LeSquide
New Member
I don't think you can generalize so easily. Specialist needs (often in the form of cultural elites, duelists, or irregular forces) often used much different weaponry than the rank and file. If we look to Asia, the weapon training that was used for meditative aid so famously by various monasteries was put into devastating effect in several occasions, and did include various weapons and combinations of weapons that weren't practical for army usage. This included several two weapon styles, including both paired and mixed weapons.Malekith said:
If we look farther to the west, we can see that various schools of dueling utilized and practiced several varieties of two weapon fighting, both familiar (rapier and main gauche) and practical. The latter are perhaps more germane here. For as long as swordplay remained a deadly serious matter instead of the sport it would eventually evolve into, techniques were taught to maximize an individuals chance at survival. Such training was not centered on the open battlefield (where individual confrontation was not a common occurrence) but rather the many and varied deadly imbroglios a person might be involved in on an individual level; blood feuds in city streets, warding off highwaymen, preventing a tavern feud from becoming fatal OR turning one into a bloodbath despite the relative lack of room.
Indeed, it's in many of these situations when various forms of western two weapon fighting were practiced; the bizarre usage of twin rapiers to ward off armored bodyguards and kill one's rival, using a lantern in one's off hand to ward off an attack and simultaneously disorient him, and (perhaps closer to PC usage of twin weapons), the use of a shorter blade in the off hand not only to substitute for a defensive weapon, but also to control and subdue a foe while leaving the other arm free to ward off others, in a surprising foreshadowing of 20th century close combat technique.
It's worth noting that in the east, the usage of two blades often mirror or was influenced by western methods in strange and provocative ways. Rarely a main battle weapon, the Japanese katana is famed for being misrepresented as often being used alongside the daisho's companion sword, the shorter wakizsashi (we know that most common techniques focused on the use of the katana two handed). However, we have several accounts (including one by the famous Mushashi) of two katanas being wielded simultaneously as an ideal method when outnumbered, similar to the bizarre case rapier mentioned above.
(That being said, it should be recognized that Mushashi's skill was singular during his time, and he's certainly not representative of the abilities of the average man of his time. However, given that this is ultimately reflecting on Exalted, he makes a very decent model for how a simply superior combatant might fight.)
Also of note is the usage of the wakizsashi as an off hand weapon, which did happen at several periods...notably after contact between Japanese pirates and Portuguese freebooters, the latter of which often employed various weapons in their off hands. Whether it was the novelty and advantage of surprise it bought or simply superiority of technique is unclear, but the efficacy of twin western blades against a single eastern weapon (often wielded by an otherwise better trained and condition warrior, it might note) was enough to, at least locally, change the paradigm of armed combat.
