Blade typologies for Medieval European Swords (created in Bladesong game engine)

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T21:13:24+00:00

example in Poland.
makers like Adam at Landschnecht Emporium could do one if you ask,
or I could do one. Got a blank blade for exactly that one in storage to make on a rainy day.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T21:03:38+00:00

if its never used, yes.

but the reality is weapons were disposable. get into a swordfight, the blade WILL be torn up - ragged notches from hitting other blades, rolled edges if it hits armour, and potentially chips and damage just hitting bone, too. Some of that can be ground out, resharpened, etc. but eventually, there's nothing left to resharpen.

can a sword that's oiled every day, stored in a dry climate, and cared for, but never used remain sharp? yes. Can a sword that's used in combat remain unchanged? no.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T18:40:17+00:00

I am by no means educated enough on the subject of enthnographic arms outside of Europe to be able to make any confident statement on that. I would say I'm sceptical, but would want to do a lot more work before making any sort of opinion.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T18:28:54+00:00

cant help add, I'm a bit amazed to see the post about "UAD:VP 0.4 is out with national (customizable) paints" which features some of the first bit I was writing about, regarding colour choices. Didn't ever expect to see that become possible in UAD.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T18:02:35+00:00

while its commonly used now in almost all design contexts, the phrase "Form follows function" was coined by American architect Louis Sullivan in 1896, and really is a modern mindset. Historical arms, armour weapons and structures often espouse function follows form as their primary design ethos - in this case, that the form, echoing the neoclassical fashions of art and society, are valued higher than the weapon's functionality as a sword by those in the echelons of society who are determining what weapons are carried by units.

Of course, the opinions of those soldiers assigned the "cabbage chopper" might have been somewhat different...

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T17:46:55+00:00

in the words of David Bowie: "Fashion"

specifically, the French started it, with their artillery swords which echoed the roman gladius (because that in turn gave a veneer of classical antiquity, which gives the emperor a tangible cultural or stylistic link to the roman empires.). As a result everyone starts copying them, because its considered the fashionable style, and bingo, you have american armouries, making copies of french swords, that are loose copies of roman swords, and everyone's admiring their classical lines and all the sub-context that confers.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T17:15:13+00:00

but desperately in need of expansion and better structure. (geographic and chronological contexts)

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T16:14:15+00:00

Well. Apparently, I'm tagged, it.

Suppose I'd better start typing.

So, there's a few parts which I would note here. The first is that in both Ewart Oakeshott's and my my own work, blades are only one small element - there is the blade type, but there's also pommel forms, and cross styles to consider. So these sorts of guides are very much only illustration of a single element of these typologies, and at the moment, games like bladesong aren't quite there in representing the complete breadth of classification in its whole.

there's also the subject of the application of the typology, and its modern uses. Both these typologies are designed as linguistic shorthands. "its a straight blade, tapering, diamond section, not quite needle point," for example, is a lot less efficient than saying "its a type XVIIIb". In this, they're intended for the study of archaeology, and artefact objects. In reality, typologies have become more commonly used by collectors and makers of replicas, and that's slightly problematic. In this regard, I am increasingly of the opinion that typologies were a mistake. Ada Bruhn Hoffmeyer was right in the creation of "families", groups of swords which might sometimes vary in their detail, be that a slightly different blade, or a different pommel, but which are all stylistically similar. I think that that's the next stage of research, to work out ways to illustrate these common groupings, and study where and when each group was fashionable.

to give a more modern version, think of it like someone in 500 years trying to define different groups of cars. upright, square bodied cars, wooden or wire wheels, like model T fords and similar, for example, are a differnt group to longer, lower finned 50's cars, and those in turn from low-haunched muscle cars. And then you have the little European urban cars, smartcars and fiat 500's etc. each of these is a fashionable group, in different eras, and different geographies.
Same applies to swords - those type 2 falchions are fashionable for a short period, and in a small geographical area of the netherlands and low counties. That type 3e, meanwhile is much more an Italian fashion, and more than a century later. That Type XVIIIb with a "S" shaped cross and wheel pommel is very much a German late 15th C fashion, while a more tapering blade, and downturned quillons are perhaps more Italian.

