The Ranged Armory · Chapter 5

Bows

A bow stores the shot in a limb the wielder holds drawn. That single fact produces the family's whole profile: it is the fastest launcher in the book to shoot again, and the only one whose performance depends on the person holding it.

Cumbersome is on every entry, and it is doing the most work in this chapter. It is draw weight. A bow built for a strong archer is not a lighter bow in weaker hands, it is a worse one, and that is why a war bow is a training programme rather than a purchase.

Point Blank is on every entry too. Nothing here wants an enemy inside arm's reach.

The chapter splits on material rather than mechanism, and the split is real:

	Built from	Buys	Pays in
Self bows	One stave of wood	Cheap, forgiving, Arcing, Auto-Fire	Length and draw weight
Composite bows	Horn, sinew, and glue	Accurate, short for their power	Price and Fragile

A self bow is a stick that a village can make. A composite bow is a two-year build by a specialist that a wet season can destroy.

Skill: Light Ranged, except the Heavy War Bow.

Short Bow

Hunting Bow, Flatbow, Boy's Bow, Forester's Bow

A single stave, shoulder height or less, that anybody of ordinary build can draw.

It is the baseline of the whole book: no benefits, no drawbacks worth the name, and the lowest Point Blank of any bow. It is what a hunter owns, what a militia is issued, and what a character starts with.

Longbow

War Bow, Yew Bow, Self Bow, Great Bow

A stave as tall as the archer, drawn to the ear rather than the chest.

This is the formation weapon, and the two qualities that say so are Arcing and Auto-Fire. Arcing drops shafts behind a shield wall. Auto-Fire is what happens when arrows fall on ranks rather than individuals: spend Boon to loose again at the cost of a wilder aim, and the shot that misses one man finds the one behind him.

Cumbersome 3 is not negotiable and it is the real cost of the weapon. A longbow in the hands of somebody who cannot draw it is worse than a short bow, which is the mechanical statement of why longbow armies were grown rather than equipped.

Composite Bow

Laminated Bow, Horn Bow, Sinew-Backed Bow, Reflex Bow

Horn on the belly, sinew on the back, wood between, and hide glue holding all three together. It matches a longbow's reach at half the length and two thirds the encumbrance.

Fragile 1 is the glue. Damp softens it. A composite bow left strung in the rain is not a weapon in the morning, and a campaign fought in a wet season is a campaign where this bow is the wrong purchase.

Horse Bow

Recurve, Steppe Bow, Saddle Bow, Nomad Bow

A short recurve, built to be drawn and loosed from a saddle on either side of the horse's neck.

It gives up a range band and a point of damage to the composite bow above it, and buys back the two things a rider actually needs: the lowest Cumbersome and the lowest Point Blank of any composite weapon here. It can be shot from a moving animal by somebody who is also steering it.

This is the mobility purchase. Everything it gives up, it gives up on purpose.

Heavy War Bow

Steppe War Bow, Siege Bow, Manchu Bow, Thumb-Ring Bow

A composite bow built to a draw weight that most people cannot reach at all, shot with a thumb ring because fingers will not hold the string.

It is the most damaging personal weapon in this book, and the only bow that carries Pierce on the launcher rather than borrowing it from a bodkin head. It is also Cumbersome 4, which means a character with Might 2 shooting it adds two Bane Dice to every shot and would do better with a two-hundred-piece short bow.

The only entry in the chapter that uses Heavy Ranged.

Yumi

Daikyu, Asymmetric Bow, Long Grip Bow, Hankyu

A laminated bow of great length gripped a third of the way up rather than at the centre, so that the lower limb clears a saddle, a wall, or a kneeling archer's thigh.

It is a longbow-sized weapon with a composite bow's accuracy and half the Point Blank of either. The asymmetry is not decoration; it is what lets something two metres tall be shot from horseback and from behind cover.

Expensive, regional, and the answer when a character wants reach without giving up the ability to fight in a corridor.

Arrow-Guide Bow

Majra, Overdraw Bow, Dart Guide, Nawak

A composite bow shot with a grooved channel strapped to the bow hand. The guide supports a dart much shorter than the draw length, so the archer can pull a full arm's draw behind a projectile half the size of an arrow.

It is the only personal weapon in this book that reaches Extreme range. The short dart leaves faster, flies flatter, and arrives with more energy behind less frontal area, which is where the Pierce 1 comes from.

It also cannot be shot back at you. A majra dart is useless to an enemy without a guide of their own, which is the tactical reason armies liked them and the practical reason they never spread.

Requires majra darts from Chapter 9. It cannot shoot ordinary arrows at all.

Choosing a Bow

Every bow in this chapter is a trade against the Short Bow, which carries nothing and costs two hundred.

If the character wants	Buy	And accept
To shoot in formation, over cover	Longbow	Cumbersome 3, and useless at Engaged
Reach without bulk	Composite Bow	Fragile in wet weather
To shoot from a horse	Horse Bow	A range band and a point of damage
To kill an armoured man	Heavy War Bow	Might 4, Rare, and 925
Reach and a corridor	Yumi	800 and Rare
The longest shot on the field	Arrow-Guide Bow	Ammunition nobody else stocks

None of them changes what the arrow does. A longbow shooting broadheads and a longbow shooting bodkins are two weapons, and that decision costs 10 rather than 475. Chapter 9 is where most of a bow's flexibility actually lives, and an archer who owns one bow and four quivers is better equipped than one who owns four bows.