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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 8811856" data-attributes="member: 6779310">Not daggers, per se, but small weights, or an animal's vertebra, have historically been documented.  It's a method for making lashes much more bloody.  But it's not used on the long whips.Japanese weapon-on-a-chain type weapons are known, but actual use of them in battle isn't something I've seen documented. The best known is the kusurigama, documented to have been used off the battlefield, but not on it. A number of Japanese weapons have interesting "this isn't the same thing as the prohibited thing it looks so much like"....Scaling error... but people have used antlers as weapons historically and pre-historically. And as tools - mining picks.Mercurial swords are rumored to be an 18th C attempt to improve swords. SCAers attempting to create them have found them pretty much worthless at increasing the impact force. There are documented surviving metal bead swords, as well... but that's not much better.Yup. Total ignorance.There are, however, a few instruments that have been used as defensive and/or last resort weapons...The military fife is a open-hole closed end transverse flute. Some are metal (often copper, brass, or bronze), some are wood with metal findings on the ends. Most musicians weren't targeted, but when they were, they often would defend initially with instrument, and a fife sized baton is a decent parrying weapon and force concentrator. The drummer's drumstick, likewise.There are some stories about steel Fue (foo-ay)... the fue being just a tube with particularly placed holes.  A sufficiently strong person could easily use that 2-3 foot long Any others are unlikely to survive such use.Scots humor at its best. It's been rumored as long as the Caber Toss has been a thing that some Scotsman tossed a log into an English formation. No evidence that it actually happened. That said, a sufficiently strong individual could do so and disrupt a formation. It's plausible, but not documentable. And, due  to the nature of the wounds it would cause, would not look like battle injury, but a logging one. Hence not provable.The historical multi-bladed european weapon I've seen written about  is  a parrying dagger in the 18" range - the border of short sword vs dagger- the additional blades are 30° off from the central, and only about 10".The Madu isn't technically a sword, but it's a buckler with a dagger down the bottom and another out the top; traditional indian versions used horns, not blades. SCA use shows it to be practical, but not a great primary weapon. Sword and Madu put a few blokes on the Principal thrones of Oertha. The Maduvu form lacks the shield, and is essentially a handle with antelope horns opposed directions. I've been tempted to make one for SCA fencing. Both Madu and Maduvu are documented.The big issue isn't the accidental discharge, but having enough force out of it to go any distance at all...The historical closest equivalent is a gun-sword. The hilt has barrels that fire along the blade. They were impractical, especially since the era of availability was percussion cap era, and muzzle loading....You don't need a special one - just cooperating weather and a big enough bow. Not terribly effective, tho'.Having been hit in the shoulder with a falling icicle in the 20 lb range... hurts. A couple guys from school took icicles to the head resulting in serious concussions, so plausible, but unlikely, an it's going to be a blunt weapon.That said, I have seen a kid stab another kid in the hand with an icicle. Both left school... one to the ER, the other to the youth incarceration facility.Pretty easy - Gunpowder's not terribly easily pressure triggered. (If it were, automatic weapons wouldn't be possible, and Gatling's gun goes back to before the USCW.... pre-1862) But wind that cord around a striker wheel pressed against a flint, and those sparks ARE hot enough to start the deflagration. The real issue is that it should spill, and won't have useful high mass.</blockquote>

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