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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 8217217" data-attributes="member: 6779310">Mercurial swords are a thing that has existed in the real world. They weren't terribly effective. The idea was to have the weight back at the hilt end when en garde, but out towards the forte when swung. The mercury channel was hard to forge, introduced a lot of weaknesses, and are a historical footnote. Two bladed swords also existed...  in the poorly documented (but still, documented) post-crusade forms of the Madu - a short-sword/long knife sticking up from and down from a conjoined hilt  which also carries a shield, usually a round or small oval. The Madu doesn't require much armor to be used effectively.It's mostly a parrying weapon - it can parry for as much of the body as a full-sized heater can block, but at half (or less) the mass, and adding the stabbing potential both front and back.  Note that the African and Indian original versions usually used horns, not swords, and could have more than one in each direction. It may have been parallel development in those two locations.Shotput vs Rock:  Rock: 2 to 3 kg per liter. Iron ball 6 to 7.8 kg per liter. Penetration and bone breaking are about energy density per unit area; a round rock has about twice the contact area of the same weight iron ball, which also means a lot less real world chance to break bones with that stone. also note... at roughtly 3x the density, the diameter of the iron ball is roughly 70% that of the rock. Plus, that ball is known to everyone but orcs as a cannonball.Most of the rest? Yeah... that said, a long socket bayonet could be drilled out for use as a fife...Also, the military instruments of most of history are...Straight Trumpets (going back <3000 years), later,  bugles (literally just a trumpet in an oval) and other curved tube trumpets, sackbut/trombone, coach hornHorn trumpets from just about every kind of horned beast's horn as far back as recorded history goes. (The shofar wasn't just a religious implement)Fifes (which are, largely, just a tube with finger holes; if its got keys, it's a piccolo, not a fife) in 6 to 18 inch versions. Bone, Wood, cast metal, rolled metal. Some were mixed media. I've gotten to play a horn-jointed ebony fife with copper inset ringsWhistles (recorders, tin whistles, bone whistles), and bowl-whistles (including the bosun's/boatswain's whistle)Drums - simple toms and congas, later snare drums, and carried tenor, bass, and great base drums. Marching congas are a real thing, but damned hard on the wrist on the side it hangs on.Later medieval, we get the tone bells - which are a standard of marching bands still. (barred percussion)Nothing with valves until the renaissance. Some tumpets/horns had tuning slides; I forget when the trumpets became rounded into the coach horn style, but it was early; proper "oval" trumpets allowed for crooks/slides to adjust tuning, and then the sackbut developed its tuning crook into a proper slide, allowing total pitch control. (Technically, it's not a trombone unless it has a valve with at least once crook, but the distinction isn't made much except by historians.)Fifes, whistles, drums and trumpets were in fact used on the field for signalling from the earliest days up to WW I, and used occasionally in WW II. Of those military instruments, the fife could actually make for a decent bayonet...  provided it's a socket bayonet. Just drill the tone and finger holes into the socket... be a bit heavy, but reasonable. A trumpet could be used as an improvised spear, provided the mouthcup is separate... the end can do some real damage.  As long as you don't crimp the tube, a bent or dented trumpet still plays reasonably well. (I've repaired a few dozen...  it takes a serious ding to impact the sound in any but the tiniest ways in the main register.)</blockquote>

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