Female Warriors

>A brave attempt,
Stupidity isn't bravery though.

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This thread needs more muscles.

if i was a female, a regular sized one, not a man-sized amazon thing, i would pick a weapong with more reach, some polearm and a crossbow, bows require a lot of strenght to use

>How would you do female fighters in low fantasy?
I generally wouldn't. Females are needed to be back at home producing the next generation of turnip farmers/nobility/soldiers. That's assuming they're human, of course. Other races might have a different birth process. That said, I wouldn't disallow my players from playing a female if they wanted to, it's just not something I really feel the urge to do.

>What weapons are best for females
Ones that can kill people. You retard.

>not a man-sized amazon thing

...Have you ever seen a woman? do you know how big they are

Very few real-life cultures had female warriors, and even those that did were typically in ceremonial roles more than anything else.
When I do them it is typically made very clear that they are the exception not the rule. For instance, when I made a Viking culture the "Shieldmaidens" were basically glorified bodyguards for rich or important people. Outside of those ceremonial roles female warriors in my settings are gladiatrix types who are more about looking good and putting on an interesting show than fighting ability, or they are mercenaries, in which case they are women so masculine that they are indistinguishable from men without looking really hard.
The only time I really have female fighters who are not ceremonial, not gladiatrices, and not so masculine they are basically men is when said character is either going to be important to the story, or they are an elf.

>bows require a lot of strength
Crossbows usually do too. Unless you have one with a winch. Which has its own drawbacks of being slow to load, on the plus side they are wicked efficent. He'll the Pope banned them for some time because of it.
>Pole arm
The ones with the longer reach were more for fighting in formation. Shorter ones like poleaxes for one on one combat. Anyways I think you slightly underestimate how much strength it takes to use a weapon that's really a long leaver with the heavy bit on the far end.

Yes, not very big at all, especially in a low fantasy medevial(?) setting.

Something with reach, leverage or low user impact: a flail, meteor hammer, etc. Other things you could use: bolas, blowguns, throwing knives. We all suspend our disbelief in fantasy settings, but sex differences are so ingrained that they're hard to overlook unless a woman is using magic. Which works perfectly in some settings, if you want to say that an order of all-female holy knights are latently strengthened by god.

>Females are needed to be back at home producing the next generation of turnip farmers
And vast majority of males need to stay at home growing said turnips. Adventurers are statistical outliers by definition.

>meteor hammer,
>he fell for the "shalolin showmanship weapons are actually effective" meme

As always, real life is the best inspiration.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons

>the Pope banned them for some time because of it.
Myth. There was a condemning of ALL non-thrown missile weapons used by Christians against Christians (which, obviously, meant literally nothing to anyone), specifically archers and slingers but later extended to crossbows, but there was never any such BAN at any point in history.

It's a myth as stupid as samurai hating guns and needs to be laid to rest.

I'm not saying it's necessarily effective, just that a woman could wield it. Do you think she'd honestly be better off with a gladius?

It's probably a little too magical for low fantasy, but I really like the Pegasus Knights of Fire Emblem. In most of the games, they're entirely female (With different explanations, ranging from needing to be light to stay flying, to pegasus only accepting female riders, to just tradition) and a lot of time, they're portrayed as the most accepted choice for female fighters in the country(ies) that heavily utilize them.
Very light skirmishers and scouts. No staying power, but very high mobility for obvious reasons, and a serious contender for best unit type in the game when Canto is a game mechanic.

>What weapons are best for females
Arquebus.

Best weapon for best girl.

I really want to make a Not-Eboshi backup character for my current campaign.

In general apart from the women who were warlords, or queens and led troops like Artemisia or Hypsicratea there were cases such as:

The myth of the Amazons comes from the Scytho-Sarmatian nomadic peoples who due to the necessity of their lifestyle had to have women learning how to ride a horse,hunt and shoot a bow on horseback.

There are of course also the female bushi retainers, who historically saw some actions.

Viking shield maidens though rare, were also recorded in doing some fighting especially in Vinland.

Then in the early modern period there were multiple female fencers like the infamous Julie D'Aubigny.

