As i was thinking about becoming a dead class, (also known as a gunmancer) ive found the ability of muskets and flintlocks to inflict cruel damage even at low levels, quite impressive. As usual I then began thinking about their part in the lore and I have come to a weird conclusion
Why do so few kingdoms want to use flintlocks or muskets?? No really, what is the point of giving a bronze sword to a ravenna ensign just so he could akwardly chase a robber/criminal to slash them if you could just give them an old flintlock and the criminal would be dead in no time at all! Plenty of criminals can afford themselves a simple old fintlock, why not an empire? Ravenna has bronze guns too, and has plenty of bronze to spare here.
Even if you take the game into consideration, donāt you think that you would see even the lower goons of a kingdom atleast kind of threatening if they could auto lock 100 damage into your ass. If you somehow stumpled upon a Ravenna Brig (Lucky you!) or a ketch, imagine doing the usual jump to charge your one-shot blast but then you are immediately shot by 15 flintlocks and muskets and lose 75% of your hp due to your carelessness (And your lack of durability!)
Looking deeper into the lore, guns could even have a chance at beating out magic in a few centuries. Why train your newfound āmagicalā abilities if you could just get handed a gun with a month of training and be just as effective as a mage that has been training his skills for years! A puny mage can try charging his magic blast all he wants, youāll pull that trigger much faster than him. Mages can turn even more useless later when more advanced rifles and guns come to existence. The only thing that would remain in the arcane world would be Curses and Mages that got lucky and werenāt Quickscoped by an enemy kingdom the mere moment they were found to be able to use magical abilities. But who knows! Not me.
āMan I canāt wait to begin my Odyssey into the seas! I have finally completed my Arcane Exams, completely aced them too! Behold! The legendary mageā¦ā¦.Frost!ā
The 3 Assassin Syndicate Musketeers outside his home
Apparently, thorne empire is the most technologically advanced of all kingdoms in the war seas, so its likely that the guns originate from there. And the fact that people would prefer using a bow or summoning projectiles from their weapons
(Who the fuck would actually prefer to use a bow over a musket? What is even the benefit here if you donāt have the gift of magic!) To summon projectiles, you need magic. And learning magic is a very slow and tedious proccess. But why would anyone want to do that if you can just be given a gun and be just as effective as a master mage in a month, while they need years. Guns also open the opportunity for those without magic, to finally even the playing field.
I know this makes sense given that itās actual Magic, and aside from Light and Shadow, it wouldnāt be too unreasonable to see how it could block bulletsā¦
ā¦but itās also giving severe āI fire the laser that gives you super death at you at point-blankā ānuh-uh Iām immuneā vibes.
Is the āmagic shieldā active at all times or do you naturally apply it when you get into combat (Aka can you be quickscoped while youāre not paying attention?)
But learning to use magic is far harder than using a gun, no? Even those gifted with magic have to try their very best to make their spells actually deadly. While one shot from a musket is already good enough. More powerful, undetectable, easier to learn and cheap to make, is this not better than spending years learning the arcane arts?
Evry third sitizen can pull out a flintlock when they get robbed, the choice of having swords and shields is merely a stylistic preference, I think. Thereās no point in not arming at least commanders/centurions with guns
Guns have chances to kill target, which is not good as guards have to arrest people.
Even if they dont kill the target, they have to pay for medical things, plus ammos.
Itās convenient for guards, but very limiting.
Swords or other melee weapons are more fitting for town guards as thiefs should not be trained enough to outrun soldiers that are trained for fight.
About more serious fights where they do have to kill the target(or dont have to worry about killing the target), gun is actually being used by untrained(for trace magic/magic fight) marines.
By the way from how trace of magic work, they would want to use swords rather than guns if they wanted to improve.
Guns are convenient and quick, but thats the problem.
You dont know how that work. Even if you do, you cant actually feel how did that work.
you cant imagine shooting guns harder.
But imagination and feelings are important for using trace of magic.
However melee weapons like swords are diffrent. You can feel and imagine freely.
So you can get how traces work, understand and feel the magic energy.
You donāt have to completely get rid of your sword as a guard. They can still keep the sword as a secondary weapon to pull out against lesser threats.
If someone dangerous pops up, there are 3 scenarios
a: 15 ensigns will stand around and do nothing or else theyāll die
b: 15 ensigns try to charge a competent guy and are obliterated
c: If said ensigns are equipped with basic ranged weaponry they can support the far higher leveled elite guards in defeating the threat or even deal with the threat themselves due to the power of the musket
Muskets do around 10-60 damage when a normal person uses it compared to magic, fs it just worse and the āmagic shieldā is subconscious stuff that can get stronger there more experienced you are when a form of spirit, wep, magic, fs and items can improve it to
In lore humans arenāt anymore stronger than in real life (this is untrue if you play the story. Argos casually breaking a brick wall). So a bullet to the head or chest is killing. Anyone beside a curse user.