Bolt Action! The Wrist Crossbow

Part 2 of Liquid Swords is coming along nicely, but I'd like to let it percolate for a little while longer. Instead, here's another weapon straight outta video games for your Cyberpunk 2020 games. (and your Savage Worlds games!) Except this one might have practical uses!

The wrist crossbow is one of Deus Ex's special pleasures, and vitally important for any kind of non-lethal play through. Since then, other games have picked up on the idea: Dishonored has a particularly nice version! The various Bioshock games have their own version - while I haven't played them, there isn't anything stopping me looting the Bioshock wiki for inspiration.

In the event I got carried away - you'll find this weapon isn't great at killing enemy mooks. But with 16 - 16! - different ammo types, it is great at fucking with them!

Liquid Swords 1: Betamax Blades

A post all about swords. In the future!

So I've been away from this blog for awhile, although not for any special reason. Apparently some months I come home from the gym and want to write thousands of words about Neuromancer or Weird Fantasy New Mexico, and other times I just want to spend my free evenings reading a bunch of books about people shooting each other in the future. And even one book about people not shooting each other in the future, which seems like a pretty radical notion. I even took a (needed) break from the Shadowrun campaign.


And then, just as I was ready to return to the world my computer broke. Woop woop.

So now my laptop is working again - sort of - the time has come to write something! There's lots to do - Alienation follow-up posts, Aviationpunk, a whole bunch of stuff about Shadowrun and Dungeons and Dragons and cyberpunk warfare... or I could just write a post about futuristic swords.

Because futuristic swords! Because, to quote Snow Crash, swords need no demonstration.

This post is going to cover the setting assumptions that might allow a character in a science fiction game to actually carry a sword and not look like a sociopath or an idiot or a sociopathic idiot, and then follow up with a survey of different futuristic swords from monoblades to cheap plastic terror weapons and everything in between! 

Dishonored's beautiful, industrial sword