Dragon 70

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Best of Dragon, Vol. V

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Dragon

Early firearms

Gun name	Typical  caliber	Cost (gp)	Avg.  wt.  (lbs.)	Avg.  overall  length	Range  (in game) S	M	L	Damage S-M	L	Rate of fire  (one man)	Rate of fire  (gunner and loader)
Arquebus	Widely  variable	500	25	3'4" + rest (up to 4' 6")	3	7	12	1-10	1-6	1/3	3/2
Caviler (matchlock musket)	Variable	450	11	4'6"	4	8	14	2-9	1-8	1/2	1
Dragon ("Dagg" or "horse pistol") (wheel-lock pistol)	.50	600	4.5	1'4"	1	2.5	4	1-6	1-3	1	1
Flintlock pistol	.60	550	2	1'2"	2	3	5	1-6	1-4	1	1
Early flintlock musket	.70	800	10	5'6"	10	20	30	3-12	1-10	1	1
Blunderbuss	Widely  variable	500	8	2'4"	1	2	3	1-10	1-10	1/2	1/2

Note: The prices shown on the table are those in an area where weapons are plentiful, and ammunition, repairs or
manufacture of same is nearby. Prices should be doubled, tripled, or even increased by a factor of ten where weapons
are rare and/or are objects of prestige or power.

Since the appearance of “Firearms” in
DRAGON™ issue #60, several readers
have requested a similar treatment of the
small arms which developed from the
handgun. Accordingly, here is a brief
look at the arquebus and its successors.
The historical development and battlefield
use of such weapons are familiar to
many gamers and readily available in
library books to most others, so military
history pertaining strictly to our “real
world” has been omitted.

In some campaigns, a firearm
makes for a deadly weapon.

It is again recommended here that in
an AD&D campaign, gunpowder should
be considered undiscovered or inert, so
that firearms cannot be used in the
“standard” fantasy setting. Experimental
and enjoyable play involving firearms is
best safely confined to parallel “worlds”
(alternate PMPs which can be reached only by the use of magical items, spells, or gates).

A campaign can be quickly unbalanced
by firearms that are too accurate, or easy
to use, or numerous. I once visited a
campaign in which a cache of weaponry
culled from the GAMMA WORLD™ game
was walled up in the first level of a dungeon.
Excavations into a suspiciously
circumvented area on our dungeon maps
won us an arsenal of powerful explosives
and lasers — and deadly boredom. Frying
our first dragon was quite exciting,
and the second was a workmanlike but
still enjoyable job. But the third was routine,
and the rest (it was a large dungeon)
were boring. Once we’d run out of
dragons, we sallied forth from the looted
dungeon and barbecued a nearby wandering
army of orcs. Play soon ended in
that campaign; the party members became
absolute rulers of an almost featureless
landscape, having destroyed
everything they didn’t fancy the looks of.
On the other hand, the occasional
“hurler of thunderbolts,” held by an individual
NPC and jealously guarded for
use only in dire emergencies, is an acceptable
and useful “spice” for an AD&D campaign in need of same. Longtime
readers of DRAGON Magazine will recall
(from “Faceless Men And Clockwork
Monsters,” issue #17) that an adventurer
recognized a firearm because he had
once seen a mage in Greyhawk with
“such a wand.” Such rarity and misunderstanding
(i.e., the assignment of magical
status) of firearms appears the best
way to handle such weapons in an AD&D game.

Before embarking on a brief tour of the
small arms developed from the handgun,
it is well to bear in mind that during these
times no large munitions factories or
production standards existed (and unless
all firearms in the AD&D setting
come from one source, this is likely to
hold true in play as well). As a result,
almost every weapon is unique, having
individual characteristics due to varying
barrel dimensions and materials, amount
and mixture of gunpowder used, and differences
in the shot employed. Small
arms were in use for a very long time
before King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
introduced a fixed cartridge of bullet
and powder. Until then, everyone measured
their own powder charges on the
battlefield. The timid did little damage to
the enemy; the reckless blew themselves
up. The statistics shown on the tables
given in this article should therefore be
treated as a “typical” base, to be modified
freely to fit the situation at hand.
It is also necessary to keep in mind the
accoutrements of a gunner: oil, to keep
the weapon in working order and free of
rust; a watertight carrying container for
gunpowder (such as the powder horn of
the American frontier); rags, to clean
and wad with; shot, usually large metal
balls for piercing armor and stopping
men, and handfuls of tiny metal pellets
for shooting fowl and vermin; and a rod
or rods (often carried slid down one side
of a boot) for cleaning out the barrel and
ramming the shot home. Details of these
vary from weapon to weapon; a DM
should keep track of such heavy and
awkward gear, and try to keep the use of
guns a fussy and not too rapid business
— in a street fight one should grab for a
blade, rather than whipping out a pistol
or musket and clearing the field — because
one would risk a fatal misfire, and
in any case would have to coolly stand
for one round loading the firearm between
each and every shot. A more complete
list of a gunner’s equipment is provided
later on for those who wish to
consider encumbrance in detail.
The primitive handgun was a small
cannon on a stock. It was fired by means
of a red-hot wire put through a touchhole.
Later, a slow-burning match (usually
a cord that had been soaked in nitre
and diluted alcohol and then dried) replaced
the wire. The flame of the “slow
match” was more likely to ignite the
gunpowder, and the implement was both
easier and safer to use: A wire had to be
heated in a non-portable fire laid on the
ground, which could be perilous with
gunpowder nearby, whereas a slow
match could be lit with flint and steel at a
safe distance, and carried to a more
mobile gunner.

