Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Ok, so here's a few of them, mainly influenced by my intention to run a mideval fantasy game set in the 11th and 12th centuries. These questions have cropped up due to my examination of the byzantines, and how to model their mounted soldiers, such as cataphracts. This mainly comes to deal with maille armor.

1) Mail and layering. The Mail Coif is a "helmet" in gurps. However, it is not "concealable as or under clothing", which restricts anyone wearing one to wearing a coif and a cloth cap. This is directly at odds with a vast body of evidence that demands the coif be worn under a skull cap, or even another helmet. I cite as the foremost of this: the Bayeuax tapestry.

The byzantine cavalry, especially in an elite, well equipped formation(suchs as the Scholae, Optimates or Excuborites) would wear a complete suit of chainmail(sometimes double maill!), and over that, wear a chestpiece of lamellar(Small plates joined together into a coat). This is either Lorica Segmenta type armor, or Scale. It's of note that having a suit of mail with a lorica segmenta gives one a DR 9 vs. impaling. It's also of note that a man with ST 13 and a longspear in bothhands has an impaling damage of 1d+3. A longspear used in both hands is the common weapon for the enemies a cavalryman in the byzantine army would face.

2) Weight. A byzantine cataphract would go into battle, wearing 86lbs of armor(105 if the hauberk is double-maille), carrying a kontos(longspear), thrusting broadsword, mace, light buckler, composite bow and a paltry 30 arrows has 22lbs more of arms. His horse will be covered in full, or partial chain/scale barding weighing 73lbs. Riding equipment will be another 42 lbs. If we assume a ST 11 cataphract, 170 is a decent weight for the rider. This totals 393lbs.

393 lbs is a heavy load for a cavalry horse(ST22) and a Heavy Warhorse(ST24). Most animals will nto willingly carry a weight greater than moderate encumberance. What should be done? It should be noted that the heavy cataphract, as compared to lighter, regular cavalry were slower, and charged at the trot, rather than canter or gallop. This would seem to work for the cataphracts, giving them a move of 2/5 with heavy warhorses, and 3/6 with cavalry horses.

Would this mean that the horses of most cavalry are just willing to carry heavier burdens than a normal horse?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Go with what your research shows is right.

War horses were bred for size, the slightly later Western horses were massive and easily carried the weight, see photos, note hoof/leg size.

http://www.classicalfencing.com/horsetraining.php

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

ST 24 x 3 = 345lbs
ST 22 x 3 = 290lb

Maybe they did not take everything into battle and would have been equiped according to the battle's needs.

Your riders' weight maybe wrong, You are assuming that they are of 'todays' average height and weight. They may have been 2 or 4 inches shorter and weighed less.

You could argue that the horses were stronger, just a point or two should do it:

ST 25 x 3 = 375
ST 26 x 3 = 405

BTW are you not confusing this cavalry for the 6th century version, I know Byzantium stagnated for 100s of years but some things may have changed.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

A helmet is not clothing. Mail can explictly be layered under plate armor as per the layering armor rules.
Or it means that the armor weights given in the Basic Set are way too heavy for their DRs.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

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Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

GURPS armour is dodgy. Change the rules.

For some strange reason GURPS calls lamellar armour "steel laminate". Just rename it to lamellar.

DR 9 would be the minimum IMO. The chances of thrusting a lance through a combination of mail and lamellar would be practically nil. Comnena recounts an anecdote where Alexios is hit virtually simultaneously by two Frankish lancers. The impact knocked him partially out of the saddle and then back in again. He was unharmed after the incident. Even mail by itself offers excellent protection against lances. Usamah describes one incident in which he charged what he thought was an unarmoured Frank and hit him so hard with his lance that the man dropped his helmet and shield. A rip in his surcoat revealed a hauberk underneath and he sat unharmed in his saddle waiting for his servant to retrieve the dropped gear. It should be remembered that jousting at this time was done with sharpened lances and the only armour worn was mail. It was expected to withstand many many impacts before needing repair.

GURPS armour weights are dodgy. Reducing all types by 25-50%, while keeping the same DRs would not be unrealistic.

There have been quite a few threads on this subject already if you use the search function.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Warhorses were bred for speed, intelligence and endurance. The largest destriers were rarely over 16 hands. The closest modern equivalant might be a hunter or endurance horse. Today's huge draft horses have nothing to do with medieval warhorses. They were bred much later when roads improved for pulling carriages.

A 14 hand horse would have no problems bearing the weight of a fully armoured knight. The best book on the subject is Andrew Ayton's "Knights and Warhorses: Military Service and the English Aristocracy under Edward III"

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Next: The Net of Spears, alternatively known as a Shield. Viking warriors sometimes referred to their shields as "net of spears", and there have been theories suggested that some preferred to use rimless shields, on the idea that a blade would become lodged within the shield, and then be wrenched away.

Would it be within reason to create a technique, regarding the use of the shield in such a way? I'm thinking a manuever similar parrying a natural attack, and dealing damage with it. Perhaps after a successful block, the defender may attempt a shield roll at a penelty(perhaps -4?), and then disarm his opponent.

In addition, has anyone a credible source on this, and the origins of a german dueling weapon know as a "hat". No, not like you wear on your head. This weapon is suppousedly a metal boss that one holds i nthe hand, similar to the central boss man shields possess. There are suppousedly spikes or somesuch, to allow for improved disarming.

