Siangham real!

[Celebrim]

On the Lajatang issue, I'm increasingly convinced that the Draegar is the sole source of this weapon, and that the unsourced image in that text is the sole western reference to the weapon (or at least, the sole reference by which the word has entered the RPG lexicon). Further, I believe that Draegar has included the illustration based on an error. So far as he can tell, his source was describing the weapons used by the Chinese diaspora in Indonesia (possibly Kuntao) and was in fact describing the 'monk's spade' type weapon but either had incomplete knowledge of the weapon himself (having only heard about it) or else failed to properly communicate the description to Draegar. Even though the weapon is supposedly Indonesian/Malaysian, it's almost nothing like the rest of the weapons normally associated with Silat and doesn't appear to have evolved as a counter to such weapons.

The result has been something like a game of telephone; the recieved information is nothing like the original source.

Another possible origin is the Japanese Sasumata, with a similar miscommunication problem in describing it (several Malaysian/Indonesian weapons show Japanese influence, notably from the Sai). It's even possible that the 'Lajatang' is based on a garbled description of both weapons. In any event, I'm convinced that the 'Lajatang' is a fantasy weapon that entered the lexicon through errors in the Draegar text and has been replicated through the RPG community after its initial adoption.