Later, the matchlock replaced the
hand-held match; at the pull of the trigger,
the lit match was dipped in a pan of
gunpowder by the S-shaped clamp (or
“serpentine”) which held it. Firing became
more rapid and more accurate — a
gunner could now look at his target
when preparing to fire, rather than concentrating
on the touchhole.

The matchlock was faster than the
handgun, but not fast by any other standards.
Firing it required ninety-six separate
actions — such as measuring the
powder and pouring it down the muzzle;
dropping in the lead ball and then a wad
of rag; uncovering the priming pan, filling
it with powder, and closing the pan
again; adjusting the position of the match
in the serpentine, and lighting the match;
and then opening the pan again, aiming,
and pulling the trigger. As author Richard
Armour puts it, “the gunner hoped his
target would hold still while all this was
going on.” (This last statement is from
Armour’s hilarious book, It All Started
With Stones and Clubs (Being a Short
History of War and Weaponry from Earliest
Times to the Present, Noting the
Gratifying Progress Made by Man Since
His First Crude, Small-scale Efforts to
Do Away’ with Those Who Disagreed
With Him); published by McGraw-Hill,
New York, 1967.)

The matchlock had other disadvantages,
too: a premature ignition of the
potentially dangerous open pan of powder,
too much powder, or simply an
uneven distribution of powder in the pan
(ever try carefully levelling a spoonful of
powder in the midst of a battle?) could
cause an explosion at the expense of the
gunner and not the target — the source
of the expression “flash in the pan.”
The barrel of a matchlock was fouled
by gunpowder with each shot, and in a
long engagement its accuracy declined
as the recoil caused by the fouling grew
wilder, leaving a gunner’s shoulder numb
and bruised. A curved stock was soon
devised to reduce the recoil impact.
There was also the problem of shooting
in the rain; water could easily put the
match out. Surprise was impossible
because of the smell, glow, and noise of
the matches; and it was not unheard of
for one gunner to set off his own or a
comrade’s ammunition. Although names
have been applied rather loosely over
the years to all sorts of weapons, I have
confined “arquebus” to the earlier versions
of the handgun, and “caliver” to
the lightened matchlock musket.

The musket was an upgunned arquebus,
and consequently was so heavy that
it had to be supported on a crutch or a
rest. It was almost a hundred years
before the weapon was lightened enough
to dispense with these supports. Although
the musket fired a heavier shot, it also
jumped in the rest when fired, resulting
in lower accuracy. But its bullets could
pierce the best armor that could be worn
by a foot soldier. (As this became known,
soldiers in full armor all but disappeared
from battlefields, and subsequent small
arms could be made smaller; the musket
no longer needed its rest.) Musketeers
still had to be protected by non-shooters
while loading their pieces, but almost
overnight firearms became the dominant
force in warfare. Infantry who did not
employ muskets were armed with pikes,
so that a musketeer could undertake the
slow, clumsy process of reloading safely
within the long reach of defending pikemen.
When pikeheads were attached to
muskets (upon the invention of the bayonet),
the pike disappeared.

Two “firelock” mechanisms, the wheellock
and the flintlock, were developed to
solve the problems of the slow match.
Both could be loaded and primed at leisure,
to be fired at a moment’s notice.
But both were more expensive than the
matchlock, more likely to go awry and
misfire or need repairs, and could be
fired fewer times before needing cleaning.
As a result, they took a while to catch
on.

