The Fantasy Armory ยท Chapter 1
Introduction
The Problem
Exodus NDS stats a weapon with Damage, Critical, Range, Encumbrance, Price, Availability, and Special Qualities. That is a generous framework, and fantasy weapon lists almost never use it.
What happens instead is that a battleaxe and a greatsword end up separated by one point of damage, a mace and a sword by one point of critical rating, and a player choosing between them is choosing a number rather than a way to fight. The quality vocabulary in the core rules is rich, but it was written with blasters and missile launchers in mind: Auto-fire, Breach, Guided, Linked, Tractor. Very little of it has anything to say about what a spear does that a sword does not.
This book is an attempt to fix that without inventing a new system.
What You Should Expect
Weapons with real weaknesses. Almost every entry has a drawback, and in most cases that drawback is what pays for its strength. Axes struggle against plate, polearms suffer in confined spaces, and flexible weapons deal very little damage.
Prices that vary widely. A shiv is 20. A longsword is 410. That range is deliberate, and it is derived rather than eyeballed: price is calculated from the weapon's qualities, so drawbacks genuinely make weapons cheaper. Chapter 2 explains the model and how to rescale it.
A family every character already owns. Chapter 4 stats the unarmed profile the core rules give for free, and the six things a character can strap to a hand to change it. They are the cheapest entries in the book and the only ones whose damage depends on who is holding them.
Weapons meant to be carried in pairs. Once a character owns an axe, a second weapon that handles armour becomes a real consideration. Encumbrance is what makes that a decision rather than a formality, and this book assumes your table enforces it. If it does not, several entries here are more powerful than their prices suggest.
Using This Book in Your Setting
Nothing here is tied to a particular world.
The names are adjustable. Every entry carries an Also known as line with up to five alternatives drawn from different cultures and periods. The stat line is the weapon; the name on the heading is just the one most tables already use. A khopesh, a machete, a cutlass, and a kukri are all the same stat block, and that stat block is called Falchion only because more readers will recognise it.
The prices are adjustable. Every price in the book derives from six base numbers. Multiply all six by the same factor and the entire economy moves with your Universe while every relative price stays intact.
Availability is a separate lever from cost. Price answers what does it cost. Availability answers can you find one at all. A GM running an isolated frontier raises Availability and leaves Price alone. A GM running a wealthy trade city does the reverse. The stat blocks do not change either way.
What You Need
The Exodus NDS core rules. This book assumes them and does not reprint them. Eleven of the thirty-five qualities used here are standard Exodus NDS qualities, listed in Chapter 3 by name and brief effect only. The other twenty-four are defined in full.
Any Exodus NDS setting will do. There is nothing in these eighty weapons that requires a particular genre, technology level, or magic system.