What's up with Excalibur?

[Jiro Ito]

Hero 1 got a faaaabulousss sword update in the new release with lots of rainbows and shiny (although it also graphically disappears sometimes during the fight), but isn't Ms. Liberty also holding "Excalibur?"  Is prime dimension Excalibur just a tiny tanto-sized sword?  Does it magically transform in the right hands?  Does she need an update?  She'll probably have to wear it on her back, as Hero 1's version would drag on the ground if she wears it on her belt.

[Darmian]

22 minutes ago, Jiro Ito said:

Does it magically transform in the right hands?

Yes.

 

Short answer but exactly that. The sword magically suits the bearer.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Good news for an AU concept where Recluse has the sword.

[High_Beam]

Sword of Omens anyone?

[SeraphimKensai]

5 hours ago, High_Beam said:

Sword of Omens anyone?

Give me sight beyond sight.

[Sakura Tenshi]

Funny enough, Miss Liberty's Excalibur could be argued as the most 'historically accurate', since Excalibur would have been a sort of short, onehanded, iron sword likely based off Roman or Anglo-Saxon design. That said, depending on the version of the myth you subscribe to or is used for City of, Excalibur was a sword created by the benevolent Fey and blessed by God and so who knows what metallurgy would be behind it.

[Luminara]

18 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

who knows what metallurgy would be behind it.

[Sailboat]

On 4/28/2023 at 5:40 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

Funny enough, Miss Liberty's Excalibur could be argued as the most 'historically accurate', since Excalibur would have been a sort of short, onehanded, iron sword likely based off Roman or Anglo-Saxon design. That said, depending on the version of the myth you subscribe to or is used for City of, Excalibur was a sword created by the benevolent Fey and blessed by God and so who knows what metallurgy would be behind it.

By the time of the historical Arthur, i.e., recently post-Roman Britain, I think the spatha, a long sword, would have replaced the gladius.

 

Spatha:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatha

[Scarlet Shocker]

On 4/28/2023 at 10:40 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

 so who knows what metallurgy would be behind it.

 

Why would a magical sword be made of metal? Many other materials would readily substitute

[luficia]

On 4/27/2023 at 10:48 PM, twozerofoxtrot said:

Good news for an AU concept where Recluse has the sword.

 

Please let AU Recluse have Excalibur with a gothic rainbow 

Edited June 21, 2023 by luficia

[Snarky]

If she wants to she can make it grow in her hands.  and maybe shoot rainbows?

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

Why would a magical sword be made of metal? Many other materials would readily substitute

 

George Lucas sent a C&D back in time when he read about swords made of crystals and light, so they had to change Excalibur to metal.  Merlin was pissed.

 

Or, the scholarly answer: tracing Arthurian legend back crosses multiple cultures and more than 1500 years, to a time and place when steel was still so rare as to be considered as having mystical properties.  Iron was already viewed as a magical metal (re: folklore surrounding cold iron and faerie creatures), and the properties of steel, being everything iron was and wasn't, was nearly godlike.  Good steel could take an edge and hold it, whereas iron dulled quickly.  When a steel weapon bent, it didn't shatter, and ofttimes, it didn't even stay bent, unlike iron (wrought iron bent easily, cast iron broke easily).  Steel weapons were lighter, too, making them easier to wield.  And steel, unlike bronzes and brasses, sometimes came from the heavens (meteoric iron), further strengthening the perceived link to the gods.

 

Steel was, in the foundational roots of Arthurian legend, as magical as anything.

[Scarlet Shocker]

9 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

George Lucas sent a C&D back in time when he read about swords made of crystals and light, so they had to change Excalibur to metal.  Merlin was pissed.

 

Or, the scholarly answer: tracing Arthurian legend back crosses multiple cultures and more than 1500 years, to a time and place when steel was still so rare as to be considered as having mystical properties.  Iron was already viewed as a magical metal (re: folklore surrounding cold iron and faerie creatures), and the properties of steel, being everything iron was and wasn't, was nearly godlike.  Good steel could take an edge and hold it, whereas iron dulled quickly.  When a steel weapon bent, it didn't shatter, and ofttimes, it didn't even stay bent, unlike iron (wrought iron bent easily, cast iron broke easily).  Steel weapons were lighter, too, making them easier to wield.  And steel, unlike bronzes and brasses, sometimes came from the heavens (meteoric iron), further strengthening the perceived link to the gods.

 

Steel was, in the foundational roots of Arthurian legend, as magical as anything.

 

 

Here you fall into a trap of presuming that steel is the only rational material available in a fantasy game where we know we've had aliens and mages around for a long time. I think I'm right in saying that the Circle of Thorns use crystal weapons and we have other materials for swords in the costume creator too. Sure steel might have had semi-mystical properties in the real pre-medieval world, but that is a very limiting concept - made doubly so when mere player characters can already wield weapons of ice, of flame and psionic power.

