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Crafting Motif 93: Ancestral Breton Style
by Serge Serlyn, "Military Scholar of Much Renown"
A guide to crafting armor and weapons in the Ancestral Breton style
The books honoring Breton history are rife with fabricated falsehood. But with sources of steel, all is laid clear. Can a cuirass corrode the truth? No! The only way to verify the verity of our forebearers is to study their surviving weapons of war. And I, Serge Serlyn military scholar of much renown, am exceptionally informed in this inquest.
AXES
- Curved like a crow's wing, the axes of our ancestors had long, lever-like handles. Unlike the Redguard—who reside relatively close to High Rock—the Bretons took time to distinguish between axes which split wood, and those which split skulls. Many warriors wanted weapons which could perform plentiful pursuits.
BELTS
- The loops of leather are linked with a triangular triquetra trinket. The size shifts from massive to meager, but the readily recognizable triangular talismans are always on display.
BOOTS
- Comfortable cuts of cloth with a bold brace at the top and tips lead to protective pacing and swift strides. Often, these boots are bedecked with the triple looping triangular lines of a triquetra either expertly etched or engraved, constrained to the components used—of course.
BOWS
- Emeraude Endell, an established archer, engaged enemies with an arsenal of elongated arrow shafts and a shortened quiver. Her histories account for her tastes, with an acknowledgement that the quiver's diminutive length allowed her arrow shafts to be exposed for easier handling in the chaos of combat.
CHEST PIECES
- Hunters hung hooks from the looping lengths of leather belts bolted along their abdomens. The hooks helped them carry carcasses as they hunted and held pouches of herbs and potions. A passing version of pockets, to be perfectly clear.
DAGGERS
- The Bretons of old buried their dead with freshly fashioned daggers. Decking the death with finery and weapons is not a forgotten folk tradition, but the blades of the deceased are dull. Here, their sides are sharp. Perhaps they had concerns about the afterlife and preferred to be armed with a new knife.
GLOVES
- The Druids, before their dispersal from Breton borders, disseminated a style that favored flimsy fabric for their finger pads of a glove. To the nature nurturers, this allowed them to grow greenery by dipping their digits into the dirt.
HELMETS
- High Elves honor the number three and hold it sacred. Perhaps that is the reason our ancestral helms had three ridges. The helmets are tipped with three crests curving evenly across all sides of the cap. My studies so far prove inconclusive if the fascination with triads stems from an admiration for Elven effects or if it carried over with the Elven ancestry in our Breton blood.
LEG GREAVES
- Pointed plates progress down the leg greaves lengthwise, with each segment of silver shielding the wearer from whatever threatened their lower legs. The layers of metal look like they amplified all sounds, making each footfall more forceful — louder.
MACES
- Legends tell of a left-handed master who shaped a chamber into her mace and delivered secret messages en masse. I searched for such a coveted chamber on all the maces in my care. While the steel did not split underneath my scrutiny, all Breton maces made in the first era feature such a panel engraved into the mace heads.
SHIELDS
- From the central crest on these ancient silver shields, the valiant visage of a lion looks out on the chaos of combat. Lions laid claims to countless lands—a fitting figurehead for the lofty lords who did the same. Several armies turned tail at the sight of a lion's snarling snout in the first era.
SHOULDER ARMOR
- The sires of Stormhaven shared a preference for a sturdy leather shield on either side of the wearer's fragile throat. Such a style became prominent during the slew of vampiric sieges and provided a buffer against blades and claws.
STAVES
- Books boast that early Breton mages made their whittled staves from the wood of the Wyrd tree. I distrusted these tales of a tree whose roots reach into the bones of the world. But there may be something to the sentiments, as the staves manipulate mana more easily than the sticks of the Sapiarchs.
SWORDS
- The Breton two-handed great sword is a sight to behold. Excavated in the abodes of the wealthy lords, the blade stretched almost half the span of a mortal body. The force of a skilled swordsman could create with such a weapon befuddles the brain.