Flamepunk: Weaponry
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Contents
Overview of Weaponry[edit]
Weaponry is divided into types, then presented with the following stat block:
Name of Weapon[edit]
- Price
- Target Hit Numbers:
- Type
- Damage Type
- Encumbrance: Mobility Penalty:
Description.
Special Game Rules:
Military Melee Weapons[edit]
Crusader Firemaul[edit]
- Price: 400 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Military Melee, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Fire, Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
A thin cylindrical rod of obsidian-laced glass, the firemaul may look brittle, but it is definitely not. Thanks to the power of a fire elemental bound within the rod, the firemaul is surrounded by an aura of energy that crackles audibly and leaves a wake of sparks behind it. When the weapon is swung, the sheer heat of the attack is often sufficient to kill an enemy, with the brute bludegoning force of the magically hardened rod helping deliver lethal force.
Church Crusaders traditionally wield firemauls, partially for their efficacy, but partially because they are such impressive and obvious weapons. Crusaders can often end a fight before it begins by simply unsheathing their firemaul - most gangers know better than to mess with such a weapon.
However, despite its theocratic associations, the firemaul is still seen as an extremely desirable weapon and fashion accoutrement for gangers and burners. Burner Firemauls tend to be customised to include images, sigils and runes floating in the aura - dragon motifs are popular, as are gang tags.
Special Game Rules: Firemauls add +3 to Magnitude on a successful attack roll. Additionally the maul glows brightly, with the colour reflecting the wielder's emotional state, and will "crackle and roar" more loudly when battle is close. Subtle these ain't.
Greataxe[edit]
(also use same stats for double handed swords, long warhammers, long spears and any other unpowered unenhanced double handed melee weapon)
- Price: 25 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Military Melee, Double Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 2 Mobility Penalty: 0
The problem with being an ordinary soldier is that many of your enemies are a lot bigger than you. A manifested demon the size of a small building isn't going to be greatly inconvenienced by every day pig-stickers: sometimes you need something a little sturdier.
At street level, a greataxe is usually too conspicuous to be useful, but a surprising number of burners keep a decent zweihander hidden in their bolt-holes, "just in case."
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. Additionally, if you roll 3 of more "Hits", then add a further +1 to the Magnitude.
Hellsword[edit]
- Price: 750 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Military Melee, Single/Double Handed
- Damage Type: Fire, Physical.
- Encumbrance: 3 Mobility Penalty: 1 (double handed) or 2 (single handed)
Expensive, reassuringly arcane, elementally charged and devestatingly powerful, nothing says "Guild" like a Hellsword. These single-edged wide-surfaced swords are formed of red-grey steel with veins of obsidian running along and away from the cutting edge of the blade. A specific volcanic breed of fire elemental (farm bred by the Guild in flamespace) has been bound into the obsidian tracery, and as a result the weapon will create a small burst of flame and explosive force wherever it impacts. This can blast apart stone and metal, and the damage dealt to human flesh is both impressive and stomach churning.
The only downside of a Hellsword is that it is quite unwieldy, and more than a little weighty. Blades weighing upwards of thirty five kilos are not uncommon, and many struggle to use these weapons two handed, let alone one handed. If someone comes at you with Pyrecaster in one hand, and Hellsword in the other, they're probably Guild Hellforged, and you should probably be running the other way.
Special Game Rules: Add +3 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. In addition, for each "6" rolled on the final attack roll, deal 6 additional points of damage. This extra damage is not multiplied by the magnitude or by other factors, but is a fixed amount.
Longsword[edit]
(also use same stats for bayonets, hammers, axes and any other unpowered unenhanced single handed melee weapon that is more than a foot in length)
- Price: 25 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Military Melee, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
Not every soldier wants or can afford enhanced melee weaponry. For some, a simple sword is all they get. The Guilds tend to give basic melee weapons to all its troopers, to use as a hold-out weapon if nothing else. That is not to say such weapons are low quality - even the least talented binder-forger is capable of intricacies of design and heights of craftsmanship that would be far harder for a traditional blacksmith, and a combination of ornate appearance and high standards of manufacture are standard rather than exceptional.
Its not illegal, or even unexpected, for everyday citizens to carry swords by their sides in everyday business though in some restricted areas such weapons are more carefully regulated.
