Let's get a fantasy gun thread going.
What are some famous guns from fantasy works? The only ones that spring to mind are the guns of Arthur Eld/the Sandalwood guns/Roland's guns from the Dark Tower series. Could fantasy use more fancy magic guns in it in general?
>Could fantasy use more fancy magic guns in it in general?
yes and no.
guns are mostly impersonal. they mostly arose after mass production. so individual guns on their own didn't have the same artisanal reverence. it was a tool as devoid of character as a hammer. this combined with the relatively low level of minimum skill to use one effectively compared to a bow, or sling.
the cowboy's 6-gun wasn't forged by master-smiths, it was made and assembled by Colt Manufacturing in Hartford Connecticut by a bunch of guys in a shop.
a Masamune blade was made by the man himself.
The Argo was a ship made by the man Argus Son of Arestor.
but your Brown Bess was made by a faceless nameless gunsmith.
part of making a THING fantastic is where it came from. where most guns come from is "the assembly line"
so we need to find famous characters that used guns and see about stealing THEIR traits and stories...cause fantasy guns is a thing I could wish for...
also if you want a setting with cool guns you might try Wild Cards
1d4chan.org
as-is I've wanted to use the idea of a "set" of weapons like that sometime just because it seems interesting...
you might also look for the "firsts"
a legitemate
>Serial No. 0001
on anything is a collectors wet-dream after all
for me this one is legendary because the prop itself supposedly could do a lot of things like it did in the movie
>fired blanks
>Ice-cube system was a mini fire-extinguisher
>rocket was a firework
>fired the net and the darts
>Could fantasy use more fancy magic guns in it in general?
I'm honestly surprised that there aren't more fancy magic guns in American-made fantasy. The image of the gun is kind of ingrained in the idea of American exceptionalism and the frontiersman spirit. The gun is a will to power. It's the tool that sets a man apart from his neighbors and gives him the freedom to traverse and conquer unconquered lands. On the homestead, away from civilization and the laws therein, the only law is what the homesteader decides and the law's enforcer is the homesteader's gun.
I reject the notion that firearms are nearly as impersonal as you make it out to be. You brought up Masamune making a sword himself. What about a master gun smith personally forging a gun for you? Rather than a factory made model the same way a sword smith pumps out swords you have this gun that was specially designed for you and is probably marked in some way to make it personal and set it apart from others.
I feel this is really a matter of personal view that some may never overcome. To you, a fire arm could never be the same thing as a sword I guess.
i imagined a weapon called "the dragon" a hand cannon with the end of its barrel shaped into a dragons head and with ornate oriental themed decor and engravings across the stock and barrel
it was made 300 years ago and has been used by dozens of kings and conquerors, in several well-known battles
legends tell of a weapon that shoots blasts of fire instead of lead shot, and a mighty fire arm wielded by kings, capable of rendering a tercio to ashes within a single blast
it is said to tempt the user into acts of barbarism and cruelty it doesnt, it uses rare magic crystals for ammo, the gun isnt magical that way, the user just gets greedy and tries to conquer the sources of crystal
>shit-talking Colt
user, you don't truly understand the myth and prestige given to American gunsmiths during their heyday, do you? For fuck's sake, the company's tagline of "God created Men and Sam Colt made them even" is still bandied around to this day. And that's just Colt. Better not forget John Moses Browning.
I see. When Starfinder drops it gave me the idea for some unique guns, especially inspired by Destiny because I'm a huge faggot like that.
Long story short, there are a pair of pistols that are not only seemingly indestrucable but if you hold on of them you could be possessed by the soul of it's former wielders. The guns were used by a Bonny and Clyde type cuple who gained the favor of a forgotten god and turned them into liches with their guns as their phylacteries. If a man and a woman are holding the guns and they come together their souls are sacrificed and the couple are essentially "reborn" until they are "killed" again.
You have some precedent for it with stuff like the Equalizer or Tick-licker. Colt or Browning could be likened to Masamune ("the Lord made all men free, but Sam made them equal").
But on the other hand, Pecos Bill shot all the stars out of the sky, save one; but Pecos Bill's guns were just guns. His mule has a name and a legend to it, but his guns were just guns. IMO when it comes to the "gun mythos," tools don't make the men, men make the tools.
the problem still is the idea that the gun is special.
it's the person and what they do with it that makes a gun special.
>What about a master gun smith personally forging a gun for you?
see, so little of that happens these days. usually the custom piece is an art or competition weapon. there is no cultural backing on it being more than passingly special compared to the mass-produced weapons out there.