For older time periods you can just use wikipedia OP:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women_warriors_in_folklore#Duchy_of_Brittany

The Roman legionary style with a gladius would actually be very efficient.

It's basically just march forward, stab, block, march forward, stab, repeat.
It's not very physically intensive when done properly. They just use formations, strategy, and weight of numbers.

Like pic related, or as noblewomen commanding household troops in their male relative's absence.

There are no real life female warrior cultures. Female warriors have always been the exception. Obviously any women who weren't famous nobles never even get mentioned in history in the same way male warriors who weren't kings, dukes or princes don't. As such the only real accounts are of noblewomen, and they generally only started fighting out of neccesity after the death of a husband i.e. Joan of Flanders.

As for weapons, crossbows and polearms. Weapon can use swords and shit just as well as men from a technique standpoint but anything that involves getting with grappling range is going to put the fighter at risk of being overpowered by an opponent with significantly more upper body strength than her.

Despite popular media, military archery actually requires significant upper body strength and stamina to do well, compared to fighting hand-to-hand with something like a spear, so it actually makes more sense for a female fighter to be a spear(wo)man or similar formation fighter, rather than an archer. Crossbows being an exception since mechanical aids exist so even a child can cock and loose a bolt that could kill a man-at-arms.

About the only accounts I know of non-noble women engaging in combat during the medieval period are of townswomen using crossbows from their settlement's walls.

Scutum are a very heavy shield design, and you can't overlap them to form a shieldwall to absorb impacts like you can with viking era shields, so you'd need to be pretty strong and well conditioned to use early imperial legionary tactics.

The short reach of the gladius compared to other swords could also be an exaggerated issue for women, since they're generally shorter than men.

From what I gather, using a gladius was a high-risk, high-reward, very aggressive method of fighting, maybe why they switched to the longer spatha and rounded shields that could be used in a shieldwall during the later empire, when the Roman Army's tactics became more defensive to preserve manpower.

The later empire's tactics were not improvements. They lost a ton of their strategic leadership from inner cultural strife.

During the height, they did not run significant risk, as they employed a 'slow and steady steamroller' style. Testudo as well granted a great cooperative advantage against missile fire.
I believe Wikipedia has a pretty big section on Roman infantry warfare.

Main thing for them was the professional and rigorous training. It's similar to how even modern soldiers train, including females.

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Like Otoyomegatari

around 70% of women i know are smaller than me, and probably 99% are much weaker and i'm no weight lifter

>around 70% of women i know are smaller than me,
Are you a manlet?

I'd point out that no amount of muscle keeps a blade from sliding through your organs and armor protects equally.

>Achieve nothing of any military note
>Only remarkable due to their gender
>Slaughtered by the Foreign Legion during their first proper war

Sounds about as expected.

>no amount of muscle keeps a blade from sliding through your organs
>armor protects equally

Pretty sure a 1.7m, 85kg male can bear the weight of more/thicker armor than a 1.4m, 50kg female can, thus rendering his organs better protected from any blade-sliding.

>strength doesn't matter in a fight
>my armor will protect me from the blows of a sixteen stone male warrior, as well as his armor protects him from the blows of a nine stone sopping wet female warrior
I really hope you weren't being serious.

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They would be the outliers, for cultural, rather than statistical differences. Adventurers however are always the outliers, so I have no problem with my players being female warriors.

In any realistic setting, women will not be a major component of the military.

Female warriors tend to be desperate outlaws and insurgents, or bored/cruel aristocrats who have enough money and power to openly violate social norms, like Artemisia I.

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>that long skirt
Oh shit nigga what are you doing?

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I'm glad I found out about that artist the other day. They have some great stuff.

Right? It's not even fucking slitted at the sides.

In fairness, no other tribesmen accomplished much worthy of note against the Foreign Legion in that war, and the Amazons were noted among the tribal warriors for their formidable morale.

Honestly, women have historically been seen as being more in touch with magic (midwives witches, crazy faerie beauties, ect) and so you might be better having the domain of magic be female, even if there's only some magic in your setting. I understand that in 99% of situations, a man will overpower a woman...but if the woman can curse his legs to become feeble before he reaches her, then she wins. Otherwise, stealthy assassin type weapons maybe?