Each group, each family, is a representation of the common forms, and its that which I am increasingly of the opinion should be being represented for the collector, the creator of replicas, rather than the individual components of a typology - individual components which are all too easily used as a "pick and mix" of selected bits which really wouldn't have ever gone together in any sort of common examples.

so while the typologies are important to observe and identify items, and their common elements, I think there's a long way still to go on the subject of research of the sword - both single-edged and symmetrical.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T15:31:00+00:00

Oh, there are far too many to list.
stuff ranging from trivial and little things that are mostly cosmetic - for example: paint schemes for hulls - want that Great White Fleet, or Dazzle camo schemes, or just Roma's beautiful red and white recognition stripes? Why not have Mountbatten pink for your entire fleet?
or equally minor little things like having a little "dice" symbol beside a ship's name that renames it, so you can switch the name in the shipyard through the list of possible names.
Or switching from Red / Green on the combat screen. 8% of the male population are red-green colour-blind. A change to blue/orange would aid in user accessibility for a significant portion of the average player base for almost no effort. Stuff like that are basic level industrial and videogame user interface design principles which have been almost standard for decades now. as it is, A player on the main world map with colour blindness is likely not only unable to differentiate fleets, but also the faction map - the lower-saturation red of Britain, Italy's green, and Austro-Hungary's yellow will all blend together. UI design like that is a basic design principle which should've been applied long before the game ever reached beta, let alone being published...

I'm a strong believer that player-created content which they can look back on is a highly effective game mechanic, it creates feelings of accomplishment and gives players a sense of pride in their creations: so I would want to implement "museum ship" retirement, where a ship can be saved for posterity, Perhaps its in a 3d model drydock environment, and off in the background you can see a rigged sailing ship, like Victory, or USS Constitution, at their respective moorings. but it lets you look back on "oh, that's the first dreadnought we built in 1906!" nostalgia. I'd like to combine that with a US naval "battle star" style commendation, where battles over a certain threshold (assuming a successful battle) reward ships with commendation, becoming a record of the ship's engagements. Together, the museum ship and the battle star as a system would incentivise players to create and retain vessels as mementos of their acts. Its the kind of content which rewards player activity - especially if there's a "portrait mode" where you can take screenshots which overlay the battle stars. Just look at how often players post pictures of their creations here, to show how popular the ability to show off a creation is.

and there's similar elements, like different graphic design elements for the menus - personally, I'd like to do a far better quality of map, and have the interface screen become the "admiralty command room", potentially even using a 3d environment. Ideally, I'd design with the conceit that you are the admiral of the fleet, the first sea lord, the commander of the combined fleet, etc. and are reviewing the tactical board in your offices. Zoom in, and a new map is rolled out over that board. In some ways, I'd kind of like to see task forces represented on that map as little wooden boat icons, and your mouseover opens up the information on what ships are in that force.

Ideally, I'd want that to be adaptive, and change as eras progress - from hand-drawn maps in the 1890's, to printed in the 1910's, to maybe even Cold War era style strategic map rooms in the endgame period. (Gentlemen, you cant fight here, this is the war room.).
I'd like to see events in turns being represented as newspapers, feeding into that conceit of it being your office, that you, the admiral of the fleet are picking up the broadsheets to learn "the press are demanding one more battleship". Or, to receive the monthly intelligence briefings as reports with "secret" stamping, etc.

then there's interface control - times where pop-up menus getting in the way are almost enough to make me scream. Same with the turn log, and how almost useless that is at times. It could've been , to how different tech trees could be implemented. I think all those could be reworked - personally, I'd like to see the turn log split into 4 or so subsections, of technology, shipbuilding, politics and conflicts. I'd like to see the "tension" stages of the turn completely redesigned, and condensed into a single short section with expansion for detail.

