Gentlemen's jewels
Jan. 12th, 2018 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethToday I read that a three foot wand could use Shortsword or Smallsword skill
so I went over to tumblr https://beccaelizabeth315.tumblr.com/ and queued all the smallswords I could find
and that not being enough I searched the V&A website for more.
I still didn't find that one perfect sword that's in my head, basically diamond jewellery but with very pointy steel attached.
... diamond cross section blades screw the search results. also pinterest gums up any search really really hard.
I love swords from the era where they were on the one hand as perfectly made as historical blades ever got to be but on the other pretty much ornamental. They got the metallurgy and design licked just in time for almost everyone to stop carrying them. So when people did, they went all out on the shiny.
And that makes them so great as magical artefacts. Like, to have a Staff spell cast on them they'd have to be made of once living material, mostly wood or bone. Sadly magery and metallurgy seldom mix. But you could mix your media and set bone in a channel and get the same spells on. Strengthen it with a few enchantments. Set powerstones in the hilt. And that's where the bling gets practical, because a mage with one stone has a maximum, an upper limit on their power reserve based on the cost of the gem, which can be broadly guessed by appraising it. Yes, the details matter with gemstones, but still. A mage with gems all over everything, multiple, very large and shiny gems, can still only use one powerstone, and would bork the recharge time to be carrying more than one, but, you'd never know which one. And sure, you could spend all that money on a single bigger powerstone, but the biggest powerstones are simply unlikely to exist. They're certainly going to be harder to get hold of than some gemstones of variable quality. But if you're carrying something that maybe might be a powerstone of a size to tip the combat, you're ever so much less likely to have to prove it.
So you get gentleman dandies, peacocks, strutting their gem studded stuff, with at least one spell to their name, trying to make like they're gifts to wizardry.
And then you'd get some with one gem, just the one, sitting in the obvious place on the sheathed wand. And everyone is left to wonder, is that all they can afford, or is that just all they need?
And all of them are dangerous, but danger looks fabulous.
Add to this that every gentleman at least in theory serves a Lady, and wears her sign somewhere, and Ladies favour signs from their side of the magic and the natural world
and you get a lot of gentlemen in flowers.
And this is an aesthetic of wizardry I've not seen, but it seems like fun.
With that as the standard presentation, gentlemen Scholars, in their off white robes, carrying six feet of oak, and with chunky tough powerstones if any, are going to stand out. Even if the robes are mostly because the Clean spells is too enthusiastic for dyed cloth to last. They've all put years in to study, and if they keep wearing the robes after, that's like saying that's all they need. Which most of the time would be true. But it would also be keeping a collective identity instead of showing the signs of diverse interests, so as with any uniform, it warns that messing with one is messing with all. So being encouraged to change out of the robes might get politically complex...
But still, basically smallswords. So sharp, so pretty.
so I went over to tumblr https://beccaelizabeth315.tumblr.com/ and queued all the smallswords I could find
and that not being enough I searched the V&A website for more.
I still didn't find that one perfect sword that's in my head, basically diamond jewellery but with very pointy steel attached.
... diamond cross section blades screw the search results. also pinterest gums up any search really really hard.
I love swords from the era where they were on the one hand as perfectly made as historical blades ever got to be but on the other pretty much ornamental. They got the metallurgy and design licked just in time for almost everyone to stop carrying them. So when people did, they went all out on the shiny.
And that makes them so great as magical artefacts. Like, to have a Staff spell cast on them they'd have to be made of once living material, mostly wood or bone. Sadly magery and metallurgy seldom mix. But you could mix your media and set bone in a channel and get the same spells on. Strengthen it with a few enchantments. Set powerstones in the hilt. And that's where the bling gets practical, because a mage with one stone has a maximum, an upper limit on their power reserve based on the cost of the gem, which can be broadly guessed by appraising it. Yes, the details matter with gemstones, but still. A mage with gems all over everything, multiple, very large and shiny gems, can still only use one powerstone, and would bork the recharge time to be carrying more than one, but, you'd never know which one. And sure, you could spend all that money on a single bigger powerstone, but the biggest powerstones are simply unlikely to exist. They're certainly going to be harder to get hold of than some gemstones of variable quality. But if you're carrying something that maybe might be a powerstone of a size to tip the combat, you're ever so much less likely to have to prove it.
So you get gentleman dandies, peacocks, strutting their gem studded stuff, with at least one spell to their name, trying to make like they're gifts to wizardry.
And then you'd get some with one gem, just the one, sitting in the obvious place on the sheathed wand. And everyone is left to wonder, is that all they can afford, or is that just all they need?
And all of them are dangerous, but danger looks fabulous.
Add to this that every gentleman at least in theory serves a Lady, and wears her sign somewhere, and Ladies favour signs from their side of the magic and the natural world
and you get a lot of gentlemen in flowers.
And this is an aesthetic of wizardry I've not seen, but it seems like fun.
With that as the standard presentation, gentlemen Scholars, in their off white robes, carrying six feet of oak, and with chunky tough powerstones if any, are going to stand out. Even if the robes are mostly because the Clean spells is too enthusiastic for dyed cloth to last. They've all put years in to study, and if they keep wearing the robes after, that's like saying that's all they need. Which most of the time would be true. But it would also be keeping a collective identity instead of showing the signs of diverse interests, so as with any uniform, it warns that messing with one is messing with all. So being encouraged to change out of the robes might get politically complex...
But still, basically smallswords. So sharp, so pretty.