I'm building a campaign setting and in this world, the various races all have alternate cultures (elves are asiatic, predominantly chinese, dwarves are russian, gnomes/halflings are german, three flavors of human, roman, irish, egyptian, orcs are middle-eastern, and then the other monstrous humanoids like goblins, kobolds, gnolls, ogres, etc., adhere to their more traditional fantasy cultures), and I wanted to include weapon variants for the stock MM statistics used to represent NPCs (like elven guards might use Dao, Tekkan, or Sasumata as opposed to longsword, mace, or halberd, whereas orc carvaneers would typically use shotel, khopesh, and katar, as opposed to shortswords, axes, and daggers, etc.) of the various regions more accurately, so I decided to start making a list that would compile a wide variety of weapons from various cultures, and try to tie them in to the weapons table as best I could. But there are quite a few weapons that are close, but don't quite fit right. Sooo, I figured I'd ask people's opinions on here as to what they think are appropriate equivalents and for weapons that don't have equivalents, what would be appropriate rules regarding their use. Without further rambling, here is the list in no particular order.
Ankus – dagger (more accurately described as a pick, used to train elephants, hindu)
Kukri – dagger (angled dagger, similar to machete but short)
Khyber Knife – dagger (curve-bladed stabbing knife from the middle east)
Kama – dagger (dagger with handle perpendicular to blade)
Tanto – Dagger (yay tac-knives)
Bagh Naja – Dagger (hindu tiger claws)
Emeici – Dagger (imagine a double arrow dagger, but the arrow shafts are metal)
Katar – Dagger (punching dagger)
Jitte – club (a blunt dagger-like weapon)
Tambo – club (a short staff)
Tonfa – club (night-stick)
Boomerang – light hammer (non-returning kind of boomerang common in north-central Australia)
Pinuti – Short Sword (simple saber like design, straight blade, ~22 inches long in total)
Hudie Shuangdao – Short Sword (butterfly swords, wide blades)
Moplah – (wide double bladed short sword, large handle, consider making versatile, hindu-muslim weapon)
Patag – short sword (hindu-asian straight bladed short sword)
Shotel – scimitar (significantly curved compared to scimitar)
Shuang Gou – rapier (for damage and finesse property only, consider adding light since they were designed to be wielded in pairs)
Dao – Longsword (Chinese longsword)
Talwar – Longsword (middle eastern, non versatile)
Jian – Rapier (Chinese thin, thrusting sword)
Zhanmadao – Great Sword (giant Dao)
Panabas – battle axe (muslim and asian cultures used it, weird shape, used like an axe)
Khopesh – handaxe (Egyptian sickle sword that evolved from battle axes)
Guandao – Glaive (large bladed Chinese polearm)
Uchigatana – Longsword (successor to the tachi, precursor to the katana)
Odachi – Greatsword (giant katana)
Nagamaki – Greatsword (or glaive, not particularly sure on this one)
Naginata – Glaive (katana on the end of a pole)
Ge – Halberd (the dagger axe)
Yueyachan – Spear? (monk’s spade, Chinese polearm)
Feng Huo Lun – Dagger (Wind and Fire Rings, melee version of chakrams)
Chakram – Dart (middle eastern thrown weapon)
Suburito – Warhammer (like the bokken, but heavier “blade” portion makes it more effective)
Kanabo – warhammer (but kind of looks like a greatclub)
Bokken – greatclub (consider adding finesse, wooden sword)
Tekkan – greatclub (it’s a cudgel, shaped like a tachi, made of metal)
Tsukubo – Maul (not really many appropriate polearms, decided maul was best)
Eku – Maul (think if you weaponized oars)
Chui – Maul (instead of a flat head it’s a metal sphere)
Sasumata – Halberd (forked blade, thought trident, not good fit)
Sodegarami – Halberd (very similar to a halberd, more “ornate” blade but very similar)
Some weapons I’m not so sure how to adequately represent:
Kusarigama, Chigiriki (similar enough to the chang xiao bang/two-section staff), Kyoketsu-Shoge, liuxing chui (meteor hammer, surujin), panlong gun (similar to three section staff)
A lot of weapons have analogues on the weapon table (though my choices might not be particularly accurate), but there are some that aren’t quite great matches, and then others that have no weapons table analogue.
