Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4991418-20131124024823/@comment-24130919-20131203222410

Myrtenaster and the sword of Crocea Mors would be the easiest, since they are fairly simple swords (Myrtenaster has an unusual hilt, but nothing overly complicated to build). Obviously, without dust, Myrtenaster would be reduced to nothing more than a fancy-looking rapier with a spinny bit in the hilt (although that is still a deadly weapon in itself). The shield of Crocea Mors is a bit more complicated. You'd have to make the shield out of several plates that slide past each other and lock into place. Its possible, but it would have some unweildly mechanisms and would give the shield some clear weak points. And, of course, I doubt you could ever get it to fold up anywhere near as compact as it does in the show. It's "compact" form would probably have to look more like a 4"x4" block of metal than a sheath. You could still use it as a sheath, but it would probably have to be strapped to your back rather than your hip. (That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. Many people prefer to wear their sheath like that anyway, since it doesn't get in the way while you run) But at that point, why not just strap a regular shield to your back? It'll be stronger, less bulky, and faster.

StormFlower appears simple enough. They're just automatic pistols with blades strapped to the ends. However, they don't look like they should fit up Ren's sleeves like they do, so maybe the blade retracts or something. We haven't really seen how this happens. In the one scene where they're stowed away, they just seem to disappear when they hit his sleeve. One frame they're there, the next frame they simply vanish.

Ember Celica seems like another sort of reasonable one, until you really look at it. After all, it's deployment isn't really all that complicated. Basically, it has three rings that sit on top of one another, the top and bottom ring extend out back and forward (respectively) when deployed. The middle ring contains the gun. It would probably stick up off the wrist a bit more than it does in the show, but it seems doable. And the gun is basically just a sawed-off shotgun taken to the extreme (ok, its a rather absurd extreme, but it seems possible). The shortest sawed-offs I can find are about 7 inches (not including the stock), but I see no reason why you couldn't fit everything into about 3 or 4 inches if you just don't have a barrel at all. That could fit on your arm. It'd be a bit unweildly and probably rather uncomfortable, but there are bracers out there that are much worse. It would also be heavy. Holding your arm straight out in front of you for more than a couple seconds would probably be pretty difficult. Even worse, since they have no barrel to contain the blast from firing, you'd probably end up burning yourself pretty badly every time you shoot. And you could only fit about 4 shots per wrist. And the blast from firing the gun might actually damage the firing mechanism! And, with the shots that close together, with no barrel to contain the blast, it seems like there would be a pretty good chance that firing one shot could cook off the shot(s) next to it, and you could end up accidentally firing all 4 at once, which could seriously injure your arm, and possibly land you flat on your back! It'd be a lot more sensible to only have two shots per wrist, but that severly limits their firepower. Especially since no real human could reload like Yang. So it'd be 4 shots, and then take a timeout for probably at least 10 seconds or so to reload. Obviously, with no barrel at all, the scatter would be insane. There would be a real danger of shooting the back of your own hand (although the forward plate might help to prevent that). I would imagine the effective range would probably be something like 20 feet or less. After that, the shot would be so spread out that you'd be lucky if even a single pellet or two hit a human-sized target. Collateral damage would be an enormous problem if you tried to use them in a team exercise. If your friends were anywhere other than directly behind you, they'd be in the danger zone for this weapon! The recoil would be bad, and I kinda doubt firing while throwing a punch, like Yang does, would help. I think it would tend to kick straight up, so if this were a normal gun, which you held, I'd say they'd be kicked right out of your hand. However, since they're securely attached to your arms, you'd most likely find yourself involuntarily throwing your hands in the air every time you fired. (I'm not sure anyone has actually been dumb enough to try this, so I'm just guessing here, but I think strapping shotguns to your arms would probably be pretty bad for you joints, ligaments, etc.) The problem is, there's not really a good way to brace them against the recoil of firing them. With a real shotgun, you can brace it up against your shoulder and let your body absorb the recoil. With Ember Celica, you hold it out at arm's length and kinda use your arm as the stock. Then there's the issue of aiming. There are no sights at all, and no real possibility of aiming "down the barrel." However, with the insane scatter you'd be dealing with, aiming isn't really that big of an issue anyway. You would pretty much just have to point them in a general direction and unleash destruction on that general area. After one fight using Ember Celica, your guns would be ruined, you'd be in the hospital, and your friends would be dead. On the plus side, if it was an extremely close-quarters fight, 4 of your enemies would be dead as well!