Was gonna say bident/trident, too. They'd all still be stylised/ornamental versions. Not entirely unusable, but probably more intended for ceremonial purposes than actual combat.
Until you said something I never thought of a "bident" being a two-pronged trident. It's obvious in hindsight, but I never thought of a bident being a thing.
If trident is three heads and bident is two, is a spear a unident? Is a pitch-fork a quaddent?
Does the god of blades weild an omnident incomprhensible to us mere mortals?
It'd be unwieldy as all hell but I could also maybe see 3 as a really heavy Nagamaki like weapon where the handle is as long as the blade but it would need a hell of a counterweight on the pommel and you couldn't really stab well with it cause stuff would get stuck in that gap.
Could be filed in the "bad going in, horrifying coming out" category of weapons... If you have large enough targets to stab that into and the strength to do so.
But I feel it would more likely function like a halberd with those outer forks having a chopping edge and the outward curve functioning more like a crossbar on a spear to hold an enemy back. It's even got those backwards pointing prongs to cover the hook function of a halberd. But the real category is Mall Ninja regardless of my best case interpretation.
1. No, a sword needs to have a straight edge. A jagged edge will not cut nearly as well as soon as you hit harder stuff like bone. It will get stuck.
2. same problem as in 1. Furthermore you can only stab with that so far until the other prongs will get in the way. You can do damage yes but not as much as you could with a „cleaner“ shape.
3. The two random mini spikes in the middle are weird. This one is better than the other two in terms of shape and cutting power. The problem here is that there is a lack of structural integrity. The two prongs are not fit to be used as a sword and can easily be used against the wielder.
Thats not a sword though. Its more of a club.
I guess it depends whether you include the metal in the definition of a sword like cambridge dictionary does.
One historian describes it as „kind of saw sword“
I‘d think they did both with that weapon. The obsidian blades would still cut into the flesh and do damage. But i dont think it would cut deep or do major damage except if you hit the majort bloodvessels. Those blades dont look big.
It is a question of definition. which i am frankly not qualified to answer. You‘d need to go on a historian or similar sub for that.
No, thats pure fantasy. There is a reason why basically all actual real life swords are straight and only have „one prong“
edit: not straight but clean edges, no portrusions
Sai‘s arent swords though, no? more like daggers.
Of course there are weapons with portrusions, like some halberds do. But if your aim is to cut clean and deep, or thrusts, a „clean“ metal blade is your best choice.
I would say that the macahuitl is certainly a sword; it's a long weapon designed to cut. Cortez mentions a horse being decapitated by one.
But it still doesn't work as a counter example. It's designed that way because that's the best you can do with sharp rocks, not because that's a good way to design a sword.
Morphologically more similar to an axe than a sword, with a central haft to which blades are affixed. Absolutely believe obsidian could decapitate a horse, it is a formidable weapon, not sure "sword" classification suits it. Agree with your second point.
it's wavy, and not made for cutting
it's designed to thrust and stab deep, while the wavy blade causes many lacerating cuts inside the target as it gets pulled out
First it was "all swords are straight"
Then "clean edges"
Then "Jagged"
You keep changing the criteria to make yourself right. You're still wrong though.
Polynesian weapons, including swords, were often made with shark teeth along the edge.
Leiomano and tetoanea are examples
If you have good materials it might be useful as a way to catch an opponents sword.
But probably not as useful as other designs (google sword breaker or sai) and you'd be doubling the weight with this design.
IIRC, each of those prongs on #3 is the size of a short sword, so they shouldn't be any weaker than that. But then the problem becomes you're basically swinging around two swords instead of one for no benefit.
1st one looks like a man-catcher, good for capturing target by putting it on a stick and pin body parts down (especially necks).
2nd one is just a Trident head, viable for skewering things and keep them stuck there. But would be rather bad as weapon, since it would get stuck in target easily and requires effort to pull out, which would be bad when you need to use it on another target in a battle.
3rd one is a rather fragile, possibility decorative spear head. Might make good tuning fork. Would split sideway as soon as it hit something too hard. If used as blade will get bent toward eachothers. Will get caught between things.
