Wheel of Weapons: 150 from History and Legend

Spin one of 150 weapons in 12 groups and read what it really is, who carried it and when.

Wheel of Weapons: 150 from History and Legend

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Spin 1 · number 84

Iklwa

The short Zulu stabbing spear, with a shaft of about 60 cm and a broad blade about 30 cm long. Warriors threw lighter spears from range first, then closed in with the iklwa in one hand and a cowhide shield in the other.

Every spin uses the whole wheel.

150 weapons on the wheel.

Numbers on the wheel

  1. Arming sword
  2. Longsword
  3. Zweihander
  4. Claymore
  5. Falchion
  6. Messer
  7. Estoc
  8. Rapier
  9. Smallsword
  10. Sabre
  11. Cutlass
  12. Scimitar
  13. Talwar
  14. Khanda
  15. Pata
  16. Gladius
  17. Falcata
  18. Khopesh
  19. Shotel
  20. Katana
  21. Wakizashi
  22. Odachi
  23. Jian
  24. Dao
  25. Hook swords
  26. Flame-bladed sword
  27. Stiletto
  28. Rondel dagger
  29. Dirk
  30. Kris
  31. Katar
  32. Tanto
  33. Parrying dagger
  34. Karambit
  35. Kukri
  36. Kunai
  37. Battle axe
  38. Dane axe
  39. Bearded axe
  40. Tomahawk
  41. Labrys
  42. Mace
  43. Flanged mace
  44. Morning star
  45. Goedendag
  46. War hammer
  47. Maul
  48. Horseman's pick
  49. Club
  50. Kanabo
  51. Shillelagh
  52. Knobkerrie
  53. Mere
  54. Macuahuitl
  55. Tonfa
  56. Sai
  57. Jitte
  58. War fan
  59. Quarterstaff
  60. Bo staff
  61. Spear
  62. Sarissa
  63. Pike
  64. Lance
  65. Trident
  66. Halberd
  67. Glaive
  68. Bill
  69. Bardiche
  70. Poleaxe
  71. Bec de corbin
  72. Lucerne hammer
  73. Partisan
  74. Ranseur
  75. Corseque
  76. Guisarme
  77. War scythe
  78. Military fork
  79. Naginata
  80. Yari
  81. Guandao
  82. Ji
  83. Dagger-axe
  84. Iklwa
  85. Longbow
  86. Composite bow
  87. Yumi
  88. Crossbow
  89. Arbalest
  90. Repeating crossbow
  91. Sling
  92. Blowgun
  93. Javelin
  94. Assegai
  95. Atlatl
  96. Harpoon
  97. Boomerang
  98. Bolas
  99. Chakram
  100. Shuriken
  101. Francisca
  102. Throwing knife
  103. Weighted net
  104. Peasant flail
  105. Ball-and-chain flail
  106. Nunchaku
  107. Three-section staff
  108. Kusarigama
  109. Rope dart
  110. Meteor hammer
  111. Chain whip
  112. Bullwhip
  113. Urumi
  114. Buckler
  115. Round shield
  116. Kite shield
  117. Heater shield
  118. Pavise
  119. Targe
  120. Scutum
  121. Aspis
  122. Tower shield
  123. Nguni shield
  124. Hand cannon
  125. Arquebus
  126. Musket
  127. Flintlock pistol
  128. Blunderbuss
  129. Dragon pistol
  130. Sickle
  131. Boat oar
  132. Billhook
  133. Pitchfork
  134. Walking stick
  135. Blacksmith's hammer
  136. Frying pan
  137. Broom
  138. Torch
  139. Magic sword
  140. Flaming sword
  141. Cursed sword
  142. Reforged sword
  143. Destined sword
  144. Talking sword
  145. Thunder hammer
  146. Unerring spear
  147. Size-changing staff
  148. Wand
  149. Wizard's staff
  150. Reaper's scythe

Results

  1. 1. Iklwa

Tip: the space bar and the Enter key spin the wheel, and so does a tap on the wheel itself. Press again to skip to the result.

Next step Spin the monster it has to faceSpin the job of whoever carries it

Wheel of Weapons: 150 from History and Legend: how it works

This wheel of weapons holds 150 entries from history and legend in 12 groups, from swords and polearms to shields and the weapons of myth. Tap a group, spin, and read the result card. It says what the weapon is, who carried it and when, so you can draw it or write it correctly.

Pick the group that fits your setting

Stuck for a weapon? Spin the wheel on one group, because all 150 at once is hard to read. Swords is the largest with 26 and Early black powder guns the smallest with six. The group sets the era: a Bronze Age story wants a khopesh or a dagger-axe, not a rapier, and a pirate crew wants the cutlass and the blunderbuss.

Where fiction gets weapons wrong

Fiction gets weapons wrong in repeatable ways, and the cards put them right. A glaive is a single-edged blade on a pole, not a thrown star. A morning star has no chain; that is a flail. A kunai is thought to have begun as a mason's trowel, and was not made mainly for throwing. The labrys of Crete was a sacred symbol that only goddesses hold in Cretan art.

