The Fantasy Armory · Chapter 5
Daggers and Knives
Knives are the cheapest weapons in the book and, together with the fist weapons in Chapter 4, the only ones a character can carry everywhere. They buy access rather than damage: through a gate, past a guard, into a room where weapons are not permitted.
Four qualities carry the family. Concealable hides the weapon. Pierce finds the gap that a knife's small damage could not otherwise exploit. Bleed keeps a shallow wound working after the exchange. Fragile is what the cheapest entries trade away to be cheap.
Damage is 3 throughout, the lowest tier in the book. No knife here threatens an armoured opponent.
Skill: All entries use Light Melee. At tables using a single undifferentiated Melee skill, use Melee throughout.
Shiv
Shank, Prison Knife, Sharpened File, Improvised Blade
+1 3 Engaged 0
Light Melee 20 Common Thrusting Concealable 2, Inaccurate 1, Fragile 2
A ground-down spoon, a sharpened file, a shard of pot bound in rag. It hides better than anything else in the book and it is not built to survive the fight it starts.
Fragile 2: this weapon breaks outright on a Calamity.
Knife
Belt Knife, Seax, Bowie Knife, Puukko, Kaiken
+1 3 Engaged 1
Light Melee 40 Common Thrusting, Cutting —
An eating knife, a belt knife, a tool that happens to cut people. Almost every character owns one and it is almost never the reason a fight goes well.
Dagger
Dirk, Kris, Tanto, Jambiya, Poignard
+1 3 Engaged 1
Light Melee 70 Common Thrusting, Cutting Pierce 1, Concealable 1
Purpose-built for fighting rather than for work. The narrow point is what separates it from a knife, and Pierce is what that point buys.
Stiletto
Misericorde, Rondel Dagger, Stylet, Bodkin
+1 2 Engaged 1
Light Melee 90 Restricted Thrusting Concealable 2, Pierce 1, Fragile 1
No edge at all, only a point. It goes through a seam in a jack or a gap in a visor, and it goes through nothing else. Crit 2 is the lowest in the family and the reason people carry one.
Punch Dagger
Katar, Push Dagger, Jamadhar, Trench Knife
+1 3 Engaged 1
Light Melee 80 Restricted Thrusting Pierce 2, Concealable 1, Awkward 1
The blade sits perpendicular to a transverse grip, so the whole arm drives it. Pierce 2 is the best armour penetration available at this weight. It cannot parry, and it is clumsy the moment the fight becomes a grapple.
Serrated Knife
Flensing Knife, Gutting Knife, Sawback Blade, Skinning Knife
+1 3 Engaged 1
Light Melee 70 Restricted Cutting Bleed 1, Vicious 1
A flensing or gutting blade, toothed along the back. It does not kill quickly. It makes the wound keep working after the exchange has moved on, and it forces someone to spend an action on treatment.
Main-Gauche
Sai, Jitte, Parrying Dagger, Left-Hand Dagger, Swordbreaker
+1 3 Engaged 1
Light Melee 90 Military Thrusting, Cutting Defensive 1, Disarming 1
A left-hand blade with a heavy guard and forward-swept quillons, built to catch and bind rather than to kill. Carried opposite a rapier by anyone who expects to be fenced at rather than swarmed.
