Quote: So, if the armour is chitin, what do you make a sword from?

Well, why won't you look at the other parts of those same giant insects that you are making your armor from? Their claws (lobster-like)? Their stingers (bee-like), etc?

Like the armor, I could imagine a sword made from a claw or spear made from a stinger won't look very conventional, but just imagine if you could take either the bottom or top pincer off from a whole claw that is very elongated, you could have something that looks like a curved katana-like blade with an array of thorns protruding from one side of that blade.

For the stinger-spear, you could have the poison-sacks hanging from sides of the spear head or within the shaft of the spear, and have some sort of trigger mechanism to release the poison whenever you make a thrust through armor.

Quote: Original post by JasRonq
My question is this: What do you guys think of having armour be made of chitin (the hard shells of insects)?

It's been done before, so it's nothing new. I think in Morrowwind it might have been one of the best armors for stealthy characters, since it didn't weight anything (until you find the glass stuff). You could also get chitin weapons.

Quote: Made from laminated insect shell glued with organic resins, chitin armor is also superior to any comparable Western light armor designs. Chitin armor gives better protection, but is lighter and more comfortable, than Western light leather and reinforced leather armors. Here, as in most native style, a scarf protects the neck and mouth from blowing sand and ash while campaigning.

Indeed it has been done before, that is where I am pulling the idea from, though visually mine would look very different. Right now I think I *may* have light armour and heavy armour with light being chitin and heavy being chitin with metal plates. but I may just blend a little metal into the chitin armour. I may add in obsidian as well. So many options.


What would you guys think if you found many different materials in use for similar purposes. ie, steel and obsidian both as blades and axes and both of those plus other hard materials as arrow and spear tips? Would it seem odd that there was such variance?

Here's a thought:
if the armour is made from chitin, what about accessories/clothing? (e.g. gauntlets/gloves, tunics, boots, wristbands)

Instead of plain chitin, your fantasy giant arthropods could process with biological means and include in their exoskeleton and their pointy appendages a number of stronger materials like carbon nanotubes, metal crystals, various types of ceramics, etc.

oh.. well thats a cool idea. Makes me wonder why I didn't think of that. No need for bog ore collecting and the smelting etc if the bugs actually have metal in them. It is a fantasy world after all. I'll have to think on that one.

@cih: I meant to say this in my last post but got distracted. I think that is the coolest thing that I inspired some ones art. I really like the picture, you should keep going with it and refine it. It definitely gives a cool mood that I will remember when I am working on visuals for my game. I think I will add the pic to my folder of reference images I have been building for later. Thank you for sharing it.

Quote: Original post by cih
Your idea inspired this :

nice

I recall a old fantasy manga with a simular incect basied theme. Some insects were breed in captivity and warriors would mentaly link up with them by shareing blood. There were fairly large dragonfly like insects that would attach to the backs of warriors allowing them to fly, same sort of thing with giant spiders. And the warriors would use the molted cast off shells for armor. I don't recall the name, but it had some interesting ideas.

How about adding sizes to the armor since you are using insect parts?

To get a helmet for your scrawny mage you have to kill little ants while the bigger barbarian has to kill the larger variety. Make each insect yield different
sizes of raw materials
ex: Large ant -> 2 kneecaps (which can be converted into a small shield for a dwarf or a helmet for a ogre)
1 domehead (shield for a human or helmet for an ogre)
2 pincers (makes 1 sword or 2 knives)

If the player can't use the pieces as is, he can take them to a blacksmith to alter the pieces to a more usable piece. Altering may lower the durability of the piece so it might be better to hunt for the creature with the proper size rather than kill and harvest everything.

getting pieces from body parts may also introduce newer tactics to the combat since if you want the ant's kneecaps you have to avoid hitting the legs or you might damage the kneecaps. This could produce different ways of killing the insects depending on what part you want or even specialized equipment for harvesting different body parts efficiently/without damaging the part.