Tips

  • Let the weapon imply the job: a billhook means a farmer, a jitte means an Edo police officer, a partisan means a palace guard.
  • Game masters can use it as a weapon wheel spinner for random loot: pick a group, use Elimination mode and no two players draw the same item.
  • Spin Shields as well. A longsword is built for two hands, so its owner usually carries no shield.

Questions and answers

How accurate are the cards?

Names, dates, sizes and users were checked against English Wikipedia on 18 September 2026: the weapon's own article where it has one, an overview page such as Polearm where not. Sources disagree on sizes, so read a measurement as a range. Claims an article did not support were cut, such as the francisca bouncing unpredictably.

Does the wheel include modern guns?

No. The newest are six black powder types, from the hand cannon to the flintlock pistol, which suit pirates and musketeers. There are no modern firearms, models or brands. The cards describe the object and its history, not how to fight with it.

Can I add a weapon from my own story or game?

Yes. Tap My list and type it in, one per line, up to 100 lines, saved in this browser only. That makes a random weapon wheel for your setting: it spins only your lines, and a tap on Weapons brings the built-in list back. A signature weapon from a favourite series belongs there, because the built-in list keeps to history and public legend.

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All 150 weapons

Early black powder guns 6

  • Arquebus A 15th-century long gun and the first with a trigger. Squeezing it lowered a smouldering cord, the match, into a pan of priming powder. The name goes back to a Dutch word for 'hook gun', after the lug that steadied early ones on a wall. Reloading took 20 to 60 seconds.
  • Blunderbuss A short, large-bore, muzzle-loading gun with a flared muzzle, used from the 17th to the mid-19th century. The name comes from Dutch donderbus, and donder means thunder. English mail-coach guards carried it against highwaymen.
  • Dragon pistol A pistol-sized blunderbuss, named for the dragon's head carved on early muzzles. The word dragoon comes from it.
  • Flintlock pistol Pulling the trigger snaps a flint against a steel plate, and the sparks light the priming powder. The lock was made in France around 1610 and stayed in use for over two centuries. It gave English 'flash in the pan', 'going off half-cocked' and 'lock, stock and barrel'.
  • Hand cannon The first true firearm: a plain metal barrel on a handle or pole with no mechanism at all. The shooter lit it by hand through a touch hole. It was widely used in China from the 13th century and reached Europe in the 14th.
  • Musket A muzzle-loaded smoothbore long gun. In the early 16th century the word meant an arquebus so heavy that it was fired from a forked rest. The name lasted into the 19th century, when rifles replaced it.

Bows, crossbows and slings 8

  • Arbalest A large medieval crossbow with a steel bow, which appeared in Europe around the 12th century. A skilled arbalestier could loose two bolts a minute.
  • Blowgun A long, narrow tube that shoots light darts on the user's breath. Peoples of the Amazon and Southeast Asia, and the Cherokee with river-cane tubes, used it to hunt small animals such as birds. In Japan it survives as the sport of fukiya.
  • Composite bow Horn on the belly, a wooden core and sinew on the back, joined with animal glue. The result is a short bow with high power, which is why horse archers from the Scythians to the Mongols used it. Damp weakens the glue, so it was kept in a leather case.
  • Crossbow A bow fixed crosswise on a stock, shooting short bolts. A trigger lock holds the string, so it can be carried ready and aimed without hurry, and it took little training. The cost was speed: about two bolts a minute. The earliest known come from ancient China.
  • Longbow A bow about 6 feet long, usually of yew, used by the English and Welsh in the Hundred Years' War at Crécy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415. Mastery took years, and archers' skeletons show it. The Mary Rose, sunk in 1545, held 137 whole longbows and over 3,500 arrows.
  • Repeating crossbow A Chinese crossbow from the Warring States period with a magazine on top. One push and pull of the lever spans the bow, drops a bolt and shoots. It is fast and weak: up to ten bolts in 20 seconds. It is named after the strategist Zhuge Liang, who did not invent it.
  • Sling A pouch between two cords, whirled and released. It throws stones, clay or cast lead bullets. Balearic slingers were famous mercenaries, and David used one against Goliath. Lead bullets were sometimes moulded with a taunt such as the Greek for 'catch'. Fixed to a pole it becomes the staff sling.
  • Yumi The Japanese asymmetrical bow, more than 2 m tall and usually taller than the archer. The grip sits about two thirds of the way down. It is built from laminated bamboo, wood and leather, was a key samurai weapon and is still shot in kyudo.