Thanks in advance, and thanks for your earlier help.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

If I were preparing to run a true-to-life campaign, facing such issues, I'd simply refer to the building materials for HP, PD, and DR, such as they are in the book, layer accordingly and create some custom kits.
While the armor was heavy, it's pretty well documented from dig-sites that there were rarely soldiers equipped with more than 80-110 pounds actually in the battles. Most other equipment was quite popularly kept in camp.
For instance, reference to Tsung Tsu's Art of War, which quotes approximately, "Scouts should note that pots hanging from tent posts and fires burning out mean maneuvers directly into battle are commencing." Camps were kept and guarded in the day simply for storing the equipment that wasn't to be directly in use at that time.

Don't be too afraid to stray from the books a bit. They are more guidelines with assumptions for basic campaigns. Follow your best intuition and see where it'll lead. Trial campaigns and house rule systems are constantly developed just for such things...

Humbly,
Harley Quinn

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Just allow Disarming technique (p. B230) to default to Shield; if you hit it with a -4 penalty, allow it to be bought up to Skill instead of Skill+5 like other disarms.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

The 'hat' technique derives, IIRC, from the tendency from a wooden shield to fall apart when battered hard enough, leaving only the metal boss to which the handgrip was attatched - techniques were developed to defend yourself with only the boss (since the shield could come apart when it wasn't convenient to replace it) and then, as these things do, it became taught as a technique in its own right. I may be wrong, but that's the way I've heard it.

And I think GURPS lamellar ('scale mail') was known as lorica squamata by the Latins. Lorica Segmenta was the 'banded mail' of longer, horizontal strips.
For reference I think they called chainmail lorica hamata, but I can't recall the name of the leather breastplate thing...

As for leaving equipment in camp ... you would tend to leave your support gear behind in the care of your camp followers, sick and wounded. The armour and weapons you were issued (or obliged to muster with) are what is known these days as CEFO ... the stuff you need with you to be able to fight.
So yes, that is a lot of weight to be lugging about - just be thankfull they're not D&D weapons that weigh twice as they should do.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Dan has written several Pyramid articles for 3e on realistic armour weights and DRs. Search the archives for "chainmail" and "scale and lamellar" or check here http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login...e.html?id=2565 for the lamellar article if you don't have a subscription.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I’ve heard that these Calvary units were so heavy that they moved at the same rate as infantry. There houses being at heavy encumbrance seems appropriate. Maybe the heavy warhorse should have a perk letting it work at greater then medium encumbrance without problems.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

You've been misinformed. The whole point of cavalry was to outmanoeuvre infantry units. The only thing you have to do to create realism is to make armour weights historically accurate. You don't have to invent stronger horses.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Could be just misremembering details. Cavalry units do move about the same speed as infantry units on a strategic scale. However, I believe GURPS 3e also winds up with somewhat low ST scores for large creatures.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I think you mean that the speed is similar for long distance marching, but in tactical situations heavy cavalry can 'sprint' at great speed to manuver around the enemy, yes?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Yes (or can, at least, move significantly faster than infantry; it's hardly blazing speed).

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Cataphracts weren't really meant to out manouvere infantry though ... they were assault units meant to add the weight of the horse to a charge directly into infantry. This would also tend to mean a fairly slow pace for most of the battle, broken briefly by a relatively slow charge.
Other, more lightly equipped types of cavalry were used for manouver and for pursuit, picket and scouting there were always horse archers and the like.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Of course cataphracts were faster than infantry units. Even after infantry had dropped their shields and weapons and ran away the cataphracts could still catch up and dispatch them. People are confusing what was actually meant by "heavy cavalry". It had little to do with the gear worn by the soldier and horse and a lot to do with how they were employed. Any unit that focused on "shock" tactics were considered "heavy" regardless of what gear they were using.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Dan, I could give you a kiss for that one.

A summerian with a thrusting spear, large shield and a bunch of buddies standing beside him is a heavy infantryman. He's just got crappier gear(damn that TL1-2!).

But cataphracts do seem to be scarcely faster than infantry in most cases. I don't think 2/5 or 3/6 are bad representations of the cataphracts' movement. Notably, Cataphracts would also be supported by lighter cavalrymen(lighter in the sense of lacking barding, and possibly weaing ligher armor), who operate as Cursores("runners") and serve to chase down fleeing infantrymen as the cataphracts would be harder pressed to chase'em down.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Q: Why is infantry the only arm that can hold ground?

A: Because it's too slow to run away.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I doubt you could weigh down a horse with enough gear that it was that slow and still have it be able to move far enough to do anything useful. Heavily loading horses doesn't slow their walk, trot, or even an easy canter significantly, it just ruins their endurance, and a cantering horse outruns a man quite handily. In the short term horses are fast.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

You do need a subscription to use that link.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Oops. I still think that article can be accessed by non-subscribers if they poke around in the archives.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=2565

To ckeck if an article is accesible to non-subscribers, change the "login/article" segment of the URL with "sample"

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

The scale/lamellar article available to anyone but the "Chainmail" one is only available to subscribers. I've changed my opinion on lamellar. The article says that it was worn by vikings and was first worn by Assyrians. More recent research suggests that the vikings did not wear it and that the Assyrians wore scale armour. The earliest instance of true lamellar I've been able to confirm dates to the Warring States period in China.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Just to add in another point, after reducing armor weights to more realistic levels, you may also want to consider that Cataphracts might've likely picked their horses for high ST and not use a typical creature.

Per p.457, ST varies by up to 20% for large creatures, which would mean you could conceivably have a Cavalry Horse with 22-26 ST and a Heavy Warhorse with 24-29 ST. (I also consider many of those animal ST numbers too low and would expect many animals to have a few levels of Lifting ST too.)