There were ample cultures with female warriors, user. I mean, disregarding obvious ones like the Persians (who had them so far as Naval Commanders in a time when "Naval commander" meant "Someone who is going to wreck some serious face in hand-to-hand boarding actions") and the Egyptians (who had even more explicit female commanders leading from the front in mass combat), there's also the Scythians and Sarmatians. Chinese history is full of various female soldiers and officers and commanders, along with neighboring / nearby countries such as Korea and Japan. And this is examples we have indisputable archeological evidence / records that has survived over the ages, versus ones that are probable but have very little surviving / intact mounds to work from (such as various Helenistic Greek battles which, traditionally, mentioned female soldiers being present in some manner or another).

It always floors me how many people seem to think that archeology and "biotruths" and whatnot support an argument that women could never have been soldiers before the age of firearms / modern firearms. Women were present in all levels of military life (from support staff and camp followers to outright commanders leading from the fore) for thousands of years. They rarely had the same prevalence as men, but that just means they were less prevalent. Eunuch soldiers weren't as common as non-castrated ones, but they quite obviously existed. Yet for some reason you bring up the same with women and "SJW REVISIONISM", "IT COULD ONLY HAVE BEEN CEREMONIAL", "HOW CAN YOU PROVE THEY WEREN'T GUYS WITH WAIFISH HIPS?" Get over it: Women can and have fought historically.

Do you have a single fact to back any of that up?

>How would you do female fighters in low fantasy?

I wouldn't impose any disparities between character gender, if that's what you mean. Females might be physiologically smaller than males by average, but that isn't to say women are never born with Amazon-like genes, or that men are never destined to be scrawny manlets.

Characters generated in a role-playing game can consist of as many exceptions as you want. Even if you're running a low-fantasy setting, I don't necessarily see any reason to say any given party can't consist entirely of six-foot-five barbarian babes.

>What are some good examples of real life female warriors/cultures that had female warriors.

The Persian military. If I'm not mistaken, women commonly held positions in the military and politics in pre-Islam Middle East.

To a lesser extent, I think there were occasionally female soldiers serving in the front lines during early Chinese feudalism.

>What weapons are best for females etc

Uh, the same ones males use? What kind of question is that.

Well, to start: Anthropologist David Anthony (M.A. and PhD in Anthropology / Archeology, focusing on Eurasia Steppe Grasslands) has commented on how ~20% of the Scythian-Samaritan warrior graves in the lower Don and Volga region were composed of women in battle dress. Dr. Elena Fialko (Ukranian Archeologist) corroborates as much with reports of - in some cases - up to 25% of warrior graves for said culture involving all the regular signs and procedures except with a female in the grave as opposed to a male (with these examples also excluding graves that had male and female occupants wherein whose possessions the military kit was might have been confused).

More incoming...

i'm a photographer, work with models and most of them (at least here) are tall as fuck, and im 1,80 cm tall (don't know how much that is for the imperials) so most models i work with are at least as tall as me. Actually i should have said shorter instead of smaller

Except that the argument wasn't about the existence of females in combat roles but the effectiveness, something you have yet to prove. If you cannot prove it your whole argument is as empty as me trying to play a child paladin because of the children's crusade or other accounts of young warriors.

>photographer
>work with models
>1,80 cm tall
We totally believe you.

the thing is, nobody is saying it was IMPOSSIBLE to see women in battle, but they where an incredibly rare sight. When we see women warriors in archeological findings they are an oddity, not the norm, they where so rare, than every time one pops up its something worthy of being remembered

honestly don't care, besides the banner of this site says "authistic works of fiction"

>Females might be physiologically smaller than males by average,
And with less muscle mass, even pound for pound all else being equal. That's kind of really important we aren't just talking a difference of stature which might be compensated for within reason.

>What weapons are best for females

Is that even a question?

Also, before I forget to mention as much: The Saka are mentioned in ARCHAOLOGY - Volume I (ISBN 9781848260023, page 383) as having their women fight alongside their men when they fought against Cyrus the Great.