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon.
Military Shield[edit]
- Price: 20 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Military Melee, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
A solid metal shield provides an advantage with parrying in close combat, and in a pinch can be used as a melee weapon.
Special Game Rules: Add +1 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. Carryng a shield improves your parries (see Physical Traits).
Military Ranged Weapons[edit]
Bolt-launcher[edit]
(also use same stats for longbows, crossbows, spearguns and any other mechanically powered projectile weapon that is wielded in two hands)
- Price: 100 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (2, 4)
- Type: Military Ranged, Double Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
Ranged military weapon come in many shapes and sizes, from carefully hand-crafted ceramite longbows, to mass produced stub-barelled bolt launchers. Industry has allowed for all manner of clever propulsion systems beyond simple bowstring: coiled springs, complex lever arrangements and even explosive powder based mechanisms all exist. Of course, the end result is the same: you launch something fast and hard into a distant enemy.
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon.
Firedart Launcher[edit]
- Price: 220 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (1, 2)
- Type: Military Ranged, Double Handed
- Damage Type: Fire.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
A firedart launcher resembles a crossbow but with three pronged arms to the front that act as a focus for the weapon's energy, and an obsidian bind stone in the core where a bolt would normally sit. They are powered by a bound flame elemental, which is stoked into a state or perpetual rage by its confinement and able to release its energy only through the firing aperture when the trigger is pulled.
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. A Firedart launcher is good for six hundred shots before needing recharging, and recharging simply requires the bind stone to be placed in naked flame for an hour.
Holocaust Heavy Plasma Coccoon Launcher[edit]
- Price: 2000 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (1, 2)
- Type: Military Ranged, Double Handed
- Damage Type: Fire.
- Encumbrance: 6 Mobility Penalty: 3
A holocaust cannon (or HHPCL, to give it it's full military designation) is the best and most powerful personnel-portable pyromantic ordnance device in general usage. Its more artillery than small arm, mounted on a 3-point hip and shoulder harness and powered by a back-pack "dragon's nest". When a holocaust cannon fires it literally roars, then exhales a single "egg" of barely contained superheated energy. Without ear and eye protection, the noise and the glare are near-overwhelming.
The launched "egg" explodes on impact, erupting into an inferno of flame a dozen metres in diameter. Anything within the blast zone will almost certainly be melted apart, and likely fires will start both near the blast, and along the course of the egg's flightpath.
The HHPCL can only fire half a dozen times before it needs recharging (a twenty-four hour long process requiring specialist flamebinding equipment). Of course, with those six shots, it can deal more damage than a whole brigade of firedart guns...
Special Game Rules: Add +12 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. Attack is applied against everybody and everything in the burst radius.
Pyre Caster[edit]
- Price: 400 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (1, 2)
- Type: Military Ranged, Double Handed
- Damage Type: Fire.
- Encumbrance: 2 Mobility Penalty: 1
Pyre guns project a column of heat (not flame) at a target. They must be held on target for a time to deliver their full effect, but they can start fires, burn flesh, or cut metal if used long enough.
Guild Hellforged tend to favour Pyre-guns, not so much for their antipersonnel capabilities, but because of their suitability for destroying massive enemies and large scale environmental devestation.
Special Game Rules: Square the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon (2 becomes 4, 3 becomes 9, etc.)
Against a perfectly stationary (or immobilised) target you can choose to keep the beam locked on. If you do this, then with each consecutive attack after the first you can choose to keep the Magnitude from the previous attack, or use the Magnitude from the new attack, whichever is better. If the target is moving, or if you take any other action, then you lose this advantage.
Street Melee Weapons[edit]
Ashblade[edit]
- Price: 30 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Street Melee, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
Fire-swords made on the cheap, Ashblades are made of the compressed and remoulded debris of pyromantic industry, and bound together with several weaker smoke and spark demons rather than a single fire elemental. No serious soldier would ever consider using an Ashblade, but street-punks (who see the value of a usable magic weapon on the cheap) have learnt to turn an Ashblade's flaws into useful qualities. For example, an Ashblade is slightly irregular and "sticky" so it tends to catch (and get caught on) enemy weapons, but this can help with turning or controlling enemy blades in swordfights. An Ashblade tends to lose pieces when it strikes, making it a little fragile, but a skilled streetfighter will learn to flick off hot ash to disconcert his opponent and to aggravate wounds. These little differences make an Ashblade a temperamental, but versatile weapon.