Tools and improvised 9

  • Billhook A hooked farm blade for trimming tree limbs. Add spikes and a long shaft and it becomes the bill, the polearm of late medieval English infantry. A character who starts with the tool can end with the weapon.
  • Blacksmith's hammer A working hammer has a plain face. A war hammer adds a back spike and often splits the face into points. Which one your character swings shows whether they are a craftsman or a soldier.
  • Boat oar The eku of Okinawan kobudo is a fisherman's oar, and one of its basic moves flings sand with the blade. A good choice for a character who lives on the water.
  • Broom A broom handle is a short staff that nobody looks at twice. It suits a disguised fighter, a caretaker, or a witch who prefers to keep her feet on the ground.
  • Frying pan No history here, only a loud clang. An improvised weapon tells the reader the fight was not planned, so decide what the character was cooking.
  • Pitchfork The farm tool behind the military fork, which usually had just two straight tines. In a story a pitchfork says the village had no time to arm itself.
  • Sickle A farming sickle. In Okinawan kobudo it is the kama, counted among the hardest weapons to learn. The popular story that Okinawan farmers armed themselves with tools under a weapons ban has little historical backing.
  • Torch Light and a threat in one hand. The catch is the clock: a torch burns down, and the character is in the dark when it does.
  • Walking stick The walking stick has its own fighting method. Bartitsu, developed in London between 1898 and 1902, taught stick fighting drawn from the Swiss master Pierre Vigny. Sherlock Holmes credits 'baritsu' with saving him at the Reichenbach Falls.

Daggers and knives 10

  • Dirk A long thrusting dagger with two famous forms. The naval dirk was worn by midshipmen and officers in the Age of Sail. The Scottish dirk was the sidearm of Highland clansmen, who swore oaths on it, and it is still worn with Highland dress by officers and pipers.
  • Karambit A small, claw-shaped curved knife of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra. Folklore says it copies a tiger's claw. It began as a farm tool for raking roots and planting rice, and the ring in the handle keeps it in the hand.
  • Katar A push dagger from South India. The H-shaped grip sits crosswise in the fist, so the blade lies in line with the forearm above the knuckles. Nobles wore ornate ones to show rank.
  • Kris An asymmetrical dagger from Java that spread across Southeast Asia. A wavy blade always has an odd number of curves, usually 3 to 13, though many old kris are straight. The patterned metal is called pamor. A kris is kept as a sacred heirloom and is recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
  • Kukri A forward-curving knife or short sword, the national weapon of Nepal and the blade of the Gurkhas. It is also the most common all-purpose tool in Nepali fields and homes. The small notch at the base of the blade is called the cho.
  • Kunai A Japanese tool believed to descend from the mason's trowel, used by peasants for gardening and by stoneworkers. It has a leaf-shaped blade of roughly 20 to 30 cm and a ring on the pommel for a rope. Despite its image in popular culture, it was not designed mainly for throwing.
  • Parrying dagger The off-hand partner of the rapier, from the 16th century. The French name main-gauche means 'left hand'. It has long quillons and a wide knuckle guard. The swordbreaker version has comb-like teeth to catch a blade; whether it could really break one is uncertain.
  • Rondel dagger Named for its round guard and round pommel. A stiff blade of 12 inches or more with a needle point, in use from the 14th century. By the 15th it was the standard knightly sidearm, and it was worn by everyone from merchants to knights.
  • Stiletto A long, slim dagger with a needle point, made only for thrusting. It first appeared in Italy in the late 15th century and could slip through mail or the gaps in plate armour. The name comes from the Latin stilus, the writing tool.
  • Tanto A Japanese dagger, literally 'short blade', of 15 to 30 cm, dating from the Heian period (794 to 1185). Samurai wore it until the wakizashi replaced it as the short half of the sword pair.

Chains, whips and flails 10

  • Ball-and-chain flail The short handle with a spiked ball on a chain is everywhere in fiction and rare in history. It existed, was not commonly used, and some museum pieces turned out to be 19th-century fakes. It suits a fantasy villain better than a historical knight.
  • Bullwhip A single-tailed braided whip made for herding. The crack is a small sonic boom: part of the whip passes the speed of sound. Herders rarely touched cattle with it, because the noise did the steering.
  • Chain whip A Chinese weapon of metal rods linked end to end by rings, with a handle at one end and a dart at the other. Traditional ones have seven or nine sections. The cloth flags near the tip make a rushing sound that helps the user track the far end.
  • Kusarigama A Japanese sickle joined to a chain with an iron weight at the end. It is said to date from the Muromachi period.
  • Meteor hammer The Chinese liuxing chui: a weight on one or both ends of a rope or chain. The double-headed kind is 2 to 3 m long. The single-headed kind has a rope of about 6 m and is difficult to control.
  • Nunchaku Two hardwood sticks of about 30 cm joined by a short cord or chain, used in Okinawan kobudo. Its origin is unclear: a threshing flail, a horse's bit and a night watchman's clapper are all theories. It was mainly a training weapon until 1970s films made it famous.
  • Peasant flail The farm threshing flail turned into a two-handed weapon: a striking head joined to a long handle by a chain or strap. The Hussites used it in the 15th century, and so did rebels in the German Peasants' War.
  • Rope dart A metal spike on a rope 3 to 5 m long, one of the flexible weapons of Chinese martial arts. Its earliest known record is a drawing in a 19th-century book about Beijing street vendors, which suggests it was a performer's act.
  • Three-section staff The Chinese sanjiegun: three staves joined by rings or rope. It works as a whip at long range, a flail at mid range and a pair of sticks up close. The tale that a Song emperor invented it is a modern legend.
  • Urumi A sword with a flexible, whip-like blade from Kerala in south-west India, used in kalaripayattu. It is worn coiled around the waist like a belt. Students learn it last, because it needs the skills of both the whip and the sword.

