Gladiator Sword

Before the coming of Big Red and the other Krakens, slavery was almost unknown in Redhaven and the other islands that became the Kraken States. It was not that the inhabitants were horrified by the idea of slavery in itself, as long as it was not happening to themselves or their loved ones. It was just that there was little need for slaves and few people were rich enough to own, feed and water them. A handful of nobles owned a few slaves, and here and there people were temporarily enslaved for debt or as punishment for crime, but that was all. But when the Krakens came and took control of the coasts of these islands, along with their constant desire for amethyst, they had a hunger for human flesh now and then. The few serious convicted criminals and slaves soon vanished into the great beaks of the Krakens, and to avoid being forced to feed each other to the greedy Krakens, the islanders became slavers, first raiding other islands, and then buying slaves from such places as the Pan-Kor Empire with some of the amethyst that the Krakens permitted them to keep.

War with the fleets of the De Madden Company brought POWs who were enslaved, and soon there were more slaves then even the greediest Kraken could eat. Some were put to doing the hardest and most dangerous work, chained up in the amethyst mines, others were simply fattened up as they waited to become Kraken food, still more were forced to become gladiators, fighting to the death to entertain the now rich and decadent human population of the Kraken States.

New weapons were made for them, and one of them was the Gladiator Sword, three and a half feet long, with a jagged blade of steel and a hilt of polished bronze. Because of the sword’s jagged edge, it was capable of causing great gashes in flesh, but it’s sheer size and weight, plus the fact that many were not forged all that well, made it a somewhat clumsy weapon.

In gaming terms, this weapon does double damage, but unless one is trained well in it’s use it counts as a minus in skill terms; whilst it may be more dangerous then a normal sword, this advantage is balanced as for most people, it will be harder to hit someone with to hurt them. Its size makes it very hard to conceal, and even in towns where it is perfectly legal to carry swords, most city guards will at the very least want to know why someone is carrying a weapon meant for use in the arena, and may well try and arrest the user, perhaps thinking him to be an escaped gladiator or a outright criminal.