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. On each "6" on the final attack roll add +1 to the Magnitude. On each "5" on the final attack roll deduct -1 from the Magnitude. If Magnitude is reduced to 0, the attack counts as unsuccessful.
Big Dumb Stick[edit]
(also use same stats for big rocks, loose wooden doors, big metal rods and any other unpowered unenhanced double handed improvised melee weapon)
- Price: (Nil)
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Street Melee, Double Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 3 Mobility Penalty: 1
A big dumb stick isn't something you'll usually carry around, but when you hit something hard there's not usually much point sticking it with a bottle. Grab a big rock, and hit the monster.
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. Additionally, if you roll 3 of more "Hits", then add a further +1 to the Magnitude.
Also, if you roll more "1"s than hits on your final attack roll (after defence and other modifiers have been applied) the weapon is considered to be ruined, and can no longer be used as an effective weapon. (If a character insists on still using it, he counts as making unarmed attacks).
Weapons with the above stats are designated nil cost, as you can easily improvise them off street junk.
Broken Bottle[edit]
(also use same stats for snapped chair legs, sharpened femurs, foot-long industrial spikes and any other unpowered unenhanced single handed improvised melee weapon)
- Price: (Nil)
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Street Melee, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
You're not always going to have a weapon on you, but with a little imagination, you'll find that weapons are everywhere. Grab that bottle and smash the bottom off, and you have a "street dagger". Take that crowbar off the wall, and you've got yourself a weapon as well as a tool. Hell, grab that half-brick over there, and you can probably stave someone's skull in.
Special Game Rules: Add +1 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon.
Also, if you roll more "1"s than hits on your final attack roll (after defence and other modifiers have been applied) the weapon is considered to be ruined, and can no longer be used as an effective weapon. (If a character insists on still using it, he counts as making unarmed attacks).
Weapons with the above stats are designated nil cost, as you can easily improvise them off street junk.
Knife[edit]
(also use same stats for punch daggers, spiked knuckledusters, kris and any other unpowered unenhanced single handed melee weapon that is less than a foot in length)
- Price: 5 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (5, 6)
- Type: Street Melee, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
Soldiers may walk around with big swords, but street punks know that its not about the size of your weapon - its what you do with it. There are pros and cons to a shorter blade in actual fighting, but barring skill differences, things about even out. The typical Burner, therefore, goes for the weapons which you can hide up your sleeve, and which cost less to make.
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon.
Street Ranged Weapons[edit]
Big Dumb Rock[edit]
(also use same stats for heavy logs, hurled girders, spiky unconscious soldiers thrown at other conscious soldiers and any other unpowered unenhanced double handed improvised ranged weapon)
- Price: (Nil)
- Target Hit Numbers: (2)
- Type: Street Ranged, Double Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 3 Mobility Penalty: 1
Throwing little things not working? Try throwing big things! The problem with this strategy is that admittedly big things aren't easy to throw, but if you can succesfully lob a girder into someone's face, its going to hurt.
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. Additionally, for every 2 "Hits" you roll, add a further +1 to the Magnitude.
Weapons with the above stats are designated nil cost, as you can easily improvise them off street junk.
Improvised Firebomb[edit]
(also use same stats for molotv cocktails, vials of industrial acid and any other exploding single handed improvised ranged weapon)
- Price: 5 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (1, 2)
- Type: Street Ranged, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Fire.
- Encumbrance: 1 per 5 items Mobility Penalty: 0
The firebomb is the preferred tool of civil discontent and disobedience, with a fine and chequered history behind it. Or, as infamous anarchist-arsonist "Fireman" Jaykal put it:
"Glass bottle. Rag. Waste fuel. Box of matches. Party time."
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. As thrown weapons, improvised firebombs are single use.
The cost of the above weapon is if you are buying the components - often you can put together an improvised firebomb for free.
Because a firebomb needs to be lit, you need to have matches in the other hand, and must take a 1-dice automatic action to light the rag. If you are still holding the firebomb at the end of the round after you lit it, it explodes in your own hands: you get to make a free four dice attack against yourself...