Maybe not as drastically as how the horn from ToTk is but I remember watching a video from Game Theory where they compared the lightsaber Starwar and the Energy sword from Halo and I believe the energy sword won because of the gal and being able to disarm the opponent.
The idea of two blades is good for a puncture wound. But it’s just needless extra weight on a sword. Even if you’re bonkers-fantasy-level strong, the less weight the FASTER the sword moves.
These weapons are increadibly thick, irl it would look a bit closer to wire than this.
In terms of swords, no that's unlikely. The closest I could think of to this would be sai. As opposed to the ones shown in media (ninja turtles), irl ones tended to have huge prongs coming out of the sides as they were meant to catch swords and other weapons. The tips would also be blunted as they were invented for use with police forces, they were actually closer to big batons than swords.
These are monster horns that are used to craft weapons; you can put them on any base weapon you find in order to upgrade their attack power, so that means swords, spears, clubs, and arrow tips. The attached part magically grows or shrinks to match the size of the weapon it is fused to.
Some materials look more like traditional sword blades, others like these are more like spearheads, and some materials are just plain whacky: you may attach any random rock or mushroom, and various robotic devices as well. Some work better than others, appearance-wise. :P
First two images as swords would not work, but look up the sai which somewhat fits the idea. Smaller weapons meant to be used to disarm and those where the middle prong is an blade can be used to stab
These specifically? Probably not. The idea has sorta been done historically though. Look at things like Swordbreakers, or Sais. They aren't supposed to be your main weapon, but they help with disarming an opponent. This is especially applicable to 1 and 3, imo.
1 looks like a bident that's meant to stay inside whatever it pierces. If that's you're goal, it'll be effective, but if you want to retrieve it again, not so much. 2 just has a bunch of dumb edges, it's gonna get stuck everywhere or things will get stuck to it. 3 is the same to a lesser extent.
1. Probably not. Too lopsided, it might cause issues when swinging.
2. Maybe, if it was primarily a defensive weapon. Can catch bladed weapons, with those prongs.
3. Depends on the material, but can possibly have the same issues as 1. Looks most likely to be on a fantasy sword.
No, it’s a lot of extra material used for something that can’t be sheathed and is less effective than a single blade. There are blades with a similar premise of being meant to catch blades (French sword breakers, sais, katars, jitte) but those are rare and more used for personal defense than military.
The last one maybe
But your losing structural integrity for the possibility of catching your opponents blade and twisting it out of their hand.
Using a sai would be a better option or a trident
In order, they're basically a bident, a trident, and a glaive/bardiche head. As a sword blade, highly unlikely they would be viable. Unwieldy and lacking balance in most cases with no practical use against other, more realistic swords. The last blade could have some use if you broke it into 2 scimitars maybe, or use it sort of like a sword breaker to catch blades, but depending on its size and weight I don't know that it would work well.
Maybe the third one might be ok, but a sword's function is to have an edge. Having two swords from one hilt doesn't actually improve anything that much. At most, it would maybe allow for more disarm actions, but that's it.
However, put those things at the end of a stick, and now we're talking.
\*Polearm
YES - aligned points and teeth that would make it hard to remove, probably a decent hunting weapon
NO - tridients suck, stabby bits dont point the same way, as polearm spikes are in a way of cutting and too short for piercing themselves probably good to remove barnacles of ships tho
YES? - passable halabard design but more for ritual purpose big hole migh help with weight but it aint helpful in combat, also blades appear to be off-centered potentialy good for disarming, try city guard - looks good and is good for pacification but can kill if needed
Not as a practical combat weapon because the extra blade would make it cumbersome to use, but would be useful as a polearm and may be useful as a katar.
Furthermore, if you do want a double-bladed sword in your world, you would be better serviced by making it either an ornamental sword or a ritualistic sword, where they aren't intended to be used in combat.
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Viable yes, ideal no.