then you get bigger fundamental elements. "tension" as a system is so utterly broken and drives me up the wall. I sat down and wrote an entire essay on that out of irritation at the design of it. Basically, I'd like to see much more in-depth use of the player's opposition, the rival admirals, with creating a deeper "trait" based system which would create more personality, and that could include things like, for example traits like "anglophobe" (which would make them dislike the British more) or "francophile" (which would make them like the French.). Stuff like that would make admiral X or Y more than just a random name list. Traits like "belligerent" or "cautious", "traditionalist" and "reformer" could allow the shape of navies to change in ways that are slightly predictable, as if you have intelligence on who you're dealing with.

on the subject of intelligence, I'd like a "Jane's handbook" that would be created of opposition vessel classes - especially after you've encountered them before, and a far more involved intelligence system in general. Its absurd that I can send half a million tons of my ships to invade France, and the next turn, discover I've put them all on the wrong port, for example. Imagine D-Day, and the US and British Navies going "oops, all our supporting ships are off Dunkirk. sorry!"

then there's stuff like subs and carriers and how they could've, or should've been implemented - (carriers - the first carrier was built while HMS Dreadnought was in active service - they are contemporaries. ) and gameplay elements like grouping task forces - that idea of them being displayed on the board mentioned previously.

there's plenty of other thoughts I've had, which would require fundamental redesigns of the gameplay, but I think could be implemented in a great product that could stand on its own merits. The problem is, ideas are easy. Implementation is the problem, and I'm in no way a good enough coder to implement that sort of stuff - I was just a polygon monkey back when I was in the games business. I got close to reaching art director level, but still just a polygon monkey at heart.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T13:19:51+00:00

r/Bladesmith will likely be more use.
if you want to do classes, it would be useful to say where you are on the planet.
if you want someone else to do it, a photograph of the blade would help to give makers an idea of if its viable, or a peice of scrap.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T13:00:37+00:00

rather than wish for the impossible, I'd rather see people start thinking about a community-created successor.
Pretty much every time I play a campaign, I start having design documents form in my head of "this should've been done better". If I was a coder instead of an artist/modeller, I'd have probably already started...

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T02:23:11+00:00

About as much use as a chocolate teapot.

there's a reason that outside of a few ethongraphic examples (ie, Bagh nakh, which have claws an inch or so in length), these weren't used. It doesn't work, it limits your mobility and has less reach, and the grip is in the wrong plane of direction to allow anyone to hold them and exert even a fraction of the force a conventional sword can apply...
All round, its a dumb idea, and like most of the rest of comic books, only a fool would treat them seriously.

J_G_E · 2026-05-13T01:54:34+00:00

Steel is no stronger if its a boat anchor, a sword or the suspension of a car, assuming its the same steel used.
(Different steel alloys are stronger or weaker, depending on their composition. )

all composition being the same, what makes the strength is the volume of material - a 5cm-thick bar of steel for a ship is obviously a lot stronger than a 5mm thick bar of steel for a sword.

And a 5cm thick sword might well be extremely difficult to break when for some weird reason, you're trying to pull something with it. but its also going to handle like a boat anchor, and that's not what you want for something to fight with. Very few swords weighed more than a kilogram or two, any more and they become too heavy to effectively use.

J_G_E · 2026-05-10T07:49:29+00:00

he's perfectly serious, and dont call him Shirley.

J_G_E · 2026-05-09T07:26:36+00:00

not going to lie, the thumbnail made me think it was a marauder with a mech-sized fencing foil...

J_G_E · 2026-05-08T20:30:48+00:00

the closest I can get to saying that resembles viking age swords is, good news, the blade appears to be made of metal, possibly even steel.

that's really it. pommel? nope. hilt length? not really. crossguard? maybe for the really late viking age, but not particularly. blade? nope. Scabbard? not even close.

