Landsknecht's Zweihänder

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Description

A landsknecht's zweihänder is a famous two-handed sword, popular among the mercenaries of Tassato and Temeschwar. There is occasional debate on whether its power is magical in nature or simply down to the weight of the large quantities of tempest jade and orichalcum which go into their production.

The Unconquered of Highguard also employ these swords as part of their guerilla tactics, depriving their foes of weapons, often targeting the enchanted blades and magical implements of the most powerful enemy combatants. Merab of Tobias' Patrol was famed from her skill in deploying her sword and was responsible for the destruction of enchanted staves of every orc shaman in the Great Forest of Peytaht. There have been mutterings than Merab may have been an Exemplar of Vigilance, but insufficient evidence has been presented to the Synod on the matter.

Rules

• Form: Two-handed Weapon. Despite the name any two-handed weapon may be a landsknecht's zweihänder.
• Effect: Twice per day you may call SHATTER against any weapon or mage implement.
• Materials: Crafting a landsknecht's zweihänder requires fourteen ingots of tempest jade. seven ingots of orichalcum and seven measures of beggar's lye. It takes one month to make one of these items.

The tent was strewn with maps, ledgers, and scraps of paper with jottings, and scratched out sums. Two glasses of wine sat on a tray between two seated figures wearing the finest dpublets, heavily embroiderd and trimmed with equisite furs.

"That out of their pay, a pikeman should supply themselves with a sturdy pike, the whole of which to be between seven and nine feet in length, and such armour as would render their bodies protected against the piercing swords of the common orcs,"

"Well, that's satisfactory, isn't it..?"

"Yes, business as usual, almost, although there's a fair few spearmen who won't have a pike - but then this! 'That out of their pay, each member of a flank company shall provide such protection of fine steel to render the arrows of the enemy impotent against them.'

"Hmm... Yes, that is going to be difficult. Some of them will, but many just won't have that sort of protection. They're not expecting uniforms, too are they?"

"No, but listen to this! ...'each to be equiped with a zweihänder, between three-and-one-half and five-feet in length, crafted by an artisan skilled in such things, for the discomforting of the enemy's pikes and the staffs of their magicians.' They can't seriously be asking every single soldier in a flank company to have a Landsknecht's zweihänder! There's what, eighty in a general strength in a company? That's eleven hundred and twenty ingots of tempest jade, five hundred and sixty ingots of orichalcum and five hundred and sixty measures of beggar's lye each! Why, you could build a house out of the beggarwood alone! Have they no idea of the value of such things! Let alone the fact that it's six and a half years of a swordsmith's time, even if they lasted that long! We'd need seven artisan's on staff the entire war, doing nothing but making these things, and they'd need to have started last Summer!"

"Well, tell them 'No', not without a bill through the Imperial Senate. We'll equip any forlorn hope with them, as usual, but they can't seriously expect any more than that. What they are asking for is quite ridiculous. I wonder sometimes if these people have the slightest idea of how much things cost!"