Small guns! I'm pretty much psuedo-medieval adventure gaming all the time. I feel like I could play D&D for a lifetime and not exhaust the possibilities, and yet, I still am really interested in other genres. Gritty westerns is something I get interested in cyclically, re-watching Deadwood, or Unforgiven, or Tombstone. Anyway, the other day I thought pictures of guns might be cool to write all the stats on and give to players in a Boot Hill type game. Then I got really excited and went to Internet Archive to see what I could dig up. It was a let down, because I couldn't find a lot. I found more pictures of Webleys than anything else. It's weird because you know old guns is something people are fanatical about, but I guess the right books haven't been scanned yet. Anyway, here are a few small guns to start off with:
Colt's three derringers from oldest to newest , (oldest up top):
The first was available starting 1870. I think they all used .41 rimfire rounds.
A Remington Vest-Pocket pistol. Available Starting 1865:
And a Sharp's Triumph (that's what the book from 1894 calls it, anyway) or what I think I've heard as a Sharp's pepper box. First available 1859:
That last one is the only one that isn't single-shot.
More revolvers to come in the future. These pictures are all in the public domain. You can do anything you want with them. I'll add them to the zip file of all the weapon images eventually.
Nice finds!
ReplyDeleteIt'd be fun to use these pistols as wands with one spell "slot" (e.g. the bullet) that the magic-user can load with any spell s/he wishes (from his/her spellbook, of course). Fire and forget! The last one (Sharp's Triumph) could be loaded with two spells, that could be fired simultaneously (combined? merged effects?).
Now I want to try and run a game where you can only use magic through these "wands"...
I'm writing a pirates game. It's a little anachronistic but the baseline time period is about 1550. Got anything older?
ReplyDelete@Jensan: Pistol as wand seems a great match: expensive, ornate, single shot, you have to load before hand. And if you have older matchlock-type pistols: smoky, unreliable, sparky.
ReplyDelete@Scott: Pirates have always fascinated me too. Unfortunately the best I could find was this book:
https://archive.org/details/firearmsinameric01sawyrich
which has photos of pistols back to the 1720s. And this one:
https://archive.org/details/aebrooksscollect00broo
Which actually has some pistols that old. Those old photo prints don't show as much detail as line drawings, though.