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

My information is to some degree from material I checked hurriedly to find information for this comment, so forgive any inaccuracy:
As I understand lameller is a type of scale armor. It is lighter and meant primarily to deflect arrows and was therefore popular among Eastern and Central Asian Warriors who lived in country where the bow was more used. It has been a while since I looked that up and I forget what lameller entailed though I think it had less metal and more leather and heavy cloth.
Metal scale armor was more used in the Meditteranean. Apparently it was not as hot as regular mail. There would have been no reason that could not have been used by Vikings though, as a number of Vikings travelled into the Med. For that matter "Rus" vikings probably used Central Asian style lameller at times.
One sensible way to figure out whether "Vikings wore lameller" is to remember that vikings were not standardized as they would be if they were a modern army. They were a collection of individuals armed according to their weath and taste. Therefore any viking can be armed any way as long as such a fashion was compatable with:

A) the mission-you can't take horses on a longship for instance and if you tried the captain would throw you overboard. William the conqueror took horses but only for a short trip and it was a wierd thing to do even so. Byzantines took horses but they had specialized ships

B) the vikings sphere of influence-this was very wide and contacted many cultures. Thus it would not be difficult to explain that a given character had developed a taste for lameller armor travelling in the East. What would be odd would be to have an army of vikings in lameller

By the way chain-mail is a recent word. The word mail simply means net-armor, because the rings fitting into each other looked like a net. The adjective chain would hav been felt redundent.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I'm okay with those ST levels, but many equines should have a bit of Lifting ST on top, IMO - they seem unusally well-suited to carrying loads. By the same token oxen might be considered to have Lifting ST with a limitation "only for dragging loads", as they are good for pulling loads (slowly), but not very good at carrying weights.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

No, these rules give a penalty, that is silly for a mail coiff under an helmet. Kromm confirmed it's an errata: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=612

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Sounds like we have a viking re-enactor who is a bit upset at being told he shouldn't be wearing lamellar. It was my belief that a re-enactor should be portraying the "typical" not the exception.

The difference between scale and lamellar is the backing. Scale consists of overlapping plates attached to a cloth or leather foundation. The direction of the overlap is irrelevant, the shape of the scales is irrelevant. Lamellar consists of small plates laced or wired together such that there is no need for a backing. There is some overlap such as scale armour in which the scales are laced to each other as well as the backing. Generally this is called "locking scale" but if the structure remains intact without the need for a foundation then it could technically be called lamellar. Using this definition, the earliest occurrence of lamellar is during the Warring States period in China. Everything used before this time has turned out to be scale.

Often lamellar was heavier than scale. Generally this was because thicker plates were used and there was more overlap between them. Though there is too much variation to make a general claim about weight. Lamellar has a few advantages over scale. It is less likely to shed scales in battle. More overlap provides better resistance against thrusting attacks (including arrows). IMO lamellar is an advanced form of scale. I don't really mind if scholars eliminate the term "scale armour" entirely and subsume it into the category of lamellar. It might be called something like "backed lamellar" or "reinforced lamellar".

What is your definition of "regular mail"? How do you account for the fact that the Romans made far greater use of mail than they ever did of scale or lamellar?

There is no evidence to suggest that even a single Scandinavian wore this armour during the so called "Viking period" outside of the Byzantine Empire. If we get into supposition you may as well equip a group of vikings in samurai armour based on the premise that they might have traded with Japan at some time. The only lamellar find so far uncovered during the viking period was at Birka and it has been clearly demonstrated not to have been of Scandinavian construction and was not worn by a Scandinavian. The only documentary evidence is the mention of a "spangabrnja" in one of the sagas. This could have been anything from scale to lamellar to an early coat of plates. And the sagas were written down a century or two after the viking period. Yes the Varangian Guard were issued lamellar if they couldn't afford a decent coat of mail. There is nothing to suggest that they were allowed to keep their state-owned equipment after they finished service and I can't think of a reason why they would want to. Their native mail byrnies offered superior protection and comfort. The main advantage of lamellar is that it is cheaper and faster to construct.

Yep. The word is derived through the Italian "maglia" from the Latin "macula" meaning the mesh of a net. The confusion arises from the Victorian tendency to use the word "mail" to describe all metal armour. Because of that, they needed a term to distinguish true mail from other types of armour (e.g. "scale mail", "plate mail", etc) hence the word "chain mail." It is covered in more detail here. http://www.knightsofveritas.org/mate...ndringmail.pdf

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

On a side note, I decided to figure out some things, like a horse's burden.

I came up with this: ST 12, 175lb rider, wearing 61lbs of armor(mail coif, torso, arms and legs, with a pot helm, and boots), 10lbs of weapons(Lance, broadsword, large knife), an 8lb shield, and 42lbs of military saddle and bit and bridle. That's 296 lbs, or 8 lbs over the meduim encumberance of a cavalry horse(ST 22). If you reduce the weight of the mail armor by 20%, that frees 10lbs. If the Cavalry horse is ST 23, it's also enough to allow meduim encumberance.

That strikes me as about right. Also, a ST22 horse, charging(move 9) allows for 1d+3 lance damage, or about the same as a ST 13 man using a kontos. That also seems fine. If the horse has ST 23, then it does a mode powerful 2d+3 charging. The lower average damage(the ST22 horse, assumign a 20% reduction in armor weight) would average 6-7 damage against mail, for 2-6 damage over-all, assuming penetration. That's enough for a major wound on most troops. However, heavier cavalry(Kataphractoi) would be unimpressed by the damage to their torso, and scarcely notice the damage to their arms(it being 1-3 points).