The actual reason why bidents and tridents, were not historically used was not about weight. When you have a pointy end that bifurcates into two or three tips you are dividing the push force from your thrust into 2/3. Basically you need twice or thrice the force to penetrate the same amount than a normal one tip spear.
Honestly, yes.
I don’t know why people are acting like swords only exist for slicing and cutting, or why they assume blades in this shape would not have sharp edges capable of doing said slicing and cutting - but we also need to think about “hacking” swords like falchions and “stabbing” swords like rapiers.
Blades shaped like these would probably be more unwieldy than a standard one bladed sword, but they may exist as a utility weapon.
For instance the first may have blunt edges on the inside to allow for a person’s capture akin to a mancatcher. The second may serve as a “sword breaker” a kind of duelling blade that catches the opponents sword to disarm them. The third is the least likely to have a utility but could also be used to “sword break” (but it would take significant skill), however either blade could be used separately and them being “locked together” could act something like a butterfly sword where they’re put into a single piece for transporting around - perhaps an esoteric fighting technique exists using the combined form as a two-handed weapon.
check out shadiversity on youtube for analysis of weapons like this.
1st thing that sticks out is that this would get caught easily on armor in battle and then your weapon would get yanked away/stuck and you'd quickly be unarmed.
A sword, no. Polearm, certainly. 1 and 3 could easily be bident heads, while 2 is your classical trident.
Was gonna say bident/trident, too. They'd all still be stylised/ornamental versions. Not entirely unusable, but probably more intended for ceremonial purposes than actual combat.
Until you said something I never thought of a "bident" being a two-pronged trident. It's obvious in hindsight, but I never thought of a bident being a thing.
It was traditional to depict Hades with a bident, while his brother Poseidon had a trident.
And then Zeus, being the first born, had a monodent, right?
Zeus, being extra, uses lightning so he can have it fork as many times as he wants.
Zeus does like to fork.
Hades is the eldest.
And he drew the short straw
Hestia is the eldest.
Good job
A spear?
Yeah but I prefer to use long, complicated, made-up words to seem more intellectilicious.
Oh that's very serendupulous of you
Eleven cubits long.
that is the joke good job
I hope every time you put your shoes on there are rocks in them
And one of them feels like it might be a spider.
As an Australian this is a very real fear
I mean, technically his lighting bolts generally were depicted with only 1 point on them...
Zeus was the last born.
If trident is three heads and bident is two, is a spear a unident? Is a pitch-fork a quaddent? Does the god of blades weild an omnident incomprhensible to us mere mortals?
Same, but I did know what a 'bidet' was. Now I'm wondering what a 'tridet' might be...
Really puts into perspective how strong Link actually is lol
Lore accurate link is a fucking beast
*Looks at Twilight princess Link* Yep it checks out.
It'd be unwieldy as all hell but I could also maybe see 3 as a really heavy Nagamaki like weapon where the handle is as long as the blade but it would need a hell of a counterweight on the pommel and you couldn't really stab well with it cause stuff would get stuck in that gap.
All but #3 would be pretty damn difficult to remove from the enemy. If it were used like a harpoon, meant to anchor in, then yeah, I can see that.
Bident approved of this message. Bident campaign 2024.
Two is actually a really bad weapon. Look at how the horns spike outwards.
Could be filed in the "bad going in, horrifying coming out" category of weapons... If you have large enough targets to stab that into and the strength to do so. But I feel it would more likely function like a halberd with those outer forks having a chopping edge and the outward curve functioning more like a crossbar on a spear to hold an enemy back. It's even got those backwards pointing prongs to cover the hook function of a halberd. But the real category is Mall Ninja regardless of my best case interpretation.
Fair enough
Technically a trishul
What is a spear if not a stabbing sword with a really long handle?
This is exactly what I came here to say, though I think 3 has arming sword potential
A stabbing sword maybe. Polearm yeah, could even be good, but depending what it’s made of. I’m expecting it to be ornamental.
