Tuesday 8 May 2012

Swordlore

The sword - the staple weapon of most self-respecting characters who roam the realm of High Fantasy. They're fascinating things - even those that don't flash colours in face of danger, cleave through the flesh of icy-eyed killer wights, or have properties that ward off the dreaded Lesser Spotted Pygmy Possum. Carrying a sword in a fantasy environment pretty much makes your character cooler by about 20% right from the off - irregardless of whether they actually know what they're doing with the thing!

Perhaps as a result of this, I've always been rather fascinated by swords - though if you handed me one, and I was by some miracle able to lift it off the ground, I would most likely kill or maim myself before I got a blow on anyone standing within a ten feet radius of me. I used to be able to delude myself that, if I practiced or joined up a fencing club or some sort of mediaeval weapons enthusiast society, I might be able to use one ... until a particularly entertaining escapade in an interactive weapons demo made a complete fool of me, and I realised I'd best stick to pointy sticks and pus-popping insults.

But, of course, just because I can't use a sword doesn't mean my characters can't! As most of my work are high fantasy, I have plenty of sword-wielders roaming around. Even my Science Fiction 2009 NaNoWriMo novel involved a much-abused katana and a pair of throwing knives.

However, my general lack of knowledge regarding swords left me with some terribly large plot holes in lieu of the (in)famous Aeserion trilogy. However many people he's run through with it, I'm pretty sure Rin's sword wouldn't "shatter like glass" when hit with a mace. Sneaking suspicions regarding his ability to throw it so that it miraculously speared an enemy through the face are also beginning to creep in here and there...

So, because of this, I started doing that which every writer's worst nightmares are haunted by, alongside the giant spiders and Furbies. Research.

Inevitably, I was soon distracted by an excuse to do my favourite thing. Worldbuilding.

Making a sword, as I discovered, is a long, hot, exhausting process for the blacksmith and his helpers, and one small mistake can render the whole thing useless. While reading about the use of bellows, hot coals and regular dousings in freezing cold water, I began to wonder how attached a man would get to a sword he could spend days creating? I can imagine it would be a bit of a wrench letting go of something that became pretty much a part of your arm, knowing full well that the idiot who wandered off with it would probably break it, lose it or have it stolen and come back to you for another one within the week.

Then, by some marvellous act of cosmic serendipity, I came across the Viking practice of naming swords, and passing them down as treasured heirlooms and sources of pride for generations (provided the thing didn't get too old and become too useless to be much more than a decoration over the hearth, next to the polar bear head that your Uncle Ulfbjorn brought home after getting lost after that one drunken Christmas party).

And thus, the idea of Swordlore was born. Here follows an extract from Lord Bayard's Ways of Lore, found in the Great Library of Tearcallon:

Before the first Lady's Missionaries appeared on Errion's shores, the Old Way dictated that any man who seeks to truly call a sword his own must have a hand in its crafting. That role depends on his ability - if he is strong, let him wield the hammer; if he has a good eye, let him dictate the time to pull the blade from the fire; if he is determined, let him be the one who pumps the bellows to keep the fire burning. With a little of his own blood added to the steel in its molten form, he must endure alongside the blacksmith, night and day, to bring his blade into being. And then, when all is done, before he can truly call the weapon his own, he must bestow the final mark of ownership: a name.


Inevitably, as the new faith arrived and Errion began to mix and trade with its neighbours to the south, the Old Way began to fade away until, at the time of the Aeserion trilogy, little of it remains in its original form. Swordlore, though, is part of that "little".

However, it wasn't attachment to the old faith that drove Rin Takarsson, otherwise known as Swiftblade, the famed northern mercenary, to go through the ancient rites when he made his own sword. It wasn't even his occasionally swollen pride.

Nope. He made his own sword so that no one could laugh at it.

You see, Rin's sword isn't like many others. The favoured blade of Errion is the strong, sturdy broadsword - it's been that way for as long as anyone can remember. Occasionally you'll find a looted Skerabian sabre or some strange hybrid sword from immigrant blacksmiths out of the south, but for the most part Errion sticks to its roots. The broadsword is a nasty thing - some weighing up to nearly 40 kilos and requiring massive amounts of strength to swing, relying on the force of the wielder to smash the enemy's skull in, or drive its pointed end through some vulnerable orifice.

And Rin's too much of a weed to lift one. He can't help it - he's tall and skinny by default, and not even his wicked speed can make up for his lack of beef. Like me, he denied that he was entirely useless, until a similar sort of public humiliation convinced him he needed to try another tack.

