Did the Witch King use a morning star or flail
 

If anyone has seen The Return of the King, near the end, the dark rider pulls out what looks like a morning star, yet the spiked ball is very huge, when compared to a 3' diameter m.s. So, what kind of weapon was it, and does it have to be used only in one or both hands?

Did it have a spiked ball? I thought it was more like a mace-head.

A really big mace-headed morning star.

Didn't look like a weapon a normal strength person would be able to use at all.

Bye
Thanee

It was a Flail designed after Saurons Mace. Sort of hard to describe here, I'll try to find a picture.

I always thought morning stars were on sticks, not flails anyway.

Edit:
An awesome minitaure of him...
http://www.futurespace.co.kr/wwwb/da..._Fellbeast.gif

And him showing off his huge flail
http://www.warofthering.net/photofor...Fiona6-med.JPG

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/mace

A morning star is a mace with a spiked ball attached to a short chain instead of the usual solid head. A morningstar is also often used to refer to a mace with a spiked head whether or not it is attached by chain.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/flail

BUT, a flail is considered a TYPE OF morningstar. Therefore, no matter what the answer to your question is, it was definitely a morningstar.

[edit] I am speaking here of the D&D Heavy Flail. The light flail is probably best considered to be the farming implement, in which case it is two sticks (of same or varying length depending on the grain) attached by cord or chain. Basically a nunchaku (which is simply derived from an Oriental grain flail)[end edit]

D&D long ago split these into different weapons even though they were way more similar than say a knife and a dirk which are both treated as "dagger". There's no turning back now.

I don't remember it's second weapon. The only thing that I have in my mind is that scene where you see the camera going down the chain of its flail. The flail is done in such a way that after the first part of it you think its over and I was already quite impressed but the camera continue to go down and reveal that huge second part.

Obviously that flail was not something the average hero could handle.

Sorry long post and not a real answer

Maces, m-stars, flails etc
 

ok. maybe u can help me clear up all the confusion. Im having a hard time classifying maces, morning stars and flails. (I will leave spiked chains out of this becuse those are self explanatory).
At first, I agreed with you that it was a mace, but let me say how I was told how each weapon differed.

Maces, from what I was told, are usually like staves, in that its a long metal pole, usually with a weight on one end of the stick (it can be any shape, but does not have spikes.) Also, like I said, maces are usually built with poles, not staves.

Morning stars, or atleast what I was told is that they usually come on a long chain, and at one end of the chain is a round shaped weight usually containing spikes(thus, thats why the damage is considered P/B)

Now comparing flails to m-stars is difficult b/c I dont know what the difference is, excpet that flails might have bigger weights at the end, but no spikes.

Now there are exceptions, as you stated above. Maybe they have combos like mace/m.stars, etc. This is an interesting convo, and everyone please give me their input to make some sense of this

Oh ok, thank you for that clarification.

Well, flail is probably more correct than morning star, since the latter is surely named after the spiked head (they come in mace-like forms without a chain (a mace is normally just a stick with a head attached to it) or in the flail-like forms with chain).

Flail comes from flailing and describes the way, the weapon (or agricultural tool, which evolved into a weapon of similar use) is handled, so it describes a weapon where the grip and the head are linked with a chain (or leather band).

I think there are two general types of flails, the ones that are like this weapon here, similar to the morning star with a shorter grip, a chain and a weight attached to it, and the ones that resemble the agricultural tool, with a longer stick and a shorter chain (or leather band) where a shorter stick is attached.

So it should be a war flail with a huge non-spikey mace-like head. :D

Bye
Thanee

I just had a quick look... the only way to describe it: BIG...

Flails generally have smaller (and/or elongated) heads relative to the chain and haft, while military flails usually have multiple heads.

Maces generally have a flanged head on a wooded or metal haft.

The term morningstar is used when describing one of two weapons: a mace-like weapon with a spiked head and (like the one used here) a hafted chain weapon with a spiked ball on the end.