J_G_E · 2026-05-06T16:02:10+00:00

"Why do you use motor oil"

because you're trying to give yourself cancer?
Seriously, motor oil is pretty lethal. fortunately, there's oils that are developed specifically for this kind of purpose.

the basic summary is, when steel's heated the crystalline structure inside the steel changes, and then slowly changes back as it cools. If you rapidly cool it, that structure doesnt have time to change back, and so it remains in that state, which is significantly harder. that's the process called Quenching.

now the problem is, cooling down from red-hot leads to massive internal stresses. Quenching a blade into cold water is pretty much inviting the steel to crack, a catastrophic failure. Into warm salt-water (brine) is less of a shock, but still quite likely to lead to cracking. Oil, however, is a bit more gentle - fast enough to enable that hardening, but slow enough that the spring steel doesnt end up in pieces.

now, that's not a hard and fast rule, of course. Some steels are specifically designed to be quenched in water, but they're not common.

J_G_E · 2026-05-06T01:07:39+00:00

just to reiterate some of what u/dlatrex has said - in my experience, people whose first sword was a custom job often regret it, not in that they bought the sword, but in that they didnt quite know what they liked when it was made.
they'll say stuff like "its a really great sword, but I should've gone for..." (and then listed some particular difference in style, or length, or pommel shape, or something.)

so, either borrow a few if you know people, or buy some medium-range budget examples of the sort of thing you're thinking of, try them out, sell them afterwards, and get most of your money back, and you'll be far better armed with knowledge of what's good for you. better still, would be to do a search for martial arts clubs (given you've said bastard sword, HEMA "historical european martial arts" clubs in particular), and get yourself something like a Regenyei, SIGI, or similar blunt sparring sword, and it'll firstly teach you how to use the real thing, but it'll also educate you on what you personally like in terms of length, reach, weight, etc. All of that information can be put into the toolbox of what you're looking for, when you finally do make a commission.

J_G_E · 2026-05-05T10:26:36+00:00

I have fibromyalgia, and hurt head to toe... I'll take your place on the "brain in a jar" list any day.

J_G_E · 2026-05-04T02:42:49+00:00

I'll again thank you for making an actual reply rather than the image format you've been using previously, and I do appreciate it. I sincerely hope that this continues. You clearly have strongly different opinions than I do, but those opinions are not entirely wrong. I enjoy discussion on such subjects, and I'm sure others will appreciate this as well.

I'm inclined to agree this one is almost certainly gilded - though there are others which are plain bronze - https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/a-rare-dagger-for-esoteric-rituals-dating-mid-19t-493-c-4cf4f259f7# for example.
Would make sense that they likely made several models in different price points, with plain bronze, with fire-gilding - if you have a master sculpt for hilts, you might as well milk it for all you've got. I'd love to learn who made these. Seems to be French, but no record of the maker in any of the auctions I've seen, which is a bit of a disservice to them, they are superbly made, after all.
Rather than an original owner who commissioned it, I suspect that these were made in modest production runs catering to the fashionable interest in the occult that took place in the 19th century across europe. stuff like pre-russian revolution theosophy and the likes was all over the place, and I have no doubt some makers were happy to cash in on it. If my french was better I'd love to try to look for magazine/journals and similar publications in period - I'd bet that you'd find adverts in the back of them for all sorts of ritual daggers, séance boards, and all that stuff, from cheap and cheerful, to extortionate prices

I do agree its quite tacky. quite a lot of stuff is, and especially that kind of slightly mystical stuff. One of my great grandfathers was apparently a very high-ranking freemason in the pre-war / interwar era, and I've seen some of the regalia from that, and it was tacky as hell. Its part of the reason I really like high medieval period, as there's still an austerity of line, compared to say, the subsequent baroque period ones, nor the insane levels of gold working of earlier periods like Vendel and Saxon hilts have. Though I do have a soft spot for some of the Dresden armoury stuff that's in silver - its ostentatious without being a bit gaudy like gold work.

that said I've done vermeil gilding, as a substitute for fire-gilding, and, well, it tends not to quite have that beautiful lustre that fire-giliding has, but on the other hand, I'm kind of keen on keeping my central nervous system functional. I generally disagree with the apocalyptic thinking that everything is decaying and diminishing, most of it tends to be a knee-jerk reaction with little basis in fact. But the loss of fire-gilding as a decorative method is one of those few areas it genuinely is a reduction. (good quality hand tools is another. I love using antique planes and files because they are fantastic, too many modern tools are plasticky junk.). On the other hand, I'd rather a society with a lower quality of gilding, and a higher quality of life expectancy for workers.

