Weapons of Andrus
AX.GAN.09.01 - Weapons
This file names and describes the weapons of Andrus. Mechanical categories, attack pools, range bands, and category properties, are defined in Core Part 10. Catalog entries name specific weapons, note cultural origin, and record any setting-specific properties beyond the category default.
Core weapon categories:
| Category | Attack Pool | Range | Category Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light | Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Off-hand capable; throwable to Close; Free Action draw |
| Standard | Body + Strike or Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Reliable baseline; attack pool chosen at character creation |
| Heavy | Body + Strike | Touch | Two-handed; Knockdown on hit (Body Save Th2 or Prone) |
| Ranged | Speed + Precision | Near to Far | Disadvantage at Close; cannot use at Touch; two-handed |
Light Weapons
Light weapons are produced and carried across every lineage culture in Andrus. The category spans hunting tools, defensive blades, concealed weapons, and purpose-built fighting instruments small enough to draw without telegraphing intent.
Short Blade
Universal, no single cultural origin
The everyday cutting tool of Andrus: hunting knife, skinning blade, utility dagger. Every lineage produces short blades in local materials and styles. Mechanically identical across origins; cultural variants differ in grip, edge geometry, and ornamentation.
Category: Light | Attack Pool: Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: Standard Light properties. Throwable to Close range.
Calri Concealable
Calri murder-clan networks, urban environments
A purpose-built concealed weapon: rigid in action, minimal in profile. Designed to fit within a belt pouch, costume prop, hollow walking accessory, or fold of clothing without printing. The Calri have refined concealment to a craft, a Concealable doesn't merely hide, it waits.
Category: Light | Attack Pool: Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: Free Action to reveal (drawing a concealed weapon normally costs a Minor Action and risks a Notice check from observers). The Concealable is already in hand before anyone realizes it has left its sheath.
Kasia Groove-Blade
Kasia jungle territories, toxin-delivery specialist
A short curved blade with a deliberately fashioned channel along the inner edge. The groove retains applied toxin through multiple strikes. Kasia fighters treat the blade as a delivery system rather than a primary damage tool, the wound is a vector.
Category: Light | Attack Pool: Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: Toxin applied to the groove persists for 2 attacks before requiring reapplication (standard toxin application expires after 1 hit).
Aedyn Dive-Talon
Aedyn aerial culture, strike-during-flight specialist
A short piercing blade worn strapped to the forearm or wrist, angled for the downward thrust of an aerial dive. The mounting prevents it from being lost during high-speed passes and keeps both hands free during flight. Aedyn fighters rarely use it in grounded combat, the weapon's geometry is optimized for the dive angle, not level engagement.
Category: Light | Attack Pool: Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: When used as part of an aerial dive attack (Highwatcher profession ability or GM-adjudicated equivalent), the attack gains +1D. The mounting counts as secure, the weapon cannot be disarmed while in flight position.
Kerroshi Flicker
Kerroshi urban culture, speed-of-draw specialist
An extremely short blade, barely more than an extended finger, optimized for the "flicker draw" technique that Kerroshi fighters develop: a motion that produces the blade, strikes, and returns it to concealment in what observers perceive as a single gesture. The Flicker's value is entirely in its speed of deployment.
Category: Light | Attack Pool: Speed + Strike | Range: Touch Special: Drawing and attacking with the Flicker is a single Minor Action (instead of the standard sequence of: draw as Minor Action, attack as Primary Action). Range is Touch only, the Flicker's blade is too short for Close engagement.
Standard Weapons
Standard weapons are the primary instruments of armed conflict across Andrus. Most professional fighters carry one. Cultural design philosophy shapes the form, maritime cultures favor one-handed blades optimized for close quarters; Compact Wardens carry staffs that double as walking tools; fire-tradition cultures favor weapons that hold heat.