Sharder[edit]
- Price: 80 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (2, 4)
- Type: Street Ranged, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
Shard Demon Glasscasters (or Sharders for short) are simple pistol-like devices with wide barrels and a clip-on ammo feed. Uniquely, the sharder's ammo feed can be packed with jst about anything with some silicate in it - mud, sand, stone or dirt. When the gun is fired the shard demon within unleashes a characteristic high pitched wail and the gun converts the dirt ammo into hundreds of tiny shards of glass, which are then expectorated from the barrel.
This weapon is very popular with street gangers, as its cheap to manufacture and maintain, has an excellent rate of fire, and doesn't set fire to surroundings or deal collateral property damage(which is a distinct advantage when you're fighting in your own neighbourhood). It is less favoured by the military, as the shard fragments are too easily deflected by armour.
Special Game Rules: Add +1 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. Against armoured opponents, double the Armour Rating of the target versus this weapon. If you are making a 1-dice attack with this weapon, add a further +1 to the Magnitude of the attack.
Thrown Bottle[edit]
(also use same stats for jagged rocks, hurled cutlery and any other unpowered unenhanced single handed improvised ranged weapon)
- Price: (Nil)
- Target Hit Numbers: (2, 4)
- Type: Street Ranged, Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 per 5 items Mobility Penalty: 0
When you've got six Burners running at you with knives and crowbars, it's good to have a gun. Of course, if you don't have a gun then flinging whatever you have to hand is still better than going toe to toe.
A thrown bottle isn't a weapon of first choice, but often it will do the job as well as a sharder or firedart gun.
Special Game Rules: Add +1 to the Magnitude of a successful attack roll with this weapon. As thrown weapons, thrown bottles are single use.
Weapons with the above stats are designated nil cost, as you can easily improvise them off street junk.
Specialist Weapons[edit]
Cauteriser[edit]
- Price: 1750 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (2)
- Type: Specialist (Melee), Double Handed
- Damage Type: Fire.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
Used almost exclusively by specialised Guild Adepts, the Cauteriser consists of a pair of gauntlets inscribed with arcane runes and empowered with a dozen tiny devlin elementals that have been carefully bisected and placed in halves in each matched gauntlet. When inactive the gauntlets limit dexterity no more than any other heavy pair of industrial gloves.
To activate the weapon, the Guildsman claps his hands together and speaks a predesignated command word. When he draws his hands apart, the gauntlets will be connected by a dozen glowing filaments formed of elemental energy which are then directed through a combination of dextrous manipulation and psychokinetic direction. The net result is an arcing multidirection attack that is almost impossible to parry, and can cut through flesh and armour with equal ease.
Special Game Rules: Add +2 to the Magnitude of a successful attack with the Cauteriser. For each "hit" rolled, add one dice to the wielder's action dice pool, then for each "miss" rolled remove one dice from the wielder's action dice pool. This can increase dice pool above Focus, and cannot reduce dice pool below zero.
If a character makes an attack with a Cauteriser, then for the remainder of the round the only actions he may take are further attacks. Any and all dice he does not (or cannot) use left in his dice pool at the end of the round are automatically discarded. Specifically, he loses the ability to "set aside" dice after he attacks, though any dice he "set aside" before attacking this round can still be used the next round.
Proficient Level Effect: Proficiency in this specialist weapon increases Hit Target Numbers to (2, 3).
Expert Level Effect: An Expert in this Specialist Weapon adds a further +1 to the Magnitude of a successful attack with the Cauteriser. Also Experts in this specialist weapon have Hit Target Numbers of (1, 2, 3).
Master Level Effect: A Master in this Specialist Weapon has Hit Target Numbers of (1, 2, 3, 4). Also, he may make attacks out to short range, though these still count as melee attacks.
Excrutiator Whip[edit]
- Price: 850 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (6)
- Type: Specialist (Melee), Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
Excrutiator Whips are popular with certain sects of Hadar Shadows, and are traditionally regarded as a woman's weapon by the Hadar. An Excrutiator resembles a simpel steel whip, but studded along its length are several small blade-shards imbued with the essence of pain elementals. Any body struck by this whip suffers disproprotionate pain, as if being burnt, and it takes considerable focus to stay standing after such an injury.
