Where the heck did the siangham come from?

[Henrix]

There is another real-world weapon similar to siangham used in some forms of wushu/kung fu, a 30cm long stick with small spearheads at both ends and a finger ring.

The name "siangham" is not remotely similar to any name I have seen for them.
"Double needles", emei (or o-mei) piercers/daggers/needles (Emei Ci in chinese) are the most common names for them.
The main use would seem to have been that they are easily concealable and possibly not recognizable as weapons.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

No historical or real world evidence for this but my assumption was that it was pretty much an arrow being used as a melee weapon. Imagine the archer getting caught up in close quarters combat and just pulling the nearest and most expendable weapon he has to hand (don't want to damage the bow!) After that someone decided to make a bigger, heavier version - still fits nicely into the quiver but is there purely for the off chance that the archer needs to turn to melee. It just seemed an appropriate weapon for the Zen archer to pull at the last minute.

 

[blargney the second]

 

[wingsandsword]

In my group, we removed siangham entirely from the game, since almost our entire group has significant martial arts training and experience, and none of us had ever heard of such a weapon. We replaced the Siangham with two things.

We removed it from the Monk weapon proficiency list and replaced it with Greatclub (to represent daito bokken), and replaced siangham in the Flurry of Blows weapons list (since it was on the base weapons prof list) with Club (for the jo, hanbo and shoto bokken). It has worked very well for us.

 

[Klaus]

I wrote up several monk weapons for www.fierydragon.com , in the Dragon's Breath feature.

Here's what they look like:

 

[Janx]

I too have no clue what a siangham is.

But I do know what chuks and sais are.

Nunchuks as I recall were invented by Bruce Lee and are not a "real weapon" At least not in the sense of being an ancient oriental weapon

Sais were based on farming implements. I've not seen a means to use them as such myself, though I could imagine them being akin to a pitchfork head. As I was told, they were used in the field (but not as pitchforks).

Sais are not "sword-breakers" I've seen dueling daggers with the blade catchers, which sais could be used in a similar sense. Go watch Elektra for a couple of scenes where she uses them. They work well for fore-arm blocks, stabbing, trapping weapons, plus a few other creative uses.

Personally, I'm not that good with sais. I'm better with jo, bo and tonfa, but there's probably a bunch out there better than myself with them.

And stay away from anything that has a bendy bit, such as nunchuks and segmented staff. Those things hurt.

Janx

 

[sjmiller]

Nunchuks as I recall were invented by Bruce Lee and are not a "real weapon" At least not in the sense of being an ancient oriental weapon

Sorry, but I have to stomp this myth into the dirt so it does not come up again. Nunchuku are much older than Bruce Lee. They are based on a simple rice-threshing flail. It is used to help remove the rice from the grass on which it grows. Yes, rice is kind of a glorified grass seed.

Anyway, if I dig around some of my ancient history texts I can find you pictures of rice-threshing flails that date back several thousand years. It is easy to see how this agricultural tool became a weapon, just as it is easy to see how the European grain-threshing flail became a weapon.

 

[dvvega]

The closest I've come to a siangham is a derivation of an Indonesian word Siang which means to cut open/gut a fish/meat.

So maybe they're being a bit jokey? Siang HAM

 

[olethros]

"Double needles", emei (or o-mei) piercers/daggers/needles (Emei Ci in chinese) are the most common names for them.
The main use would seem to have been that they are easily concealable and possibly not recognizable as weapons.

Actually, they were orginally designed to be worn while swimming. The streamlined design prevents drag and the finger-ring allows you to swim without worrying about droping your weapon.

 

[ARandomGod]

ISais were based on farming implements. I've not seen a means to use them as such myself, though I could imagine them being akin to a pitchfork head. As I was told, they were used in the field (but not as pitchforks).

I believe they're modified spades. In a pinch one could use a real spade similiarly.