On another note, some of you may remember my story "Oreana" which involves a warrior wielding a version of Gugnir, the spear of the god Odin. Sort of. Anyway I eventually plan to do more with that world and feature more "weapon avatars." To that end, I'd like to ask everyone to share with me ideas and info on deities associated with a type of weapon (spear, sword, axe, hammer etc and even better if they have a specific, named weapon of their own.)
Theres Thor and his hammer Mjolnir of course. Ares is strongly associated with the spear though I don't believe he has a specific one. Theres the Staff of the Monkey King.
Also ideas for naming non-specific ones are good, such as Apollo's bow that fired sun beam arrows.
Thanks in advance.
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
Well, Hercules had a club. (He's a god by the end of the myth.) As well as, in some stories, poison arrows dipped in the blood of the hydra. And he wore the skin of the Nemean lion as armor.
Zeus' thunderbolts probably aren't very helpful.
Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :
I'd really like to do something with Zeus's thunderbolts but yeah it doesn't really work very well as a physical weapon.
Posted by Kitti (Member # 7277) on :
unless you could make some sort of taser-like weapon for Zeus
Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :
Most of the Norse gods have their own named weapons (Gungnir, Mjollnir, Mimming, Hofud, etc); not coincidentally, it was common for vikings to name their weapons (IIRC, Ketil from one of the sagas - the Vapnfjord Men? not sure - had a sword called "Leg-biter", for example). Naming of weapons seems to have been less prevalent in other cultures, so the Greek gods don't have names for their weapons.
I'd guess there are probably some Central and South American gods who have named weapons, but that's not my area of expertise.
Posted by babooher (Member # 8617) on :
I don't know if this really helps, but it is cool and almost on topic. In Stephen King's Dark Tower series, the protagonist has pistols that were forged by melting down Excaliber. I'm not exactly sure if Excaliber counts as a deific weapon since no god used it, but it is a mythic weapon. Melting it down for pistols is just too spiffy.
Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :
Yes, I'm a Dark Tower Fan. And yes, I've considered Excalibur, as well as some other what you might call "heroic" weapons as well. And yes guns made from the melted Excalibur is pretty neat, and very Stephen King like.
Excalibur is probably more widely known, recognized and written about than Gugnir or Mjolnir.
Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :
OK, first time you typed Gugnir, I figured it was just a typo.
Second time, however...
It's called Gungnir, not Gugnir.
Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :
Ohh thank you, I appreciate that. Its not like I havent seen it plenty of times but perhaps the eyes and the brain weren't communicating properly.
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
There's also Lugh. He had a sling called "Lugh's Chain" and a spear "Areadbhar" (not sure what that means translated from the Gaelic) that was alive and killed on it's own and was very blood thirsty.
Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :
Ohh yes I should definitely plumb Celtic stuff a bit more on this too thanks for reminding me...
Posted by TaoArtGuy (Member # 8857) on :
I'm researching viking legends and getting into kenning which is the poetic way of combining words to make names for items. An axe would be blood-ember. One of the many names for a sword was wound-hoe. You could work along these lines to come up with new names.
For literary weapons I like Glamdring - Gandalf's sword and Greywand - Fafhrd's sword.