Monstrous Ranged Weapons

27 Apr, 2025

Monstrous weapons from an age of cataclysmic strife can be found clutched in the alabaster-carapaced gauntlets of desiccated landing troops in the deepest crimson desert, stacked in armouries in reeling towers jutting from forlorn jungle, preserved alongside the spider-silk dazzle-camo gown of a chiliarch in a peat bog, or cast aside by carnivorous creatures of unnatural origin, behind the breached vault doors of a bunker turned charnel house a millennia past.

Use your matchlock proficiency: d12 for amateurs, d10 for the capable, d8 for experts.

• Prices are not listed. Assume each is a near unique treasure, priced in the mid to high thousands of silver shillings.
• Weight is, as always, given in slots (of which a normal person has 9).
• Range is given in squares (each is 3x3 metres), inclusive, with effective range separated by a colon from long range.
• Magazine gives the number of shots which can be taken before reloading is necessary. The magazine's weight in slots is also included.
• ROF / Rate of Fire gives the number of shots which can be taken per round
• Reload gives the number of reload actions which must be taken, and Rld spd / Speed During Reload gives the speed one may move whilst reloading

GROWER A late war innovation: Awakens the flesh beneath the beam, which begins to rapidly grow tumourously. Targets look like they have sometimes-iridescent particolour neurofibromatosis, and death is the result of the lungs / heart / nervous system being compromised by growth. The operator must remain immobile while illuminating the target: They do not need to make a new attack roll each round, but if line of sight is broken they do. If illumination is interrupted, the damage die resets to d2. Targets killed by Growers keep growing for 1d6 Exploding rounds, and each round they keep growing they fill another cubic square (another 3x3 metres) of space. The matter to effect this growth is taken from elsewhere. Grown flesh is highly unpalatable, but not dangerous.

CORE CUTTER A weapon which apparently deletes a perfectly straight, 0.1 to 2cm wide core (it varies from shot to shot) from reality. If it matters, the last shot deleted a core 50+1d100 squares long. Occasionally teleports its operator along the bore axis: No ill effects, but the operator seems to squeeze or distort to an infinitesimal thread before expanding back to proper size. If operator would be teleported into object or creature, both take 2d10 HPdmg and fall prone. Can absolutely shoot through multiple aligned targets.

CHAKRAMMER Hurls a chakram - a razor sharp discus - that ricochets off flat, hard surfaces: For these, Angle of reflection = angle of incidence, and each ricochet has a 50% chance of failing (the disc becomes stuck in the surface or spins off ineffectually). Shooting uneven, hard surfaces has a 50% chance of failure too, and it reflects in a randomly determined direction. Multiple ricochets are possible and if it kills a person, it bisects them and keeps going.

FLENSER d12 damage: Targets' equipment, armour, and eventually skin and flesh are torn off: The ablative effect wraps around the body of a human sized target, affecting even the opposite side. Think less 'Cartoon' and more 'Sandblasted finger' or 'Motorcyclist in jeans dragged across concrete'.

PILE DRIVER Shoots a thin, astonishingly dense metal rod. Has an extensible leg that grips the ground: STR test if shooting without being so braced or fall prone. Targets whose HP is damaged or who are killed are knocked back 1sq: If this is into a wall, they are pinned to it. The pile is very narrow and smooth, so un-impaling oneself is not as difficult as might be feared.

NAIL GUN Propels barbed 6 inch nails, these tumble and only deal d2 damage if fired over any distance, but deal d6 if the nail gun is pressed against the target. Each nail has a bioluminescent reflector, unique number, and survey mark on its head. To use as a melee weapon, roll to hit in melee: You may fire a number of times up to your TOHIT (eg. if you hit with a roll of 4, you may fire 4 times).

CUTTER NET Fires a triangular net of something like cheesewire: Each vertex has a small armoured motor on a spike. Targets whose HP is damaged or who are killed are knocked back 1sq If this is into a wall, the vertexes anchor to it. Otherwise the target is knocked prone, and the vertexes anchor to the ground. The initial hit deals d4 dmg, and each subsequent round this damage steps up (d6 --> d8 --> d10 --> d12 --> d20) until the target is cut to pieces. Pinned and helpless after taking 4dmg. A word in Antediluvian is inscribed on the weapon: Shouting it has a 3in6 chance of halting constriction. Escape is possible in the expected manners.

CUTTER BOLA As above, but fires a bola - a wire with an armoured motor at each end. On a hit this wraps around a bodypart (ref. INJURY LOCATION tables) and only amputates that. A word in Antediluvian is inscribed on the weapon: Shouting it has a 3in6 chance of halting constriction. Escape is possible in the expected manners.

FOAMER A firefighting tool: Projects fire-retardant foam in a stream of blobs that rapidly expand. The foam is unexpectedly gritty and grippy, and actually renders surfaces more climable. Squares are 3x3 metres: Each shot blobs together to first cover 3x3x1 metres, then expands upward to 3x3x2 metres, then 3x3x3 metres, then it lasts for 10 minutes before dying down. Its intended users invariably wore rebreathers or could hold their breath for hours, so it wasn't the problem for them that it will be for you that anyone caught in the foam suffocates (ref. Drowning rules). The foam blows away in strong wind. Those who've been sprayed with foam have a 1in10 chance of getting cancer every subsequent year.

