Dungeon Delver’s Handbook

A First Edition Fantasy Role-Playing Game Sourcebook

Weapons

F A T D R A G O N G A M E S

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Dungeon Delver’s Handbook Weapons

Introduction

The Dungeon Delver’s Handbooks are designed to collect the information used most by early edition fantasy gamers into a single concise source. Starting off with weapons, our goal was to combine common and exotic weaponry used in your games into one illustrated tome for easy reference. Future volumes will include armor, equipment, magical items and more.

The game stats contained in this book can easily be used with most early editions of the world’s most popular fantasy role playing game, but is specifically designed for the first edition ‘Advanced’ rules. For editions such as the 1974 edition rules (using the variable damage option), simply use the first damage column ‘Damage vs. Small/Medium’ and ignore the second column ‘Damage vs. Large.’

Dungeon Delver’s Handbook Volume 1: Weapons

Credits

Author: Tom Tullis

Editor: Gary Wegley

Development Director: Kevin Stephens

Artist: Tom Tullis

Copyright 2011, Fat Dragon Games. All rights reserved.

Dungeon Delver’s Handbook is a trademark of Fat Dragon Games. All rights reserved.

FDG8103

www.fatdragongames.com

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, regis-tered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, descriptions, characters, artwork, and trade dress. (Elements that have previously been designated as Open Game Content are not included in this declaration.)

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this Fat Dragon Games game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.

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Dungeon Delver’s Handbook Weapons

Arrow, Alchemical

An alchemical arrow has a head made of glass. This head is filled with one of a variety of chemicals (acid, poison, etc.). The glass is thin enough to guarantee it breaking upon impact with a target. While the arrow itself causes little damage (1 hp), the contents of the head can cause a great deal of damage.

Axe, Battle

Essentially a utility axe which has been designed specifical-ly for use in combat, battle axes consist of a pole, approxi-mately four-feet long, with a single-edged blade mounted on one end. Many battle axes have strips of metal running down the upper portion of the pole (also known as the haft) to prevent the blade/head from being cut off in battle. Dwarven battle axes usually consist of a double-edged blade, often with a spike on top. Battle axes are employed by foot sol-diers with great effect versus mounted opponents.

Axe, Hand

The hand axe (also known as a hatchet) is shorter than the battle axe, measuring approximately 18-inches long. It is often weighted and balanced to make it more effective at throwing. Hand axes are usually employed as a back-up weapon due to their small size and low cost.

Axe, Orc Battle

Orc battle axes have an axe blade mounted on each end of the shaft. Orcs wielding these weapons can make two melee attacks per round. Anyone else using these weapons only makes one attack per round.

Blowgun

Also known as a blowpipe or blow tube, this simple weapon consists of a tube that fires small darts. Motion for the pro-jectile is created by the force of the shooter’s breath, so pro-pulsion is related to the user’s respiratory muscles. Many primitive cultures utilize these weapons with great skill, of-ten coating the dart or needle projectiles with poison.

Arrow Heads

Hand Axe

Battle Axe

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Dungeon Delver’s Handbook Weapons

Bow

A bow consists of a curved wooden rod, with a string made of hemp, linen, sinew, intestine or hair stretched from end to end. The bow shoots the arrow by using the wooden shaft’s elasticity to transfer motion to the projectile. Many short bows are of the ‘recurve’ style, where the limbs curve back on themselves, allowing for an increase in the draw weight of the bow’s shorter limbs (as opposed to a long bows ex-tended limbs). While a short bow is usually just called a bow, the long bow is so named because its length is about the height of a human male.

Bow, Composite

Any bow that is made from multiple types of materials is a composite bow. Often constructed of wood, bone, metal, sinew, or a combination thereof, the layers of materials are bonded together with glue. Composite bows are designed to have greater flexibility and thus greater range. Unlike normal bows, composite bows allow the user to add their strength bonus to damage rolled.

Brass Knuckles

Despite their name, brass knuckles are often made from steel. They have four holes, one for each finger, and are designed to concentrate the force of a punch along a small-er contact area, thus increasing the chance of fracturing a bone and increasing tissue damage. The rounded back edge allows the user’s palm to absorb the force of the blow, instead of being directed into the attacker’s fingers.