But to move on to other sources, with the Egyptians we start with records going as far back as Ahhotep I (who, admittedly, does not have explicit mention in battle so much as of "guarding" both her soldiers and her nation as well as been responsible for pacification of Upper Egypt and its rebels, but as a national leader in Ancient Egypt the norm there IS fighting alongside the troops so you'd need to propose evidence saying otherwise besides "SHE'S A GURL"), Ahhotep II was buried with regalia normally reserved for military valor rewards (but is iffy insofar as very few tombs from Ancient Egypt remained undisturbed until the great Archeological Rush in recent centuries), and Hatshepsut may-or-may-not (the debate predominantly over whether to believe the records stating her to have led Egypt in peace or other records which mention Egyptian aggression during the times of her reign).

Yet more incoming, still.

>How would you do female fighters in low fantasy?

If they're player characters, I don't need to do shit. If I'm trying to create a world where woman have the same physical capabilities as men, then I just say "Women have the same physical capabilities as men."

Is it true in real life? No. Do I care? Also no.

Why wouldn't you? I mean besides my personal distance of the chosen profession of photographing people, there's nothing noticeably wrong about his post. Including the fact that many professional female models tend to be fairly tall because of some bullshit about preportions for dresses or something.

>And with less muscle mass

Women can manage pretty good gains just by working out, even without the use of supplements. Presumably, a female character serving in the front lines does tend to her physical strength. It's not an issue.

>the throwing anus
kek

Not really. I know we've got this whole "rar strength is my prime requisite!" thing going, but it doesn't take a lot of strength to stab someone to death with a long sharp piece of metal. Soldiers weren't bodybuilders. Hell, if you've ever seen ancient armor a lot of 'em were pretty tiny.

it's because the agencies chose them tall, a more uh... "stylized" figure looks better in all clothes and tall girls are easier to see (also easier to photograph) btw being a model, at least where i live is quite a shitty job, it doens't even pays good enough

If it's a player character, then it's irrelevant, as outliers exist.

If you're making a setting where men and women are physically equal, well, Low Fantasy is still FANTASY.

If you're making a culture that predominantly features female warriors, then there's a genetic quirk that allows this to work.

All of this is irrelevant though. Only the painfully autistic get hung up on this shit.

And yet this thread is full of examples of people going "I wouldn't do them at all because it (female soldiers) would be stupid", "I generally wouldn't as females are needed at home to raise the next generation of soldiers", "Very few real-life cultures had female warriors and even less female warriors that weren't ceremonial and nothing more", etcetera.

Anyways, back to the earlier stuff
There's Lady Fu Hao, consort of Emperor Wu Ding credited with leading at her peak up to 13,000 soldiers and recorded - in the very least - as having lead ~3,000 soldiers personally in battle during at least one engagement ( ISBN 0-7656-0504-X, p. 13) and slightly more ambiguously lead campaigns into the neighboring Yi, Qiang, and Ba regions. Yuenü is another obvious historic example from China (ISBN 978-0-7656-1750-7, p.91), who depending on the additional sources you follow ranges from either a common soldier to a trainer of officers in the Zhejiang military / one of the earliest expositions on the art of the sword.

We also have a historic document (The Book of Lord Shang) which makes strong suggestion for use of "strong women" to form one of the three branches of the military (specifically, secondary fortification and defenses such as military traps and the sort).

Shall I go on, or would people like some more examples from pre-CE?

>it doesn't take a lot of strength to stab someone to death
People don't just let you stab them.

>if you've ever seen ancient armor a lot of 'em were pretty tiny
Because they didn't have Big Macs. People in the modern developed world are a lot taller simply because of food.

Stop being such a fucking muh realism autismo and just let people play what they want.

I guarantee you 90% of women you run across are capable of summoning up the strength to stab your fat neckbeard self to death

>Shall I go on
Do you really think people want to hear your disingenuous cherry-picked grad thesis about outliers. Here's a simpler solution: put Orcs in the game.