The wheel-lock was never widely used
by infantry. Rather than a match, it employed
a saw-edged wheel wound up
with a spring and a piece of iron pyrite
(or flint) held against it in a doghead vise.
When the trigger was pressed, the wheel
(like a cigarette lighter) would spin,
shooting a shower of sparks into the
priming powder in its enclosed pan. If
properly loaded with dry powder, adjusted
and wound, a wheel-lock firearm
would almost certainly fire when the
trigger was pulled, even in a rainstorm.
Cavalry could carry loaded pistols in
their holsters for hours or even days.
Although the wheel-lock was complicated
and slow to load, this “at the ready”
feature revolutionized cavalry tactics.
Rather than using the shock of their
charges to strike and overrun infantry
(the reason for pikes), cavalry now performed
such dangerous maneuvers as
the “caracole,” lines of armored cavalrymen
carrying three pistols each formed
up in lines. Each line in succession rode
up to the enemy, fired, and swerved off to
reload and form up again in the rear. Not
only was this maneuver overly complicated,
but a cavalryman riding close
enough to shoot enemies could himself
be shot at, both by firearms and longbows.
Nevertheless, the addition of
wheel-lock pistols restored to cavalry
the effectiveness it had enjoyed before
pikes and muskets faced its every charge.
The flintlock was to become the standard
infantry weapon for more than two
hundred years (until the advent of the
percussion cap, which resulted in the
cartridge or “bullet” familiar to us now,
and a firing mechanism consisting of a
pin driven forcefully into the rear of the
cartridge by a pull of the trigger). The
flintlock resembles a tinderbox — a flint
strikes steel, and the sparks created fall
into the priming powder. The flint is held
in a “cock” or vise which (unlike the
wheel-lock, wherein the vise is stationary)
flies forward like the hammer of the
familiar Colt revolver to strike a steel arm
(the “frizzen”) when the trigger is pulled.
Although not as surefire as either the
matchlock or the wheel-lock, the flintlock
is cheaper and simpler, more durable,
and easier to repair in the field. If the
flint does not need adjusting, a flintlock
can be loaded slightly faster than a
matchlock — and it can be loaded in
advance and carried. ready to fire one
shot at a moment’s notice. The persistent
failing of the flintlock revealed over
centuries of use is that it too often misfires
(does not go off). At least, this failing
is preferable to one of the main
drawbacks of earlier firearms, which was
that they literally blew up in the gunner’s
face.

Firearms were of course continuously
modified and improved upon, but this
article will not follow on to rifled barrels
and the other innovations of the Napoleonic
era and later weaponry. Instead,
mention must be made of another development
of the same idea, which is basically
to increase the chance of striking a
target by firing a spray of shot rather
than a single bullet or ball. A blunderbuss
has a short, trumpet-flaring barrel
which is loaded with powder, wad, and a
handful of iron balls or whatever was
available. This was the chief advantage
of the blunderbuss: one traded muzzle
velocity (and thus penetrating power,
range, and accuracy) for the ability of
the weapon to take stones and other projectiles
that need not be carefully shaped
to a specific bore (barrel diameter).
Farmer Giles in J. R. R. Tolkien’s delightful
fantasy Farmer Giles of Ham used
“anything he could spare to stuff in” as
ammunition: old nails, bits of wire, pieces
of broken pot, bones and stones
“and other rubbish.” Giles fought off a
giant with his blunderbuss, even if firing
it did leave him flat on his back.
A blunderbuss barrel can be made of
brass, or a length of stove pipe; it is easy
to build and to repair. It can fire anything
small enough to easily fit in the barrel: a
pound of nails, say, or odds and ends of
lead castings or rusting ironmongery
(this last usually resulted in infected
wounds). A covered blunderbuss, known
as a “spring gun,” could be set up to
discourage poachers and other intruders;
it would be mounted on a swivel post
a foot or less off the ground and attached
to three or four long trip-wires leading
off in all directions. When someone disturbed
one of the wires, the strain would
act on a rod beneath the gun attached to
the hammer or cock of the flintlock, and
the gun would instantly swing around
and fire along the tripped wire.
Any gunner in an AD&D setting must
carry the supplies of ammunition and
tools necessary to keep his or her temperamental
weapon in working order. In
practical terms, this generally consisted
of keeping one’s gunpowder dry and
cleaning the weapon after every use.
Taking a primitive firearm into battle is a
time-consuming job. It is also a skill to
use it effectively; every shot must count
when the firing rate is so low, and one
cannot snatch up a weapon and pick off
a target when it must be carefully loaded
with a precise amount of powder and the
right size of shot. (The use of too-large
shot will destroy the weapon and usually
also the gunner, whereas too-small shot
rolls along one side of the barrel, acquiring
a spin perpendicular to the line of
fire, and therefore an unpredictably
curved flight path.) It must also be aimed
with care: none of the guns described
above will work if not upright; the “snapshot”
of the western gunfighter or modern
commando is impossible to execute.
Necessary gear for a gunner consisted
of matches or flints, a large flask of
(coarse) gunpowder and a small “touchbox”
of fine priming powder. Often these
last were of wood, and carried slung on a
bandolier like the modern movie GI carries
grenades: when pulled, the top of
the flask remained behind, and the gunner
put a thumb over the top of the
touchbox (which contained just enough
powder for one firing) until he could
upend it into the priming pan. The
matchcord was carried wrapped around
one’s hat (inside the hat in wet weather),
and flints were usually carried in a belt
pouch, wrapped so as to keep them from
chipping and striking sparks from one
another if the holder had to run or
scramble about.