If the Emperor Komenos was wearing a lammelar breastlat(I'd call it a Lorica Segmentata for DR and weight), and double mail(which I would assume could cover Emperor's weave), we're looking at DR 10, enough to block the average damage of a 2d+3 lance, and reduce the maximuim damage to 10. 2-4 pts of impaling damage can be see nas bruising, perhaps a bit of puncture, after-all, in a week, he would be feeling the soreness. And I imagine catching a lance to the chest would make you sore. So our Emperor might have been pretty damn lucky. He made out well at Durrachion, so I think we may have been lucky. :)

Also, for the Cataphracts chasing down fleeing infantry: if we assume a basic speed of 5.25 or 5.5, we have an unencumbered move of 5 for a human. If we further assume ST 11(he's a soldier, after-all), then we have a basic lift of 24. If our average man in this case wears a pot helm, cloth gambeson(arms, torso and groin), leather leggings and boots, that's 18lbs. A spear(or axe) and large knife adds 5lbs to that. Our soldier is barely under his basic lift in encumberance, and has a 5/6 move. If we were to give out soldier leather torso and arm protection, we would see him lightly encumbered, and given a 4/5 movement. This is insufficient to the speed of the cataphracts, though nor much more so.

I've pretty much just desribed the average infantryman, from Arab, to Byzantine, to Christian europe. Such a man would more likely than not carry a shield of some variety. But in flight, the shield and many of his weapons would be thrown away.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

To briefly ignore the rules in GURPS and insert some real world common sense:

Anyone who thinks infantry can outrun cavalry has obviously not spent much time around horses.

Yes, it is true that near onlympic class athletes can over long distances match mounted horses for terrain covered. Typically you have to be talking 20 to 800 miles for the human to win the race.

Over anything up to a few miles, the human has absolutely no hope at all. An olympic class human can do a "4 minute mile" - a racehorse will cover two miles in around 3 minutes 20 seconds, carrying 55 to 60 kg (120 to 130 pounds). Over any sort of useful "combat / tactical" distance, the horse is twice as fast as the human.

What makes this comparison even worse or the infantry is that I'm comparing olympic record humans with racehorses. The gap between your average soldier and a modern olympic athlete is substantially larger than the gap between a standard cavalry horse and a champion racehorse.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

what you're leaving out is that in the case of Kataphractoi, there's about 300-400lbs of gear on the horse, compared to the 30 or so for an infantryman.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

The scale horse trappers found at Dura Europos are unlikely to weigh more than 60-70 lbs. Human scale armour of the time weighed maybe 40-50 lbs at most. Add 20 lbs for shield and weapons. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to how much the saddle, blanket, and other tackle weighed?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

ISTR a light modern riding saddle runs at 10 pounds. For a military saddle with a wooden tree (the frame) I'd guess at least twice that, and probably triple. The blanket, bridle, etc. would probably come to about 10 pounds, so all up 40+ pounds (more likely higher). That is guesswork, though.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Well, I was using the non practical GURPS weights. Still, by the last two posts, a horse is carrying about 320lbs(160 for the armor of the horse, saddles stuff, the kataphractoi's armor, and his weapons, and 160 for a Kataphractoi, which given the weapons used is a small guy. I prefer 175 as a mean weight for a rider). This is considerably more than the weight a modern race horse carries.

Am I wrong here?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I recall Warhorse Encumberance vs. Gear Weight Broken and other threads on the subject.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Yeah, but that guy wanted to do completely ludacris things, like wear his armor over-land, and carry all his gear, and be a 220lb guy, and wear the heaviest armor he could. Wheras I'm more going for an average man, an average horse, and period armor and gear.

So far, it looks like, though GURPS weight rules are a bit off, a mail armoured knight, with full gear, can maintain a 4/9 movement speed. Heavy troops like Cataphractoi cannot push much faster than 3/6. I'm fine with this.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I considered once to built a Viking/northmen in Reenactment who was an ex member of the varangian guard therefore he`d taken his lamellar with home when he retired.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Ok, while we are at it. I'm building an alternate world where copper and tin are rather common but iron is not (obviously this world operates under somewhat different laws of physics than ours... :) ) Could you make chain mail (and I know some people don't like that term, but hey...) from bronze? Scale mail? Lamellar? Longswords?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I think so. Quality copper alloys have good machine properties. Anyway, here's some stuff I was doing, for snits and giggles on the bus today, four different gear set-ups.

All of these Setups assume a ST 11, HT 11 man. I guess HT 11 doesn't matter, though. Anyway, here we go:

A. Pot Helm, Cloth gambeson(Torso, Arms and groin), leather leggings and boots. Total weight: 18lbs

B. Pot Helm, Hard Leather jack(Torso, Groin and Arms), Leather leggings, and boots. Total weight: 22lbs, 24 with hard leather leggings, rather than just leather.

C. Mail Hauberk(Torso, Groin), Cloth or Hard Leather Sleeves, Pothelm and boots. 37lbs(32 if you reduce the armor weights to a more realistic level).

D. Mail Suit(Arms, Torso, Groin, Legs), Pothelm and coif, boots. Total weight 57lbs(48)

With an Axe or spear and large knife, we have 5lbs of weapons to add to this. A shield will range from 2-50(50 for an iron, large shield).

Man A, has a move of 5 without shield, 4 with a shield
Man B, has a move of 4, with or without a shield. A large shield would make him move 3.
Man C, has a move of 4, 3 with a meduim or large shield.*
Man D, has a move of 3, with or without a shield. **
*using the more accurate weights, C has a move of 4 with anything other than a large shield.
**D has a move of 4 without shield when using accurate weights for mail armor.