 

TL;DR - any sword can be made of pretty well anything in this game

[Luminara]

17 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Here you fall into a trap of presuming that steel is the only rational material available in a fantasy game where we know we've had aliens and mages around for a long time. I think I'm right in saying that the Circle of Thorns use crystal weapons and we have other materials for swords in the costume creator too. Sure steel might have had semi-mystical properties in the real pre-medieval world, but that is a very limiting concept - made doubly so when mere player characters can already wield weapons of ice, of flame and psionic power.

 

TL;DR - any sword can be made of pretty well anything in this game

 

You can imagine other swords made of anything you like.  Excalibur was steel in Arthurian legend, it's steel in the game.  Deal with it.

[Scarlet Shocker]

7 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

You can imagine other swords made of anything you like.  Excalibur was steel in Arthurian legend, it's steel in the game.  Deal with it.

 

I'm not getting that worked up about it! 👍

[Snarky]

Did someone say Thunderfury, blessed blade of the Winseeker...?

[Sakura Tenshi]

23 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

Why would a magical sword be made of metal? Many other materials would readily substitute

I mostly used metallurgy as a bit of a shorthand. But, basically, yeah. I’m just saying Excalibur would not be confined to being a one-handed sword, it might not even be confined to any single form.

 

20 hours ago, Luminara said:

Or, the scholarly answer: tracing Arthurian legend back crosses multiple cultures and more than 1500 years, to a time and place when steel was still so rare as to be considered as having mystical properties.  Iron was already viewed as a magical metal (re: folklore surrounding cold iron and faerie creatures), and the properties of steel, being everything iron was and wasn't, was nearly godlike. 

If I’m recalling a wiki article right. Excalibur’s etymology is thought to mean “Steel Cutter”. So it may wel be that whatever medieval times people thought it was made from, it’s possible they already were imagining of something better than steel.

 

if we were to go by pure in-city of-verse thoughts, I might wager Excalibur is an Impervium blade, given one of the things, as I recall of the lore, is that Impervium is so strong you need magic to shape it.

[Luminara]

6 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

If I’m recalling a wiki article right. Excalibur’s etymology is thought to mean “Steel Cutter”.

 

The name is derived from Old Welsh, Caledbulch (Caledfwlch in Middle/Modern Welsh (fucking Welsh.  BUY A VOWEL, DAMNIT!)).  It's translated as Hard Cleft or Hard Breach, implying a weapon capable of cutting through enemy shields.  The name was alliteratively Latinized in the first half of the 12th century, to Caliburnus, or Caliburc (French), "calibs" being the Latin derivative of Greek "chalybs", meaning "steel".

[Sakura Tenshi]

@Luminara is this still Excalibur or are talking about Caliburn the Sword in the Stone? Or are you one of the people who doesn’t accept Arthur having had a sword before Excalibur?

 

side note: given Arthur historically fought the Saxons and a Viking tactic was designing their shields to be soft enough for swords to get stuck in, it does make sense that a mythically strong sword would just split the shield and the person behind it all the same.

[Snarky]

56 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

@Luminara is this still Excalibur or are talking about Caliburn the Sword in the Stone? Or are you one of the people who doesn’t accept Arthur having had a sword before Excalibur?

 

side note: given Arthur historically fought the Saxons and a Viking tactic was designing their shields to be soft enough for swords to get stuck in, it does make sense that a mythically strong sword would just split the shield and the person behind it all the same.

Not that I want to test it, but a well designed "ablative" shield designed to capture the weapon should work very well against bronze, iron, or steel weapons.  There is just not going to be significantly more power regardless of the material until you get to epic weapons like a zweihander or O-dachi.  Those "might" have the physical ability through a combination of weight and edge to break past getting stuck and cleave the shield completely.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Snarky

[Luminara]

1 minute ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

@Luminara is this still Excalibur or are talking about Caliburn the Sword in the Stone? Or are you one of the people who doesn’t accept Arthur having had a sword before Excalibur?

 

Caliburn was just another Latinized variant of Caledfwlch (after Latinization, the name was adjusted and altered for another ~200 years, Caliburn, Calibore, Calibourn, Escalibur, before it settled on Excalibur).  Different nationalities and lack of linguistic standardization resulted in changes over time.

 

The sword in the stone (actually in an anvil on a stone) was identified as Excalibur in Boron's Merlin, original written in the late 12th century/early 13th century (Vulgate Cycle).  But later revisions to Merlin (Post-Vulgate Cycle) don't name that sword Excalibur, instead Arthur acquires Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake.  This is just one example of the problem of figuring out what's what in Arthurian legend.  The story was rewritten... almost before the ink was dry.  Historia regum Britanniae has proven to be more fiction than fact, so that's unreliable as a source.  And that's as far back as I care to go in pursuit of whatever truth there might be in the legend, because everything prior to Historia is Welsh.  I'd rather french kiss my chainsaw, while it's running, than try to read Welsh.  So I neither accept nor refute the two sword theory, nor am I in possession of sufficient information to say which might have been Excalibur, if there were two swords.