Regarding staves (staffs).

[Rebecca]

There has been a sudden alarming surge in the amount of orders for staves (also called "staffs").

Staves are really for people with walking difficulties. They are not supposed to be used as weapons or fashion accessories - and in fact are quite inept at doing either! How many fashionable Inner Bailey dwellers do you see strolling around with a stave in hand, unless they're wounded? None!

Using a stave as a weapon is ineffective. They are too slim and lightweight to do any damage, and in truth if you hit someone hard enough for it to hurt, it would probably split the wood.

No more orders for staves will be filled unless they are accompanied with a valid reason.

Thank you.

[Kyramor]

Ah, good Carpenter Rebecca, though I do not dispute your denial of staves to the denizens without reason, you are quite mistaken as to the use of staves as weapons.

The people of my memories used staves quite a bit for combat, I will admit, in mass battles they often break, but in one-on-one or in low-count battles, staves can be very effective if used to trip or used to tap specific points on the body. You obviously either do not know enough of the art of staff combat, or you simply do not hold any respect for it.

Again, this is not to say that the decision to limit staves is wrong, but that you are wrong in respect to their use in combat.

[Tyr Gunn]

Heh,

While I would agree with Kyramor that the staves common to these halls would do in pinch... the virtual canes that are common here are no where NEAR as effective as as quarterstaff.

But then, I've seen martial experts drop a man with a spoon. For that matter, a chair could be a deadly weapon... the question is, do you wanna be known as the best "chairsman" in the castle?

Quarterstaves are an effective weapon. The canes we all use around here, while not completely useless, are cetainly not conventional weapons. Better off using a chair, or even a spoon if you know what you're doing.

[Sindale]

On the contrary, if you know what you are doing, use the stave. Unfortunately this place trains people to believe that in order to block you don't let the sword past your own blade. This does not work with a stave, for it will shatter.

However someone trained in the art of staves knows that you do not try and block, but you turn and deflect so that the full force of the blow is not taken upon the stave at all.

If you don't know what you are doing, stick with the chair and act the lion tamer.

Sindale

[Lance]

Please be very careful in saying to sera Rebecca that her opinion is 'wrong'. She is a carpenter and is being trained by the best carpenters in the castle. Her opinion is quite accurate, correct, and frankly, shared by myself.


The general-issue staffs distributed out are 'walking staffs'. Since the time of ser Ferguson, they have been made with slimness and lightness so that they are not an impediment to their bearer and can easily be used to support the bearer in one hand.

Furthermore, the carpenters are not the non-metal weaponsmiths who don't require permiss to bear arms. You want a fighting staff? Order a fighting staff. I have a staff balanced for such a purpose. While I hardly am inviting anyone to do so, the wood is strong and quite resistent to even metal blows. The balance is such that it can be used not as an upright walking implement but more for striking and deflecting.


Sure, you could take the staffs that are generally out there and use them to hit people with. You can also use snow, spoons, fists, caps, and boots. That does not mean they are 'weapons', regardless of the ways you employ them.

Either way, when you find your staffs breaking when struck across someone's head, or people blinking and shrugging off your 'mighty' blows, do remember that we carpenters are crafting subtle lengths of wood to aid in walking from one place to another, not monstrous lengths of wood to weather the savages of war.

--LZ