My fantasy book has a surprising lack of weapons in it.
In the second chapter, Maywin grabs a leatherworking awl when he thinks his house is being robbed. Vataris has a spear. Cory has a gun. That’s about it.
I guess I can tell y’all about Cory’s gun. And unfortunately, we have to get a bit historical for that.
The dwarves have always been mountain folk, ever since they were created by Teos (the updated name of my fantasy deity). They farm on the hillsides, they mine the ore, and sometimes they even live in carved-out caverns. At first, the dwarves mined precious and practical metals, but they kept running into a problem. There was a type of rock that, when exposed to fire, tended to burn uncontrollably. This sort of rock was called heckrock, or heck for short, and it was generally considered a nuisance and an occupational hazard. The phrase “Holy heckfire” became common as an expression of surprise.
Eventually, the dwarves figured out how to mine heckrock and use it as a household and industrial fuel. And a few decades after that, it was discovered that, if heckrock was mixed in the right proportion with other rocks, you can get an explosion. This was used in the mining industry for a bit, helping break apart large rock clusters. I’m not quite sure when or how the dwarves decided to make firearms, but they did. They are dwarves. Dwarves are so crafty that no one should ever be surprised when they invent something out of the ordinary.
(On a side note, someone once told me that my dwarves should have extendable pitchforks. I absolutely love that idea–I think they should have lots of extendable things. But whenever I try to research “telescoping mechanics,” which is the technical name for the sort of extendable rod where narrower rods fit inside larger hollow rods and slide out into a fixed position, I just get information about telescopes. I don’t want my dwarves to have telescopes. I just want them to have extendable pitchforks. And folding chairs. And, if they’re going to be authentic rednecks, they’ll need duct tape somehow.)
So yep. That’s how Cory has a gun. For a Southerner, I know embarrassingly little about firearms. I guess it would be the equivalent of some sort of musket, but since it doesn’t come into the story much, I haven’t researched it. I also know that heckrock has some sort of real-life equivalent, but I don’t care enough to research it. I’m more worried about getting the fae right–and speaking of which, I’ve renamed the fae. Right now I’m calling them the biestavac, the plural form of which is still undecided, and I retain the right to change it at any point. I might make a full separate post explaining that.
Anyways, what do y’all think about this little bit of history? If I made regular posts detailing the history of my fantasy world, would you read them? And what sort of firearm do you think I should base Cory’s gun off of? Let me know in the comments below! God bless you, dear readers, and don’t forget to review us on Amazon!