Please do, I'll screencap it for future threads once you are done.

please go on, i find the topic quite interesting. Still i keep saying, women warriors where very uncommon

They always lag far behind their male cohort though, that is an issue in a setting where you are going to presumably face opponents that do just as much or more work than you in terms of training

>it's doesn't take much strength to stab people
Great, except we aren't talking about slipping a knife in some fat shopkeepers vack, and instead talking about armed and likely armored combat which does require strength and stamina in spades.

>small armor small people
Yes people tended to be malnourished, that doesn't mean strength was not critical to winning battles.

>"Female soldiers is a stupid idea" "Women soldiers are almost non-existent and even more so when you don't count ceremonial fops" "lol in no realistic setting would women ever be a major component of the military"
>"Yo dawg we have some historic examples of ranking officials writing documents about the use of female regiments for preparing and manning fortifications, officers and military commanders from assorted cultures including females who lead from the front, and at least one culture wherein consistently ~20% of the military graves were occupied by female bodies."
>"… Outliers. They're outliers and totally don't matter"

A+ rebuttal. I am slain, my argument in ruins.

>make a game and choose to have it be low fantasy (as in semi realistic)
>handwave unrealistic shit because "it's fantasy only autists care lol"
user pls

>Do you have any facts to back that up ?
>Except theses ones, they don't count. Or theses ones.
user plz

>we have some historic examples of ranking officials writing documents about the use of female regiments
In China, where sexual dimorphism is markedly lower.

Not , but thought I would add my own two cents:
In a medieval-ish setting, there would be two most probable motivators for female warriors.

1. Necessity- There are simply not enough men- either because the majority of males are dead or absent, or because the society is too small to put enough warm bodies into the field.

For example, female samurai were a thing in the most turbulent times of Japan because the vast majority of males were either out fighting or already dead. With the warring states politics, a neighboring province could become hostile overnight without warning, so they needed someone, ANYONE capable of holding a spear to (wo)man the castle defenses and prevent a rival from just waltzing in unopposed. Some of them took to this position well and fought some impressive battles, but the end of the wars saw such women put "back in the kitchen" so to speak.

For thousands of years, both men and women in Mongolia practiced horse archery because they needed to hunt and protect herds from predators. When your survival depends on using a particular skill very well every day, you get pretty good at it, as many unfortunate Chinese, Turks and eastern Europeans discovered.

>thread about a low fucking fantasy campaign
>REEEEEE stop caring about realism

Are you mentally infirm?

>Shall I go on, or would people like some more examples from pre-CE?
Yes and yes. If you can bring up any desert culture fighting women, I'd appreciate it.

I know of a desert culture that fights women today.

Well if you watch History Channel's the Vikings Lagertha is a great example. Viking Shield Maidens were a thing. It freaked out the christians to see women warriors. It devastated them even more to LOSE to women. And viking women wrecked shit just like viking men.

Female samurai warriors were also a thing. While trained in the use of the sword, and some even carried the Waka...er...I'm not going to try to spell that, Side arm sword, the Naginata was considered the principal weapon of the female on the battlefield as it allowed them to fight from a distance and with greater leverage.

Other warrior woman cultures in history favored weapons based around precision over brute force. Hence why viking shield maidens favored the sword over the axe.

I'm not the "durr how does I female warriors guise!?!1?"

You have a woman

She probably wears similar armor and weapons to her male counterparts

When combat starts she either gets fucked up or she doesn't

She is probably a statistical outlier to other women in the setting

It's not that fucking hard.

Can we talk about which races make the best soldiers?

Forgot my pic.

Mediterraneans. That's not even a question.

But females are physically weaker than males

Fantastic. They can take an arrow to the face like their male counterparts just as well.

Males are physically weaker than other males, too.

OP didn't say adventurers, he said fighters.

>But females are physically weaker than males
Lower upper body strength yes.
So don't have women make up your center or front lines.

Place a woman where you would place a weak man, with a long spear, behind a line of big burly dudes with shields.

Vikings!

>He'll the Pope banned them for some time because of it.
Bullshit. That's a myth.

A child's strength can crank a windlass