Rather than following me and sticking to withering words, Rin decided that if he wouldn't fit the sword, he'd fit the sword to him. And thus Whisper came, hissing and spitting, from the blacksmith's forge.

Whisper is longer and thinner than your average blade, made using a technique I unashamedly pinched from the Japanese katana makers - folding the metal over on itself to make it light, but hard. With a little adaption and some suspense-of-belief that comes with fantasy, the resulting sword allows for its wielder to use his speed to his advantage, before darting in at the last second to either slice the foe's head off with the sharp edges or drive the point up his nose. Cleaving in skulls is somewhat beyond his repertoire, but anyone who taunts him for it will soon find Whisper's point worryingly close to their own nasal cavities. That usually puts them off very quickly.

Even Errion's neighbour and arch-nemesis-for-a-reason-that-no-one-really-remembers, the wild nation of Skatha, has its own take on Swordlore. To the south, Errion's many trading and diplomatic partners hold their own views on the use and creation of swords. Even the desert nation of Skerabia hold some respect for them, though bows, spears, poisons and even the occasional vegetable are their preferred weapons of choice. But, strangely, only Errion and Skatha hold to the importance of naming the swords.

Swords in Errion have all manner of strange names. Part of Swordlore is that the weapon's name should tell the observer something about the nature of the blade and, by extension, something about the owner. Whisper was named for its size, its speed, and ability to scare the heebies out of people unexpectedly - much like Rin, if you catch him in one of his moods. A pair of brothers in his company have given their two swords the collective name of the Wicked Sisters (though the names of the actual swords are somewhat less exciting). A man who is known to the gang as Awkward called his Blunder, because he liked the match, and the blade itself is somewhat less than attractive due to a small mishap in the forging process. Even Rin's unpleasant little dagger, which was made using the leftover steel from Whisper, has become known semi-affectionately as Hiss.

And does anyone remember Florien? Well, believe it or not, Mr Run-and-Hide does have a sword - and he knows (vaguely) how to use it! As he didn't actually make the blade, though, he has no real right to name it, but Rin and his company - witty and wonderful as they are - decided to use it as a means to poking fun at their favourite tagalong and have saddled it with the name Hearthwarmer. I'll leave you lovely people to work out the logic behind that one.

What about you, dear readers? Has boring research ever lead you down tangents that would later become rather crucial parts of the story? Is there any particularly fun piece of lore from your own settings and stories you would like to share?

- Charley R

36 comments:

  1. Aha! You've been bitten by the sword-bug! Welcome to the club! I have to say, though, my favoritest bit of research has been into hats. You wouldn't believe all the lovely styles and variations of hats out there, and how placing different ones on different characters suddenly sets them apart in a way that differing colors of hair could never do.

    You should try it sometime :)

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    1. Yes, I do like my swords.

      Hats! Now there's a plan, who wants to .... gawdangit, they've all run off! Come on guys, I've done worse to you! Get back here! I don't blame Rin, orange may not go with a hat, but the rest of you? No excuse!

      Heehee, I most certainly shall ... once I've coaxed this lot out of their hiding places xD

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    2. (psst - Sarah popps in - Florien over here!)

      *giggles* I don't know what they find wrong with hates. *grins*

      (hehe I'm horribel popping in on the otehr coversations as if I have something to so... I jsut hope someone finds me amusing *grin*)

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    3. Hehe, funnily enough, I reckon I might be able to persuade Florien into hats ... unless it's his dreaded cushion hat xD

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  2. I first heard of the technique of folding metal over to make stronger swords from the book Forging the Sword (gasp) by Hilari Bell. It's part of a larger trilogy that isn't the best, but it had a few rather interesting concepts. Including the sword-forging one.
    I wouldn't think that a blacksmith would grow attached to the swords he makes unless he put abnormal amounts of energy into them. If you think about it, those blokes are spitting out a couple swords per week, and you don't really have time to get affectionate before some bash-and-whacker is off flaying someone to bits with it. I think the practice of naming the swords is good, however, and I loved your little tangent about Ulfbjorn.

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    1. Hehe, I raided the Japanese technique because I know it worked in real life, then I messed around with it so now it probably wouldn't, but because it's based on fact I can reassure myself it might, lol.

