Fantasy and LitRPG books love to start out with the main character having a basic weapon. They carry a sharp sword or axe to defend themselves from a threat, but as the story progresses they unlock something way cooler. The magical weapon they unlock can do amazing elemental attacks or poison damage beyond just the normal slashing damage.
But one of the things I’m seeing more and more is that the magical sword forgets that it is actually a sword. It will cast lightning like a wand and strike with blunt damage like a hammer, but it stops cutting anything. It will even stop parrying and blocking like a sword and becomes almost a big steel pipe attached to a battery.
This may seem like a petty thing, but it will ruin a lot of simple reading experiences for a lot of readers. It likely won’t be enough to drive the readers away completely, but it will risk pulling them out of the story. That is one of the last things we as authors want, so let's talk about how to avoid it.
One of the most common times I see this issue is when an author is trying to show how powerful an enemy is. Taking several strikes from a magical weapon can make the enemy look super durable, but not letting the sword be a sword hurts your goal. If the sword slices through cloth or leather armor on the enemy, but doesn’t cut the skin, it actually shows their durability far better then just reacting like they were hit with a 2x4 or a pool noodle.
If you haven’t guessed, I’m a little bit of a weapons nerd, having studied several different forms of weapon arts during my life. The most amazing part of weapons is that every weapon was designed to do something specific and cause a unique reaction when you strike someone with it. I don’t recommend testing this out by yourself, but thanks to shows like “Forged in Fire” and people even more obsessed with weapons than me, YouTube already has videos of what happens.
We’ve already talked about blades like swords and knives, but I want to mention two more that I see misused all the time, axes and warhammers. Both get wildly misused in books and in Hollywood, so let me help you get them right. Take out your notepad or app and let's dive into it.
Axes were often a “mixed use” weapon that was often the weapon used by some of the poorer warriors in history. The vikings were an exception to this because axes were a vital tool on the sea and warfare. That being said, the axe was also a wildly effective weapon in combat and was favored by larger brawler type fighters. They were often used for two different types of strikes most commonly.
The first is simply called an axe punch and yes it’s that simple. The fighter holds the axe just under the head with the beard of the blade acting like a very sharp brass knuckle. If the axe was a good one, it could rip through armor and leather as the fighter put his weight behind the strike. This prevented the axe from getting stuck and made close quarters deadly to the enemy.
The second strike type is hook and slash. The flared shape of the axe head, especially bearded axes, were fantastic for hooking the lip of an enemy shield and pulling it down. After that, a slash at the throat or exposed arm is wide open. When fighting in shield walls, an axe wielder would often use this while paired with a spear wielder behind him to give his friend a clear strike.
The wide sweeping strikes you see in viking movies were actually considered very stupid. They were a quick way to get you killed if you missed or if your axe got stuck in your enemy, leaving you without a weapon. This meant that the wild strike would only be used in an execution strike that didn’t hold a major risk.
Now onto warhammers. These weapons weren’t considered good combat weapons until the 14th century, but were used in one form or another for several centuries before that. The mace and hammer often only had one use and were used by specialists.
The main use for blunt melee weapons was to deal with cavalry and heavily armored enemies. Often a single mace or hammer was given to the strongest of the force so that it could be used more than once. It would be used to strike helmets and chest plates to knock down armored foes so that they could be finished with knives through the weak points.
The biggest mistake with these weapons is the scaling. We often see them with anime scaling, making them actually weigh 10+ pounds. The actual size of a 5 pound hammer was the size of a small potato and is far heavier to wield in a swing multiple times over the course of a fight. In a lot of records, the hammer wielder would often have a hand axe on his belt that would come out after a few swings of the hammer, when it started to get too heavy.
Now that you’ve had a quick crash course on weapons and how they should act, go and get inspired for your next major fight scene. I can’t wait to read all of the wonderful scenes and stories you create. Good luck and enjoy the journey.
