Dragaera

Bows and arrows

FRIEDA2133 at aol.com FRIEDA2133 at aol.com
Sat Nov 20 10:37:58 PST 2004

From: Dave Godwin wrote on Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:48:31 -0800 

>I took them to be atlatls:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlatl

Hi,

I do not think we actually see any bows and arrows being *used* in 
the Phoenix Guards.  

Also specific question below for Carl and Jeff.

>From the same website
http://www.nps.gov/amis/eatlatl.htm

Looks pretty much like the description in Dragon except 
where is the string and the green bendable wood.

Dragon Chapter 15 paperback page 249

"Javelin shooters"

Vlad thinking:
"One of the javelins had fallen about two feet from my hand,
and was sticking out of the ground, 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."

"Take a length of green, bendable wood", said Virt.  "Put
a string to it, and you can use it to shoot those things a 
long distance.  Longer, even uphill, than we can throw our
javelins downhill."

Carl Parkes on Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:23:29 +1100
under Subject: re Bows and sorcery
thinks they are wommarra. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlatl
mentions Australian woomera which it says is like the atlatl. 

Carl, spelling difference or something else?

Jeff G. wrote on Thu, 18 Nov 2004 08:56:06 -0700 
under Subject: atlatls (was Bows and arrows) 

>You can see these in use by Australian Aborigines in the Tom Selleck
>movie "Quigley Down Under",

Jeff, could you tell in the movie if there was string involved?

Booksearch only comes up with archery in The Phoenix Guards 
and the only reference to arrows in 500 Years After is 
talking about clothing.  

I bet a sorceror figured out between the two books how to wreck
archery so much that no one will ever use anything with a arrow 
on Dragaera again.  Or maybe even before The Phoenix Guards
Book on G'aereth and Gyorg please!

On archery in the The Phoenix Guards. There is an archery range 
but we do not see what is actually being practiced there.  Maybe 
they are practicing how to use sorcery against arrows.   One side 
shoots and the other side casts the anti-arrow spell. They pretend 
in Chapter 26 to have archers and maybe Garland did not know the 
anti-arrow spell. 

See Dragon Chapter 4 paperback page 4 and 5 on flashstones:

"where some sorcerer found a means of making every one of
the enemy's "flashstones" blow up in his hand--which added
a whole new level of spell and counter-spell, and made the
common foot soldier leery about having anything to do with
sorcery."

The spell used against arrows might not have been modified 
for darts because poison darts are not thought of as a battle 
weapon and who would know they were being used.

If sorcery had made bows and arrows obsolete, that could have
caused someone to invent something with string and green
bendable wood that shoots javelins.  The spell might might 
not have worked on a smaller javelin which was still much 
heavier than a arrow.  The javelin would have looked just 
like the spear in 
http://www.nps.gov/amis/eatlatl.htm
Or maybe the anti-arrow spell had not been modified yet to
work on javelin shooters.

Bye.

Linda G.