Shields 10

  • Aspis The round, bowl-shaped wooden shield of the Greek hoplite, reinforced with bronze. In the phalanx it also covered the man to the left.
  • Buckler A small round shield, 20 to 40 cm across, usually metal and hung from the belt. It is the second half of the word swashbuckler.
  • Heater shield A smaller knightly shield. Its outline is the shape heraldry still uses for a coat of arms, so it is the natural place to paint your character's emblem.
  • Kite shield The Norman shield from about the 10th century: rounded at the top and tapered below, a shape that covered a horseman's leg. It was held by straps called enarmes.
  • Nguni shield A single ox hide on a wooden spine, carried in the 19th century with the iklwa, the short stabbing spear.
  • Pavise A large shield that stands on its own. Crossbowmen sheltered behind it while they reloaded.
  • Round shield Light wood such as linden with a leather cover and a metal boss over the hand. It could punch as well as block, and in a line it made the shield wall.
  • Scutum The large shield of the Roman legionary, oval at first and later rectangular. Scuta held together made the testudo formation.
  • Targe The small round shield of 18th-century Scottish Highlanders. It belongs to the same century as the basket-hilted claymore.
  • Tower shield A Mycenaean shield of leather over a wicker frame that covered the body from head to foot.

Thrown weapons 11

  • Assegai A light throwing spear with a wooden shaft and an iron tip, used across Africa and best known from the Zulu, Xhosa and other Nguni peoples. The word comes from a Berber word for spear.
  • Atlatl A spear-thrower: a stick about as long as a forearm with a hook or cup at the end that holds the butt of a dart and lengthens the throwing arm. The oldest known is about 17,500 years old. Atlatl is the Nahuatl word; in Australia the tool is a woomera.
  • Bolas Two or three weights on linked cords, swung and thrown to wrap around an animal's legs. Gauchos used them on running cattle, the Tehuelche of Patagonia on guanacos and rheas, and Inuit hunters on birds in flight.
  • Boomerang A thrown tool with wings shaped like an aerofoil. The returning kind was for sport, play and scaring birds into nets. The hunting kind is heavier, flies straight for 40 to 90 m and does not come back. A mammoth-tusk boomerang found in Poland is about 40,000 years old.
  • Chakram A flat steel throwing ring with a sharp outer edge, 12 to 30 cm across, from the Indian subcontinent. Sikh Nihang warriors wear them on their turbans.
  • Francisca The throwing axe of the Franks, their signature weapon from about 500 to 750, with an arch-shaped head on a short haft. The Franks threw their axes together at one signal, just before the lines met, to break shields.
  • Harpoon A barbed spear on a line, used to catch large fish and sea mammals. Arctic hunters use a toggling head that detaches and turns sideways so the line cannot pull out. For a character the rope is the interesting part: a harpoon brings its target back.
  • Javelin A light spear made for throwing. Greek peltasts carried several and used a throwing strap, the amentum, for extra range. Roman legionaries carried two heavy javelins called pila, each about 2 m long with an iron shank.
  • Shuriken Japanese for 'hand-hidden blade'. There are two kinds: straight spikes, and the flat multi-pointed plates known as throwing stars, made from things like old coins and carpentry tools. It was a distraction to set up the sword, not a main weapon.
  • Throwing knife A knife built and weighted to be thrown. In a balanced knife the centre of gravity sits at the middle, so its flight is easier to predict. Central African throwing knives such as the kpinga had several iron blades.
  • Weighted net The weapon of the Roman retiarius, the gladiator dressed as a fisherman. He wore no helmet and carried a net, a trident and a dagger. He cast the net to tangle his opponent, the armoured secutor, or to snag his weapon away.

