Weapons Of The Shogunate

WHAT IT DOES It adds a few Edo era Japanese weapons, because every game needs a good katana and derivatives ;) However, funnily enough, it is canon-friendly, as Fallout 2 did have a wakizashi blade as a playable weapon and the Fallout 3 DLC adds a katana. Well, ok, so Fallout 3 already had a katana, but I don\'t have that DLC. And besides the main weapon I wanted was the Nagamaki, which wasn\'t already in the game. The weapons ARE powerful, but hopefully not over the top by the time you\'re level 30 in Broken Steel. The blades are made in hira-zukuri style, which is to say: flat, without a raised ridge line. Although this is more common for tanto, there are historical katanas built in this style. They are made of folded steel (hence the metal pattern), differentially hardened (hence the traditional white hamon along the edge), and as shiny and polished as the art of sword polishing historically got in this period. We\'re talking whole dynasties of specialized sword-polisher craftsmen. They do however have their fair share of nicks in the edge, because we\'re talking weapons used in battle, not museum pieces. The folded or pattern welded steel is sometimes incorrectly called \"Damascus steel\", but that\'s incorrect. The real Damascus steel is Wootz, an alloy where bands of high-carbon steel precipitate naturally during tempering. Japanese swords are not real Damascus steel, but really pattern welded steel. You know, folded and hammered repeatedly. Note that when discussing the dimesions below 1 shaku is very very close to 1 foot, so you can take the dimensions pretty much 1 to 1 when comparing to japanese standards. The weapons are: 1. A katana. It\'s got an approximately 2. 5 shaku long blade, which actually makes it a fairly long katana. Most are under 2. 4 shaku, some significantly under. There is no fixed length though. To be a proper katana, it can be anywhere between 2 shaku (under that, it becomes a wakizashi), and 3 shaku (over 3 shaku, it becomes an odachi.) The blade is about 1. 35 inch wide and a quarter of an inch thick, both of which are fairly average. And, of course, it sports a gentle curve, largely because that\'s what happens when you differentially harden a single-edge sword. The tsuba (guard) is based on a historical Edo era tsuba, made of steel with inlaid gold. The tsuka (handle) sports the traditional silk wrap that Japanese swords are well known for. 2. A wakizashi. It\'s got a blade that\'s just slightly under 2 shaku in length, which means it barely misses qualifying as a katana itself. Blade width and thickness are just like for the katana above. It has the same tsuba as the katana, and a shorter handle, as was generally the case for wakizashi, since they were strictly one-hand weapons. 3. A zanbato, or \"horse slaying sword\". And I mean the historical weapon, not the anime stuff. And yes, the weapon is actually historical, but its use on the battlefield is disputed. It\'s like