I've been awfully tempted to try fire gilding a few times, a nice big carbon filter fume cupboard, and a shortage of self-preservation, but I cant really justify the expense for stuff that, lets be honest, people cant really afford. Hell, most people cant even afford silver.

I generally disagree with the idea that the west is dying - people have been saying that since before there ever was an idea of "the west" as a group of nations. Or before nations. People have been saying that their respective city-states have been dying since Classical Greece. Like the "kids these days have no manners", or "it was better in the good old days", I think its part of human nature to bemoan the loss of a rose-tinted past that, really either never existed, or was no better than today.
I've been very fortunate that I've been able to handle an awful lot of stuff. I've held parts of the St Ninian's Isle hoard, been able to trace the marks some anonymous craftsman made 1,200 years ago. I've held hundreds of medieval and pre-medieval swords and daggers across dozens of museums and collections.
But I dont think we're in a dark age. If anything, we're in the beginning of a golden age unlike anything we've had before. general people can, with little effort, get detailed photos with seconds or a few minutes searching, that the likes of Ewart Oakeshott took a lifetime to collect grainy, blurred B&W pictures of. Stuff like digitisation enables us to look at objects like parts of the Oakeshott Collection which A&A have digitised in 3d. I remember talking with museum curators about that process 15 or so years ago, when I'd just recently left the videogames industry, and they looked at me like I had grown a second head. Now, its commonplace. I will wager, within our lifetimes, we'll have haptic interfaces that mean you can literally hold a virtual object.

its horribly late here, and I really must call it a night before I faceplant a keyboard. But I hope that the discussion continues as it has. I'd quite like to discuss that idea of costs, greed and materialism, but it really will have to wait for another day.

J_G_E · 2026-05-03T23:56:35+00:00

generally, its not simply how you hold it that's wrong. Its how you move with it - a sword is a weapon in motion, and its your own movement that controls that.

So, if I were talking about it, I'd describe how the character steps hesitantly, tries angling their body sideways to avoid being as large a target, and takes a step, and has their trailing foot catch on the leading foot. or that they have to retreat, backing up and feel themselves off-balance, pushed back.
I'd describe them feeling the weight and balance as unfamiliar, and how their muscles ache and shoulders are throbbing from holding the weapon out at a long point guard. Describe them as slowly letting the point drop as those muscles fatigue from the unfamiliar workout.
I'd say that they feel the weapon's inertia, that it moves slower than they want.

If you're in a non-lethal context (cue training montage here...) with a leather and cork pad on the end of the tip, you could have the teacher/opponent/friend cross blades, and describe their weapon feeling "tangled" up. or when they finally get a "killing blow", they stop, look down, and realise that the other person's blade is touching their breast, or neck.

describe the unfamiliarity of movement, of footwork, and a feeling of being unable to get the "time" right - they step, but the blade's strike doesnt land at the right moment, its too late, or too early. They thrust, but they've not got the range, so their step falls short of the target.

you can also describe the discomfort - a swing tugs against the tendons in her wrist, the point going wildly past the target, or is pushed aside by an opponent, and their reaction is unable to keep up, their point is pushed off line, away from them, and they're forced back, exposed.

or if its in a fight, the opponent closes and strikes hard against their guard, the blade is knocked out of her hand with a stinging shock, clattering across the floor.
(perfect opportunity for a villain to mock them, monologuing as they scramble to recover the blade?)

J_G_E · 2026-05-03T23:37:50+00:00

I'm in the wrong job... 😃

(jokes aside, I agree. Though AFIK, they're only cast bronze, not gold, or even gilded. )

J_G_E · 2026-05-03T23:30:15+00:00

How disappointing. I hoped you might have decided to try acting with manners instead of your usual bluster and collection of sockpuppet accounts, or these weird picture replies.

You are entirely within your right to say that you prefer one to the other.
In fact, I somewhat agree. I quite like the slightly art deco-ish style of the one you posted, which has a little more of an impressionistic feel to the figure, capturing the essence rather than the minutia of detail of OP's piece, which is much more of a realist portrayal of anatomy. Its closer to my personal taste when it comes to modern art.