These gear set-ups strike me as reasonable. The weapons arrayed against such a man would be:
Axe: 1d+3 cut
Small Mace: 1d+3 cr
Sword 1d+2 cut, 1d+1 imp
Knife 1d-1 cut, 1d-1 imp
Spear 1d+1 imp, 1d+2 imp in two hands.
Self bow 1d imp
Composite Bow 1d+2
Crossbow 1d+3 or 2d(ST 13, takes 6 seconds to cock)
Thrown axe 1d+3 cut
Thrown Spear 1d+2
Sling 1d+1

As you can see, average damage appears to be in the 5-6 range for melee weapons, and 4 with most missile weapons. Mail offers excellent protection to everything but maces. It's of note that Persian, Byzantine and Muslim cavalry, facing heavy cavalry would often use large, powerful maces. Armoured hungarian troops even refused to fight Byzantine cavalry armed with maces on atleast one occassion.

A man seeking a little more protection would likely wear a heavier cloth gambeson under his mail hauberk. In the byzantine empire, a coat of plates(Dan, am I unreasonable in suggesting a similar profile to Lorica Segmentata?) would be worn over the torso. Khazars, Persians(or Khurasan), or Armenian cavalry also could be reasonably encountered with such armor. By the later 11th century, I think great helms may have been coming into style.

Byzantine, Khazars and others who made use of barding, probably favored partial scale or mail barding. In the case of byzantines, there were contemporary Arab accounts reporting the byzantines rode "horses with no legs", implying large heavy mail/scale skirts. These cavalry men would be unable to gallop, and instead simply walked into their enemies, using their horse's weight and their hand weapons to drive infantry before them.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I think this was covered in a previous thread. Properly cast and work hardened bronze is as good or better for making blades and armour than wrought iron and low carbon steel. Only high carbon quench hardened steel provides a higher hardness, but was extremely rare in the iron age. We only had an iron age because the raw materials for making bronze were much harder to acquire than iron. If copper and tin were as plentiful as iron then we would never have had an iron age because the incentive to switch from bronze to iron would not have existed. Yes, everything you can make from wrought iron can also be made from bronze and will usually be of a higher quality unless the carbon content and heat treatments are carefully controlled - something that was not often done at TL2. You can't make decent long blades from bronze, just as you can't make long blades from wrought iron. They will either bend or break in their first combat. Treat them as cheap quality.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

How many US soldiers are allowed to keep their state-issued armour and weapons after they leave service? Why would the "viking" bother keeping it anyway? He would have earnt more than enough to buy a decent mail byrnie. Lamellar was a poor substitute.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Sure, but everything should be heavier and more expensive.
Dan Howard will probably comment on the mail thing, so I'll just refer you to some of his articles:
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login...e.html?id=2565
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login...e.html?id=2418

The articles are all for 3e, so not that relevant.

According to Dan, Bronze should be 20% heavier for equal protection, and only cost 80% of equivalent mail/lamellar prices. (Don't multiply the weight of the padded cloth which should be assumed to be worn under the Mail and part of the weight of such.)

Even though Dan has numbers for other realistic armor prices which are 2x to 3x Basic prices, I would actually disagree that the Bronze Mail/Lamellar should be less expensive to produce than iron/steel, especially considering how it seems to be more difficult to do bronze wire, unfortunately, since I don't have the data to back up my opinion, that's all it is.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Mostly because, as far as I know, their equipment wasn't state-issued. The Vikings were a fairly disorganized lot, and like many of their contemporaries, individuals equipped themselves.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

What? We are talking about the Varangian Guard. They served the Byzantine Emperor. If anyone in the Byzantine army could not afford his own equipment then he was issued gear from the state arsenals. He was also required to keep it in good order and to return it upon completion of service. A Scandinavian serving in the Varangian Guard would not have been permitted to keep his gear after retiring. Nor would he have wanted to. They were extremely well paid and would have upgraded to far better equipment long before their service ended.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Agreed. I have long since changed my opinion regarding bronze. It is at least as good as all but Fine or Very Fine steel equipment and would cost more than iron gear.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I'm not sure mail would work well in copper/bronze. Their tendency to work-harden would make for brittle rings, I think. However, given the relative ease with which you can make good bronze plate, there's no real need for mail anyway.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I see. I saw "Viking," and I thought that you were talking about Vikings in general. Yes, the Byzantines and other Romans had professional armies equipped by the state, but still, I'm sure that a lot of them made off with their equipment after retirement.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Or scavenged it off of dead comrades or enemies who didn't need it anymore. Or deserted and ran off with it, or were left for dead on a battlefield and went home with it.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

There was a fascinating documentary on the BBC earlier this year, the title of which sadly escapes me, where they "tested out" bronze swords against iron ones. All of them were short swords, with a leaf-shaped blade

What they found, much to the surprise of one of the archaelogists on the programme, who had been predicting that the bronze blade would shatter into fragments, was that the bronze blade actually stood up better than the iron one did. With contact, both blades were blunted and had chips taken out of them, but the iron one actually came off much worse in this respect.

The big difference was that the iron blade was apparently much easier to repair afterwards than the bronze one was. I also seem to recall, though I'm not any kind of expert, that once a culture had iron-working sussed out, it was much cheaper to make iron implements than bronze ones.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

One of the major factors in the British government introducing the 1920 Gun Control Act was the large number of state-issued rifles and pistols that had somehow managed to find their way back home in private hands after the end of the First World War.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I think a much as in the german arms, nil, otoh the sweden and the swiss are a different thing.

I think a good lamellar offers better protection than maille, and AFAIk the officers were usually byrnies in the varangian guard, the soldiers not, and therefore the char would`ve used the lamellar.

Maybe I got my sources wrong but many bycabntean soldiers must come with their own equipment or their equipment was part of their payment from the state.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Also, does anyone have a good idea for representing the Solenerion? You know, the lil' tube attached to a bow, so you could fire "mice"?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Bronze is easy enough to anneal. Even iron mail was annealed at least twice to eliminate work hardening during the manfacturing process. There are surviving examples of Persian mail made entirely of bronze dated to the 12th century. They were found along with several iron examples so it is likely that they were intended for battle and not "ceremony".