Sereindal Cutlass
Sereindal maritime culture, shipboard primary weapon
One-handed curved blade designed for fighting in cramped environments: ship cabins, narrow companionways, crowded docks. The curve concentrates force in the draw cut rather than the thrust, which works better when the target is within arm's reach and retreat is impossible. Sereindal fighters train with the cutlass from childhood.
Category: Standard | Attack Pool: Body + Strike or Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: Standard properties. The curved geometry provides no mechanical distinction, the advantage is cultural: Sereindal fighters are deeply trained with this specific tool, and their profession abilities assume it.
Boarding Axe
Sereindal maritime culture, utility-combat hybrid
A one-handed axe with a functional blade face and a hooked back edge designed for climbing, rope-cutting, and hull-breaching. Sereindal ships carry boarding axes as standard equipment, and their crews learn to fight with them. The hook is not decorative.
Category: Standard | Attack Pool: Body + Strike or Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: The boarding axe counts as a climbing tool. Athletics checks for ship boarding, hull-face climbing, or rigging work do not treat it as improvised equipment.
Walking Staff
Voren Compact Warden culture, travel-weapon-authority symbol
A heavy two-point staff, traditionally carried by Compact Wardens as a travel aid, walking tool, and unmistakable marker of Compact authority. Wardens often have their current Compact terms carved into the wood. In combat, the staff's length provides control over reach and spacing that shorter weapons do not.
Category: Standard | Attack Pool: Body + Strike or Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: When braced, wielder has not moved this Turn, the staff provides +1D on any Body Save triggered by incoming melee attacks. Functionally indistinguishable from a travel implement; a character carrying a Walking Staff does not appear armed to casual observation.
Misa Paired Blades
Misa jaguar culture, dual-weapon fighting system
Two matched blades worn in crossed back-sheaths or hip sheaths, drawn and used simultaneously. Misa fighting styles developed around the paired set as a unified system rather than a primary weapon plus an off-hand supplement. The blades are matched in weight and geometry so that the two-weapon fighter experiences them as a single instrument.
Category: Standard | Attack Pool: Body + Strike or Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: The primary blade is a Standard weapon. The second blade functions as the off-hand Light weapon when the wielder uses the Off-Hand Attack rule. When both attacks hit the same target in the same Turn, the target must make a Body Save Th2 or gain the Hindered condition (−1D to Body pools until end of next Turn), the paired strikes compromise footing and guard simultaneously.
Hearthblade
Ashari forge-culture, fire-tradition weapon
Forged iron blade, Ashari-worked to absorb and hold heat beyond normal iron's capacity. The blade is not enchanted; it is a material property achieved through specific smelting and tempering techniques known to Ashari forge-workers. Unheated, the Hearthblade is a standard blade. Heated, it becomes something more deliberate.
Category: Standard | Attack Pool: Body + Strike or Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: If heated before an attack (costs a Primary Action to heat using an available fire source, or an Elemental Fire ability that produces localized flame), the next attack deals 2 additional damage as heat transfers on contact. The heat dissipates after the attack regardless of outcome. Unheated: standard blade with no additional properties.
Yusk Jaw-Hook
Yusk komodo culture, grip-and-hold specialist
Wide-bladed hook weapon modeled on the Komodo's jaw mechanics: designed not merely to cut but to grip and not release. Yusk warriors use the Jaw-Hook to control opponents, redirecting their movement and preventing escape. In Yusk territorial disputes, which tend toward capture-and-negotiate rather than kill-and-clear, a weapon that holds is more useful than one that merely wounds.
Category: Standard | Attack Pool: Body + Strike or Speed + Strike | Range: Touch to Close Special: On a successful hit, the attacker may forgo dealing damage to instead initiate a Grapple as part of the same action, gaining +1D on the Grapple check. The hook's grip geometry makes the Grapple difficult to break, target's Grapple escape roll is at −1D while the Jaw-Hook maintains purchase.
