I'm going to be running The Spire of Long Shadows from the Age of Worms adventure path in the next few weeks, and the visions the PCs may receive of the ancient time of Kyuss' rule annoy me for their insistence that Kyuss always wears plate armor.
Kyuss, a Flan priest of Nerull, hails from the Flan Kingdom of Sulm, specifically the Necropolis of Unaagh, c. -1716 CY. He then rules Kulath-Mar in the Amedio Jungle until his attempted ascension in c. -1405 CY.
I have two problems with the plate armor:
1) I don't like the idea that plate armor is older than a few centuries. I don't know exactly when it was developed, but doesn't it feel like something the Great Kingdom would have developed at a specific and relatively recent date?
2) The Amedio Jungle is seriously hot, and I guess Kyuss could have been casting endure elements on himself every single day, but really? He's the ruler of this fanatical jungle city-state and he dresses like he's terrified of getting hurt? Like maybe for a ceremonial occasion, I guess, but real monarchs usually dress like they're untouchable.
Anyway, I'd like to know if anyone has ideas for what elite armor might have looked like in Ancient Sulm, and what Kyuss might have worn once he founded his own jungle city-state devoted to Nerull.
Nice. I second that. You might go with a full suit of slightly simpler tech bronze plate - heavy boots with armored plates riveted to them, similar heavy gauntlets; everything simpler, so multiple plates rather than large worked pieces, and NO articulation. All over scale mail. Any elite guard could have bronze breastplate, armored boots and gauntlets over scale mail. More of a "counts as" suit of armor, though not egregiously far off. Rule of cool. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Curious if anyone has opinions on when plate armor was invented?
I would say during the migrations and chalk it up to the healthy competition of the Oeridians war gods (Heironious and Hextor) and the Aerdy's ability to get along with demihumans better than the Suel. Their invention of plate was another thing that gave them an edge over the Suel. Maybe a famous personage like like Lum, Daern, or St Kargoth had a hand in its invention. Or maybe the Oeridians befriended the tech savvy dwarves in Blackmoor (if you use Arneson sources) who showed them some secrets.
Remember field and full-plate still haven't been invented yet, according to Sargent in Ivid.
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IMC, Suel tend to use studded leather, brigandine, or intricate banded mail; Suel barbarians use round shields and occasionally leather, hide or chain; Flannae use whatever nearby Oeridians or Suel use while Tenh persists in their traditional ring mail and bronze plate; Rovers use leather; and the Baklunish use padded, leather, or scale, with their primary focus being ease of movement for archery and mounted combat.
That makes a lot of sense to me. I wish we had historical tales and/or myths of how such and such a technology was discovered or invented. I really like your cultural distinctions in armor, and I wish I'd insisted on the bronze plate & ring mail when I ran a long Tenh campaign a couple decades ago.
I'd forgotten about that field/full plate prohibition from Ivid the Undying. It strikes me as something Gygax wouldn't have endorsed had he still been running the Greyhawk ship, given that he's the one who introduced those armors to the setting.
Also, given the expense of those armors, I'm not sure what's really gained by forbidding them, given that no one would have the wealth to outfit a whole troop with either type.
Sargent isn't specific about what European century he holds Oerthian technology to, other than mid 15th century is too late (in his discussion of the arbalest). My instinct is the Flanaess is basically Europe around 1401, but I'd be curious what others have decided.
Just what is called "plate mail"? (And by extension field and full plate, which is what most often depicted rather than actual plate and mail armor.)
("Mail" does NOT mean "armor"!!!)
Or any armor involving "plates" rather than rings (mail), scales, or lamella (a variant of scales)?
Plate, meaning a low-carbon steel breastplate, first appeared in the late13th century, becoming dominant by the 14th century.
The precursor of such breastplates, the coat of plates, appeared in the 12th century. A successor to the coat of plates, the brigandine, was used alongside actual plate armor. Both are somewhat but not precisely the equivalent of splint or banded armor.
Bronze breastplates date to Classical Greece, while the Romans used a form of iron and steel splint or banded armor. However, neither were full suits as most people imagine because of the game. They were worn as enhancements to linen (for the bronze breastplates), or scale or mail (for the Roman armor.)
Mail is very old, around the 4th century B.C., and was invented by the Gauls and later adopted by the Romans. (The Romans were big on incorporating superior weapons tech from the enemies.)
For myself, I have adopted an ORAD equivalence - the Oeridian Reckoning year is the AD year, making the Flanaess sometime in the early 13th century, with plate just beginning to appear.
I'd forgotten about that field/full plate prohibition from Ivid the Undying. It strikes me as something Gygax wouldn't have endorsed had he still been running the Greyhawk ship, given that he's the one who introduced those armors to the setting.
I suspect Sargent was a early 1e grognard in his home campaign and didn't use Unearthed Arcana, where field and full plate were officially added to the rules. Since most Greyhawk modules prior to Sargent were written before UA, plate mail was the limit for most of Greyhawk canon. Then Lorraine Williams began to discontinue Greyhawk before Jim Ward convinced leadership otherwise, so Greyhawk got almost no support in 1986-1988 and missed any post-UA modules. I'd have to double check, but Greyhawk Ruins might be the first appearance of field/full in Greyhawk.
Interestingly, when Greyhawk was again discontinued from 1994-1997, it missed most of the late-2e power creep as well (Faiths and Avatars, Players Option). So, while Elminster was gaining levels with every new FR expansion, Greyhawk remained modeled after 0e and early 1e rules all the way until third edition, with low-level demihuman NPC's (level limits from the 1e PHB), relatively low-level rulers, modest archmages (modeled after actual PC's in 1e Rogues Gallery), and few epic-level personages available for players to interact with.
/tangent
But yeah, doesn't matter too much if field/full are available.
-FWIW, I assume that all obvious points are covered by plate, not mail. Mail is still used to protect chinks (armpits, crook of the elbow, crook of the knee).
edmundscott wrote:
...Curious if anyone has opinions on when plate armor was invented?
-FWIW, I assume that AD 1445 = 576 CY, and it normally takes two years in the Flanaess (CY) to equal one year of historical (AD) technological advance (AD 1446 = 578 CY; AD 1447 = 580 CY). The earliest example that I could find for full plate armor (D&D 3.5 +8 AC, or older AC 2) was 1419, maybe 1415. So working back from that, 516 CY, maybe 508 CY.
Samwise wrote:
Remember field and full-plate still haven't been invented yet, according to Sargent in Ivid...
-I really hate to go against canon, but I always wrote that off, maybe an exaggeration.
vestcoat wrote:
...I would say during the migrations and chalk it up to the healthy competition of the Oeridians war gods (Heironious and Hextor) and the Aerdy's ability to get along with demihumans better than the Suel. Their invention of plate was another thing that gave them an edge over the Suel...
-I assumed that banded or splint would have been the max' technology for that time.
edmundscott wrote:
I'm going to be running The Spire of Long Shadows from the Age of Worms adventure path in the next few weeks, and the visions the PCs may receive of the ancient time of Kyuss' rule annoy me for their insistence that Kyuss always wears plate armor...
I don't like the idea that plate armor is older than a few centuries...
-Kyuss is super powerful. Who says he got his armor from Oerth?
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