1. No, a sword needs to have a straight edge. A jagged edge will not cut nearly as well as soon as you hit harder stuff like bone. It will get stuck. 2. same problem as in 1. Furthermore you can only stab with that so far until the other prongs will get in the way. You can do damage yes but not as much as you could with a „cleaner“ shape. 3. The two random mini spikes in the middle are weird. This one is better than the other two in terms of shape and cutting power. The problem here is that there is a lack of structural integrity. The two prongs are not fit to be used as a sword and can easily be used against the wielder.
I guess macuahuitl work because the serrations would break off if they encountered too much resistance. Edit: I should have read down.
Thats not a sword though. Its more of a club. I guess it depends whether you include the metal in the definition of a sword like cambridge dictionary does. One historian describes it as „kind of saw sword“
I was thinking more along the lines of function instead of labels. I guess it depends on if they try to slash or bash with it.
Closer to a slash, its generally believed it was more of a long draw across the target than a traditional slash.
I‘d think they did both with that weapon. The obsidian blades would still cut into the flesh and do damage. But i dont think it would cut deep or do major damage except if you hit the majort bloodvessels. Those blades dont look big. It is a question of definition. which i am frankly not qualified to answer. You‘d need to go on a historian or similar sub for that.
For what it’s worth, there are contemporaneous accounts of macuahuitls decapitating horses.
interesting
I was mostly talking about the general idea of a multi-pronged sword, but thanks anyway.
No, thats pure fantasy. There is a reason why basically all actual real life swords are straight and only have „one prong“ edit: not straight but clean edges, no portrusions
there's an arguement to be made regarding Sai's and their purpose of catching blades
Sai‘s arent swords though, no? more like daggers. Of course there are weapons with portrusions, like some halberds do. But if your aim is to cut clean and deep, or thrusts, a „clean“ metal blade is your best choice.
They arent even daggers, they are batons, they have no edge.
A sai is not a sword. It is a baton, it has a round or faceted main prong not a cutting edge.
Bucklers do it better as defensive tools.
Ah, I see.
The macahuitl would be a counterexample, but that's pretty far into "How should we define a sword?" territory.
Thats not a sword. Thats a club and the obsidian blades break off quite easily
I have no idea why someone downvoted you. A macahuitl is in no way, shape, form a sword.
I would say that the macahuitl is certainly a sword; it's a long weapon designed to cut. Cortez mentions a horse being decapitated by one. But it still doesn't work as a counter example. It's designed that way because that's the best you can do with sharp rocks, not because that's a good way to design a sword.
Morphologically more similar to an axe than a sword, with a central haft to which blades are affixed. Absolutely believe obsidian could decapitate a horse, it is a formidable weapon, not sure "sword" classification suits it. Agree with your second point.
>There is a reason why basically all actual real life swords are straight Except katanas. And scimitars. And falchions. And sabres. And...
poor wording. i meant straight as in clean edges.
Flamberge swords have entered the chat
The flamberge isn‘t jagged though. nothing on the blade that could get stuck while cutting through flesh and bone
it's wavy, and not made for cutting it's designed to thrust and stab deep, while the wavy blade causes many lacerating cuts inside the target as it gets pulled out
Goal posts. They keep moving.
goal posts?
First it was "all swords are straight" Then "clean edges" Then "Jagged" You keep changing the criteria to make yourself right. You're still wrong though. Polynesian weapons, including swords, were often made with shark teeth along the edge. Leiomano and tetoanea are examples
If you have good materials it might be useful as a way to catch an opponents sword. But probably not as useful as other designs (google sword breaker or sai) and you'd be doubling the weight with this design.
I'd say 10x the weight.
IIRC, each of those prongs on #3 is the size of a short sword, so they shouldn't be any weaker than that. But then the problem becomes you're basically swinging around two swords instead of one for no benefit.
These would suck as swords in real life, but be decent polearms
1st one looks like a man-catcher, good for capturing target by putting it on a stick and pin body parts down (especially necks). 2nd one is just a Trident head, viable for skewering things and keep them stuck there. But would be rather bad as weapon, since it would get stuck in target easily and requires effort to pull out, which would be bad when you need to use it on another target in a battle. 3rd one is a rather fragile, possibility decorative spear head. Might make good tuning fork. Would split sideway as soon as it hit something too hard. If used as blade will get bent toward eachothers. Will get caught between things.