Bullets or shot were carried in belt
pouches, and when in action, a couple
for immediate use were often held in the
gunner’s mouth (much as a tailor holds
pins). All firearms also required ramrods
(most of which were carried in a slot provided
in the gunstock), scrapers, and
cleaning rags and curved metal extractors
(which resemble miniature golf
irons) for raking out bullets or shot. Making
bullets required lead and a brass
mold; often only one mold would produce
bullets of the right size for a particular
gun. Flint and steel, and dry kindling,
were required for lighting slow
matches and/or laying the fire necessary
to cast bullets. To use the early arquebus
practically in battle, a gunner needed a
helper to tend his fire, mix the ingredients
of gunpowder (at a safe distance
from the fire) and carry the weapon’s rest
(in battle, the gunner himself carried it
about by a loop of cord tied around his
wrist). Wheel-lock weapons also required
a “spanner” or key which wound up a
chain attached to the spring which spun
the wheel, usually carried tied to one’s
belt so that it would not be lost.
A gunner also carried a sword and a
dagger (which served also as eating
knife, flint scraper, and cleaning tool),
and in a pinch could use the pointed end
of the crutch-shaped rest for defense.
Most early pistols were made with huge
balls or knobs at the butt end of the grip,
so that when empty they could be used
as clubs — doing 1-3 points of damage,
1-4 if a mounted wielder is combating a
target on foot. A musket uses up to two
ounces of powder per firing; one pound
of lead made eight musket balls if they
fitted the barrel tightly, or ten if they
“rolled in.” Modern shotgun gauges developed
from this sizing of shot by the
number of bullets to the pound.
 

Firearms:
The first guns weren't much fun
by Ed Greenwood

 
 

Early guns	Gunsmiths and their equipment	Gunpowder	Guns	Firing guns
Naval use of gunpowder	-	Strategic importance of gunpowder	-	Equipment
Dragon 60	-	Best of Dragon, Vol. V	-	Dragon

Gunpowder — and the advent of ballistic
weapons — proved the beginning
of the end for the medieval warfare depicted
in the AD&D™ world.
Armor, bladed weapons, stone castles
— all were made obsolete by gunpowder
and firearms. Nothing withstood “the
great equalizer” that let men kill from a
safe distance without concern for personal
strength or valor.
So, the Dungeon Masters Guide for
good reason warns against the desire to
“have gunpowder muddying the waters
of your fantasy world.” (p. 113) Yet, introducing
gunpowder to a campaign
raises some fascinating possibilities. The
trick, of course, is limiting the use of firearms
to maintain game balance.
For example, DMs should not allow
alchemists and artisans to greatly improve
the technology of firearms in their
world; gunnery should remain an art, not
a science. For a long time artillery was
rare, expensive and clumsy in battlefield
use— more a psychological than a physical
weapon. The use of gunpowder in a
fantasy world should reflect this; with
proper design, almost any early firearm
could be introduced into the AD&D setting,
if the DM can devise a logical justification
for its presence. With this in
mind, what follows is historical information
on various firearms, with ideas for
translating them into play.

Early guns

The first real gun was a large, bottleshaped
iron pot that fired an enormous
crossbow bolt when powder in its bottom
was ignited. Such weapons were
known as “Pots de Fer,” and were made
as early as 1327 in England,
In 1328, the French fleet that raided
Southhampton in the opening year of

the Hundred Years’ War was outfitted
with one “Pot de Fer,” 3 Ibs. of gunpowder,
and 2 boxes of 48 large bolts
with iron “feathers.” Although arrows
and bolts were soon replaced by bullets
of lead, iron, or stone, they were still being
fired from muskets as late as the time
of the Spanish Armada, and ribalds made
in England in 1346 are known to have
fired “quarrels.”

The guns the French used to defend
Cambrai the following year were bought
from artisans by weight, and averaged
only 25 Ibs. per gun.

The most popular gun of this period
was the “Ribald,” a series of small gun
barrels clamped together (looking somewhat
similar to the much later Gatling
gun or the Nebelwerfer). Their touch
holes were arranged so a single sweep of
the gunner’s match would set them all
off.

Ribalds were usually mounted on
wheeled carts, with a shield to protect
the gunner from arrows, These “carts of
war” were particularly useful when aimed
at breaches and doorways. However, the
balls fired by a ribald were far too small
to breach walls, and the weapon took a
long time to load or reload — each tube
had to be cleaned out, filled with a
charge of powder and a ball, wadded,
tamped down, and primed.

By the 1340s, 3-inch caliber guns were
used for sieges, and in at least one instance,
by the English at Crecy in 1346,
on the battlefield. These guns fired balls
of iron and stone and the three cannons
at Crecy sold the English on the use of
artillery.

Most of these early pieces were cast in
brass or copper rather than iron. In 1353
Edward III ordered four new guns cast of
copper from William of Aldgate, a London
brazier. The guns cost the equivalent
of about $150 each in today’s money.
These were probably small guns,
because large castings tended to have
flaws and airholes. This led to the guns’
distressing habit of blowing up when
touched off, killing the wrong people.
James II of Scotland was killed in 1460,
while besieging Roxburgh Castle, when
one of his big guns, a bombard made in

France and called “The Lion,” blew up
and a piece of shrapnel struck him in the
chest.

Despite the risks, large barrels were
effective in battering down castle walls.
These were wrought rather than cast.
White-hot iron bars were laid side-byside
around a wooden core and welded
together by the blows of the gunsmith’s
hammer. Iron rings or hoops were clamped
around the barrel to strengthen it.
As the arts of metallurgy and casting
improved, bronze cast guns replaced
hooped guns. By the end of the 15th century
hooped guns were rarely seen. Missiles
during this time were almost entirely
of stone; firing metal balls was simply
too expensive. Cannon-ball cutters were

skilled workers, paid as much per day as
a man-at-arms.