Heavy Weapons
Heavy weapons require both hands and strike with mass that light and standard weapons cannot achieve. The Knockdown property (Body Save Th2 or Prone) is the defining tactical feature, a fighter who takes a heavy weapon blow and fails the save is immediately vulnerable. Cultures that use heavy weapons in Andrus tend toward deliberate, controlling combat styles rather than fluid skirmish tactics.
Stoneholder Maul
Durakai lodge culture, primary combat weapon
Flat-faced hammer with a stone-weighted head, lodge-forged by Durakai smiths. The weight distribution front-loads the impact, the maul does not swing so much as fall, with the wielder's body behind it. Stoneholders train specifically to exploit this mass, controlling timing and angle rather than attempting speed.
Category: Heavy | Attack Pool: Body + Strike | Range: Touch Special: Knockdown (Body Save Th2 or Prone, standard Heavy property). Against targets in Medium or Heavy armor, the Knockdown Save Threshold increases to Th3, the concentrated mass destabilizes armored defenders more severely than it does unarmored ones.
Great Mattock
Cross-cultural working tool, common in Durakai and Voren territories
A heavy digging and breaking implement pressed into combat use. The pick-face punches; the flat face crushes. Not a weapon of elegance, a weapon of available materials and functional weight. Common wherever heavy earthwork is done, which in Andrus means Durakai construction sites, Voren border fortifications, and any contested ground near the Blasted Reach.
Category: Heavy | Attack Pool: Body + Strike | Range: Touch Special: Knockdown (Body Save Th2 or Prone). The pick-face ignores 1 point of Armor Value when attacking a target using an obstacle as cover (stone wall corner, braced barrier, earthwork fortification), the geometry punches through the cover interface.
Voren Lodge-Polearm
Voren Compact Warden culture, ceremonial and martial
Six feet of hardwood or ironwood capped with a spear-tip and counterweighted at the butt. Lodge-carved along its length with Compact records, mediation outcomes, territorial agreements, witnessed oaths. The polearm is simultaneously a weapon, a record-keeping surface, and a statement of Compact authority. Wardens who carry polearms rather than walking staffs are making a declaration.
Category: Heavy | Attack Pool: Body + Strike | Range: Touch Special: Knockdown (Body Save Th2 or Prone). The polearm's length allows the wielder to attack at the moment a creature enters Touch range, Opportunity Attacks made with this weapon do not require the attacker to have held their action; the reach intercepts.
Ranged Weapons
Ranged weapons dominate at Near and Far range, where melee fighters cannot respond. In Andrus, aerial cultures have produced bows optimized for use in flight; Kyne Daas scouts use precision instruments calibrated for Reach terrain; Sereindal ships carry personal ranged weapons suited to the specific challenges of naval engagement. At Close range, all ranged weapons suffer Disadvantage, close enough to be struck is close enough to be in trouble.
Aedyn Dive-Bow
Aedyn aerial culture, short recurve, flight-optimized
A short recurve bow designed for the specific challenge of firing while airborne: reduced draw length for single-arm deployment, lighter construction to minimize flight interference, faster arrow-nocking for multiple passes. The Dive-Bow sacrifices raw power for rate of fire and maneuverability. Aedyn aerial hunters and Highwatchers carry it as their primary distance weapon.
Category: Ranged | Attack Pool: Speed + Precision | Range: Near to Far Special: Standard ranged properties. When firing from elevation (aerial position or significant height advantage), the Disadvantage penalty at Close range is reduced to a standard roll, the downward angle somewhat compensates for the proximity. The bow's reduced weight does not penalize flight-related Acrobatics checks.
Precision Crossbow
Ekhari manufacture, mechanical, calibrated
A mechanically sighted crossbow built to Ekhari workshop standards. Slower to reload than a bow but significantly more accurate in the hands of a trained operator. The calibrated sight accounts for wind and distance in ways that require training to use but produce consistent results once mastered.
