The Ranged Armory ยท Chapter 1
Introduction
Most equipment lists treat a bow as one object with one damage number. This book treats it as half of one.
A bow is a delivery system. The arrow is the weapon.
Two archers carrying identical longbows and different quivers are doing different jobs. One is shooting broadheads at unarmoured skirmishers and opening wounds that keep bleeding. The other is shooting bodkins at a man in mail and going through it. Same launcher, same skill, same roll. Different weapon.
That is the argument, and everything here follows from it.
What Is In This Book
Forty launchers, in five families, in Chapters 4 through 8. Each is a machine for propelling something it does not consume.
Eighteen ammunition entries in Chapter 9, built as nine shafts and nine heads that combine. A quiver is a shaft plus a head, bought as a unit of twenty, and switching quivers is a maneuver. That is the decision this book exists to create.
Twenty-eight qualities in Chapter 3. Fourteen are defined here in full. Fourteen come from the Exodus NDS core rules or the Ix equipment chapter and are listed for reference.
A pricing model in Chapter 2 that any GM can rescale to their own economy by changing six numbers.
What Is Not In This Book
Firearms. The line is drawn at powder propelling a projectile. A naphtha siphon that sprays burning liquid is in Chapter 8, because it has no projectile and no ballistics. A fire lance is out. Powder changes the reload economy and the noise economy enough to deserve its own volume.
Enchanted ammunition. Arrows that burn are here, because alchemy is a trade. Arrows that seek are not.
Thrown weapons. A weapon that leaves the hand and is the projectile belongs to The Fantasy Armory, which covers the javelin, the francisca, the throwing knife, the chakram, the bolas, the boomerang, and the hand-thrown harpoon. The dividing line is stated in Chapter 2 and held to throughout.
You Do Not Need the Other Book
The Ranged Armory is a companion to The Fantasy Armory, not a supplement to it. Seven qualities appear in both, and they are printed here in full rather than cross-referenced. The only book you need beside this one is the Exodus NDS core rules.
Where an entry here has a relative in the other volume, a note says so. Those notes are conveniences, not dependencies.
Any Universe Will Do
There is nothing in these forty launchers that requires a particular genre or technology level. A sling is a sling in a fantasy kingdom, on a generation ship, and in a post-collapse ruin. The core rules are explicit that a Universe may mix technology levels freely, so a crossbow and a shuttle can sit in the same equipment list without apology.
Prices assume a Universe where a longbow is a serious purchase and a trebuchet is a siege train's asset. Chapter 2 explains how to move the whole economy without touching a single stat block.