At the siege of Harcourt in 1449, a gun
produced by the Bureau brothers did
heavy damage — “the first shot thrown
pierced completely through the rampart
of the outer ward, which is a fine work
and equal in strength to the Keep.” In the
next year, the Bureau brothers’ guns
took sixty fortified areas. Many Surrendered
as soon as the big guns were in
position, for the defenders knew they
would simply be battered to pieces. It
was no longer necessary to starve someone
out of his castle — you could now
blow it down about his ears.

On the battlefield, however, supremacy
was much longer coming. Early guns
were emplaced on earthen mounds and
dug in, or upon wooden platforms. These
were not mobile, so if an enemy avoided
the ground the guns were aimed at, the
guns were useless. Mobile carriages were
introduced in the early fifteenth century
(such mounted cannon were known as
“snakes”) but the introduction of lightweight
horsedrawn gun carriages and
trunnions (the projections on a gun barrel
that act as pivots for elevation) came
later. Cannons had smooth bores for
centuries before successful rifling was
developed, and the maximum effective
(wall-piercing) range of a 14th century
smooth-bore cannon was 200 yards with
a 30-lb. missile.

DMs should not allow reliable handguns
or shoulder arms in their AD&D
worlds, although historically, one-man
firearms were in use as early as 1386.
The individual barrels that made up ribalds
were mounted separately on spearshafts
and given to men-at-arms. A soldier
put the spear shaft under his arm,

resting its butt on the ground behind
him, and fired the handgun by lighting a
“match” (a length of cord impregnated
with saltpeter and sulphur so it burned
slowly and evenly). These guns, which
fired high into the air and were difficult to
aim, were soon replaced by short-shafted
weapons that rested against the chest or
shoulder. These were very inaccurate,
but when firing in massed volleys could
be quite effective.

Such firearms were unpopular with
knights, for the lowliest peasant could
pierce armor with one. Professional
soldiers weren’t too happy, either. Shakespeare
captures their feelings when he
calls gunpowder “villainous saltpeter,”
and a Venetian mercenary army in 1439
massacred Bolognese handgun men for
using “this cruel and cowardly innovation,
gunpowder.”

Soon gunstocks had hooks that caught
on a parapet or barricade to absorb
some of the recoil. The development of
the matchlock gun allowed guns to rule
armor, and the medieval setting typical
of AD&D adventuring was largely gone.
The matchlock gun became the musket,
wheel-lock guns were introduced, and
modern weaponry was in sight.

Gunsmiths and their equipment
Player characters should not be allowed
to obtain skill in gunsmithing, nor
in battlefield gunnery (save at great risk,
in emergency situations). Historically,
gunners were artisans, private individuals
who produced firearms for a fee and
often hired themselves out to work the
guns they made. The price of a gun or
guns always provided the buyer with the
weapon, any stands or carriages necessary
for its use, ammunition, gunpowder
(or at least its ingredients), and all the
necessary gunners’ equipment: drivells
(iron ramrods), tampions or tompions
(wads), matches, touches (for lighting
matches or powder through a touchhole;
a “touch” is basically a torch mounted on
a pole), and firing pans (metal pans filled
with hot coals, to light the touches so no
flint and tinder were used to avoid
sparks). Gunmakers provided bags of
hide to carry the gunpowder, and scales
and a mortar and pestle for mixing it.
They manufactured barrels of all sizes
with locks, to store gunpowder in a castle
or permanent gun emplacement, and
trays of wood or brass in which damp
powder could be dried over a fire or in
the sun. If their guns fired cast bullets
— of iron, brass, copper, or lead — the
gunners provided the molds for each
firearm.

A gunsmith, one can see, was both
highly skilled and versatile, and often
employed underlings to round stone balls,
work and cast the metal, and manhandle
guns in battle. DMs may wish to increase
the smith’s fee over that given for an
“engineer-artillerist” in the DMG (p. 29-
30) on the grounds that men familiar with
these new and relatively mysterious
weapons are in great demand, and rare.
Two hundred gold pieces a month seems
about right (plus 10% of the cost of weapons
made, as mentioned in the DMG),
but remember that demand, supply, politics,
alignment, and character will affect
a gunsmith’s charge; a party should
find a gunsmith’s services quite dear — if
not outrageous.

A gunsmith is capable of all the tasks
of an armorer or blacksmith, given time,
but will not be pleased if kept long away
from his guns. Most gunsmiths will have
pet theories and grand schemes about
placement and use of guns in warfare.
These plans may be impractical or ingenious,
and once hired, a gunsmith will
attempt to get his plans implemented if
his employer seems rich enough to make
them reality.