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

The two main reasons are flexibility and coverage. Scale is more flexible than a solid cuirass. Scale also offers more coverage than a solid cuirass. It is able to cover joints such as armpits and elbows. It can also protect the lower stomach and groin. Plate can't do that.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Only the ones that are significantly heavier than mail. Compare two examples of similar weight and mail will provide the best protection. It also provides much much better coverage since it is flexible enough to cover the whole body. Lamellar leaves significant gaps in the elbows, armpits, neck, etc and requires overlapping panels to cover the lower stomach and groin which still leave exploitable gaps.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

That's true once you can make steel that's of sufficient quality. However, low grade steel/iron does not allow the manufacture of decent cuirasses, as iron tends to crack along edges when they are put under repetitive stress, and then tear from the cracks. There are techniques that reduce this tendency (rolled edges, etc.) but it is a problem that's not really avoidable with poor metal, and it's one that bronze doesn't suffer from. It also means that iron plate doesn't protect as well as it might because the metal, once pentrated, will tend to tear in front of the penetrating object, making it expend less energy than it would if the metal didn't tear. Again, bronze doesn't do this as readily, so it provides better protection for the same thickness (and weight, though as bronze is denser than iron it's not quite as marked). I suspect this is why large plates of iron/steel weren't in common use until the late middle ages or renaissance, and why iron plate tended to be reinforcing (or reinforced, depending on your POV) for other armour.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

It wasn't merely during manufacture that I was considering, but in use. However, if there are extant examples of combat sets of bronze mail, obviously I'm wrong.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Then why did scale and lamellar armours dominate some areas well after the introduction of mail? Price? Taste?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

------------------------------------------------
QUOTE=DanHoward]Sounds like we have a viking re-enactor who is a bit upset at being told he shouldn't be wearing lamellar. It was my belief that a re-enactor should be portraying the "typical" not the exception.

I am not a reenactor and I assumed it was about what could be used in an RPG. Whether I sound like a reenactor is not relevant to the discussion at hand.
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What is your definition of "regular mail"? How do you account for the fact that the Romans made far greater use of mail than they ever did of scale or lamellar?

My definition of "regular mail" is linked rings-mail. I don't account for the discrepency above because I was in a hurry to look up my information and I admited that plainly. Much was from memory of material I hadn't read for a long time.
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There is no evidence to suggest that even a single Scandinavian wore this armour during the so called "Viking period" outside of the Byzantine Empire. If we get into supposition you may as well equip a group of vikings in samurai armour based on the premise that they might have traded with Japan at some time.

The supposition that evidence of such kind is necessary is flawed. All that is needed is evidence that it could not have taken place. And Japan was a red herring-I never claimed that Vikings were fammiliar with Japanese, only with (Central Asian)Turks. The Turks were within the Vikings sphere of influence and there is no reason to assume that some vikings would not have taken to lameller. The lack of evidence can be explained by a number of theories besides the assumption that it never took place. Records are destroyed, artifacts are lost, and so on. And there are things that simply havn't been found.
In a game all that is necessary is to know what is ordinary for a given time and place and how probable a given deviation might be. Deviations can be allowed for by "quirks", and "social stigmas" and whatever.
It is true that a reenactor should fit to type as he is representing that type.
However in an RPG it is the setting that has to fit to type. The PC's can be arranged in any manner that doesn't contradict the inner nature of the setting(unless the point of the game is being ridiculous, in which case the PC's have even looser boundries).

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

It is a logical impossibility to prove a negative. It is the responsibliity of those who support the positive hypothesis to provide evidence.

Except that there is no evidence to suggest that they did. It is irresponsible scholarship to make speculations without supporting evidence.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

There certainly is evidence that the Vikings sphere of influence overlaped with the Turks. The Vikings regularly made trading voyages down the Russian rivers to the Black Sea.

As for "irresponsible scholarship", I was not aware that I was attending a history class. Or that I was writing a book. This thread is about RPG's. I was claiming that it was not implausible enough to throw out of court. Not that it actually happened. Not that it is even probable that it happened. But that the improbablity is not so great as to render it unjustified in a reasonably realistic game. I am not required to "refrain from making speculations without supporting evidence" all the time and it is pendantic to insist on such.

And ad hominims like "irresponsible scholarship"(and "pendantic" too I admit") are dirty pool. I would think it is possible to discuss matters in a civilized fashion if only because others have to listen to us.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

There are RPGs and RPGs. If you want a fantasy campaign then you can equip your "vikings" in Siberian lamellar, or Samurai yoroi or Roman lorica segmentata. If you are interested in historical realism and you want an accurate Scandinavian from the viking period then you are limited to mail or nothing unless he is in a context no longer related to "viking" (e.g. Varangian Guard)

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

It takes a well established society to produce mail armour. Scale and lamellar are easier to produce in less industrially developed cultures. The strange exception is China. Dispite having access to Persian mail armour and acknowledging its effectiveness, they rarely used it themselves.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

What was the Chinese wire-making technology and industry like? Also, IIRC, the Chinese had access to iron that was high in phosphor and easy to cast. If this iron made poor wire, or was easy enough to cast into shapes useful for scale or lamellar, it may have simply not seemed economic to make mail.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Again, does anyone have any ideas regarding the Solenarion? This thread isn't just for talking about amrour. :)

