Quote:
Originally Posted by gruundehn
OK, I will (again) start with Earth history. Rapiers developed when muskets and similar rendered armor less useful.
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Although on Earth, the rapier was developed after the musket, bow were still quite widely used. While muskets are easy to use and have quite a bit of power, bows still have many advantages (as this example shows). Mostly bows can have a much higher rate of fire than early firearms.
Martial Arts says that the Italian school of rapier fencing was developed in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 16th century in England, the longbow was still quite popular. Its use was declining in favor of firearms, there were many laws during this period requiring possession or practice of longbows. The
Mary Rose, a English shipwreck from which most of our examples of historical English longbows come, sank in 1545. Although uncommon, longbow were used in the English Civil war (1642) by various militias. Later, longbows were still used long after they were not military weapons for hunting or recreation, and PCs could easily encounter longbow wielding bandits.
Outside of the British Isles, archers had widespread military use until much more recently. Indians in the New World, Samurai in Japan, horsemen in Central Asia, and many others all used bows in warfare throughout the swashbuckler period. Many of the people could easily be met by a pirate ship full of swashbucklers. Also, swashbuckler doesn't necessarily mean European; a Chinese xia with a jian could reasonably be described with a swashbuckler template in GURPS.