Gunpowder
This explosive is an unstable mixture
of potassium nitrate (saltpeter), sulphur,
and charcoal. It does not travel well and
therefore was mixed on the battlefield.
Gunners were specialists in mixing
charges and judging the correct amount
of each ingredient to use, although this
too was at times more an art than a
science. Powder with coarse saltpeter
burned slowly; when finer saltpeter was
used, the powder exploded promptly
and with greater force. Many guns blew
up, and firing a charge through a touchhole
became suicide. Instead, gunners
laid a train of fast-burning powder along
the outside of the gun barrel, lit it, and
ran for safety.

The saltpeter is expensive and rare (in
the area of 22 gp per pound); the sulphur
less so (averaging 8 gp per pound). The
charcoal is cheap (1 cp for a 5-lb. bag)
and generally available, preferably from
the burning of willow wood. Willow faggots
cost 5 sp per cord (a cord can be
measured in many ways, but is usually
128 cubic feet). Local supply will of
course affect these prices.

The formula is generally 75% saltpeter,
15% charcoal, and 10% sulphur, but
these proportions vary if the powder is
used for blasting. One infamous use of
gunpowder is commemorated in the expression
“hoist with his own petard”: the
petard was a bucket of gunpowder the
gunner was supposed to take, dodging
arrows and the like, and hang on the gate
of a hostile stronghold (hammering in
his own nail to hang it on, if none were
handy) and then ignite, to blow in the
gate. It was not, as one can see, very
popular with gunners.

Guns
Medieval guns were of all manner of
names and calibers. Often individual
weapons of the same caliber made by
the same maker varied greatly in weight
and dimensions.

Some guns loaded through the breech
and others through the muzzle. They
were made of iron, steel, cuprum (hardened
copper or brass), latten (crude
brass), and “gunmetal” (or bronze, an
alloy of 90 parts copper and 10 parts tin).
Bronze was stronger than iron, but in
early examples of the alloy the proper
proportions of copper and tin were unknown;
smiths guessed, and as a result a
lot of bronze guns blew up.

Early guns (circa 1350) were small,
firing balls of up to 3 Ibs. weight, but by
1400 guns fired balls of up to 200 Ibs.
Smaller-caliber guns remained more accurate
than those of large caliber. The
largest known gun of this period was the
Russian “King of Cannons” built in 1502.
It had a caliber of 915mm, and fired a
l-ton missile down a 17-foot barrel.
Guns fired quarrels, balls of iron, brass,
and stone (sometimes strengthened with
iron hoops) and special treats like heated
shot (a wad of damp clay between the
powder and the ball prevented the gun
from exploding) and hollow shot filled
with gunpowder that was intended to
blow on impact. Cast iron balls replaced
stone (iron balls had more “punch”) but
were heavier, and had to be far smaller if
gunpowder was to hurl them with the
same force. Later. metal grew too expensive,
and stone balls were used in
quantity again.

Charles of Spain, in 1550, made the
first attempt to standardize gun calibers,
to let balls for one gun be used in another.
His artillery was of seven types. By
1753 there were nine calibers of English
guns, differing in size and weight depending
on whether they were iron or
brass. Confusion of size and exact statistics
is rampant, so the following tables
use the sixteen English gun types of the
mid-1500s. If these seem too exhaustive,
scale down the table as follows: handgun,
ribald, cannon, culverin, and saker
as is, and the listings of bombard (everything
larger than a Cannon), dolphin (everything
between culverin and saker),
and serpentine (everything smaller than
a saker). Listings follow in the Abbreviated
Table.

Names used in the table have been
applied (and misapplied) to all sizes of
guns by writers of various times, and
some names (such as “curtail” and
“sling”) belong to guns whose nature
and caliber are unknown. Culverin is Latin
for “snake”: guns were often named
for reptiles of mythology — the firebreathing
dragon became “dragoon.”

Early firearms                                                                                                                                                                                              Siege Attack: Points of damage