      Ah, fair dos about the blacksmithery ... one might even grow to hate the bloody things if you did enough of them. Unless you enjoyed what you do ... I'd probably still get peeved if some nitwit kept coming back asking for a new one every other week, when I knew for a fact I'd already sold him a bloody sword. Though it would keep you in business. Unless he always blamed the incidents of sword breakage on you :P

      Hehe, I'm sure Ulfbjorn would appreciate that ... if he were real ... which he may well have been in some distant piece of history ... :P

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    2. There's a reason Scouts (The miitary of Vervell) must pay for replacement swords, even if they are made by Scout Blacksmiths.

      I suspect it takes a lot more work to to make a sword than it does to make leather armor... I should probably go research that. :}

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  3. Ok. From the little that I know of Rin, I now feel like I should be rather terrified of the fact that he is in possession of a sword D:

    But OH! on a completely unrelated note - I can help with the hat side of things, that Farjag suggested ;P Random likes hats. Infact, she has a leopard print trilby that would most definitely look rather fabulous. Or we could try the stripey purple and pink one that is currently on in the mail, as we speak. *evil smirk*

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    1. LOL, probably should be. He insists he knows what he's doing with the thing, and to be honest he probably does ... just not all the time. Or how appropriate said sword's use is in some more *ahem* delicate situations :P

      Eeee, those sound like wonderful hats! I know I could never get away with them - I hardly own any hats at all, save those that spare my white-ness from the glare of the sun. Perhaps I should use the excuse of "research" to amend this.

      Also, ready your hats for experimentation ... I think I just saw someone move under that sofa....

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  4. Yeah, swords are a staple of fantasy and making them original objects...is hard. Sounds like you've got it down though!

    I enjoy writing dystopian and I have come to realize that weapons are some of the most difficult aspects because, obviously, I have no idea what will be used to kill things in the future. That leaves it up to my speculation and imagination, which is fine by me. I was searching for original-sounding weapons when I came across boomerangs. I love boomerangs (keep one on my bookshelf) but I didn't realize that boomerangs can be quite handy weapons. Therefore the practice of Aegis was born.

    In regard to Japanese sword craftsmanship...have you seen The Last Samurai?

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    1. IN regards to bommerangs - have you seen Xena's Chakram? apparently it's a thrown weapon from India... who knew. :)

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    2. Yes! I loved The Last Samurai - pretty cool film, irregardless of Tom Cruise's presence, lol.

      I write a bit of dystopian, but fantasy is my passion - and hence the swords, lol. I snuck a katana into my last dystopian, though it was rather ousted by the character's preferred semi-automatic and very temperamental rifle, lol.

      Boomerangs eh? I've never been much good at throwing one - tried it out when I lived in Australia, couldn't get the wretched thing to come back xD - but the idea of having them as primary weapons is fascinating!

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    3. @ C.R. Tom Cruise. Who is he? ;P No, that was Capt. Nathan Algren––NOT Cruise. The Last Samurai is one of my favorite films. Soundtrack: Hans Zimmer. Setting: Turn-of-the-century Japan. =: A beautiful film. SPOILERS: I loved Katsumoto and I actually liked the fact that the Samurai didn't win the battle. It wasn't a generic victory film and that made me appreciate it.

      And I'm minorly obsessed with 'rangs. ;)

      @ C.L. Nope, never heard of such a thing. Will check it out, though. Thanks for the tip!!

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    4. I know, I know - Cruise was playing him (he's he actor), and I can usually tell he's not really into the character, but this time around I didn't care.

      YES! Oh my gosh, that last sequence with the samurai chargin was so beautiful. I cried all over the place. Katsumoto was epic incarnate ... and the emperor was pretty cool in the last bit with the scheming guy - "then kill yourself!" "but..." "didn't think so." - very bad paraphrasing, but you get the point xD

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    5. The gatling guns...That's where I cried too. And when Katsumoto's son, Nobutada, sacrificed himself on the bridge. I NEVER cry in films, but I did in this one. It's a fantastic story.

      Katsumoto: Perfect... They are all... perfect...

      Emperor Meiji: Tell me how he died.
      Algren: I will tell you how he lived.

      D;

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    6. Oh, have you seen Cruise in Knight and Day? Or MI: 4? OR Far and Away? I personally LOVE Far and Away.

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    7. Far and Away is probably the best Tom Cruise film, I've seen. I even saw the tiny stone cottage he and Penelope stayed in while they were filming in Ireland... or was the cottage used int he film... I forget. We only saw it form a distance, but it was cool. All of what we saw in Ireland was cool. *grins*

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    8. Aubrey: All those scenes. Oh gods I WEPT when Nobutada died! *snuffle snuffle* And, like you, I rarely cry in films.

