# Introduction

*The Black Powder Armory, Firearms, Blades, and Armour for Exodus NDS, 1400 to 1938. Source: https://exodusnds.com/sourcebooks/black-powder-armory/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.

<img class="framed" src="https://exodusnds.com/assets/sourcebook/black_powder_armory/black-powder-armory-loading.jpg">

## 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**.