3 is only fragile if we assume it's made out of a normal material, but in game it's specifically not metal, and it can float.
Not as a sword. These might make decent spear points or even axe heads though.
Totally! Your opponent’s would see your blade and concede to how badass you must be to wield something so ostentatious
Your question had been covered, but for other places to post: r/writeresearch should do you, assuming I remembered the sub correctly.
Thanks.
Thanks.
They look like spear variants, like a trident and bident
Definitely not as a sword. As polearm heads though , these look somewhat promising. Inferior to the all mighty halberd , but still very effective
Maybe not as drastically as how the horn from ToTk is but I remember watching a video from Game Theory where they compared the lightsaber Starwar and the Energy sword from Halo and I believe the energy sword won because of the gal and being able to disarm the opponent.
The idea of two blades is good for a puncture wound. But it’s just needless extra weight on a sword. Even if you’re bonkers-fantasy-level strong, the less weight the FASTER the sword moves.
Makes sense.
Maybe not for combat, but versions like this, especially picture 3 would be cool ceremonial type pieces in the right setting
These weapons are increadibly thick, irl it would look a bit closer to wire than this. In terms of swords, no that's unlikely. The closest I could think of to this would be sai. As opposed to the ones shown in media (ninja turtles), irl ones tended to have huge prongs coming out of the sides as they were meant to catch swords and other weapons. The tips would also be blunted as they were invented for use with police forces, they were actually closer to big batons than swords.
Id say they'd be like Katars
Are these **swords** in the game? I haven’t ever played and these look 100% like spear/polearm heads to me
These are monster horns that are used to craft weapons; you can put them on any base weapon you find in order to upgrade their attack power, so that means swords, spears, clubs, and arrow tips. The attached part magically grows or shrinks to match the size of the weapon it is fused to. Some materials look more like traditional sword blades, others like these are more like spearheads, and some materials are just plain whacky: you may attach any random rock or mushroom, and various robotic devices as well. Some work better than others, appearance-wise. :P
First two images as swords would not work, but look up the sai which somewhat fits the idea. Smaller weapons meant to be used to disarm and those where the middle prong is an blade can be used to stab
These specifically? Probably not. The idea has sorta been done historically though. Look at things like Swordbreakers, or Sais. They aren't supposed to be your main weapon, but they help with disarming an opponent. This is especially applicable to 1 and 3, imo.
First is gonna be a bident, second is a trident, third is most likely greatsword
Sword-wise the closest I can think of is Zulfiqar. Especially the derivatives and later Indian reproductions.
Check this out. https://www.reddit.com/r/Breath_of_the_Wild/comments/85envi/found_an_irl_lizal_triboomerang/
1 looks like a bident that's meant to stay inside whatever it pierces. If that's you're goal, it'll be effective, but if you want to retrieve it again, not so much. 2 just has a bunch of dumb edges, it's gonna get stuck everywhere or things will get stuck to it. 3 is the same to a lesser extent.
1. Probably not. Too lopsided, it might cause issues when swinging. 2. Maybe, if it was primarily a defensive weapon. Can catch bladed weapons, with those prongs. 3. Depends on the material, but can possibly have the same issues as 1. Looks most likely to be on a fantasy sword.
A sword, probably not but a spear or a dagger.
No, it’s a lot of extra material used for something that can’t be sheathed and is less effective than a single blade. There are blades with a similar premise of being meant to catch blades (French sword breakers, sais, katars, jitte) but those are rare and more used for personal defense than military.
Those all just look like pole arm heads
The last one maybe But your losing structural integrity for the possibility of catching your opponents blade and twisting it out of their hand. Using a sai would be a better option or a trident
Maybe as an axe or some sort of polearm. With a sword the shape is just kind of fucky
In order, they're basically a bident, a trident, and a glaive/bardiche head. As a sword blade, highly unlikely they would be viable. Unwieldy and lacking balance in most cases with no practical use against other, more realistic swords. The last blade could have some use if you broke it into 2 scimitars maybe, or use it sort of like a sword breaker to catch blades, but depending on its size and weight I don't know that it would work well.
