The Black Powder Armory ยท Chapter 1
Introduction
A modern firearm fires until something goes wrong. A black powder firearm fires once.
You get one shot. What you do next is the weapon.
That single fact shapes every fight from 1400 to the 1880s. Nobody reloads a flintlock pistol with a cutlass coming at them. They drop it and draw another, or they reverse it and use the butt, or they have a blade in the other hand already. This book is built so that the turn after the shot is the interesting one.
What You Should Expect
A reload measured in maneuvers. Every muzzle-loader carries Prepare: the number of maneuvers it takes to load again. A hand gonne is Prepare 4. A flintlock is Prepare 2. A breechloader is Prepare 1. A revolver fires six times first.
A brace of pistols. Drawing a second loaded pistol costs a maneuver. Reloading the first costs two. Chapter 5 is written for characters who carry four.
Misfires. Flint and match are Unreliable. Rain stops a matchlock outright.
Smoke. Every shot makes a cloud that says where it came from, and a broadside of muskets below decks blinds everyone.
Blades that matter. Chapter 10 has the boarding pike and the bayonet, and a table of which Fantasy Armory entry is a cutlass.
Armour in retreat. Chapter 11 covers what was still worn, and why the rest was put away.
Three Periods
| Period | Years | The fight looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Match and wheel | 1400 to 1650 | Pike blocks, arquebusiers, armoured horsemen with pistols |
| Flint and sail | 1650 to 1840 | Line infantry, boarding actions, highwaymen, duels |
| Cap and cartridge | 1840 to 1938 | Revolvers, repeaters, the frontier, and at the very end the trenches |
Every entry prints the first period it is found in. A GM running pirates in 1715 uses the first two periods and strikes the third.
Using This Book in Your Universe
The names are generic. A Brown Bess and a Charleville are one stat line.
Fantasy worlds with gunpowder use the first period, or the first two, alongside The Fantasy Armory and The Armourer. Chapter 11 has the rule for old armour against new guns.
The damage scale is the one in The Modern Armory. A musket ball and a rifle bullet both do 8. What separates them is what happens before the next shot.
What You Need
The Exodus NDS core rules.