And just to complicate things, this weapon is also sometimes referred to as a ‘mace and chain’…

Remember, some of these terms are modern ones, so…

My two cents... just use the stats for, and call it, a flail… (an almighty big one at that - at least one size up!)

As far as D&D rules are concerned, judging from the posted pictures, it's a Heavy Flail. Probably with a nice heft magical bonus, too.

Actually that's reverse. The definition of flail (motion) comes from the word flail (tool) (or more correctly flagellum or threshing tool which came from flagrum or whip)

A good example is also from Quentin Tarrantino's Kill Bill vol1. When Uma Thurman challenges Lucy Liu (o-ren-ishi), one her lackies (the chick with the school girl outfit) comes out weilding a morning. The only exception was her's was all chain (atleast 3 ft in length) and a small spiked ball attached to one end. So, I guess, you can consider that a morning star. The spiked balls vary? I guess depending on how big the spiked ball, it might be considered a flail.

I actually think that that girl's weapon would be closer in stats to a D&D spiked chain. No WAY that was 3 feet of chain, I'm thinking between 5 and 7 feet.

I'd say that the witch-king's weapon in the movie was a Large light flail that he was wielding with something like Monkey Grip.

Go-Go Yubari. In this page they actually call it a morningstar. Funny, I thought they were bolos.

Andargor

The weapon you describe from Kill Bill is an actual, real-world thing - called a manriki-gusari. That's a lengthof chain between ~4 feet logn and ~8 feet long, with a weight at one or both ends (and yes, the weight can be spiked, or not).

Calling it a "morning star" isn't accurate, it just shows the describer's nonfamiliarity with the arsenals of bygone days. ^_^

And I believe that it would be a "chain" according to D&D terminology, judging by its OA description and illos.

Going by 1e/2e weapon descriptions (which actually provided physical descriptions of the weapon; how nice!), the Witch-King's weapon is a flail, not a morningstar. The morningstar in D&D (or at least in AD&D) is basically an iron-headed, spiked club. The flail is the thing with the chain on it (and, in the interests of differentiating weapons somewhat, I'd probably go with Thanee's imagined distinction between the light and heavy flails).

Well, in all fairness the page cites it as a "morning star chain weapon"...so the describer isn't exactly giving it a definitive name. My guess is that he knew full-well that he didn't know what the heck it is. ;)

Yep. ^_^ I never meant to cast aspersions on that person's integrity - just point out that "X page calls it a morning star" doesn't make "morning star" a definitively-correct classification for the weapon in question. ^_^

FWIW, I agree - the Witch-King was wielding a heavy flail...

...

... a LARGE Heavy Flail, no less; got to love that epic feat "Wield Oversized Weapon" ... and if you don't think the leader of the Nazgul was definitely epic, then I just dunno what I can (civilly) say to you ... ^_^

Well my two cents is that its a heavy flail either monkey gripped or a large heavy flail using the epic feat mentioned above.

Sad thing is that as soon as I saw that film I thought to myself mmmm .... monkey-gripped heavy flailliscious...... mmmmmmm, drool.

D&D players often get the impression that a mace is a blunt weapon because that's how it's done in D&D - and way back in OD&D (or one of those old versions) a cleric couldn't wield a weapon that drew blood - and a mace was their typical weapon.

Real world maces vary a great deal.

From things like this:
http://www.psu.edu/ur/about/mace.jpg

To things like this:
http://eternal.oxonet.com/image/mace.jpg

Or even this (a typical flanged mace):
http://www.armsofvalour.com/miva/gra...1/mrl9593l.jpg
In D&D, where we're really worried about which specific weapons cause what kinds and amounts of damage, it's important to state that a mace does bludgeoning damage, while a morning star does piercing damage. In real life they weren't so picky. "So my mace has points and yours doesn't, big deal."

I think the term 'morning star' was used to mean both spiky mace (as it currently is in D&D) and spikey flail in different historical periods.


glass.