Special Game Rules: Add +1 to the Magnitude of a successful attack with the Excrutiator. For each "6" rolled on the attack dice pool (after defence), remove one dice from the attack target's action dice pool (to a minimum of 0 dice).
Proficient Level Effect: Proficiency in this specialist weapon increases Hit Target Numbers to (3, 6).
Expert Level Effect: An Expert in this Specialist Weapon removes action dice from the target on rolls of "3" and "6", rather than just "6".
Master Level Effect: A Master in this Specialist Weapon increases Hit Target Numbers to (3, 4, 5, 6) though she still only removes action dice from the target on a roll of "3" and "6".
Molten Blade[edit]
- Price: 2400 Dragons
- Target Hit Numbers: (4)
- Type: Specialist (Melee), Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
Molten Blades, or "Tactically Versatile Melee Devices", appear as ordinary (if rather stubby and unbalanced) copper swords in the hands of the untrained. However, with a combination of activation words and momentum-activated motion sensor commands, the blade will literally flow into new shapes, for example becoming a ring of gleaming metal, an elongated spear, a flat shield, a multipronged sai or even a wide hemisphere to deflect ranged attacks. This can give considerable advantage in combat, as it allows the wielder to adjust his weapon to match opposing attacks and defences.
Molten Blades are popular among Hadar street warriors, as using them demonstrates both the wielder's skill and his considerable wealth. Church warriors, in contrast, usually disdain the weapons as over-complicated, while the Guilders simply see them as uneconomical for their effect.
Special Game Rules:
Proficient Level Effect: Proficiency in this specialist weapon increases Hit Target Numbers to (3, 4).
Expert Level Effect: An Expert in this Specialist Weapon can add or deduct one pip from any or all of the dice on the attack roll (after aiming rerolls, but before defence is applied). For example, if a dice rolls a "2", the expert could adjust it to a "1" or a "3". Another example: a dice pool roll of "2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5" could be adjusted to "3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4".
Master Level Effect: A Master in this Specialist Weapon can make a Reflexive Automatic action that costs X dice to adjust X dice on an attack against him by one pip up or down. This counts as a defence. For example, if attacked with a roll of "3, 4, 6, 6" the Master could spend 3-dice as an automatic reflexive action to make that attack roll "2, 3, 5, 6".
Smokeknife[edit]
- Price: 300 Dragons per knife
- Target Hit Numbers: Melee: (5, 6) Ranged: (2, 4)
- Type: Specialist (Melee or Ranged), Single Handed
- Damage Type: Physical.
- Encumbrance: 1 Mobility Penalty: 0
On cursory inspection a smokeknife looks like an ordinary blackened knife, but on closer examination swirling patterns can be seen to be moving on the blade's surface, like dancing black smoke.
In trained hands, the smokeknife has the ability to temporarily cease to be solid, transforming into nothing more than a barely visible wisp of smoke. This smoke is responsive to direction by the will of the wielder, and can be manifested back at will, and can also be moved from place to place via mental direction alone. If left in smoke-form the knife will simply "cling" nearby to the wielder.
Smokeknives are also unusual in that they are always attuned to a single wielder, imprinted on the weapon at the time of its binding. In the hands of anyone else, they function only as ordinary knives.
Hadar Shadows make good use of these weapons, incorporating the blade's ethereal nature into a unique fighting style.
Special Game Rules:
Proficient Level Effect: Proficiency in this specialist weapon increases Hit Target Numbers to (3, 5, 6) for Melee and (2, 3, 4) for thrown. Also, the wielder can now make basic transitions of the weapon to and from smoke-form, allowing him to treat the knife as having an Encumbrance value of 0.
Expert Level Effect: An Expert in this Specialist Weapon can draw a Smokeknife that he is carrying as a 0-dice automatic action (instead of the normal 1 dice automatic action).
Also, as a 1-dice automatic action he can teleport an attuned Smokeknife to into his hand. He must have a free hand to activate this effect, and the Smokeknife must be within one hundred miles of his current location.
Master Level Effect: Before attacking in melee or at range the Master can elect to replace his usual Hit Target Numbers with (1, 2, 3). This must be declared before the attack is rolled. Attacks declared using this option ignore Armour Rating, so long as there are gaps in the armour large enough for smoke to pass through.