Axes, maces and hammers 12

  • Battle axe An axe built for war. It is lighter than a wood-splitting axe, with a blade closer to a cleaver's. Historical examples weigh 0.5 to 3 kg and run from 30 cm to 1.5 m long.
  • Bearded axe The Viking skeggox. The lower edge of the blade trails down like a beard, and that hook could catch the rim of a shield and pull it aside.
  • Dane axe A heavy crescent head on a long haft held in two hands: about 0.9 to 1.2 m on a fighting axe, and up to 1.7 m on showpieces. It began as a Viking weapon, was taken up by the Anglo-Saxons and Normans in the 11th century and was still used in Scotland and Ireland into the 16th. King Stephen fought with one at Lincoln in 1141.
  • Flanged mace A mace whose head is a ring of metal fins. The flanges put the whole blow on a small area and bite into armour without sliding off. It was Byzantine around 900 and popular in Europe from the 12th century. The Kievan Rus' version is the pernach, from pero, 'feather'.
  • Goedendag A Flemish weapon: a thick wooden staff of about 90 to 150 cm tipped with a stout iron spike. Flemish guildsmen carried it against French knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs on 11 July 1302.
  • Horseman's pick A war hammer with a long, slightly down-curved spike like a miner's pickaxe, carried by medieval cavalry in Europe and West Asia. The Polish Winged Hussars called theirs the nadziak.
  • Labrys A double-headed axe from Minoan Crete, where it was a sacred symbol, not a weapon, and small ones were left as offerings. In Cretan art only goddesses hold it. Fantasy made it the default great axe, so give yours a reason for the second blade.
  • Mace A heavy head on a handle. It could hurt through armour and dent plate, and it was cheap and simple to make. Its ceremonial descendants are still used by parliaments and universities.
  • Maul A long-handled hammer with a heavy head, much like a sledgehammer. English longbowmen used mauls at Agincourt.
  • Morning star A shaft topped with a spiked head, usually with one long spike at the top. It was in wide use from the early 1300s, especially in Germany as the Morgenstern, and many surviving examples are two-handed and about six feet long. It has no chain: that is a flail, and the two are often confused.
  • Tomahawk A one-handed axe of the Indigenous peoples of North America. The word comes from Powhatan tamahaac. Stone, bone or antler heads gave way to iron and steel trade heads. The pipe tomahawk, with a bowl on the back and a hollow shaft, was a diplomatic gift: one end peace, the other war.
  • War hammer The answer to plate armour that swords glanced off. One side is a hammer face, often split into points so it would not slide, and the other is a spike for hooking and piercing. Riders carried short ones of 60 to 90 cm, foot soldiers long ones of 1.5 to 1.8 m.

Clubs, staves and truncheons 12

  • Bo staff The six-foot staff called the king of Okinawan weapons. It may have developed from the tenbin, a carrying pole.
  • Club A short staff or stick, perhaps the simplest weapon of all and in use since prehistory. Myth hands it to the strongest figures, from Hercules to the Japanese oni.
  • Jitte 'Ten hands'. A blunt iron truncheon with a single hook, carried by police in Edo-period Japan almost as a badge of office. The hook was probably not for catching a swinging sword, a popular belief, but for trapping a blade the shaft had already blocked.
  • Kanabo A two-handed Japanese war club of heavy wood or iron covered in studs or spikes, averaging about 140 cm. It is the weapon of the oni in folk tales. The saying 'like giving a kanabo to an oni' means handing an advantage to someone who is already stronger.
  • Knobkerrie A wooden club with a large knob at one end, from Southern and Eastern Africa. The name joins Afrikaans knop, 'knob', to a Khoekhoe or San word for a walking stick. It can be thrown, and in peacetime it is a walking stick. One lies on the South African coat of arms as a symbol of peace.
  • Macuahuitl A Mesoamerican wooden sword-club edged with obsidian blades, a standard weapon of the Aztecs. The Nahuatl name means 'hand-wood'. Obsidian takes a sharper edge than a steel razor but is brittle. The last authentic one was lost in a fire at Madrid's Royal Armoury in 1884.
  • Mere A short, flat, teardrop-shaped Māori hand weapon, about 35 cm long and usually made of pounamu, the greenstone jade. The broad, rounded end is ground to a sharp edge. A mere was the mark of a chief: named, handed down for generations and said to hold mana of its own.
  • Quarterstaff A hardwood staff 6 to 9 feet long, sometimes tipped with metal, and regarded as a national weapon of early modern England. It turns up again and again in the Robin Hood ballads. The grip with one hand at the quarter and one in the middle appears only in late 19th-century manuals.
  • Sai An Okinawan pointed metal truncheon shaped like a short-handled trident, sharp only at the tips. The two side prongs trap an opponent's weapon. The story that it began as a farm rake is considered highly unlikely.
  • Shillelagh An Irish walking stick that doubles as a cudgel, with a large knob at the top. It is made of blackthorn or oak, and the knob was often root wood because it cracks less. Sticks were smeared with butter and cured up a chimney, which gave the black shine. The stick-fighting art is called bataireacht.
  • Tonfa An Okinawan club with a side handle, often used in pairs. It may have started as the handle of a millstone, and it is the ancestor of the side-handle police baton.
  • War fan The tessen is a folding fan with heavy iron outer plates, or a solid bar shaped like a closed fan, carried where swords were not allowed. Commanders signalled with a larger solid fan, the gunbai. Legend says Takeda Shingen turned aside Uesugi Kenshin's sword with one at Kawanakajima.