Caltrop

Caltrops are small anti-personnel devices, usually made of multiple nails or spikes wrapped together in such a way that one spike tip is always pointing upward no matter how the unit is sitting on a flat surface. The purpose of caltrops is to slow an enemy or to force them to change their intended approach. Multiple caltrops (at least 20 per 10’ x 10’ area) must be used to effectively cover a section of ground and successfully slow or disable anyone entering the area. Any character entering this area must make a save vs. paraly-

Caltrop

Short Bow

Long Bow

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Dungeon Delver’s Handbook Weapons

sis or a dexterity roll (GM’s choice) or suffer 1d4 damage from stepping on a caltrop. The character must then take the time to stop and remove the caltrop (1 round) or make another save vs. paralysis or become lame for 12-24 hours. Lame characters move at 1/3 their normal rate.

Cestus

The cestus is simply a leather glove or gauntlet that has spikes or similar metal edges attached to it so as to maxi-mize punching damage. The damage values for the cestus replace the normal punching damage the character would do.

Club

Essentially a big wooden stick, the club is probably man-kind’s oldest weapon. The predecessor of the mace, the wooden club can be found virtually everywhere, with most races utilizing some version of it.

Crossbow

A crossbow is simply a bow mounted crosswise on a shaft (usually wooden) called a tiller. The projectile fired by a crossbow is called a bolt or quarrel. The crossbow is fired by cocking the string, accomplished by pulling the string back and locking it on a nut fitted to the tiller. Heavy cross-bows often have a mechanical crank to aid in cocking the string called a windlass. Heavy crossbows that do not have a windlass usually have a metal stirrup on the front end that the shooter steps on while cocking the string. Small hand crossbows are easily concealed beneath cloaks and are popular assassination tools.

Crossbow, Repeating

A repeating crossbow has a wooden magazine containing 5-6 bolts mounted on top of the crossbow. A lever is used to simultaneously cock the string and load a bolt from the magazine. Changing magazines takes a full round.

Dagger

Daggers are pointed blades with a double edge (unlike a knife’s single edge). They are big enough to kill, yet small enough to be easily concealed within clothing. While most daggers used for adventuring are metal, daggers can also be made of bone or stone, with the latter usually utilizing flint for the weapon. Parrying daggers are specialized de-signs that are designed to catch/break an opponent’s blade. These weapons are used with a sword during a fight.

Dart

Darts are small missile weapons, launched by hand (instead of a bow or crossbow) and are easily concealed. Darts can be coated with toxic substances to increase the damage they inflict.

Flail

Evolving from a farming tool used to thrash grain, flails con-sist of a wooden handle, a metal rod or ball, and a length of chain connecting the two. The metal piece often had spikes on it to maximize damage. The only difference between a light and heavy flail is the amount of metal used for the strik-ing portion of the weapon. With the increase in mass, there was very little increase in overall size, except with the “foot-man’s flail” which had a longer handle (often up to 4-feet long in length.).

Garrote (Wire)

A garrote is a length of wire or strong rope used to strangle someone.

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Hammer

As with the flail, the hammer is a weapon derived from a common tool. The hammer is employed versus armored opponents where edged weapons may be less effective. The heavy hammer simply utilizes greater mass than a light hammer to deliver a harder blow.

Javelin

The javelin is technically a light spear, equally suited for throwing or melee combat. This versatility is the weapon’s biggest advantage and what makes it appeal to adventur-ers. The head can be made of metal or stone, and is usually small and leaf shaped, sometimes with barbs.

Kama

The kama is derived from the common farming sickle or small scythe. The blade is sharpened on the concave edge and has a sharp point.

Knife

Knives are single-bladed weapons, smaller and lighter than daggers, and not suited for throwing. Primitive knives are made of bone or flint, and are prone to shattering. More ad-vanced cultures make knives out of bronze or iron, the latter enabling the weapon to maintain a sharp edge.

Lance

Lance is a somewhat generic term used to identify a wide range of pole weapons based on the spear. The most com-mon lance consists of a long wooden pole (usually ash or similar wood) with an iron head. Lances come in three pri-mary types: light (10-feet long), medium (12-feet long) and heavy (14-feet long).

Flail

Kama

Dagger

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