>if Samuel Colt made me a special revolver.
then it's still just a revolver, it probably requires no more or less skill to use than any other revolver of the same caliber while being not much more than on par or even with the anonymous revolver. the only special trait is that it was made by Colt himself, that, and what I CHOOSE to do with it.
youtube.com
the culture I grew up with basically says to me "the origin and nature of the weapon matter nothing at all compared to how it is used"
look at this box of lugers, none of them are special until someone pulls one out and puts a bullet in Hitler with it.
>shit-talking Colt
first off, no, I am not. I was making a generalization on the origins of most of the handguns in the wild west.
>"God created Men and Sam Colt made them even"
he made every man holding his weapons equal to eachother
taken literally it means that once everyone in the room has a gun then nobody is special in terms of power.
in that room the only gun that matters is in the hands of the best shot
exactly
For me, the power of the gun comes from the legend associated with it. Sure, Pecos Bill did the shooting but you also have Pecos Bill's Gun (or at least a copy of it) the legend behind it and the power of the user was imparted upon it giving it it's status.
Take pic related. A seemingly unremarkable auto rifle but it's the rifle of one of the most infamous warlocks in the game's history Toland (yes I know the gun isn't uber badass or exotic or anything). This is the same guy who made a gun based on Hive magic and went so far as to get a booty call with a Hive Wizard that killed him with her Death Song so now he's swimming around in the Hive afterlife.
There's a role reversal that occurs. Excalibur isn't noteworthy because it belonged to King Arthur; King Arthur is noteworthy because he had Excalibur. Wild Bill isn't special because he had his revolvers; his revolvers are special because they belonged to Wild Bill.
The problem is that this is exact opposite of the cowboy's outlook on firearms, which is in turn where the quintessential american myth comes from. The weapon itself is not special- they are in fact, what allowed a lot of "freedom". The Sword or personal arms of old myth were magical, or wielded by legendary heroes because they were spectacularly more powerful than their foes. The myth of the gun is essentially to shatter this exact concept.
Remember the old saying: "God made some men bigger and stronger than others, but Mr.Colt made all men equal."
>the cowboy's 6-gun wasn't forged by master-smiths
>a Masamune blade was made by the man himself
>part of making a THING fantastic is where it came from
That just makes it more interesting.
It means that a gun's greatness doesn't come from its origin, but from the great deeds its wielder accomplished with it. While a blade forged by a master is seen as great even if it has never been used or its wielder died without actually achieving anything with it.
The blade is the poncy nobleman who inherited his title without having to work for it. The gun is a nameless nobody who had to work his way to the top and is still looked down upon for not being noble born.
Your brain is sexy and your idea fantastic. Stolen, with a kiss.
>the cowboy's 6-gun wasn't forged by master-smiths
I don't see why not, until the American System of Manufactures was pioneered, gunsmiths were a thing. It took some good shit to make a good fowling piece.
How about something that is also a gun?
>they mostly arose after mass production
But that's where you're wrong, retard. For the major part of their existence firearms have been hand crafted artisanal pieces.
Scythes are bad weapons, a sniper rifle that uses a blade as a tripod is a bad gun, and its user, as expected, underperforms in every single significant fight she participates in that doesn't involve her sister
Modifications can make a gun unique in the same way it can make a sword unique, and in a lot of the same ways.
In the same way fantasy swords are not restricted to realistic sword design, guns can be much more unique than there mass produced counterparts. Maybe this revolver has an obscenely long barrel inscribed with runes and the like.
Also, it's funny you posted a picture of The Caster Gun since that's a fairly good example of a unique gun in a universe full of guns.
>Modifications can make a gun unique in the same way it can make a sword unique, and in a lot of the same ways
Or a gun that's killed a ton of people could become just as BLOODCURSED as a sword that's killed a bunch of people.
I mean, most super swords are just regular swords all jeweled up with special properties. Excalibur could cut anything and its sheath protected the wearer from losing blood. It also happened to be a pretty standard sword.
The Justicar.
Legend has it that in the days of darkness after the South won the civil war, that a lone gunman walked in to the Union Pacific offices of Omaha in June of 1901 with the bounty of the century. Robert Parker and Harry Longabaugh lay dead on on a wagon pulled by the loner's horse. After several hours, the gunman departed with the bounty, taking only his horse. Left behind, were the two bodies left behind and a rifle lying across them. The firearm was unique, firing a small .22 caliber round, two .357 caliber rounds and one 20 gauge shotgun round. It had no maker's marks, and no gunsmith ever contacted about it had ever heard of such an order at that time. Fine gold inlay atop beautifully etched steel and the finest walnut combine for an aesthetically pleasing and deadly piece of craftsmanship.