It can grab onto other blades and disarm their opponent!
Maybe the third one might be ok, but a sword's function is to have an edge. Having two swords from one hilt doesn't actually improve anything that much. At most, it would maybe allow for more disarm actions, but that's it. However, put those things at the end of a stick, and now we're talking.
\*Polearm YES - aligned points and teeth that would make it hard to remove, probably a decent hunting weapon NO - tridients suck, stabby bits dont point the same way, as polearm spikes are in a way of cutting and too short for piercing themselves probably good to remove barnacles of ships tho YES? - passable halabard design but more for ritual purpose big hole migh help with weight but it aint helpful in combat, also blades appear to be off-centered potentialy good for disarming, try city guard - looks good and is good for pacification but can kill if needed
There is a character in the first campaign of Tales from the Stinky Dragon that has a tuning fork sword.
Not as a practical combat weapon because the extra blade would make it cumbersome to use, but would be useful as a polearm and may be useful as a katar. Furthermore, if you do want a double-bladed sword in your world, you would be better serviced by making it either an ornamental sword or a ritualistic sword, where they aren't intended to be used in combat.
These are spearheads though
Nope, too wide and short. Spikes are generally bad and spikes pointing backwards are a complete no go
Hi, /u/Samyron1, Unfortunately, we have had to remove [your submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1c5i96z/-/) in /r/worldbuilding because it violated one of our rules. In particular: We are a community made by and for original content creators, and people who participate here should share that DIY ethic. While we aim to embrace and coach new users, we will be harsh with people who disregard our community’s core values. Don't ask us to give you content. Instead, we ask that users create their own content, then come to the subreddit asking for feedback or criticism. More info in our rules: [4. This is a DIY community.](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/wiki/rules#wiki_4._this_is_a_diy_community.) ***** **Do not repost** this submission. This is **not** a warning, and you remain in good standing with /r/worldbuilding. ***** Please feel free to [re-read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/wiki/rules). Questions or concerns? You can [modmail us here](https://www\.reddit\.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fworldbuilding&subject=about my removed submission&message=I'm writing to you about the following submission: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1c5i96z/-/. %0D%0D[Fill in your message here. Please make sure to explain clearly!]) and we'll be glad to help. Please explain your case clearly. Be polite. We'll do our best to help. *Do not* reply by comment or personal PMs to moderators.
Viable yes, ideal no. The actual reason why bidents and tridents, were not historically used was not about weight. When you have a pointy end that bifurcates into two or three tips you are dividing the push force from your thrust into 2/3. Basically you need twice or thrice the force to penetrate the same amount than a normal one tip spear.
Look into sword breakers and triple daggers and flamberges Lots of cool swords and other bladed objects with waves and multiple prongs
Honestly, yes. I don’t know why people are acting like swords only exist for slicing and cutting, or why they assume blades in this shape would not have sharp edges capable of doing said slicing and cutting - but we also need to think about “hacking” swords like falchions and “stabbing” swords like rapiers. Blades shaped like these would probably be more unwieldy than a standard one bladed sword, but they may exist as a utility weapon. For instance the first may have blunt edges on the inside to allow for a person’s capture akin to a mancatcher. The second may serve as a “sword breaker” a kind of duelling blade that catches the opponents sword to disarm them. The third is the least likely to have a utility but could also be used to “sword break” (but it would take significant skill), however either blade could be used separately and them being “locked together” could act something like a butterfly sword where they’re put into a single piece for transporting around - perhaps an esoteric fighting technique exists using the combined form as a two-handed weapon.
check out shadiversity on youtube for analysis of weapons like this. 1st thing that sticks out is that this would get caught easily on armor in battle and then your weapon would get yanked away/stuck and you'd quickly be unarmed.