I want to, as much as possible, stick strictly to lumping “exotic” weapons (not exotic mechanically, I just mean not Eurocentric) together with their already extant counterparts, but some weapons really don’t have a good counter-part; Chigiriki for instance is basically a flail, but also a pole-arm, is it cool to give it flail damage but then just throw reach on it? What about the liuxing chui, it’s metal weights with chain between it, it’s basically the weapon the crazy 88’s schoolgirl from Kill Bill (and the runner chick from Battle Royale,
) uses (minus the saw blades obviously), what’s a good analogue for that? Do I just make it light hammers that return since they’re attached to a chain?
What do you guys think? What critiques do you have of this list?
Ankus – dagger (more accurately described as a pick, used to train elephants, hindu)
Kukri – dagger (angled dagger, similar to machete but short)
Khyber Knife – dagger (curve-bladed stabbing knife from the middle east)
Kama – dagger (dagger with handle perpendicular to blade)
Tanto – Dagger (yay tac-knives)
Bagh Naja – Dagger (hindu tiger claws)
Emeici – Dagger (imagine a double arrow dagger, but the arrow shafts are metal)
Katar – Dagger (punching dagger)
Jitte – club (a blunt dagger-like weapon)
Tambo – club (a short staff)
Tonfa – club (night-stick)
Boomerang – light hammer (non-returning kind of boomerang common in north-central Australia)
Pinuti – Short Sword (simple saber like design, straight blade, ~22 inches long in total)
Hudie Shuangdao – Short Sword (butterfly swords, wide blades)
Moplah – (wide double bladed short sword, large handle, consider making versatile, hindu-muslim weapon)
Patag – short sword (hindu-asian straight bladed short sword)
Shotel – scimitar (significantly curved compared to scimitar)
Shuang Gou – rapier (for damage and finesse property only, consider adding light since they were designed to be wielded in pairs)
Dao – Longsword (Chinese longsword)
Talwar – Longsword (middle eastern, non versatile)
Jian – Rapier (Chinese thin, thrusting sword)
Zhanmadao – Great Sword (giant Dao)
Panabas – battle axe (muslim and asian cultures used it, weird shape, used like an axe)
Khopesh – handaxe (Egyptian sickle sword that evolved from battle axes)
Guandao – Glaive (large bladed Chinese polearm)
Uchigatana – Longsword (successor to the tachi, precursor to the katana)
Odachi – Greatsword (giant katana)
Nagamaki – Greatsword (or glaive, not particularly sure on this one)
Naginata – Glaive (katana on the end of a pole)
Ge – Halberd (the dagger axe)
Yueyachan – Spear? (monk’s spade, Chinese polearm)
Feng Huo Lun – Dagger (Wind and Fire Rings, melee version of chakrams)
Chakram – Dart (middle eastern thrown weapon)
Suburito – Warhammer (like the bokken, but heavier “blade” portion makes it more effective)
Kanabo – warhammer (but kind of looks like a greatclub)
Bokken – greatclub (consider adding finesse, wooden sword)
Tekkan – greatclub (it’s a cudgel, shaped like a tachi, made of metal)
Tsukubo – Maul (not really many appropriate polearms, decided maul was best)
Eku – Maul (think if you weaponized oars)
Chui – Maul (instead of a flat head it’s a metal sphere)
Sasumata – Halberd (forked blade, thought trident, not good fit)
Sodegarami – Halberd (very similar to a halberd, more “ornate” blade but very similar)
Some weapons I’m not so sure how to adequately represent:
Kusarigama, Chigiriki (similar enough to the chang xiao bang/two-section staff), Kyoketsu-Shoge, liuxing chui (meteor hammer, surujin), panlong gun (similar to three section staff)
A lot of weapons have analogues on the weapon table (though my choices might not be particularly accurate), but there are some that aren’t quite great matches, and then others that have no weapons table analogue.
I want to, as much as possible, stick strictly to lumping “exotic” weapons (not exotic mechanically, I just mean not Eurocentric) together with their already extant counterparts, but some weapons really don’t have a good counter-part; Chigiriki for instance is basically a flail, but also a pole-arm, is it cool to give it flail damage but then just throw reach on it? What about the liuxing chui, it’s metal weights with chain between it, it’s basically the weapon the crazy 88’s schoolgirl from Kill Bill (and the runner chick from Battle Royale,
) uses (minus the saw blades obviously), what’s a good analogue for that? Do I just make it light hammers that return since they’re attached to a chain?What do you guys think? What critiques do you have of this list?
