All the Swords

Finally, all the swords for the series are in one place… Facebook!

Each blade will make an appearance, but only two (technically three) will be in the first book. Those ones are Enlightener and the Leviathan Killer, or Leviethen Killer, as we are considering re-spelling it. Why? Because we made a typo once and it looked cooler than the original. That’s the thing about fantasy. If you make a typo, you just roll with it.

From 12 o’clock and clockwise, they are: Regal Blade, Royal Elegance, Crescent Moon Blade, Enlightener, Celtic Elegance (working title), Elect’ic Blade, Leviethen Killer and finally, page’s blade. Page’s blade is only referred to, as it was the sword Malkeon – the main character – used growing up. BUT YES! They are all here, and I cannot be more proud of how badass they look.

Also, not all the proportions are up to canon. That was purposeful, so that people could see the detail in each equally. Leviethen Killer, for instance, is 5’6″ long, or 168cm. It’s a very, VERY big sword, so if we’d done it at it’s height there would be much less detail in the rest. And a 4’10” tall (148cm) person wields Leviethen Killer. Kinda fun.

Big and Beastly Berserker Swords

I couldn’t think of any grand writing tips, fun stories or spiritual thoughts today, so I’m going to appeal to fantasy geekiness. Please accept this epic blog as my epic apology.

We’re talking about the biggest swords ever used in combat, starting from largest to smallest.

5. Claymore

A good claymore is typically somewhere around 4.5-5 feet long. These are the great two-handed swords of legend, one of them well know for being used by William Wallace. They were often used to settle disputes in single combat. These were so epic that they were passed down from generation to generation. That’s pretty epic.

4. Zweihänder / Great Sword

If your sword is so awesome that it’s working title is “great sword”, it’s probably a great sword. And if it’s known as one of the greatest great swords, then this sword is just incredible. The Zweihänder measured anywhere from 4.6 ft to 6 ft long. And they were used to cut off the heads off of pikes. So there’s that.

3. Odachi

The odachi is the only Eastern sword on this list. Big swords were mostly a European thing, to be honest. These katana-like swords were typically 5-6 ft long and were so deadly that they were banned from combat after a while. But whether they’re legal in combat or not, they’re still dang awesome swords.

2. William Wallace’s Sword

Having Scottish blood in me, I cannot help but place this on the list. It is only above odachi because there are odachi blades that are smaller than this sword. It measures 5’4″ (163 cm) in total, with a 4’4″ (132 cm) blade. You have to be one big man to cary around a sword that big. (Unless you’re Zenti from the saga I’m currently writing. Then you can be 4’10”, or 147 cm, and still carry around a massive blade about 7 cm bigger than his. But that’s a story for another time.) In the end, this is just a beast sword. Just pray its end never goes in you.

The Sword of Pier Gerlofs Diona

This is by far the greatest sword in history, so much so that it puts Sephiroth from the video game Final Fantasy VII to shame. This man who wielded it was about seven feet tall, and so it would make sense that he would have a large sword. But you still have to be one berserker of a man to carry a 213 cm long sword. For you Americans, that’s SIX FOOT NINE INCHES. And yes, he used it in war. Constantly. For a slightly gruesome fact, it was able to take out several men in one shot. So, kudos to you, Pier Gerlofs Diona. That’s some talent right there.

There’s the end of my rant on big swords. Hopefully, I can come up with some better content soon.

I Am Not Left Handed

Okay, actually I am left-handed. It’s a “Princess Bride” thing. So, maybe, “I am not right-handed”? Anyway, that’s not the point. I’ve decided to go all the way with my research for the book. Okay, it wasn’t exactly about research for the book in the beginning, but now that I’m thinking about, it is. Basically, I decided to take up sword fighting.

“My name is Gabriel Penn. You didn’t actually kill anyone, but prepare to die anyway.”

As it turns out, our campus has a sword fighting club. I found this out by being my geeky self and going to a 24-hr game night. It was a charity event, and during the later part of the night, I found myself talking to a guy. I was talking to this guy because he had a giant foam sword in his pack that he was carrying. I was like, “That’s cool, I wonder why he has that.” I don’t know if that’s exactly what I was thinking, because it was sometime around 1 o’clock in the morning. But regardless of what I was thinking, I decided to figure out exactly what was going on. As it turns out, he is part of the sword club on campus. Not only did he have one large foam sword in his pack, he had a lot of foam swords in his pack. They were all different shapes and sizes. My interest was growing. He let me know they had even more weapons at the place where the club had their meetings, and defensive things too. They had swords and shields and spears and basically anything you would want to attack somebody or defend yourself with.

This isn’t an original picture of the weapons, but it’s deff how it felt looking down at the innards of his suitcase.

Being my super geeky self, I was beyond excited. This would mean that I would have the chance to see exactly what my characters would be doing in fight scenes. I would be able to get inside the fighter’s head in a way I couldn’t before.

But he let me know this would not be easy. They would actually be sword fighting. Obviously, he noted, they would be using foam swords, but that did not mean they would be going easy on anybody. If they hit you, they were going to. This probably should’ve may be less interesting. But it didn’t. In fact, I figured I needed a better way to exercise than the way I’d been doing it before. Simple fact: running really isn’t that fun. Another fact: sword fighting totally is – especially to a guy who looked up to the character Trunks in Dragonball Z when he watched it as a kid. It is even more so, to a guy who loves the movie “Princess Bride” and probably always will.

If I randomly gain long purple hair and a cool jacket during this ordeal, I WILL blog about it.

And speaking of “Princess Bride”, this guy let me know that the sword fighting club did not do everything in the way of swords. If I wanted to learn fencing as seen in Zorro and Princess Bride, I would have to go to a separate club on campus – the fencing club. So now, it seems likely I’ll be going to both next semester. If this is what us geeks do for exercise, I’ll happily be a geek forever.