Weapon makers in your setting

>>51497225
Low magic fantasy setting. Also I'm a bit of a history/anthropology nerd. So usually there aren't people who specifically make weapons. Smiths spend most of their time making a wide variety of tools. There's no one guy just shitting out slings all day for the four shepherds in his area that need them. Preindustrial settings shouldn't have much in the way of that kind of specialization.

Also, shit's on commission. More so the further from a market you are. More so the fewer of a thing is really needed (so it's more likely for tool heads than for swords or armor). More so the more it needs to be specific to the purchaser (there's not a bunch of adjustable armor on the shelf, nor sizes from S to XXL in case blubber knight and spear waif show up). Because retail is a modern and exceptional arrangement and not the historical norm.

>>51497225

Depending on the area really. In the kitchen sink asian area most smiths are independent sorts who's names and reputations carry a great deal of weight such that their students may or may not be stuck with certain clients because their weapons are almost exclusively associated with a particular noble family and the last thing they want is one of their swords in the hands of some barbarians making them look bad or starting an incident among the other kingdoms such that the Emperor has to get involved.

Otherwise you might have the pariah sort of smiths who if you go and get some fucked up materials for them will make some crazy weapons for you like dragging the corpse of an ogre and forging weapons with their bones, skin, and horns.

>>51497225
For private work, big cities have guilds of weaponsmiths and armorsmiths. At the capital, the last argument about which one should produce spiked bucklers led to 13 deaths.

The empire mass-produces munition-quality armor, mostly lamellar, spears, crossbows and axes. Things have to work, be cheap, as interchangeable as possible and storable.

I have no legendary weaponmaker except for the God of Labor himself. Although his clerics claim he didn't produce that sword the folks use as bridge at the division betwen Ametis and Caledon.

>Any podunk village blacksmith can crank out a decent dagger, metal-banded cudgel or woodsman's axe.
>To get a more specialized weapon that isn't at risk of breaking mid-fight you need to find a specialized weaponsmith, either army-employed or in one of the larger cities.
>If you want something that will last for generations and never loose that fancy enchantment you payed an arm and a leg for you better track down the few remaining masters of runecrafting still kicking about.

>>51497225
I learned a long time ago to not invest much design into a person that stands between the murder-hobos and the possibility of new murder-tools.

>>51498215
>For private work, big cities have guilds of weaponsmiths and armorsmiths. At the capital, the last argument about which one should produce spiked bucklers led to 13 deaths.


I love this sort of thing. Referring to the OP pick I was reading that Tex Mechanica tried to bribe Lord Shaxx and in return he sent a couple of Titans to go have a conversation with them, weapons in hand of course.

Another is those commercials for what I think was some random mafia game where it showed some tailor guy getting excited for getting picked up by another shop so the ones in the shop he was working at decided to close the curtains and drag him into the back and give him the business about why leaving is a bad idea.

In my setting, metal ores are all conscious, and are formally referred to as 'forgelings'. Their sizes range as much as ore deposits do on Earth, and the standard forgeling has a golem-esque vibe, when they are fully awakened. Many of these awakened have been enslaved by the Furnace King who forces them to make weapons and arms for both himself and his army and also so he can sell them to others for trade.

It is the equivalency of forcing a generation of mothers to take their children and treat them like rabid rotweilers, dehumanizing and devaluing them. Like spartan children but in a more sadistic abusive manner.

The forgelings have an expressivity range of their consciousness similar to the range of Tolkien's Ents, Huorns and trees. Every weapon and every metal invention you touch in this world has a soul and a personality, however dormant it may be. These personalities affect the relationships between a warrior and the weapon they wield, to great success or internal conflict and sabotage.

Outside of enslavement, Forgelings may create weapons out of their more dormant kin, for whatever reason they wish, but it isn't the standard. Usually when this happens it is a corruption of the natural state of their soul.

Because of this, there are many varied and unique inventions, designs among altered forgelings and those which were turned into weapons.

The setting they belong to is a world which is entirely beneath the ground.

It's the Dutch making the best, though of course the Englanders and Spaniards and Francois them too.

>>51497225
Varies HUGELY. The very basics of industrialization have occurred, but the best weapons are still hand-made by skilled and licensed craftsmen in proprietary processes in secured, private labs. I saw labs, because the highest-quality arms craftsmen have crystalized magic itself, creating crystals of a substance that can only be made in that specific way. It stores spells inside itself that recharge without any external power source and completely ignore both erosion and thermodynamics, and can be expanded or made flexible with effort. Mana-weapons are each unique.

Mass-produced arms are quite common, of course, especially in the larger countries with larger militaries.

Philosophically, there's not much discussion. It's a business like any other. The finest craftsmen have special touches they add to their weapons, of course.

>>51497225
Those who craft weapon invocations are invariably monstrously powerful ascetics and hermits, who live secluded from civilisation, purely because of the amount of effort and will it takes to engrave a specific pattern into the face of god. A single misstep on their part leads to the local area around them being nuked. Imagine trying to stab a needle with another needle, that's the sort of intense precision and focus they need. If they misjudge, and the needle slides off, it's going to hit Creation and do some serious damage.