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

_________________________________________________
That is not my point. My point is that even a reasonably RPG is ultimatly a historical fiction and speculation is not out of place in historical fiction. It is true that "oddities" should not be to the degree that would cause damage to the setting. Within that context the main requirement is that it be plausible that it "could have happend". I remember one quite good historical novel that had as a comic relief one of the heros desperatly trying to bring to the Philosophers at Athens a sample of a Pteradactol skull that had come down the trade routes to the Mediterranean mysteriously. Now that is not that probable-few merchants would have burdended themselves with something so chancy on an overland journey so it probably wouldn't have arrived in the first place. But odd things must have travelled down the trade routes once in a while. And indeed this is perhaps less improbable then other things in the story, like the characters who are merely distinguished merchants meeting great figures of Ancient History personally. In any case "could-have" is enough for a storytellers purpose.
The question then becomes of what use is it in the story or in an RPG game which is a kind of interactive story? Lameller armor would not be likly to form a major part of the plot. Two uses I could see. One would be as a character building device. Have one of the characters-not all of the characters, one of the characters-wear it as a quirk. The explanations could be various. He could have been given it by a captain he fought under in his travels in the east. He could have been promised by a local wizard that it would bring him good luck in battle(that would not make it a fantasy campaign-that would only make the character a superstitious character*). The question of whether to use this gimmick is aesthetic not intellectual.
It is true that speculation is not in place in serious historical research unless it is openly admitted to be speculation-a point which you did not allow for but which is in fact not uncommon in reasonably respectable histories(spy histories for instance, would obviously have a long row to hoe without being allowed to speculate and it is not dishonest to do so as long as the author does not claim more information then he has). However in Historical Fiction all that is necessary is that a device be explainable within the framework of the genre and that it not clash with the setting in an unaesthetic manner.


*I have sometimes thought it sounded like a good plot device in a Medieval game to make the actual players unsure whether they are playing in a fantasy game-their confusion will imitate a real person facing the unknown in an age that was less skeptical, or at least skeptical about different things.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Searching for that word, only this post comes up. What is your question?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Basically, suggestions for the weapon and statistics. It's a tube, attached to a bow, that allows one to fire "mice", which are small darts. These darts apparantly possess good range, and lethality. I'm not sure what do do about it, but I was wondering if anyone else had had one show up in their games.

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare...al/weapon.html

I can't find too much that gives me any details, I was hoping one of you smart guys who know so much, and have helped me a bit could come to rescue. Yet again.

I'm seeing alot that seems to suggest these "mice" were multiple small darts fired from the solenarion. Which is kind of interesting.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Two uses I could see.
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I forgot to finish that thought. The second idea would be that it would be one of the commodities picked up on a trading voyage up and down the Volga

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

I happen to have Vol. 2 of David Niccole's Medieval Warfare Sourcebook in my too-small personal library, and it mentions arrow-guides in several places.

p. 36: "This was the arrow-guide which enabled an archer to shoot small, flat-trajectory dart-like arrows using an ordinary bow. Its precise origin remains a mystery, though it is first mentioned in the Middle East by Byzantine sources, where it was known as the solenarion."

p. 74 refers to its use by Mediterranean infantry, and that the dart was short, between an arrow and a bolt in length (the tube would let the bow be drawn farther than the length of the arrow). I'm not sure what the advantages of such things would be, since bolts are very bad aerodynamically, yet they clearly had a purpose. No idea about stats, but heavier arrows give better damage and worse range up to a point, then both start to decline. There are significant problems with the current bow rules in general- there really need to be variant stats for each type of ammunition.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Sounds interesting. Throw in a pile of Medieval superstitions and don't let the players know whether the rituals actually work (real magic) or whether successful outcomes occur because of more mundane events.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Not all that lethal. Joinville recounts a few occasions when warriors were hit by these things and not seriously injured. On one occasion he was hit by five of them. They penetrated his gambeson but not enough to take him out of the fight. He said that he was still sore the following day. On another occasion a knight was riding up and down a street. Each time he made a pass he was hit by these darts but each time he stoppped, he pulled the darts out of his mail and turned his horse around for another charge.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

Perhaps we should rename the thread "Bickering regarding archaic arms and armor"... :)

Stats for different kinds of arrows - my guess is that it will be in Low-Tech (or, as it is also known, Cabaret Chicks on Ice). Remember that the GURPS system is still pretty "bare-bones". I wonder if they will adopt mr Howard's thoughts about the various kinds of mail...

Here's another fun weapon: The Thracian/Dacian falx. Stats? I'm thinking either Naginata or Two-handed sword.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

My wife and I have toyed with running a medieval game with no actual supernatural elements, just lots of religion, superstition, and mysticism. We wondered how long it would take the players to realize that magic and prayer and the like really weren't doing anything and that every supernatural event had a mundane explanation. If, in-character, everything is couched in superstition and spoken of in supernatural terms, it would be hard to tell the difference. Just have to keep in vague and describe stuff through the filter of the mindset and not modern sensibilities or other meta-knowledge.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

to be fair, how lethal are bows, really? I've read one account in Harold Lamb's The Crusades from an arab describing Frankish infantry in mail coats with felt under them walking about with 21 or more arrows in them, and not minding a whole lot. And with the average damage of a ST 11 man using a composite bow(1d+2), it seems pretty fair. The armor described would either be Mail(DR 4/2) or Mail with cloth armor underneath(5/3). That means vs DR 4 you have a total damage of 0-6(average of 2-4), and vs DR 5 you are looking at 0-4(average of 0-2).

I'm of the opinion that a wound of 2-4 HP would be little more than heavy bruising, with maybe a slight penetration. After-all, a credible soldier with HT 11 and Fit, would heal that damage in a few days. Even an average man would be sore for at most a week or so from such a wound.

