# Impact Weapons
*The Fantasy Armory, Eighty Melee and Thrown Weapons for Exodus NDS. Source: https://exodusnds.com/sourcebooks/fantasy-armory/impact-weapons*
Impact weapons move the target, stun it, or transmit force through armour rather than trying to open it. Every entry is **Crushing** apart from the two that carry a spike.
**Knockdown**, **Disorient**, and **Concussive** are the family signature, and all three act on what the target can do next round rather than on its wound total. This is also the only family with a serious non-lethal option: **Stun Damage** sends a weapon's damage to strain instead of wounds.
Damage runs from 2 to 9, the widest spread of any family, and **Pierce** appears on most of the heavier entries.
**Skill:** Light Melee for the one-handed entries, Heavy Melee for the last three. At tables using a single undifferentiated Melee skill, use Melee throughout.
##### War Fan
Tessen, Iron Fan, Gunsen, Court Fan
+0
4
Engaged
0
Light Melee
50
Rare
Crushing
Concealable 2, Defensive 1, Disarming 1
Iron ribs, an iron guard plate, and just enough paper to make it look like the thing a courtier carries in summer. Closed it is a short bar of metal. Opened it will turn a blade.
It does almost no damage and is not trying to. **Defensive 1** is the same melee protection an arming sword gives, and **Concealable 2** is why the fan is in this book at all: it is the only weapon in the family a character can carry into an audience chamber, a temple, or a negotiation and set on the table in front of them.
##### Sap
Blackjack, Cosh, Slapjack, Sandbag
+1
4
Engaged
1
Light Melee
90
Restricted
Crushing
Stun Damage, Concealable 2, Disorient 1
A leather sock of lead shot or sand. It deals its damage to strain rather than wounds, so a target dropped by a sap wakes up later with a headache and a story. The only weapon in this book designed to leave someone available for questioning.
##### Cudgel
Club, Truncheon, Baton, Shillelagh, Billy Club
+2
4
Engaged
2
Light Melee
30
Common
Crushing
Disorient 1
A club, a truncheon, a table leg. It has no qualities worth the name and it is available absolutely everywhere, including inside buildings where weapons are not.
##### Quarterstaff
Bō, Jō, Gùn, Long Staff, Walking Staff
+2
5
Engaged
2
Light Melee
70
Military
Crushing
Defensive 1, Disarming 1, Guarded 1
Six feet of ash, gripped in two hands and used as much to bind and redirect as to strike. **Defensive 1** and **Guarded 1** together give the best melee protection in the family, and **Disarming 1** lowers the cost of stripping a weapon. Crit 5 is the worst in the book: the staff controls a fight rather than ending one.
##### Tonfa
Tuifa, Nightstick, Side-Handle Club, Mill Handle
+2
5
Engaged
1
Light Melee
50
Restricted
Crushing
Stun Damage, Guarded 1
A length of hardwood with a peg handle set at right angles a third of the way along. Held at the peg, the shaft lies flat against the forearm and the striking end comes out on the turn of the wrist.
Along the arm it covers, which is **Guarded 1**. **Stun Damage** sends everything it deals to strain, so a watch armed with tonfa fills cells rather than graves. Crit 5 is the design rather than a flaw: this is a weapon for people whose work continues after the fight ends.
##### Mace
Flanged Mace, Morning Star, Gada, Shestoper
+3
4
Engaged
2
Light Melee
160
Common
Crushing
Pierce 1, Knockdown
Flanged head, short haft, no edge to maintain. The baseline armour-beater and the weapon a sergeant hands out when the enemy is expected to be wearing metal.
##### Horseman's Hammer
Martel-de-Fer, Pick Hammer, Bec-de-Faucon Hammer
+3
3
Engaged
3
Light Melee
180
Rare
see profiles
Versatile, Knockdown
Hammer face
+3 Crushing
Knockdown
Back spike
+3 Thrusting
Pierce 1; loses Knockdown
A hammer on one side, a curved spike on the other, switched by turning the wrist. The face staggers a man in harness; the spike goes into the gaps once he has stopped moving. The cheapest weapon in the book that can change damage type mid-fight.
##### Flail
Military Flail, Ball-and-Chain, Nunchaku, Chain Mace
+3
3
Engaged
2
Light Melee
135
Military
Crushing
Wrapping, Knockdown, Inaccurate 1
A head on a short chain. The chain is the entire argument: it carries the head around a raised shield instead of into it. It is correspondingly difficult to place, and a poor choice against anyone who is not hiding behind something.
##### Great Club
Greatclub, Bludgeon, Ironwood Club, Warclub
+4
4
Engaged
5
Heavy Melee
40
Common
Crushing
Knockdown, Cumbersome 4, Awkward 1
A tree limb, a fence post, a shaped length of ironwood with the bark still on one side. Priced as Simple construction, because it is a stick, and it is the cheapest 7 damage anywhere in this book.
Everything else about it is bad. **Cumbersome 4** puts Bane on every swing made by a wielder below Might 4, Crit 4 means it rarely does anything clever, and there is no edge, no point, and no armour answer anywhere on the line. What there is is mass and **Knockdown**, available in any forest for the cost of cutting it down.
##### Maul
Great Hammer, War Maul, Kanabō, Tetsubō, Sledge
+5
4
Engaged
6
Heavy Melee
375
Rare
Crushing
Pierce 2, Knockdown, Cumbersome 5, Awkward 1
An iron-headed sledge on a four-foot haft, built for breaking gates, walls, and armoured men. At **9** it deals the highest damage in the book, and **Pierce 2** with **Knockdown** makes it the most direct answer to heavy armour.
The cost is everywhere else on the line: Crit 4, Enc 6, and **Cumbersome 5**, which requires Might 5 to wield without penalty.
##### War Pick
Bec de Corbin, Crow's Beak, Horseman's Pick, Zaghnal
+4
3
Engaged
3
Heavy Melee
260
Military
Thrusting, Crushing
Pierce 3, Awkward 1, Prepare 1
A bec de corbin: a narrow beak backed by a hammer, driven through armour by a two-handed swing. Pierce 3 is the highest in the book. It also buries itself in whatever it hits, and getting it back out is the Prepare cost.