Myth and fantasy 12

  • Cursed sword Tyrfing, from Norse legend, was forged by dwarfs. It never missed and never rusted, but it was cursed to bring harm every time it was used and to cause three great evils. A cursed weapon is a bargain: write down both halves.
  • Destined sword Odin thrust the sword Gram into the tree Barnstokkr, and only Sigmund could pull it out. The motif answers a useful question for a writer: why does this character, and nobody else, carry this weapon?
  • Flaming sword An old image. In Genesis a flaming sword guards the way back to Eden. In Norse myth the giant Surtr carries one. The Welsh sword Dyrnwyn, 'White-Hilt', blazes along its blade, but only when a worthy man draws it.
  • Magic sword In legend a magic sword is usually famous for its owner or its divine maker, not for a list of powers. Excalibur came from the Lady of the Lake, and it was the scabbard that kept its bearer from harm. Give yours one property and one rule.
  • Reaper's scythe Death has been drawn as a skeleton in Western Europe since the Middle Ages, usually robed and holding a scythe. The name Grim Reaper first appears in English in 1847. A real war scythe has its blade set upright; the one in the pictures is a mowing tool.
  • Reforged sword The broken sword that must be made whole is a recurring motif in legend, and it stands for lost honour restored. Gram was shattered by Odin and reforged by Sigurd before he faced the dragon Fafnir.
  • Size-changing staff In the 16th-century novel Journey to the West, the monkey Sun Wukong takes an iron pillar from the Dragon King's undersea treasury. It weighs 13,500 catties, grows or shrinks at his wish, and spends its off hours as a needle tucked in his ear.
  • Talking sword Legend allows a sword a mind of its own, from a gentle nudge to a blade that can think for itself or even control its owner. Decide what it wants, and what it does when it disagrees.
  • Thunder hammer Thor's hammer Mjölnir was made by the dwarf brothers Eitri and Brokkr. It never missed, always returned to his hand and could shrink to fit inside his shirt. The short handle was a flaw from the forging. About 1,000 hammer pendants survive from the Viking Age.
  • Unerring spear Odin's spear Gungnir, made by the dwarfs called the Sons of Ivaldi, is known for hitting its target whatever the skill of the thrower. A weapon that cannot miss needs a limit somewhere else.
  • Wand A slim rod held in one hand, traditionally cut from oak or hazel. Homer gave wands to three gods: Hermes's puts people to sleep, Athena's makes Odysseus old and young again, and Circe's turns his crew into pigs.
  • Wizard's staff A wand grown to walking height. Make it work as a walking stick and a quarterstaff first and as a magical tool second, so the character is never unarmed when the magic runs out.

Spears and polearms 24

  • Bardiche A long cleaver-like axe blade, often over 60 cm, fixed to the shaft at two points, with no top spike and no back hook. The shaft rarely passed 1.5 m. The streltsy of 16th-century Russia carried it and rested their guns on it to shoot.
  • Bec de corbin Old French for 'raven's beak'. A hammer head and a stout beak on a long pole, popular in late medieval Europe. It looks like a Lucerne hammer, but the hammer face is usually blunt and the top spike shorter.
  • Bill A farm billhook turned into an infantry weapon: a point to thrust with, a hook to drag with and a spike to cut with. It belongs with the longbow in the English armies of the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of the Roses, and English billmen still fought at Flodden in 1513.
  • Corseque A three-bladed head on a 6 to 8 foot haft, from the 16th and 17th centuries. The two side blades either spread at 45 degrees or hook back toward the user.
  • Dagger-axe The Chinese ge: a bronze, dagger-shaped blade mounted at a right angle to the shaft. It was used from the Shang dynasty until at least the Han.
  • Glaive A single-edged blade on a pole, not a thrown star. The blade is about 45 cm long and sits in a socket on a pole of about 2 m. Some have a small hook on the back, which makes a glaive-guisarme.
  • Guandao A heavy, deeply curved blade on a 5 to 6 foot pole with a pointed metal counterweight. Its proper name is yanyue dao, 'reclining moon blade'. Tradition gives it to the general Guan Yu, but archaeology says blades like this came centuries after his time.
  • Guisarme Used across Europe from about 1000 to 1400, mainly to pull horsemen from the saddle. Peasants made the first ones by fixing a pruning hook to a spear shaft. Later versions added a spike on the back.
  • Halberd An axe blade topped with a spike, with a hook on the back for pulling riders from the saddle, on a shaft of 2 to 2.5 m. It was a leading infantry weapon of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Swiss were famous for it, and the Vatican's Swiss Guard still carries it.
  • Iklwa The short Zulu stabbing spear, with a shaft of about 60 cm and a broad blade about 30 cm long. Warriors threw lighter spears from range first, then closed in with the iklwa in one hand and a cowhide shield in the other.
  • Ji A Chinese polearm that joins a dagger-axe to a spear, in use from the Shang dynasty to the end of the Northern and Southern dynasties.
  • Lance The long cavalry spear, couched under the arm for the charge, a tactic that came to dominate European warfare in the 11th century. A small round plate, the vamplate, keeps the hand from sliding. Jousting lances had blunt, cup-like tips and could be hollow so that they broke on impact.
  • Lucerne hammer A Swiss polearm with a four-pronged hammer head, a long beak behind it and an even longer spike on top. It was carried from the late 15th to the 17th century. The name was coined in 1869, after the many examples kept in the armoury of Lucerne.
  • Military fork A two-tined fork on a pole, descended from the farm pitchfork and used from the 15th to the 19th century. The tines are straight and rarely barbed. It was easier to learn than a sword.
  • Naginata A Japanese polearm with a curved blade on a wooden shaft, usually with a sword-style guard. It left the battlefield after the 15th-century Onin War. From the Edo period it became a martial art practised by women of the samurai class.
  • Partisan A long, sword-like spearhead with side lugs for parrying and trapping a blade, used from the 16th to the 18th century. Firearms ended its fighting life, but it survives in ceremony: the Yeomen of the Guard still carry partisans.
  • Pike A thrusting spear of 3 to 7 m, too long to use in one hand and never thrown. Pikemen stood in dense squares that showed four or five layers of points, the trademark of Swiss mercenaries and German Landsknechte. Bayonets made it obsolete around 1700.
  • Poleaxe The knight's answer to plate armour when fighting on foot: an axe blade or hammer, a back spike and a thrusting spike on top, all on one shaft. Men-at-arms favoured it from the 14th century into the 16th.
  • Ranseur A spear point with a crescent-shaped crosspiece at its base, which gives it a trident look, on a shaft of 6 feet or more. The side arms have no cutting edge: they catch a weapon in the gap below the blade. After the 15th century it was a ceremonial court weapon.
  • Sarissa The Macedonian pike, roughly 5 to 7 m long. Philip II introduced it and Alexander's phalanxes carried it across Asia. It needed both hands, so the shield shrank to a small one. Five rows of points reached past the front rank.
  • Spear A shaft with a point, and one of the oldest and most widespread tools people ever made. The Clacton Spear from England is about 400,000 years old. A Greek hoplite's spear was 7 to 9 feet long with an iron head and a bronze spike on the butt.
  • Trident A three-pronged spear, from the Latin for 'three teeth'. Fishers use it because three tines hit more often and hold better. The Roman retiarius fought with one and a net. It is the attribute of Poseidon and Neptune, and as the trishula it is Shiva's weapon.
  • War scythe A curved, single-edged blade set upright on a pole, sharp on the inside of the curve. It was the weapon of peasants who could not afford pikes or guns. Polish scythemen charged and captured Russian cannon at Racławice in 1794.
  • Yari The straight-headed Japanese spear, from 1 to 6 m long. It took over the battlefield in the late 15th century, when foot soldiers called ashigaru fought in large groups. The jumonji yari adds two upward-curving side blades to make a cross.

