Cantr II Discussion Forum

Stone isn't good for some items.Flint is better but we have only obsidian.
Ude it to made tools,weapons and decorative objects.
Obsidian knife,axe(no stone axe!)dunk-fork,sickle,short sword,dagger,spear,beads(to make jewlery) and more!

Stone axes are not sharp, as you might think, they're actually rather dull, but they do the work by bashing the tree fibers apart and squishing them out of the way.

Obsidian is Volcanic Glass, and as glass, is brittle, and would soon be rendered useless after a short few impacts. I'm not sure how you intend obsidian to be used as a dung fork ...

Alright... did a touch of looking into it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian
It makes for potentially better than steel in damage weaponry, but due to it's nature, would be much heavier and higher maintinence, so we'd probably limit it to small, strengh based blades... so far as axes go, it could function as a sharp axe, but again, with high deter and low repair rates.

As a spear-head, however, it would hold up quite well due to it's natural shape, and would be on par with steel.

I'd say:
Obsidian Short Sword Blade:
Obsidian 120, 3 days labor, hammer and chisel

Obsidian Short Sword:
Obsidian Short Sword blade, medium wooden hilt, 1 day, hammer
hit:34;weapon_skill:45 (one extra dam on steel, 5% less skill based)
40 deter on use, 125 repair per hour.
etc.

Witchita, if you feel like greenlighting it, I'll work out some base numbers for an axe and spear too.

Check out the Macuahuitl: it didn't have a solid obsidian blade, but had flakes of obsidian embedded in the edges of a wooden blade.

surely it would be too brittle to fashion a true sword blade with?

an obsidian knife would work as its small, but for a sword equivalent I think the Macuahuitl is a better option.

It may break quickly, but if you have a 2-3 inch thick piece of glass... it's none too brittle to hold up at least for a few good swings... again, it would be high deter, low repair... probably higher deter then I listed it as... but I'm not really sure where to put it for gameplay's sake. (edit: Also, keeping it down to shortsword lenght... anything longer, and yes, I'm willing to agree it would be too brittle.)

And a Macuahuitl sounds to be viable... could probably also make diamond and other precious stone varieties... well, more like studded clubs for the other stones, but yeah.

I envisaged a shortsword to be around a foot long, I personally think that is too long, but anything less than 6 inches I think is viable

Nakranoth wrote:It may break quickly, but if you have a 2-3 inch thick piece of glass... it's none too brittle to hold up at least for a few good swings... again, it would be high deter, low repair... probably higher deter then I listed it as... but I'm not really sure where to put it for gameplay's sake. (edit: Also, keeping it down to shortsword lenght... anything longer, and yes, I'm willing to agree it would be too brittle.)

And a Macuahuitl sounds to be viable... could probably also make diamond and other precious stone varieties... well, more like studded clubs for the other stones, but yeah.

A 2-3 inch thick piece of anything is none too sharp. Keep in mind that manufactured glass is carefully formed and cooled so as to have a uniform thermal coefficient of expansion, but naturally occuring volcanic glass has many different stress points and striations that make it difficult at best to form into anything.

An obsidian knife, with high deteriation, but very sharp, is realistic, as is a spear head, but nothing that takes high strength, as the application of that much force would shatter what you had produced. An obsidian chip edged wooden blade would be functional, somewhat.

Right... forgot the diffrences between natural and man-made glass' integrities... and I of course had ment 2-3 inches at the thickest point, chipped down to a blade... but if you can make a knife, then you can make 6 of them and attach them to a club or else a waster, you could definitely make a dangerous weapon.

Obsidian Blade:
Obsidian 70, 2 day, hammer (and chisel?)

Obsidian Mace:
club, 5 Obsidian blades, 1.5 day, knife and hammer

Obsidian Sword:
waster, 3 obsidian blades, 1 day, knife and hammer

Obsidian Dagger:
Obsidian blade, small wooden hilt, .5 day, knife and hammer

Obsidian Spearhead:
Obsidian 50, 1.5 day, hammer (and chisel?)

Obsidian Spear:
Obsidian spearhead, medium wooden shaft, 1 day, hammer

It would be a primitive set with damages comparable to steel, but higher deter, and longer repair.

Some pics:
http://www.obsidianarts.com/wholesale.JPG
http://www.mayanmajix.com/carv003c.jpg
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/archaeology/assets/images/edwards/double-sickle.jpg
http://www.msu.edu/~doneycar/fkpg/circle_obsidain.jpg
Serious weapons
http://www.famsi.org/research/pohl/images/aztec4figure09.jpg
http://www.karamat.com/bigaxe1a.jpg
This is interesting but no obsidian
http://www.sanybel.com/Web_Page_-_My_Shell_Hammer.jpg

Nakranoth wrote:Obsidian Blade:
Obsidian 70, 2 day, hammer (and chisel?)

Chisel, made of iron, shouldn't go there. Unless a non-metallic chisel can be made, of obsidian maybe. Or we could use "stone cleaver" or something similar as a primitive chisel used for sharpening the obsidian blades.

Nakranoth wrote:Obsidian Dagger:
Obsidian blade, small wooden hilt, .5 day, knife and hammer

The use of leather (and its salt requirement) in simple hilts is problematic too, at least in primitive weapons.
Leather could be replaced by sinew and hide for primitive hilts (only suitable for primitive weapons, not disturbing the current system of the high-end iron and steel weapons).

Looking at the polished obsidian knife in the last pictures I thought...
If we want to add more diversity to all this, there can be polished obsidian blades (with some kind of file made of stone?). I think only those polished obsidian blades should reach steel stats.

Maybe use small sharpening block or hand glass grinder to polishing.
Obsidian tools and weapons must be simple or special decorated.

Initially the chisel sounded like a good idea but if the original idea is to produce primitive stone tools and weapons then they should be makeable without iron. But as for leather, is salt really that hard to find?

We could have fine obsidian blades with a leather-wrapped handle and using a chisel in the making, but most of the selection should be simple, primitive stuff. High deterioration rates will balance it out.

We could always split obsidian into a two step production... rough would be makable with only primitive materials/processes, and would be similar to high deter sub-iron while the polished variety would be slightly above steel in damage. Of course maintaining the narrow selection and high deter to help keep it balanced. So for example:

Obsidian Blade:
Obsidian 70, 2 day, hammer

Rough Obsidian Dagger:
Obsidian blade, 20 wood, 10 hide, 5 sinew, .5 day, knife

Polished Obsidian Dagger:
Rough Obsidian Dagger, 20 leather, 2 days, hammer, chisel, grinder

That makes the rough one a good primitive weapon, while making the polished one an exotic steel level weapon.

I like all that, Nakranoth

SekoETC wrote:But as for leather, is salt really that hard to find?

Well... in the Spanish island there is no salt. As we have hematite, limestone, coal and gas, we have no problem with the iron, but the step towards steel was very difficult (until cloth belows were implemented). In the Spanish island, leathers is a high-end resource, rather expensive in some places (until commerce becomes more vivacious and regular).
That is why I thought that a real primitive tool or weapon shouldn't use resources that aren't everywere, or at least alternative (and usually worse) resources should be provided.