Sometime in the earliest days of the great war, the gun went missing from the showroom of the Union Pacific offices. It was found in the hands of a young french soldier in the aftermath of the Battle of Verdun. He claimed he found the rifle and ammo belts on a fallen french soldier. It was noted that there were over 40 kills surrounding his lone entrenchment and seeing as how there were no allied bodies in that spot, it was assumed that the lone soldier had held that position until allies reinforced him. He gladly traded the firearm away to an officer and for a time, the gun goes missing from history.
It next appears during the battle of Hamburger Hill in the hands of a marine. Having run out of ammo, he fell back to a stack of sandbags and found a dead marine with the rifle and several boxes of matching ammunition. Reports are varied, but confirm that he proceeded to snipe enemy targets from the position, as though he had years of experience with the firearm. The soldier was later awarded a bronze star for his actions, as they directly lead to the support and eventual advancement of the entire eastern wing of the offensive.
That's the point, your gun was forged by normal people doing their jobs, feeding their families. The gun you use is the American Dream Incarnate, carrying the hopes and aspirations of those men.
The soldier initially refused to hand over the weapon to inspecting officers, but acquiesced after being offered a field promotion to captain. This was the first noted instance of the word Justicar etched on the barrel. Where the inscription came from is unclear, whether original reports simply excluded it, or whether it had been added after WW1. It was later placed in the National Firearms Museum in Virginia.
The firearm seems to have a quirk of firing off at seemingly random times, even though it is always unloaded. It is later found, however, that the gun fires off whenever someone with outstanding criminal connections walks by, seeming to "alert" security to these people. 7 persons were arrested for open warrants for severe crimes while touring the facility and only after walking past this firearm. This rifle went missing in the early 2000's. It has not been located since, though there have been reports of a gunman seen from afar in active warzones with a clearly intricate, old-fashioned firearm.
en.wikipedia.org
The First of the Six strikes with ungodly force. The Second spreads Perdition’s flames. The Third kills with a flesh-rotting disease. The Fourth calls up the spirits of those it has slain. The Fifth can heal the wielder from even a fatal wound. And the Sixth is the key to rewriting the world.
PF magic firearms (single shots)
Firedrake Pistol - can shoot fire bullets, cone of fire, and looks neat
Loudshot Pistol - Can be commanded to cause a sonic boom deafening opponents that are close.
Peacekeeping Pistol - +1 pistol that only deals nonlethal damage, can daze on crits.
Pistol of the Infinite Sky - +5 pistol of infinite ammo, never misfires.
Seraphic Pistol - removes Damage Reduction for 1 minute from evil enemies that take damage.
Shieldmarshal’s Pistol - allows use of one specific grit feat from gunslinger class
Shockwave Blunderbuss - Knocks over ("trips") those struck by pellets.
Traitorous Blaster - Weird ass double barrel pistol that allows you to shoot once forward and once back due its massive recoil, though only to shoot flankers.
Ammo
Reporting Cartridge - allows you to hear from where the bullet lands
Scouting Cartridge - can see from where the bullet lands
Then of course there is Starfinder coming out soon, which is going to have a whole heaping mix of tech and magic and magitech guns.
thats the point I was making...
say that to the thousands of brown bess muskets and on and on from there.
as a proportion of their time around guns are mostly a mass produced thing
how long have swords been a thing? what fraction of that time did they see mass production?
how long have personal guns been around? what fraction of that time did THEY see mass production? (not assembly line production)
except that would imbue every gun made with equal power or reverence.
Why don't you have a samuel colt of your setting?
I have one as a lich who makes guns for the select few who he likes. Each is a unique gun tailored to the user, based on how the lich sees the user perform
Personal guns have been around a long time, and samuel colt gave various people engraved guns and shit with his signature on it senpai.
>Why don't you have a samuel colt of your setting?
because the only settings I can sell to my group are predominantly pre-gunpowder
you are right in a sense that swords were around quite a lot longer than guns were when mass production really came into the picture, but personal firearms existed in warfare since the 15th century. If your setting has plate armor and pretends to be historically accurate, it should also have personal firearms.
Early firearms, while quite lethal, kind of sucked for a few reasons. They were effective in the right circumstances, but for your main infantry it was more desirable to have more reliable firepower such as crossbows or longbows. Armor was quite effective against early firearms as well.
