Swords of Central Genertela

[M Helsdon]

Another one...

 

Edited December 16, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Sir_Godspeed]

Is that a chariot-mounted ballista? Damn!

[Byll]

Better known as a Sagitechnical?

[M Helsdon]

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Is that a chariot-mounted ballista? Damn!

A repeating chariot-mounted ballista... The Lunars have very few working Deretinic chariots at any one time, of either the heavy or repeater variety.

1 hour ago, Byll said:

Better known as a Sagitechnical?

Unlike a NSTV these chariots aren't easy to manufacture or use. Note the two operators, one casting a spell to stop the thing from jamming. The driver is preparing to set the four horses in motion...

Edited November 25, 2018 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

If I can get it printed in time, I will be bringing a copy to Dragonmeet (not for sale).

[JonL]

On 11/25/2018 at 5:11 PM, M Helsdon said:

A repeating chariot-mounted ballista... The Lunars have very few working Deretinic chariots at any one time, of either the heavy or repeater variety.

Unlike a NSTV these chariots aren't easy to manufacture or use. Note the two operators, one casting a spell to stop the thing from jamming. The driver is preparing to set the four horses in motion...

I imagine chariots have greater utility in the Pelorian basin and the Redlands than they do in the rougher country of Dragon Pass.

[M Helsdon]

2 hours ago, JonL said:

I imagine chariots have greater utility in the Pelorian basin and the Redlands than they do in the rougher country of Dragon Pass.

No doubt. This, and much else was covered in the article I wrote for WF#16.

Another one... Am starting to use these to force chapters to end on a full or nearly full page (which means there are only another twelve to do - less if cavalry, as a cavalry sketch tends to occupy the space of two or three foot figures).

 

Edited November 27, 2018 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

Pondering what to do next... Decided to see if there was an 'imbalance' of forces...

 

Edited December 16, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Atgxtg]

On 7/28/2017 at 2:40 PM, soltakss said:

Good Humakti everywhere will be in uproar over the inclusion of maces in an article about swords.

Au contraire,  how can you show perfection without something inferior to compare it to? At least it's not bent.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Pondering what to do next... Decided to see if there was an 'imbalance' of forces...

Whom do we have to take hostage to get you to release a book? 

You've got some of the best weapons tech stuff on Glorantha, but we only get these tantalizing peeks!

 

And where do you get all this textbook style art?

 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Atgxtg

[M Helsdon]

On ‎11‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 10:53 PM, Atgxtg said:

Whom do we have to take hostage to get you to release a book? 

It requires a license from Chaosium, as it breaches numerous intellectual properties. I am not, however, proposing kidnapping anyone. It will, or will not, be released, when the stars are right.

On ‎11‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 10:53 PM, Atgxtg said:

You've got some of the best weapons tech stuff on Glorantha, but we only get these tantalizing peeks!

You are seeing some of the illustrations, not the text, which goes into detail about the nature of warfare in a Bronze Age/Iron Age world, with added magic. Whilst I am not an expert on such warfare, there's sufficient detail to act as a take it or leave it resource (there are three methods of forging an iron sword, for example, four if you include major sorcery), and mini-articles on logistics, which will leave many people cold, are scattered throughout. There are numerous colour-coded text boxes - green for logistics, black for brief real world comments, orange for snippets relevant for Orlanthi, yellow for Solar, red for Lunar etc.

Some material may or may not be in Wyrms Footnotes, as I provided a five thousand word essay, which may have been cut.

Here's the current Table of Contents, with the reduced appendices... Please note that whilst I've attempted to make it as canonical as possible, it doubtless deviates from canon, especially around things like Chronomancy.

 

 

Edited December 16, 2018 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

On ‎11‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 10:53 PM, Atgxtg said:

And where do you get all this textbook style art?

Sorry, I didn't see this comment. Where do I get it? Drawing on a pad of paper or on my computer, or a combination of both. I have made use of a few pieces of ancient art (often for shield designs) modified for Glorantha. For example, this piece is a combination of three or four Greek vases:

 

Edited December 16, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

It requires a license from Chaosium, as it breaches numerous intellectual properties. I am not, however, proposing kidnapping anyone. It will, or will not, be released, when the stars are right.

Oh great, so just when I can get my hands on the thing, that over sized Waltapus runs rampant. 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Sorry, I didn't see this comment. Where do I get it? Drawing on a pad of paper or on my computer, or a combination of both. I have made use of a few pieces of ancient art (often for shield designs) modified for Glorantha. For example, this piece is a combination of three or four Greek vases:

You have a nice pseudo-Greeco-Roman style that I think works for the setting.

How are you are drawing dark age medieval armor?

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

How are you are drawing dark age medieval armor?

Where?

[Atgxtg]

32 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Where?

At home? The office? the beach? I don't care.

[Sir_Godspeed]

22 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

At home? The office? the beach? I don't care.

I thought you'd spotted something looking like Dark Age armor on the chart, and was wondering where, as I thought it all looked quite classical. There was an Orlanthi wearing something that looked like scale mail that was the closest thing I could see.

Sorry if I got you wrong.

[Atgxtg]

2 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I thought you'd spotted something looking like Dark Age armor on the chart, and was wondering where, as I thought it all looked quite classical. There was an Orlanthi wearing something that looked like scale mail that was the closest thing I could see.

Sorry if I got you wrong.

Oh, no, I was just thinking of Western Empire stuff. 

Yeah, that could be scale, hard to say for sure in black and while at that size. 

[M Helsdon]

On ‎11‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 12:57 AM, Atgxtg said:

You have a nice pseudo-Greeco-Roman style that I think works for the setting.

How are you are drawing dark age medieval armor?

Never tried. Instead what you are seeing is a mélange of various Bronze Age/Iron Age types and styles ranging down to about 200BC or so.