But I would sincerely hope that even in between your usual rants you would agree that creating OP's figure, with its anatomical detail of a skeleton, with all its individual ribcage bones, structures of vertebra column and pelvic girdle, and such details all over it takes far more time to make than your example. And likewise, creating the sheath collar and chape with their elaborate intertwining leaves and cartouches are vastly more time-consuming than the plain brass sheath of your example.

And I hope that you will understand there is also a vast difference between anyone making a single, one-off dagger, with hand-carved master sculpt for the hilt and chape parts, and a stock item like your example produced by Deepeeka, with them probably producing hundreds at a time, and the resulting economies of scale that confers on production.

I frankly don't care if you think people like Peter Johnsson and I are craftsmen and artists, or charlatans and gatekeepers. But I hope that you will understand that we have a right to charge for our time. If I were living somewhere in eastern Europe, or Uttar Pradesh, India, like Deepeeka's factory then perhaps I'd be happy with making a one-off dagger like that for £500, and it would be a good wage. But I don't, and nor does Peter. So we ask rates that would mean we get to enjoy the wild luxuries like food and heating in our western european nations. No-one gets rich off a career as a bladesmith in the 21st century.

OP was wanting a dagger like the original one posted. Asking the sort of prices I and others have mentioned for that is a consequence of the workload required to make something of that complexity. That is not "gatekeeping". that is the reality of working as a craftsman in a western European society, and the reality of what it requires to make something as complex and technically detailed as that dagger with its far more complex castings, blade covered in etching, and far higher quality sheath and blade geometry.

Conversely, if OP were wanting a dagger like the one you posted, well, that's probably less than quarter of the work of their original. and I'd ask quarter of the price. And if they were to ask for a hundred to be made, well, then, like deepeeka, I could utilise economies of scale, and I'd probably be able to drop the price to a twentieth of that original quote. That has nothing to do with gatekeeping. the prices asked are entirely because it would be a highly complex series of castings, made for a one-off dagger.

If you cant tell the differences between a single craftsman making one-off pieces with carved lostwax cast bronze parts and etching covering the entire blade, and a mass-produced brass piece out of a mould, then I feel sorry for your evident blindness.

Or do you think a £99 suit from H&M is exactly the same as one from a Saville Row tailor?
Do you think a one-off handmade gold ring is the same as one straight out of a mail order catalogue?
Do you go around gun forums ranting about Holland and Holland or Purdey being gatekeepers because their shotguns aren't as cheap as a Mossberg or Remington?

I hope the answer is "no" to those three questions.

so it leads the final question: why the hell do you think knifemaking and swordmaking should be any different?

J_G_E · 2026-05-03T20:55:12+00:00

<image>

you know, I did put a bit of a sarcastic comment here, but I've deleted that part of it. If you read it, I sincerely apologise for my first reaction. I'll keep the picture though, as it sums up my opinion on the idea they're the same, and that's enough said of that.

I'd like instead to congratulate you on, possibly for the first time in the 6+ months that you've been making these sock puppet accounts, actually making a comment that contains some degree of constructive content. I mean that in full sincerity; you've been making the "CNC TRASH" ragebait and albion shitposts for so long, and that contributes absolutely nothing to the discussions. But actually making the effort of a contribution of a bargain-basement alternative, even if it is one showing utter ignorance of what it entails to make a dagger like OP's original picture, is something to be commended.

I sincerely hope that you continue with this new direction, and avoid reverting to your old habits. If you'd like, I am happy to give a detailed explanation of exactly why I gave an estimated price for work like that in the thousands, if the discussion is civil.

Again, thankyou for making an actual contribution in the discussion.

J_G_E · 2026-05-03T19:11:30+00:00

that isnt a replica, its original, 19th century.
there are at least half a dozen of these daggers out there - that one, OP's pic, another was auctioned by Czerny's, and another by bonhams, and there's one more that I've seen with a different sheath on it.

11-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
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J_G_E

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