In a real-world example, friday night I hit my fore-head(left eyebrow, specifically) on a door-edge after some drunken sparring, and I suffered a mild concussion. Now, the wound is slowly closing up, but I'll probably have it for a week or more. I *should* get stitches, but I'm not a fan of needles, doctors or their bills. So how much damage should that be? Probably around 6+ total, to have forced me to check for stun and knockdown.

I think all this is borne by the damage a composite bow inflicts on an unarmored torso(6-16, average 10), which is enough to stagger an average man(ST 10-11), and possibly cause him to fall unconcious very quickly. A blow to the vitals would be 9-24, enough to outright kill many men, and likely enough to put them unconcious.

The effectiveness of bows seems to drop off rapidly as armor is worn.

Anyway, all that aside, what would be appropriate to represent a solenerion? Perhaps:
Solenerion, DAM Thr+1 imp, Acc 5, Range x15/x20, Weight 4/0.08, Shots 1(3), Cost ???, St 10, Bulk -8.

This puts in a kind of strange middle ground. It's accurate enough to give it a sizeable advantage over the composite bow and crossbow, if one targets vulnerable locations. It's RoF and Bulk have been increased due to the added difficulty of use due to the addition of a long tube. I can see a solenerion being useful in the hands of a skilled man, targeting throats, vitals, eyes and skulls. But against armor, I don't imagine it would be too effective.

Range may be too generous, as may accuracy. I've noticed a huge difference in the effectiveness of crossbows and bows(a crossbowmen in my 1091 game lastnight shot our intrepid Holy Roman Knight in the eye, through his great helm. The Knight's ok, thanks to magic.), primarily due to the increase in accuracy, but also due to damage. Rate of fire though, butchers the crossbow's effectiveness.

Do you think the solenerion is more of a one dart launched item, or is it perhaps something like a primitive machinegun, capable of firing multiple darts simultaneously?

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

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Add another complication-having a mundane explanation doesn't have to preclude having a non-mundane one(the existance of keyboards does not prove the nonexistance of Microsoft).
And not all "mundane" explanations are really mundane. Some are positively weird. Look at radiation-that certainly seems weird yet it is natural.

I have often thought if one is to be a pre-modern it would be an easier role to play a Medieval Italian, or Ancient Greek urbanite; say a Venetian trader. Such a person could easily be trained to categorize in a fairly recognizable fashion, thus the problem of deciphering "natural vs supernatural" is more likely to play a role in his mode of thinking-wheras a nomad or peasant might wonder what in the world you are talking about. Thus it would be less easy to roleplay.
Describing things through the mindset of a Venitian trader is also far easier for the GM then through the mindset of a Russian peasant. Most of those who have seen that mindset have done so from the outside and don't really know what it feels like. The one person I do know who would know what that was like, an Indochinese exile(from a tribe hosed by the commies) at my church, I havn't asked for the reason that it is not polite to pry with people who have suffered and he has rebuilt his life over here.
On the other hand steping into the shoes of a upper-to-middle class urbanite of reasonable education from premodern times is a very small step. One has to remember the little complications, which are trickier then the bigger ones and thus less easily avoided. An obvious if rather amusing way to catch what a fairly rich Venetian would have been like is to watch Godfather and then filter out the specifically criminal elements(actually the movie already does that-most of the violence is clan feuds, and the really sordid parts of the Corleone family business is not shown). Godfather is to a large degree a display of traditional Italian family rivalrys in a "peculiar" context-but a context that would be fammiliar in the 1300's. Not all Italian familys lived like Mafioso of course but it was more out in the open in those days.
The old computer game Marco Polo actually does this "Medieval Mindset" sort of thing well, to the point of makeing one or two of the travellers tales actually true. Salamander, the legendary metal from the skin of lizards that live in the center of the Earth, is an actual commodity in the game-and a quite profitable one. Thus they treat the fabulous in a mundane way that is very appropriate to a Medieval. Patrician III(set in the Hanseatic League) does this less well by regularly fining the player because the town council heard that he said the world was round which was fairly well known then(Columbus was attempting to prove the world's roundness could be turned to economic advantage, not to prove the world was round).
Fortunatly minor complications won't be noticed and are easily dodged. What is more tricky is to make the character different-yet-recognizable to a modern. If he is made just like a modern it is really a time travel story disguised as a historical fiction. If he is made more different then history warrants, that also offends. The first flaw is probably more common.
All that said, roleplaying an urbanite character from a different time requires less difficulty then roleplaying someone who is totally uneducated. That requires changing your psychology. Not completly-humans are always human. But to a unrecognizable degree. The is-it-or-isn't-it system for describing uncanny events fits well into this sort of thing. As a bonus it can be made more scary then the rather unimaginitive "throw fireball-roll against targets constitution" stuff which in essence simply changes the rules rather then making the character unsure what the rules are. Ignorance in a RPG is a formidable tool.

Re: Armoury of Antiquity: Questions regarding archaic arms and armor
 

"Thus they treat the fabulous in a mundane way that is very appropriate to a Medieval"

seems contradictory to:

"As a bonus it can be made more scary then the rather unimaginitive "throw fireball-roll against targets constitution" stuff which in essence simply changes the rules rather then making the character unsure what the rules are. Ignorance in a RPG is a formidable tool."

In fact they both have a place. What is required for my hypothetical Venetian trader is to create a world where the "uncanny" is believed in not just as a philosophical posibility(I.E. as a modern westerner who is religious might), but as an actual rather than theoretical part of their lives, but make the character able to differentiate between one and the other in a way a primative or semi-primative might not. Thus using uncannyness in a mundane fashion is a part of this genre. A "science" of magic doesn't fit.