      Knight and Day, I thought, was rather plotless and pretty rubbish aside from some rather good action sequences. Haven't seen Far and Away ... should I?

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  5. So I'm one of the crazy people that loves the research part of writing. I jus tlove leraning about cool stuff. It's given me the excuse to go solo (aka sans hubby and kids) to reeneactments with her to see what life was like. I failed miserably at the last one to learn anything about field cooking, but maybe this year.

    I also tried to make a cheeese and beer bread, as my protagonist did (used a wood stove oven instead of the hearth though) and it was a flop. Apparenly there was good reason to split the circular loaf in four - It would have actually cooked. *sigh*

    Well strange to say it but my research into medieval torture devices came in handy. Not only did my antagonist start telling me how he'd use it *shudders* but I was able to describe it through my protagonists eyes who had no idea what it was called or what it was for. There was one particular instrument, I'd have never thought of, that got used to great effectiveness against the antagonist at the end of the book. *grins*

    The other side track that I love doing is Maps and clothing. I have way more books on the history of costume than I need, and I've read them cover to cover and highlighted the ones I'd like to make for myself some day. :}

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    1. Haha, you and your research. I often make things up as I go along because I get so involved in the story I don't want to stop for research, but I think I'm getting better at setting myself up before launching in now - especially as I rarely have time to write, now, so a bit of worldbuilding here and there is all I can do :P

      Maps ... well, you know what I'm like with maps. I should probably pay more attention to clothing than I do, lol xD

      As for torture devices ... the villain from Sorrowsong might inspire me to go hunting those. Gyech. Not looking forward to that *shudders*

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    2. I can give you my notes. (With or without Wholawski commentary.) :}

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    3. Can I have them with? Just for giggles xD

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    4. Ceratinly just remind via e-mail and I'll send them over. It should also contain a link to the site I visited to get the information. :}

      And are you sure you mean giggles... not shudders? Thankfully I cut off some of his most horrible stuff.

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    5. Wheeoo! Looking forward to it!

      And yes, I do mean giggles. Because I know I have a pair of tall nastily-inclined persons who are currently giving him a taste of his own medicine in one said email. Good thing Vi's there, really. Sephy would do horrible horrible things for the sake of his own amusement xD

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  6. I like swords.
    But Defiance was NaNo 2010, not 2009. Sky Full Of Stars was 09 and you didn't do it that year. Stop lying, beastie!

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    1. Ah, true that. LE DERP! Sorry - time and I have never been terribly compatible :P

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    2. LOL I should have caught that. We've both done the same number of NaNo's, Charley. :} And all because of the same person, Miriam... *grins*

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    3. WOOP! Yup, it's all down to me. Mwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

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    4. I hereby blame you for all NaNo related madness since forever xD

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  7. I've always kind of thought it would be neat to learn fencing, that way I could actually see what it's really like to sword fight, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my experience would be much the same as yours if someone placed a long, pointy blade in my hand. And besides, I'd probably just end up maiming either myself or everyone around me. ;)

    But anyway, it sounds like you've done an amazing job with the worldbuilding of your trilogy - everything's so detailed, I love it! Fabulous work!

    I don't think I can really join in on the lore of my story, since it's contemporary and therefore doesn't really have any lore. ;) But I agree with you - sometimes, research will lead you to things that you never even imagined could be so essential to your plot! It's pretty awesome, actually. ;)

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    1. Haha, I'd only be useful with a sword if I was in the middle of the enemy. 1 - I can't lift the sword and wouldn't be able to damage my allies, and 2 - if I ever did lift the sword, my immediate vicinity would probably be a killing ground. Pointy objects that require co ordination have never been my strong suit, lol.

      Thanks! I'm having lots of fun working it all out anyway :)

      Yeah, it really is :)

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    2. YES! If you were surrounded by enemies and you only had to pick up the sword and swing it around, then maybe I could see myself surviving. Otherwise, I'd no doubt die in the first few seconds of combat as I worked to pull my long and heavy sword from its scabbard. xD

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    3. Hehe, I'd be hacked to bits before I could move ... unless I ran away. I can run very very fast when unencumbered and given sufficient motive. Dropping sword to flee horde of murderous enemies would probably provide both of those nicely xD

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    4. Personally, I think I'd be like a cheetah - good for short bursts. Unlike a cheetah, however, I doubt anyone watching would consider me speedy. xD Of course, having said horde of murderous enemies on my tail could potentially change that... ;)

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    5. Definitely. I'm only fast under great duress, lol!

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