Guns and gunpowder saw an awful lot of development between when they were first introduced to warfare and when they were mass produced.
Early guns as artisan crafted devices of varying effectiveness (depending on the artisan) is a cool idea, in my opinion, and also historically accurate. There is a youtube video out there of the forgotten weapons guy inspecting and talking about a 16th century breachloader with reusable metal cartridges that was clearly commissioned by someone with a lot of money who wanted a lot of firepower, when breach loading and cartridges would not be commonplace for quite some time.
>pretends to be historically accurate,
nope
>it should also have personal firearms.
if by that you mean inelegant, inaccurate, mini-canons...
but no, because I have a STEM degree and my players have a STEM interest/bias so I have to be careful what they get as in-setting available alchemicals.
>16th century breachloader with reusable metal cartridges that was clearly commissioned by someone with a lot of money who wanted a lot of firepower, when breach loading and cartridges would not be commonplace for quite some time.
see my comment on>you might also look for the "firsts"
not just the "first of it's line" but perhaps the first of it's type
...
elona did an ok job
The Very Pistol of Mani, a long lost revolver made by the clockwork god of craftsmen
The Railgun, the arm canon salvaged from Utima the Destroyer of Xeren
Valkoinen Kuolema, an ancient sniper rifle
A gun is a gun is a gun, but the lance of Longinus was a mass-produced, military issue weapon too. The deeds of heroes and the legend surrounding them count for a lot in the mythology of their arms.
Also just because firearms run to uniform appearance doesn't make them identical. A long time ago VICE was not pure Canadian trash and they had a special exploring the cottage gun industry in the Kyber Pass of Afghanistan. Craftsmen there were banging out knock offs of basically any firearm using little more than hand tools. Can you imagine the stories that might be told about a guy in the Amazon who after watching part of The Sands of Iwo Jima decides to become John Wayne goes about filing out his own GI .45? There's no reason that your answer to the riddle of steel can't be Desert Eagle point five o except lack of imagination.
and the point I was making, and the point others have been belaboring is that the origins of any gun are universally unimportant.it's only what people do with it afterwards that makes it special.
LIKE I FUCKING SAID HERE >so we need to find famous characters that used guns and see about stealing THEIR traits and stories...cause fantasy guns is a thing I could wish for...
AND HERE >it's the person and what they do with it that makes a gun special.
>look at this box of lugers, none of them are special until someone pulls one out and puts a bullet in Hitler with it.
With guns, it isn't their origin that makes them special.
in nearly every case with guns, same with The Lance, it is the ACTS OF THE WIELDER that make it something more than mundane.
>Kyber Pass of Afghanistan
which is like the opposite of the "mythic origin" idea, knockoffs of inferior quality.
A PC in my old oMage game (a Hermetic businesswoman) had a rune-covered revolver that doubled as her focus for a Prime 2, Forces 3 blast spell. It could one-shot a werewolf.
You've got the imagination of a snail, my man.
no, I just think that fantasy guns are less interesting than fantastical bullets...
...
Perhaps I didn't emphasize the one-off nature and incredibly detailed nature of the Afghanis' work. If we revere the swordsmith for the rare skills needed to produce his unique wares, then I don't think we can consider an entirely handmade firearm an inferior feat and while the Kyber Pass examples are duplicates they are copied more for marketability than necessity. If you think there are no artisans building beautiful, unique, and high quality arms a piece at a time then you've never shopped out an English birdgun.
As for commonplaceness, every model of militarily accepted firearm there are dozens of prototypes that didn't make the cut or weren't ready in time. There are bizarre and unique guns a plenty in the history of repeating arms and at least 3 YouTube channels dedicated to the topic.
You mean like .45 Long Colts cast by monks to include a silver Rosary bead in the nose that are subsequently prayed and fasted over for a month before being given to your Deadlands posse? I know that those critters from the Hunting Gounds weren't fans.
more like just rare components.
look at werewolf myths.
the gun isn't important, it's the silver bullets.
...
you're right, a gunsmith cannot be a master of his craft and lauded for his work in the same way as a sword/blacksmith.
Enter The Gungeon has some really interesting ideas buried under all the references to Legend of Zelda. Spirits of fire summoned by the muzzle flash of particularly powerful guns, missed shots returning to find closure, Cormorant the Aimless Knight (who "approached the Gungeon as a challenge borne more out of curiosity than regret. Despite his skill, this rendered his failure inevitable.").