Category: Ranged | Attack Pool: Speed + Precision | Range: Near to Far Special: If the wielder does not move on their Turn, environmental Disadvantage penalties (wind, rain, darkness, unstable footing) are ignored for that attack, the mechanical stability of the aim and the sight compensation absorb the conditions. Reload: after firing, a Minor Action is required to reload before the next ranged attack.
Kyne Daas Longbow
Kyne Daas culture, composite construction, Reach-calibrated
A composite longbow built from materials available at the Blasted Reach margin, calibrated for the Reach's specific atmospheric conditions, ash density, thermal drift from fissures, altitude variations. Kyne Daas scouts use it as a primary patrol weapon. The construction requires maintenance in Reach conditions; outside the Reach, it functions as an exceptional longbow without the calibration advantage.
Category: Ranged | Attack Pool: Speed + Precision | Range: Near to Far Special: In Blasted Reach environments, Far range attacks do not suffer any accuracy penalty, the calibration was built for this distance in these conditions. In non-Reach environments, standard Far range applies.
Sereindal Bolt-Caster
Sereindal maritime culture, one-hand crossbow, ship-adapted
A personal crossbow variant adapted from ship-mounted naval artillery. The mechanical draw mechanism does the work of the pull, allowing one-handed operation, the other hand remains free for rigging, a boarding rope, or a shield. Slower reload than a two-handed crossbow but compatible with the chaotic multi-task environment of a ship deck.
Category: Ranged | Attack Pool: Speed + Precision | Range: Near to Far Special: Can be fired one-handed, freeing the off-hand for a shield, climbing, or ship rigging without requiring any special training or check. Reload: Minor Action. Compatible with shield use, the shield's Defense bonus applies while reloading.
Quick Reference
By Category
| Weapon | Category | Attack Pool | Range | Notable Property |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short Blade | Light | Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Standard; throwable |
| Calri Concealable | Light | Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Free Action draw |
| Kasia Groove-Blade | Light | Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Toxin persists 2 hits |
| Aedyn Dive-Talon | Light | Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | +1D on aerial dive |
| Kerroshi Flicker | Light | Speed + Strike | Touch only | Draw + attack = 1 Minor Action |
| Sereindal Cutlass | Standard | Body or Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Standard |
| Boarding Axe | Standard | Body or Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Counts as climbing tool |
| Walking Staff | Standard | Body or Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | +1D Body Save when braced |
| Misa Paired Blades | Standard | Body or Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Dual-hit → Hindered Th2 |
| Hearthblade | Standard | Body or Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | +2 damage when heated |
| Yusk Jaw-Hook | Standard | Body or Speed + Strike | Touch to Close | Grapple on hit (+1D) |
| Stoneholder Maul | Heavy | Body + Strike | Touch | Knockdown Th3 vs. armored |
| Great Mattock | Heavy | Body + Strike | Touch | Ignore 1 Armor vs. cover |
| Voren Lodge-Polearm | Heavy | Body + Strike | Touch | Opportunity Attack on entry |
| Aedyn Dive-Bow | Ranged | Speed + Precision | Near to Far | Reduced Close penalty from air |
| Precision Crossbow | Ranged | Speed + Precision | Near to Far | Ignore environmental Disadvantage |
| Kyne Daas Longbow | Ranged | Speed + Precision | Near to Far | No Far penalty in Reach |
| Sereindal Bolt-Caster | Ranged | Speed + Precision | Near to Far | One-handed; reload Minor Action |
By Culture
| Culture | Signature Weapon(s) |
|---|---|
| Aedyn | Dive-Bow, Dive-Talon |
| Calri | Calri Concealable |
| Durakai | Stoneholder Maul, Great Mattock |
| Kasia | Groove-Blade |
| Kerroshi | Flicker |
| Kyne Daas | Kyne Daas Longbow |
| Misa | Paired Blades |
| Sereindal | Cutlass, Boarding Axe, Bolt-Caster |
| Voren | Walking Staff, Lodge-Polearm |
| Yusk | Jaw-Hook |
| Ashari | Hearthblade |
| Ekhari | Precision Crossbow |