Gun name	Cost (gp)	Avg.  wt.  (lbs.)	Wt. of missile (#)	Range (in game)  Min.	Range (in game) Max.	Damage S-M	L	Rate of fire	Crew (min.-max.)	Caliber  (inches)	Avg.  length  ('/")	Wood	Earth	Soft  Stone	Hard  Rock	Def. point  value
Handgun	30	6	0.2	1	50	2-6	2-6	1/2	1-2	1	1'1	-	-	-	-	-
Ribald	380	804	0.2	1	50	2-62	2-62	1/243	1-3	1	4'5	1/2	-	-	-	1/2
Rabinet	200	300	0.5	20	200	1-10	1-10	1/2	2-3	1	3'	1	-	1/2	-	1
Serpentine	400	420	1	50	600	1-10	2-12	1/2	2-3	1 1/2	4'	2	-	1	1/2	2
Falconet	800	500	2	75	900	2-12	2-12	1/2	2-3	2	6'	4	-	2	1	3
Falcon	1000	800	3	100	1000	2-16	2-16	1/2	2-3	2 1/2	6'4"	5	-	3	1	4
Minion	1600	1200	4	120	1200	3-24	3-30	1/3	2-4	3 1/4	6'6"	5	-	4	2	5
Saker	2000	1500	6	150	1600	3-30	3-30	1/3	3-5	3 1/2	7'9"	6	1/2	4	2	6
Bastard culverin	2200	2600	7	170	2000	4-32	4-32	1/3	3-6	4	9'	6	1/2	4	3	7
Demi-culverin	2300	3000	9	200	2200	4-32	4-40	1-3	4-6	4 1/4	11'6"	7	1/2	5	3	7
Basilisk	2400	3280	12	300	2400	4-32	5-20	1/4	4-7	4 3/4	11'8"	7	1	5	3	7
Culverin	2500	4000	18	300	2600	4-32	5-30	1/4	4-9	5 1/4	12'	8	1	6	4	8
Pedrero	3000	4200	24	280	2500	5-20	5-30	1/5	4-11	6	9'6"	8	1	6	4	8
Demi-cannon	3600	4500	32	260	2300	5-20	5-40	1/5	5-13	6 1/2	11'	8	1	6	4	8
Bastard cannon	4000	5000	35	260	2200	5-30	5-40	1/6	5-13	6 1/2	10'11"	9	1	6	4	9
Cannon serpentine	4250	5600	38	260	1900	5-40	5-40	1/8	5-14	6 3/4	10'11"	9	2	7	5	9
Cannon	4500	6000	40	250	1700	5-40	5-50	1/10	5-15	7	10'9"	10	2	7	5	10
Cannon royal	4900	8000	68	200	1200	5-50	5-50	1/14	6-15	8 1/2	8'6"	12	3	8	5	11
Bombard	5000	8000	2006	100	500	6-48	6-60	4/day	7-15	126	12'+	14	4	10	6	12

¹ Does not include the 2' stock.
² This value is per barrel, of which there are 12; thus total damage done is 2-6 (2d3), rolled twelve times.
³ Each barrel must be individually cleaned out, charged, tamped, loaded, primed and lit (and the whole aimed). With two men, the
rate of fire rises to 1/12, or once every 12 rounds. A third man raises it to once every 8 rounds. The rate cannot be further increased.
⁴ The ribald's weight includes cart.
⁵ This is its longest dimension; the ribald (with cart) was 2' wide, 4' long, and 3' high.
⁶ Maximum value; smaller sizes possible.

<I have not included the Abbreviated Table, yet. Note that there is a weapon there named the Dolphin, which is not included in the above table.>

Firing guns
Gunpowder is a perilous substance
and handling a medieval gun was often
more dangerous than facing one. There
is a 10% chance (not cumulative) a gun
explodes when fired. (See AD&D module
S3, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks;
treat the explosion as a grenade blast,
effective within 3”.) This chance is lessened
(-5%) if the gun crew is experienced
in handling the weapon in question,
and lessened further (-1%) if the
gun itself was successfully fired before.
However, if the gun has been fired 25
times without careful examination and
maintenance by a gunsmith, the chance
of explosion increases by 2% with each
additional firing.

The DM should take careful note of
other factors — such as flaming arrows
on a battlefield —that may affect premature
explosion. The most common cause
of such an accident was overcharging a
gun; that is, using too much powder. The
DM should judge when the gunner — by
mischance or upon instruction — has
used too much (a culverin requires 12
Ibs. of gunpowder per shot, smaller caliber
guns less, and larger caliber guns
more).

Basically, operating a gun includes
the following steps: Unload the gun from
its carriage, emplace it — the gunner ensuring
it is aimed — clean the barrel, mix
the gunpowder (this is generally done by
the master gunner while his crew positions
and emplaces the gun), load the
charge into the gun, wad it (to cap the
charge), tamp it (so the charge is packed
together and will burn quickly and evenly),
load and ram the shot, light the
charge by slow match, touchhole, or
powder trail, and head for cover before
the blast goes off.

After firing (assuming the gun and
some of the enemy and crew survive),
the gun must be re-aimed, the barrel
cleaned out, and the weapon reloaded.
Cleaning out all those barrels is why the
ribald (see table) has a low fire rate. Increasing
the number of people in the
crew can as much as double the firing
rate, but only so many men can work
around a gun before they start getting in
each other’s way.

Naval use of gunpowder
DMs should not allow successful waterborne
use of guns, confining gunpowder
to use in incendiary missiles
hurled by mechanical engines such as
catapults. Naval warfare can be fearsome
enough with this and “Greek fire,”
without using guns.

Men historically made fast work of the
problems of guns at sea, but the DM can
make the troubles insurmountable: Guns
are very heavy. They fall through damaged
decks and hulls, and can cause a
ship to roll over and capsize if they assume
unbalanced positions onboard.
Their recoil (before the days of traveling
carriages) was absorbed entirely by the
timbers of the ship, and the distressing
tendency of guns to explode destroyed
many vessels. Any vessel with a gun also
has an extremely vulnerable area: the
gunpowder magazine.

“Greek fire” was dreaded by ancient
and medieval sailors, and with good reason;
it burned on water and even damaged
stone and iron. The exact formula
is lost, but the terror weapon was liquid,
could be blown from tubes or encased in
missiles, and could be extinguished only
by sand, vinegar, or urine. It was probably
a mixture of naptha, quicklime, sulphur,
salt, petroleum and oils, and was
the heir of incendiaries used by the ancient
Greeks and Armenians (mixtures
of pitch, resin, and sulphur) and Romans
(quicklime and sulphur that ignited on
contact with water).

