Choosing weapons for my Soldier.

As I chose the Soldier character, naturally a Soldier needs weapons. At first I looked at what kind of weapons a pirate would have had access to.

     General Shipboard Weapons

• Belaying pin
• Boarding axes and tomahawks
• Grappling hook (boarding hook)
• Caltrop (crowsfoot)
• Markin Spike (hand fid)

Edged Weapons

• Buckler
• Cutlass
• Dagger
• Dirk
• Sailors knife
• Scimitar

Rifles, Pistols and Small-arms

• Grenadoes (grenades)
• Flintlock weapons
• Matchlock weapons
• Snaphance weapons
• Wheel lock weapons

I was given the idea of using other nautical items as weapons in one of our Group Critiquing sessions, items such as small anchors, fishing lines and nets, boat ores. I like the idea of using an anchor as some kind of swinging weapon, but with the size and weight of most anchors and the fact my soldier may not have the skills to forge her own anchor that can have the weight to swing around her but still be holdable is a little too complicated for the moment, but I will still give it a try and see what images I can create.

I started looking at images of pistols from the Georgian period, a lot of these guns are very detailed and beautiful which I quite like, I figured even though she was a rough, tough pirate she would still like an elegant weapon to use, also a more intricate looking weapon would look like she had looted plunder from a rich ship.

I like the look of the really ornate ones that have animal heads on the end of them. If I can't get an anchor as a weapon then I would like to add some find of nautical theme to the pistol, like some kind of mythical creature such as a kraken or a mermaid along the side of the gun.

As she can't just use a gun she needs a sword, I like the idea of a cutlass as they have the basket guards to protect the hand of the user. As I'm keeping into Britain within my Georgian period I want to try and keep to finding British made swords and guns.

The British swords aren't as fancy as the French and Spanish ones but if she has a fancy gun then I don't want to overload or saturate her with beautiful weapons as I think it would look a bit too unreal and Hollywood'esque if she has all these expensive items.