I think you have to be from a non-gun culture. Currently my sister and I are fighting over who gets the family guns when our parents pass them on. The two main sticking points are the old .22 rimfire that took my family out west when they came here in a Conestoga wagon and the Showpiece pistol my Grandpa got as a gift for his 50 years at a company, the last 15 of which were transforming the region he got put in charge of from lowest preforming to most profitable. One is really old and imbued with power of myth and family. Grandpa said the gun was used in the Texas Revolution. The other is a exquisite craftsmanship piece bestowed for service rendered. The ancestral weapon is old, rusty, and fires ammunition they don't even make anymore while the Gift Pistol is a revolver with an ivory handle and gold filligree/etchings of a puma fighting a bear.
My friend has a break-barrel shotgun that his great grandpa used to save his life from wolf attack. His dad broke it when playing with it and his grandfather took the two halves and reforged them as best he could and kept the gun from his son and instead passed it down to his grandson right before he died.
A lady friend of mine became the keeper of the family gun. That family passed the gun down from firstborn son to firstborn son at the age of 12. Her brother originally got the gun. But he bacame a shit-head meth addict in his late teens. He got busted and spent sometime in prison. The dad went to gather his sons shit from his house while he was in prison and couldn't find the family gun. The dad pretty much immediately went to the prison and asked his son wtf happened to the gun. Son says he pawned it. The dad then drove all over the city looking through all the pawnshops til he found the gun. Bought the gun back and gave it to his daughter and disowned his son.
Even though most of those guns were massed produced they are all still magical artifacts because of the emotional power placed in them.
>literally the size of a fist.
What is this kitschy shit?
remember its a 12 gauge shotgun shell.
I think this is the way to go.
Bard didn't need a magic bow to kill Smaug, he needed the fated Black Arrow. The bow was the medium but it was the arrow that did the deed, so it only makes sense for the arrow to be the thing that's magic.
The gun is more about the wielder or their society. The gun they choose shows where they come from and what organisations they trust. Sometimes the gun is modified to suit them, showing their dedication and knowledge of their craft. The gun is an extension of their skill but the bullet is part with the mysterious power to cause death at a distance.
you want the silver, monster killing bullet or the bullet with the mysterious inscription or the bullet handed to you by a stranger with a knowing glance.
>Krenko
>Grenzo
>Neheb
>Zada
>Norin
>Heartless Hidetsegu
>Godo
>Feldon
>Bosh
>Slobad
Why does mono-red have the coolest commanders but the shittiest support for edh?
Cool stuff, user.
Every setting is improved with some version of the Howling Voice Guild
"Howling Voice, shadow upon the ground!
Howling Voice, flash of thunder from the gods!
Cursed Voice that separates Life from Death!
Right here, right now, these guns want to shed blood.
They want to feast on souls!
Listen you cursed Guns!
We are it!
The final blast to signal war!"
...
...
I always wanted to write up an alternate story for Harry potter, about a foreign exchange student from America who is basically /k/ with magic and caught up in the battle of hogwarts.
>siege commences, fighting in the hallways
>exchange student digs into his enchanted footlocker for the contraband he smuggled over so he could still go innawoods and shoot guns
>pulls out a heavily missed Mossber 590 and a couple boxes of shells
>picked up the 3 boxes hand labeled "dragons breath" and loads all 3 20rd boxes into the enchanted magazine
>pushes a selector and loads the boxes of slugs labeled "Saint Georges" with a dragon drawn on the box and a circle slashed through it into a secondary magazine.
>What are some famous guns from fantasy works?
Not sure if famous, but there is Hellboy's handcannon. My personal favorite was when the former Ghost Rider's shotgun somehow became able to fire hellfire.
>Could fantasy use more fancy magic guns in it in general?
You could make the gunpowder magical: sulfur from hell, charcoal from fey woods and saltpeter from a wyvern's guano for example.
Quartzlock and firerunelock are also appealing to me.
My setting has a sun god fond of artifacts, including the Chromatic Bullets which burst from the barrel as needles of pure heat.
A fire goddess created a nation of followers after her prophetess united the tribe of blacksmiths and the tribe piromancers through the creation of gunpowder and steel. Guns became a symbol of union and the means to conquer all the other tribes. Firing a gun can be deeply religious. I had a NPC pirate which prayed as she fired her repeater musket. It had no lock mechanism, because she was blessed with fiery nails.
German folktale of the marksman. Not a gun, but 7 bullets, the last of which serves the Devil
>His setting doesn't have a gun that can collapse a star.