Rapier

Game Stats

• Range: melee
• Base damage: 1d6 (impaling)
• Secondary: +5 Weapon Skill
• Concealable: yes
• Civilian Carry: no (except in some parts of Sevilla)

Description 

The rapier is a long-bladed one-handed sword with a stout cross-section designed for thrusting attacks.  It is the longest of the one-handed swords and associated with civilian nobility, knighthood, high social status, and duels of honor.  It hails originally from Sevilla, where it was adopted first by the knightly class.  The rapier offered an advantage compared to other swords when fighting unarmored duels of honor, and it appealed to the Sevillan taste for elegance and pageantry.  It is still most strongly associated with Sevillan knighthood, but in the centuries following Merod Lightbringer's conquest the rapier has been adopted by certain segments of the Harkanian upper crust, as well as some wealthy Sevillan commoners.  These swords are occasionally mass-produced in Sevilla.  In Harkania they are usually custom-made, as are the best of Sevillan rapiers.

Use and Characteristics

The rapier is defined by its long tapering blade with a thick cross-section(usually diamond-shaped, but occasionally hexagonal).  The advantage of a rapier in combat is its long reach - a rapier's blade may be as much as 48 inches long, giving it significantly longer reach than any sword other than a greatsword (a more typical blade length would be 36-40 inches, which is still longer even than a bastard sword).  A rapier must thrust in order to take advantage of this superior reach.  The thick cross-section reinforces the blade for delivering powerful thrusting attacks, although it means that the blade is too thick to deliver an effective cut.  Rapier blades are frequently sharpened at the edges anyway, so the fencer may threaten cuts to sensitive areas of the body such as the eyes and to prevent opponents from immobilizing the blade by grabbing it.  The hilt of a rapier often features a complex guard and finger rings to protect the fencer's sword hand when fighting another thrusting weapon such as another rapier.

A rapier is a thin-bladed weapon but surprisingly heavy owing to its extraordinarily long blade and thick cross-section.  Despite its elegant appearance it is essentially an offensive weapon.  A rapier can deliver lightning-fast thrusts, but its weight means that it is not fast enough to recovery to permit a fencer to defend and attack well with only a single rapier.  Effective rapier fencing depends on sure footwork to take advantage of the rapier's extra reach and careful, precise timing to take advantage of the weapon's offensive speed.  Rapier fencers prefer to defend themselves with an off-hand weapon such as a parrying dagger, a buckler, another rapier, or even a traveling cloak to leave their main hand free to attack.

Advantages

The rapier's principal advantage is its long reach and aggressive, direct means of attack.  A skilled rapier fencer can run his opponent through without ever exposing himself to his opponent's blade, and interrupt the cuts of other swords with a well-placed thrust that strikes home before the opponent's cut has landed.  The weapon is also long enough to entangle an opponent's blade and disarm him either through sudden pressure or (the more direct route) a thrust to the sword hand.

Disadvantages

Although it is fast to attack, a rapier is slow to defend.  It is also incapable of delivering truly effective cuts - a slash from a rapier blade may lacerate the target, causing distraction and loss of blood, but a similar slash from most other swords is enough to dismember the target in the right circumstances.  A rapier's great length and inability to cut leave it at a severe disadvantage at very close ranges.

Variants

Like most blades in Harkania and Sevilla rapiers are produced in high-quality steel (referred to as "steel" colloquially) and low-quality steel (referred to as "iron" colloquially).  Rapiers are generally not edged in crystal, as even a crystal-edged rapier still has too thick a blade to deliver a deep cut.  No known examples of Dolotai steel rapiers exist in archaeology or in art.  Both "iron" and "steel" rapiers share the iconic thin blade, complex hilts, and thick cross-sections that define the term "rapier."

A much earlier bronze sword sometimes referred to as a "rapier" is known to archaeologists.  This bronze weapon also has a long thin, tapering blade, but the blade has a thinner cross-section and widens considerably at the shoulders of the hilt to strengthen it in cuts.  Judging by several extant examples of such weapons with their blades sheared off at the hilt, the effort was only partially successful.  These weapons have much simpler hilts than modern Sevillan-style rapiers.  The evidence suggests that they were used in a more versatile cut-and-thrust style than late 17th century rapiers, more like an extra-long edgeblade than a true rapier - and that their long bronze blades were not always up to the stresses of such fencing.

Party Associations

Monica Jasmine uses a rapier as her primary melee weapon.

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