Swords 26

  • Arming sword The one-handed, straight, double-edged sword with a cross-shaped hilt that most people picture on a knight. It grew out of the Carolingian sword in the 10th century, with a blade of 70 to 80 cm, and was used with a shield or buckler. When the longsword took over it stayed on the belt as a sidearm, which is where the name comes from.
  • Claymore Gaelic for 'great sword'. The name covers two different Scottish swords: the late medieval two-hander and the basket-hilted sword of the 18th century. Decide which one your Highlander carries before you draw it.
  • Cutlass A short, broad, single-edged slashing sword, often with a cupped guard over the hand, and the standard naval sidearm of the Age of Sail. Sailors liked it because it was compact enough for a crowded deck, sturdy enough to hack through rope and canvas, and took less training than a rapier.
  • Dao The family of single-edged Chinese swords made for slashing and chopping, often called the Chinese sabre or broadsword. It counts as one of the four traditional weapons of China.
  • Estoc Also called a tuck. A sword with no cutting edge at all: the blade is square or triangular in cross-section and made only for thrusting.
  • Falcata A sword of pre-Roman Iberia. The single edge pitches forward toward the point and the grip curls into a hook, often shaped as a horse or bird head. Hannibal armed his troops with it. The name itself is a 19th-century coinage.
  • Falchion A European sword with a wide, single-edged blade and a curved cutting edge. The German Messer is the same idea built on a knife's handle.
  • Flame-bladed sword A sword with a wavy blade, in German Flammenschwert; flamberge is the looser French term. It appears on 16th-century Landsknecht two-handers and on rapiers. The waves were decorative and were said to send unpleasant vibrations into a parrying blade, but they cut no better than a straight edge.
  • Gladius The sword of Roman foot soldiers from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD, with a blade of 45 to 68 cm. Legionaries led with the shield and thrust with the sword. Rome adopted it from the Celtiberians of Hispania, and it is the root of the words gladiator and gladiolus, 'little sword'.
  • Hook swords Chinese swords used as a pair. Each has a hooked tip, a crescent guard over the hand and a sharpened hilt end. Hooked together by the tips, the pair nearly doubles its reach, from about three feet to six. They are often called ancient, but most surviving examples are late Qing or newer.
  • Jian The Chinese straight, double-edged sword, in use for about 2,500 years. One-handed blades run 45 to 80 cm.
  • Katana The curved, slender, single-edged samurai sword, with a blade over 60 cm and a grip for two hands. It was worn thrust through the sash with the edge up, which allowed a draw and a cut in one motion. The older tachi hung edge down from a belt. Quenching the clay-coated blade hardens the edge and leaves the hamon line.
  • Khanda A straight, double-edged sword of the Indian subcontinent whose blade widens toward a tip that is usually blunt. Rajput clans prized it and Sikh warriors carried it, and a khanda stands at the centre of the Sikh emblem of the same name.
  • Khopesh An Egyptian sickle-shaped sword of 50 to 60 cm, descended from crescent battle axes. Only the outer curve is sharp; the inner curve could hook a shield aside. It was first made in bronze and peaked in the New Kingdom. Two ceremonial ones with dull edges were found in Tutankhamun's tomb.
  • Longsword A late medieval and Renaissance sword with a blade of about 80 to 110 cm and a grip made mainly for two hands. A character who holds it in both hands has none free for a shield, so decide what protects them instead.
  • Messer German for 'knife'. A single-edged sword of the 15th and 16th centuries built like a big knife: the tang is a flat slab with two wooden grip plates riveted to it, and a nail-like lug called the Nagel sticks out to guard the knuckles. The two-handed Kriegsmesser ran 1 to 1.35 m.
  • Odachi A Japanese 'great sword' with a blade of about 90 cm or more, also called a nodachi, 'field sword'. It was too long to wear at the waist, so it was slung on the back or carried by a servant. Its use peaked in the 14th century, and later ones were made as shrine offerings.
  • Pata The South Asian gauntlet sword: a long, straight, double-edged blade joined to a half-gauntlet and gripped by a crossbar inside the glove. The Marathas used it most, in the 17th and 18th centuries. The locked wrist allows powerful slashes and almost no thrusts.
  • Rapier The name comes from Spanish espada ropera, 'dress sword', first recorded around 1445 to 1450. It was worn with civilian clothes for fashion and self-defence, not carried to war. Many rapiers could still cut to a degree, but the design is for the thrust.
  • Sabre A single-edged, curved cavalry sword. The curve suits a slashing cut made from the saddle. The naval cutlass is its short, broad cousin.
  • Scimitar Not one sword but a European catch-all for the curved, single-edged swords of the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa, such as the Persian shamshir and the Turkish kilij. Blades run roughly 75 to 90 cm. The curve suits a rider: the arc of the blade matches the sweep of the arm in a cut from the saddle.
  • Shotel A sword from the northern Ethiopian Highlands and Eritrea, curved almost into a half circle like a large sickle and about 1 m long overall. The curve is the point: it reaches around the edge of an opponent's shield.
  • Smallsword A light one-handed thrusting sword that grew out of the rapier, most popular from the mid-17th to the late 18th century. It was worn as a status symbol, and it is the forerunner of the fencing epee.
  • Talwar The curved sabre of the Indian subcontinent. Its classic form appeared around 1500 under the Mughal Empire, with a gentler curve than the Persian shamshir. Look for the all-metal hilt with a flat disc around the pommel.
  • Wakizashi The samurai's short sword, with a blade of 30 to 60 cm. Worn with the katana it made the daisho, 'big-little', the mark of a samurai. The katana was left at the entrance of a castle or palace; the wakizashi stayed on indoors.
  • Zweihander A true two-handed sword, the specialist weapon of 16th-century German Landsknecht mercenaries. Outsized swords of this family run 160 to 180 cm. The Spanish equivalent is called the montante.