On ‎11‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 4:14 AM, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, that could be scale, hard to say for sure in black and while at that size. 

There's quite a bit of scale, but scale armour goes back to the Bronze Age, so what you are seeing are inspired by Hittite/Mitanni etc. armour.

Am trying to be very careful to avoid any Republic or Imperial Roman. The main 'inspirations' are Anatolian, Mesopotamian, Mycenaean, Thracian/Dacian, Greek, Macedonian, and southern Italian in a mash-up. Some real historical armour was fairly 'weird' and I've taken delight in drawing a Storm Bull Champion wearing a very applicable early Corinthian helmet...

I should add that the 'large' versions are annotated, as this activity commenced when a reviewer wanted illustrations of the pieces of armour described actually being worn. Not certain if every piece appears in a sketch, but there's a wide variety of armour and weapons, and it's given me the opportunity to draw a few helmets that don't appear on the non-definitive helmet illustration page.

Additional: hardcopies are now en route to me via... UPS... So if I can collect them, at least one will be coming to Dragonmeet.

Here's another sample... drawn as three different images, scanned, combined with the shields drawn on the PC added, and then the figures shaded using Paint. [Note that additions have caused changes to pagination since the last sample.]

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Atgxtg]

Nice. It's got a 'reference book" quality to it that makes it seem more like a historical reference book.  Like something I might see on a shelf at the library. The armors look a bit Roman with the cheekplates, muscle cuirass and greaves, but not in a bad way.

 

 

[M Helsdon]

50 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Nice. It's got a 'reference book" quality to it that makes it seem more like a historical reference book.  Like something I might see on a shelf at the library. The armors look a bit Roman with the cheekplates, muscle cuirass and greaves, but not in a bad way.

Thank you. Each chapter is prefaced by a very short piece of fiction to set the scene, but reference book is the intent. Whilst scenarios aren't outlined, there's detail which could drive all sorts of campaign events...

It's more that the Romans inherited armour from both Greece and then the fractious kingdoms of the Diadochi. There was a long period when the Hellenistic military defined the form of arms and armour across the civilised Mediterranean, with the other major powers, Rome and Carthage, pretty much adopting their arms and armour, and initially much of their style of fighting. The Romans diverged away from phalanx warfare relatively early on, but old equipment was used in new ways.

The Romans 'inherited' almost all of their equipment from someone else, and their military genius was more in combining and utilizing its capabilities in new tactical ways than developing any new weapons or armour. Those pieces you are seeing as Roman are more of the era of Alexander and then the Diadochi when the Hellenistic kingdoms battered away at each other whilst the barbarian threat in the west loomed large after defeating Carthage. There was a point when the surviving Diadochi attempted to create their own legions to fight in the Roman way, but too late.

It may or may not be canonical, but I've attempted to portray how the Pelorian and Orlanthi styles bleed over, so that there are Orlanthi wearing, for example, pteruges, with any Sairdite figures mixing together the two traditions even more. There are also a number of distinct traditions: there are sketches of two Yelmalions, and whilst they are both phalangites, the style of their armour is very distinct.

Edited November 28, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Sir_Godspeed]

I was going to say that the cheek plates were a Macedonian thing from what I remember, but Helsdon clearly has all that under control.

Speaking of the Romans being better at adaptation than innovation, I believe I read somewhere that the Roman spatha (the "longsword", or at least longer than the gladius) was taken from the Celtic Gauls, who, despite being portrayed as primitive in Roman propaganda, and fighting nude and all that - did have very sophisticated blacksmithing, iirc. There might be a similar story with the Roman shields being adapted from Iberian Celts - I forget.


Great stuff on the "bleeding together" of styles. It was emphasised in the Guide to Glorantha, so you're in line with the current art direction, as far as I know.

[M Helsdon]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Speaking of the Romans being better at adaptation than innovation, I believe I read somewhere that the Roman spatha (the "longsword", or at least longer than the gladius) was taken from the Celtic Gauls, who, despite being portrayed as primitive in Roman propaganda, and fighting nude and all that - did have very sophisticated blacksmithing, iirc. There might be a similar story with the Roman shields being adapted from Iberian Celts - I forget.

If I recall correctly, the Romans probably took the gladius, pugio and the pilum from the Celtiberians, chainmail from the Gauls, and certain details of their helmets too. The scutum was an old Italic design, and in use prior to its adoption by the Romans. Fighting the Romans was risky - even if beaten they came back at you with your weapons...

[SDLeary]

25 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

If I recall correctly, the Romans probably took the gladius, pugio and the pilum from the Celtiberians, chainmail from the Gauls, and certain details of their helmets too. The scutum was an old Italic design, and in use prior to its adoption by the Romans. Fighting the Romans was risky - even if beaten they came back at you with your weapons...

I've heard that it was a combination. 

Gladius from the Iberians, and Spatha from the Celtiberians. I think the Spatha came earlier though, as we have contact with Gauls in Northern Italy. Not sure about the Pugio or Pilum.

SDLeary

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, the Romans were very pragmatic. If it worked better than what they had, they'd take it and use it. I still get a kick out of their laws for suicide. Attempted suicide was punishable by death (Romans hated inefficiency) while suicide was not a crime ( they couldn't do anything to you anyway). 

 

The Gladius Hispanica they did indeed get  from the Ibernerians, apparently after being given a "demonstration" of it's advantages over the spaetha. the oval shield was from the Gauls, although it might have come to them by way of the Greeks, along with pretty much everything else that was Greek.  Mail supposedly  originated with the Celts, but I think it was already widespread by the time the Romans got into Gaul.

 

Going back to Glorantha, I think that might be one the the differenes between the Lunar Empire and Rome. The Lunars don't seem to adopt as much from other coutures.