The Ranged Armory · Chapter 7

Silent Arms

This is the one family in the book where damage is not the point.

Three of the six entries here do 2 damage, which is less than a thrown knife. They are bought anyway, because Silent is on every entry and nothing else in this book carries it. A shot from any other launcher tells a courtyard full of people where the shooter is standing. These do not.

The damage is a delivery mechanism. A blowgun dart that does 2 damage and 4 more every round from the toxin on it is not a 2 damage weapon. Chapter 9 sells the payload, and the entries here sell the quiet.

Concealable appears on four of six, because a weapon carried past a guard and a weapon that does not announce itself are usually wanted by the same person.

Nothing here carries Point Blank. These are close weapons by design, and that is worth noticing: they are the only family in the book that is not worse when the target is standing next to you.

Skill: Light Ranged throughout.

Blowgun

Sarbacane, Pea Shooter, Dart Tube, Cerbatana

A hollow tube. A dart. A breath.

Crit 5 is the worst in the book and the damage is the lowest, and neither number is the reason anybody owns one. A blowgun costs 110, hides in a walking stick or a bundle of reeds, makes no noise at all, and puts a poisoned needle into somebody across a room.

Read the entry with the Blowgun Dart in Chapter 9. Separately they are both nearly useless.

Long Blowgun

Fukiya, Sumpit, Great Tube, Hunting Blowpipe

Twice the length, bored straight and true, held in two hands.

The longer barrel steadies the dart and adds a range band, and the weapon loses every scrap of concealment doing it. A two-metre tube is not hidden under anything.

This is the hunter's version and the other is the assassin's. Same tube, same dart, opposite purposes, and the stat line says which is which more clearly than any amount of description would.

Sumpitan

Spear Blowgun, Bladed Sumpit, Lance Tube, Zarabatana

A long blowgun with a spearhead lashed to the muzzle and a hardwood sheath over the bore.

It is the only launcher in this book that answers Point Blank instead of suffering it. Every other entry here and in Chapters 4 through 6 gets worse when something closes to arm's reach. This one becomes a spear.

Used at Engaged range as a spear, the sumpitan deals 4 Thrusting damage, Crit 3, using the wielder's melee skill. It has no ranged qualities in that mode and no melee qualities in the other.

One weapon, two jobs, and no maneuver required to switch between them. What it gives up is the accuracy of the long blowgun and every point of concealment.

Spring Dart Sleeve

Wrist Launcher, Sleeve Needle, Bracer Dart, Coil Sheath

A coiled spring and a catch strapped along the forearm under a sleeve, throwing a single needle when the wrist is flexed against the trigger bar.

Not air. The only entry in the chapter driven by a spring, which is why it does twice the damage of a blowgun at the same range.

Concealable 3 ties the sling glove for the best in the book, and it is better hidden than that in practice: a sling glove is at least a glove, and this is nothing at all until it fires.

One shot. Resetting the coil is the Prepare 1, and it cannot be done with the arm the sleeve is on.

Air Reservoir Gun

Windbüchse, Pump Gun, Air Rifle, Bellows Piece

A brass flask charged by hand pump to a pressure the maker would rather not discuss, feeding a valve behind a rifled barrel.

This is the chapter's outlier and the reason the family is not simply "low damage weapons." It matches a light crossbow's damage, carries Pierce, reaches Long range, is Accurate, and does all of it in complete silence.

Prepare 2 is the pump, and it is not two maneuvers before the first shot. It is two maneuvers to recharge the flask after the sixth, which takes the weapon out of the fight for a full round every time.

Fragile 1 is the pressure vessel and the valve. A gun that holds several hundred atmospheres behind a brass seal does not respond well to being dropped.

Rare, expensive, and worth every piece to somebody who needs a sentry to fall over without anybody hearing why.

Air Cane

Walking Stick Gun, Cane Piece, Gentleman's Stick, Reservoir Cane

The same mechanism built into a walking stick, with the reservoir in the shaft and the trigger in the handle.

Concealable 3 on a weapon doing 5 damage at Medium range is the best concealment-to-threat ratio in the book. It is not hidden in anything. It is a stick, carried openly, in a hand, in daylight.

Two shots before the pump, against the reservoir gun's six, and a range band less. That is the cost of the disguise.

Legal in most places precisely because most places have not thought about it, which is a matter for the GM rather than the price list.