How this list was compiled: List chosen and every description written for this site. History and legend only: no modern firearms, no firearm models or brands, and nothing from a single game or film. The weapon names were checked against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_weapons and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_martial_arts_weapons (checked 2026-09-18). Dates, measurements, users and word origins were checked on 2026-09-18 against these English Wikipedia overview pages: /wiki/Polearm, /wiki/Classification_of_swords, /wiki/Shield, /wiki/Okinawan_kobud%C5%8D, /wiki/Flail, /wiki/Mace, /wiki/Morning_star, /wiki/War_hammer, /wiki/Battle_axe, /wiki/Spear and /wiki/Magic_sword, and against the weapon's own article where it has one (for example /wiki/Knightly_sword, /wiki/Messer, /wiki/Katana, /wiki/Khopesh, /wiki/Macuahuitl, /wiki/Kris, /wiki/Mere_(weapon), /wiki/Halberd, /wiki/Bill_(weapon), /wiki/Pike_(weapon), /wiki/English_longbow, /wiki/Crossbow, /wiki/Repeating_crossbow, /wiki/Boomerang, /wiki/Retiarius, /wiki/Bartitsu, /wiki/Arquebus, /wiki/Flintlock, /wiki/Blunderbuss, /wiki/Mj%C3%B6lnir, /wiki/Gungnir, /wiki/Ruyi_Jingu_Bang, /wiki/Wand, /wiki/Flaming_sword_(mythology) and /wiki/Death_(personification)). A claim the article did not support, or flagged as needing a citation, was cut. In the fix round of 2026-09-18 the longsword, rapier, Dane axe, goedendag, glaive, mere and rope dart cards were checked again against the weapon's own article (/wiki/Longsword, /wiki/Rapier, /wiki/Dane_axe, /wiki/Goedendag, /wiki/Glaive, /wiki/Mere_(weapon), /wiki/Rope_dart) and now give that article's figures where an overview page differed; the sentences that described how to throw or swing the chakram, rope dart, kusarigama, meteor hammer, hook swords, katar and mere were cut or reworded to describe the object. The kitchen and household entries in the Tools and improvised group carry story advice only, not history. Licence: own work