Even if guns are not carried on ships,
bear in mind that military men in the
AD&D world will be quick to place them
onshore to defend harbors and strategically
important channels.

Strategic importance of gunpowder
Even when guns made more noise
than damage, they had a powerful effect
upon the behavior of horses and a lesser
effect on the morale of warriors. Despite
the expense and battlefield impracticality
of the guns, romantic, forward-looking
— and desperate — rulers will be most
interested in controlling the production
and use of guns (and gunnery).

In Piper’s Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen,
the priests of Styphon built an empire on
their control of gunpowder. Guns and
the knowledge of their construction were
of priceless strategic importance. The
success of Lord Kalvan, and historically
of John Zizka and of Gustavus Adolphus,
is due to putting their mastery of
this knowledge to battlefield use.

A DM may also consider guns of immense
strategic importance when a toococky
player character takes his Dragon
Slayer sword in hand and rides out upon
reports of a “a great snakelike monster
that belches fire with much noise” expecting
another rich treasure and easilyearned
level...
 

OUT ON A LIMB

Gary on gunpowder

Dear Editor:
With regard to gun powder in the D&D® or
AD&D™ game systems, I wish to point out the
following: The rules contain no provision for
the use of such materials. In general, gun
powder will not work. That is because it functions
on a scientific principle, and as every
adventurer knows, the fables of science and
technology are sometimes found in strange
areas, but the laws of magic are such that no
one can possibly believe in these arcane pursuits.
They never produce results.
 

E. Gary Gygax
Lake Geneva, Wis
(Dragon #66)

‘What the heck?’

Dear Editor:
What the heck’s going on?! Ed Greenwood’s
attempt (“Firearms,” issue #60) to convince
AD&D players and DMs to change this finely
designed game into a “historical simulation”
startled me.

Introducing firearms would dangerously
disrupt the balance of the game. Limiting firearms,
as Mr. Greenwood suggested, would be
nearly impossible because of probable experimentation.
There’s bound to be at least one
mad wizard in the crowd. AD&D might become
AG&G, Advanced Gunpowder and Gunslingers.
Why not just play BOOT HILL?

Keeping the true philosophy of the game
will keep the game more interesting and challenging
for both player and DM. What would
be the product of a game with guns that do
5-50 points of damage in a world where the
average person has 3 hit points?

Kwang Lee
Federal Way, Wash.
(Dragon #63)
 

Firing back

Dear Editor:
Kwang Lee’s letter (“Out on a Limb,” issue
#63) against Ed Greenwood’s “Firearms” article
(issue #60) appeared to jump to several
conclusions.

For one, Greenwood’s article was not an
attempt to change the AD&D system into a
historical simulation. Gunnery would remain
more of an art rather than a science. Early
firearms were crude, cumbersome, and very
few in number. Their effect on the game as a
whole would be minor, as the guns’ use would
be extremely limited. Cold steel and magic,
rather than gunpowder, would remain as the
“great equalizers.”

Experimentation and further development
of these weapons should be firmly controlled
by the DM. Suggestions from the players can
be used, but development and use of major
firearms should be limited to NPC’s and the
DM. If players insist on expanding their armory
by developing gunpowder, a DM-invented
threat can be extremely persuasive in halting
such activity. Or, better yet, the DM can say
that the character’s gunpowder just doesn’t
work (due to wetness, improper mixing, etc.).

If a player persists, and the DM is feeling
particularly nasty, a percentage chance can
be used to determine if the gunpowder accidentally
explodes (a 500-pound charge of
gunpowder going off in a laboratory tends to
stop further research for a time). These methods,
both warnings and direct action, will prevent
“mad wizards” from abusing gunpowder.

Lee also complains about the use of a cannon
that does 5-50 points of damage when
normal people only have 3 hit points. Only a
fool would use an 8½-inch cannon against a
single normal person. A cannon of that size is
made to be used against forts, not people.
Besides, the 14 rounds it takes to reload the
8,000-pound monster is more than enough
time to get out of the gun’s line of fire, as they
cannot follow moving targets (they have
enough trouble hitting fixed ones as it is).

In combat situations, 5-50 is not as powerful
as it may seem. A medium-level (6th level)
magic-user spits out more damage in less
than one-seventh of the time (two fireballs for
6-36 each, or 12-72 total); a red dragon can
inflict up to 164 points of damage on a party in
a single round! This does not include the 88
points of breath weapon available to some of
these creatures. The 50-point maximum of
the cannon pales when confronted by this
whirlwind of power.

However, the final choice is up to the individual.
If gunpowder is used in a campaign
the DM should determine beforehand the
amount of the guns’ use and the extent of their
effect. A pre-set limit on the evolution of the
weapons and the DM’s firm control of their
use will make it impossible for the weapons to
disrupt the balance of the game.

Steven Zamboni
Sacramento, Calif.
(Dragon #65)