BODY-HURLER Apparently uses sound waves inaudible to human ears but highly audible to other creatures, this deals a mere d2 damage to the target, but flings them d6 sq back and d4 sq up (at the highest point of their arc). Ref. falling damage.

EFFECTOR-ROD As much a badge of rank for the seniormost of Seneschals' underlings as a weapon: Rods of ornate or brutally featureless design. Grasping, pointing, and willing them to fire causes their effect. Each comes loaded with 1d6 shots and once depleted they no longer work at range but function indefinitely, once per day, as a melee weapon.

• PAIN-RODS induce incredible pain: Targets WIL test at disadvantage or fall writhing, and are downed for SDIE8 rounds.
• SICK-STICKS cause nausea: Each shot 1-2in6 chance downing the target for SDIE8 rounds of vomiting, 3-5in6 chance of disadvantaging the target for the remainder of the combat due to nausea and general malaise, otherwise having no effect
• SEIZURE-STICKS compromise motor functions. As above, but with seizures or tremours.

• Sudden-End Die (SDIE) (eg. 'SDIE8')
  • If SDIE = 1, change immediately takes effect
  • If SDIE stepped below d4, change immediately takes effect
  • If SDIE > 1, SDIE steps down.
  • Compare and contrast

LEACH ARCER (sic) Fires writhing leachlike creatures (about 10cm in length) that swim, as though in water, on an arcing course through the air towards the target designated at their firing. Travel 20sq per rnd. Everybody tries to hit them out of the air, and this can work. On affixing to their target they immediately slurp a great volume of blood out, but step down their damage each subsequent round affixed. Downed targets are unconscious but won't be sucked dry unless they're let alone for 10 minutes. This was formerly a tool for animal husbandry, not a weapon: Blood-filled leeches are useful in first aid and will last, and keep the blood fresh, for up to a week after harvesting. When affixed to a new person and tickled leeches will disgorge their blood. (Everyone in the far future has compatible blood types).

FLESH BUR You know the trope of Nazis holding stick grenades in their jackboots? Imagine yassified Nazis in designer swimwear festooned with objects like the bright plastic atlatl one uses to throw a dog's tennisball: That's what Seneschal peltasts looked like back in the day. A half dozen flesh burs are found in each disposable thrower, which is torn open before the tossing, and when a flesh bur lodges in flesh it rapidly grows to resemble a sea anemone. Before throwing, declare whether you are one to three targets, make one attack, and on a hit split the damage dice between them.

MASER Microwave laser, infantry-portable variants have poor beam divergence, hence the short range. A partial depression of the trigger activates compliance mode: A warmth like sunburn that rapidly becomes painful: Targets WIL tst or seek to escape its influence. Compliance mode consumes 1 shot / minute. Targets injured and killed by maser have chunks of flesh which were superheated and burst, like hot spots in a microwaved meal.

BAKER A radiological weapon whose effect is enhanced by metal armour. Nausea, then death.

SPIRALLER Microrocket launcher. Each rocket blows a chunk of material away, useful for clearing doors. Rocket packs look like braids of garlic.

GUSTAVUS A tube, open at both ends. Backblast deals d12 damage to those behind and knocks them prone. Firing with a wall 3sq or less behind deals backblast to everyone nearby. It's traditional to brace for firing by having the loader hug you tightly, but you could just kneel instead.

DOSE JEZAIL Actually a veterinary tool: Anyway, each dart is a hypodermic shaft with a plastic 8cc transparent cylinder for payload, the back of which can be screwed off, which is automatically injected shortly after impact: The target may DEX test to pull it out before this happens. Darts are reusable, and can be wielded as dose spines in melee or fired from retrofitted crossbows.

• Air: d6 embolism damage. STR test the next day or die.
• Marker Fluid: A supersaturated faintly luminescent blue. Target is an incandescent psychic beacon for a week, and conspicuous for d12 more.
• Floater Tranq: Clear fluid with half-centimetre pink cells floating around: Target falls asleep with suppressed life signs for 6+d12 hours and weighs one quarter as much.

LIGHTNING CHAINER A heavy gun, connected via heavy cabling, to a heavy backpack where the brick is reloaded (bring a friend). If the target is not the nearest creature or conductive object in a 45-degree cone in front of the operator, there is a 50% chance the lightning will target the nearer instead. Projects blinding lightning: The initial target suffers d12 damage, the nearest 2 targets within 2sq suffer d8 damage and so on down to d4. Exceptionally large creatures can count as a subsidiary target, perhaps multiple times, but lighting will not loop around to damage an individual humanoids multiple times. Lightning does not distinguish friend from foe, and occasionally chooses as its subsidiary targets conductive objects. Those killed by this weapon explode into a crimson mist of scalding viscera.

Early-war Seneschal guns look like they were made by Bugatti, late war guns still look like a sports car engine meant for display, very late war guns look like a POS tractor engine with chipped paint and incredibly even included wood stocks (though these are long since rotted away). House branding is plastered over all of them regardless. Early-war Defyer guns favoured clear plastic housings (to aid troubleshooting), but late war look like an engine or antennae mast that was shrink wrapped, and they all have QR codes made of triangles. Some feature monochrome utopic or militaristic vignettes, like monumental and idyllic cities, geometric farms, or uncanny-valley angel like beings being dragged out of the sky and butchered.