have no idea why. I -have- used a double-wide 40" epee blade (ie, both wider and longer than a modern fencing epee, but of the same basic design) as a rapier simulator, and it does do a decent job of simulating what in modern parlance would be a 17th century rapier (wheras the kind of rapier Vlad seems to use might be a 18th century rapier, aka "smallsword". >Can you imagine how DISTRACTING it would be to fight someone whose >off-weapon was a Great Weapon? It's not like Blackwand, where you just have >to avoid being hit by the one sword, all your attention would be focused on >Godslayer, which isn't the "primary" weapon! *giggle* Yeah, I can see this -- plus, you have to worry, every time he does a blade parry, that that damned Great Weapon is going to strike at your -arm-, with a scratch deadly enough to kill. >I believe that Morrolan has demonstrated that the owners of the Great >Weapons _decide_ when their weapons eat souls. Maybe that is just a trait >of Blackwand, but I got the feeling all Great Weapons worked that way. That's the impression I get as well. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-'