The invocation they create is then locked into Reality, and can be sealed into a shard of crystal, which changes colour and is inscribed with that invocation's unique glyph.

That crystal shard can then be absorbed and it's invocation used by anybody with the power to wield it, which can be very low, for extremely common invocations such as those used by common soldiers, or absolutely obscene, invocations capable of cleaving through groups of people or smashing buildings flat. Once somebody has learned an invocation, they are able to expend a significant amount of time and energy creating another crystal.

Some invocations are incredibly rare because few people are capable of absorbing them, and fewer still care to create new crystals once they have. People who create these crystals are generally high-status adventurers and heroes who have retired.

Weapons as classically perceived, swords and axes and the like, are only found in ancient ruins, and are regarded as fanciful novelties from a less civilised age.

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>>51497225
Almost all of the industry that the Diaspora of humanity produces is created by the Sol Collective, and specifically made in the Oort Cloud in the Sol system. Intelligences of the Mining Bureau oversee massive automated operations to haul, mine and process asteroids. The Creation Bureau oversee the vast additive manufacturing plants primarily situated in the pseudo-Dyson swarm that is the capital of the Collective (and arguably, humanity). The industrial capacity devoted to war material is a large percentage even during relative peace, due to the general danger and unpredictability of the galaxy. Membership in the Bureaus is seen favourably, a majority of citizens that are actively enlisted in the Collective work in these two groups.

More invested in the dedicated production of war material are the Design Clades. With the extremely high attrition rates of dumb-drone armies in modern total war combined with extremely high production rates and industrial flexibility of hyper-civilisations comes a constant demand of new variants, modifications and generations of war machines. New battlegroups of dumb-drones can be built every minute and factory battleships can construct armies during campaigns away from home. Ludicrously powerful computer substrates, hiveminds and other thought groups are devoted entirely to a constant escalation of counters and countering counters, maximum performance is to be squeezed out of every gram of every war machine. A single frame can see thousands of revisions, variants and evolutions in a single war. Design Clades create the blueprints which are then sent to the military command who review them and begin production of those they deem useful.

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Outside of the cities most big villages will have at least one or two technicians who have the skill and equipment to repair armors and weapons of considerable complexity such has replacing the fibers of your para-muscle suits or fixing the nano-electronic controls in your guns and weapons..

If you're lucky they may have the ability for limited manufacturing so long as you are willing to go get the materials from them such as the electrically conductive nerve tissue of thunderfangs or the minerals with high arcane absorbtion levels.

>>51497225
You have you average weapon smiths that every large enough settlement has. In bigger cities they form guilds and generally mostly work for the lord supplying weapons for soldiers and guards. They are often worshippers of the forge gods, who bless their works so they strike true and don't break on the first strike.

Then you have the less common masters who run the biggest guilds or live in out of the way places who can craft magic weapons without the need for spells. Able to forge swords that spew fire, bows whose arrows are made of light, and other such things.

And then you have the legends. Each has a renowned story, often being retired adventurers and heroes. To find one is a quest in itself, and the weapons they can create are often minor artifacts, each as unique as the last. Lighteater, a short sword crafted from solid darkness with a hilt wrapped in blessed leather taken from the hide of a celestial bull. The renowned dragonborn warriorsmith Mulqidu crafted this weapon from the heart of the infamous shadow demon Hurtharexus.

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The New world is important because the power of the major smithing guilds is greatly reduced allowing for many would be master smiths to strike out on their own and make a name/organization of their own.

Indeed, it was surprising how many smiths left which causes some major conflicts in the old world such that many resorted to being smuggled out which only increased their infamy being rogue artisans.

More importantly the new world offered a chance to experiment from old and established designs and materials enforced by the ancient guilds as well leading to a varity of weapons designs that have found their way back into the old world markets.

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Most blacksmiths are working with an early early Renaissance level of technique and equipment
Except the Dwarves who are working with the magical version of Industrial shit, it's part of what makes them live up to the "dwarfen blacksmiths" stereotype

High level magic shit is almost all one offs made my wizards, magical beings, gods, and the like

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>>51498994
Thanks man.

>>51497225
I remembered one thing that some might want: the ways ores were distinguished in roman times is interesting. "Live iron" is magnetized ore, or magnetite, for example. Pitch was called "earth's blood". Types of ores, types of brass, black lead, the idea that rust is a curse of the gods due to mortal misuse of iron*. Books XXXIII to XXXVII of Pliny the Elder's Natural History is like a metallurgical philosophy and perspective which could enrich a simple blacksmith.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=9325E0784E787714D879735362F76915?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D34%3Achapter%3D39

Also, both ancient Iberia and some parts of Africa treated the blacksmith as sort of magician/alchemist, because of the way he created tools and weapons out of rocks and earth**.

* I use that as something the earth-mother did. She also created rust monsters.

** Also used that: Khayas were a nomad smith tribe which reserved their techniques to themselves. Their totem was the termite because one of the secrets was using the mud of its hives for the furnace.

>>51498734
pretty good
>>51499390
what is the point of that trip