From The Book of the Samurai: The Warrior Class of Japan, another tome from Stephen Turnbull.
"Ark Against Time" Submitted for DunDraCon #48
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[image: A colorful thing seems to be made of several elongated pods]
(Ark of Time)
*GM: Matt MorrisonType: RPGSystem: D&D/Arduin GrimoireEdition: 5...
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Posts
Such a cool weapon. How they ever managed to use it in battle I'll never know. That picture isn't even exaggerating how the length of the blade!
ReplyDeleteHi Jeff David Emigh here. I did indeed write "the Quest" and I am a cherokee (in part) from New Mexico. If you see a copy of Barbarian Kingdom and Empire I am the barbarian on the right.
ReplyDeleteI am currently an academic in CT and as an interesting side note one of my students used to work for Judges Guild. Small world. Say hey to Bruce and Al for me. Thanks.
David
I remember watching a Kurosawa movie where three(!) samurai ran around in arcs using one of those monstrous swords to lop the legs off horses and cut down other warriors.
ReplyDeleteI'm still not sure if that was an actual tactic, or just a parody of giant sword fetishism.
"'m still not sure if that was an actual tactic, or just a parody of giant sword fetishism."...or both.
ReplyDeleteAt one point I read the first book of the orginal "Musashi" series and one of the characters was notorious for his sword which he called "the Drying Pole", a nodachi with a blade (just the blade-edge!) over 3 feet long.
ReplyDeleteUs westerners have the Zweihander, though there's dispute as to whether it was actually used in combat or if was more a ceremony piece.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zweihander
This is surprising? :) It's a nodachi.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the no-dachi and dai-klaive are quite different ideas, I think! The latter having more in common with the Zanbato.
ReplyDeleteI have seen this picture before, and linked it to Mike a few months back. I am pretty sure that it is either a) ceremonial, or b) artistic elaboration.
Unusable large swords existed both in Europe and in Japan, and probably elsewhere. The twenty five pound zwei-hander (rather than the more normally weighted sort) is an analogue to the ceremonial Odachi.