The Realm of the Dark Blade

OK so let me pose a hypothetical scenario. Let’s say you are a Klingon. Yes, you are a member of a well known warrior race from Star Trek. Got it? Good. Now lets say you get marooned on earth. No, I don’t know how that happened or what you did to deserve it. Stuff happens alright? Deal.

Anyway let’s say you are stuck on Earth. In prehistoric times. Yes, I said prehistoric. Why? Look, you are asking too many questions. I’m trying to set up a scenario here. Ok fine, we’ll say someone tweaked the nav systems and warp core configuration on your Klingon warbird so that the next time you tried to warp somewhere, you got marooned, on Earth, in the past, and the dilithium crystals in your warp core are broken, so you now cannot get back.

OK? Happy now? Can I continue?

Thank you.

So… Now you are stranded in a prehistoric earth jungle, and you need a bladed weapon to survive… Say what? Why no Disruptors? OH, for the love of… *sigh* Look, work with me here. Lets say you’ve been stranded for some time, and you’re all out of power OK? Does that work for you? Any other details you’d like me to cover before I go on? No? Are you sure…? Wait… What? Recrystallize the dilithium crystal lattice? …

…

…

…

…

… *veins popping out of forehead*

YOU @*@&#@! IDIOT!!! THIS IS PREHISTORIC EARTH! THERE ARE NO NUCLEAR REACTORS, SO YOU CAN SAFELY ASSUME THERE ARE NO SAFE AND READILY AVAILABLE SUPPLIES OF GAMMA RADIATION TO CAPTURE AND REPAIR DECRYSTALLIZED DILITHUIM CRYSTALS WITH, YOU #*&$%# INSUFFERABLE DWEEB!!!

Jiminy Christmas, enough already!! OK that’s it. No more questions. You’ve ruined my perfect set up.  I’m just going to show you the blade.

Tactical Golok

This is the tactical Golok. The Golok is a traditional chopping tool, a kind of short machete, originating in southeast Asia, characterized by a wide tipped, top heavy blade. The Tactical Golok is a a Golok on steroids. Or as would be designed by a Klingon, trapped in prehistoric ages, on earth, who had naught but primitive tools. WITH NO USABLE DILITHIUM CRYSTALS. Ok… gotta breath now… Whooosaaaahhh… alrighty then.

In fact the tactical Golok bears a vague resemblance to a traditional Klingon weapon, the MekLeh’ crossed with a traditional golok…

Klingon Mek'Leth

+

Golok

OK… Too vague. That didn’t work out quite the way I thought it would. All kinds of evil was supposed to ensue. Hmmm… What to do, what to do… Actually, now that I think about it, this Golok has more in common with Kratos’ Swords of Chaos from the game God of War:

Kratos Sword of Chaos

+

Golok

=

Tactical Golok

Much better!! Yeah… Now THAT’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout… And you made me go on that Klingon rant, and nearly pop a gasket, all for nothing. Yes, you. It’s all YOUR fault. Yeah, it’s my blog and I can blame who I want to… And today that is… YOU! Put that in your meat grinder and mince it! Bah Humbug!

<Eric Cartman> Man… I really, really hate you guys… </Eric Cartman>

Anyway, this Tactical Golok is the bees knees. Put together by the folks at Szabo Inc., it looks like a mean little chopper, a nice, evil cross between a machete and an axe. With the sweeping curvy edges and dark demeanour to match. My kind of chopper. Darth Vaders golok, if you will. I mean just look at it:

Tactical Golok Demo

What more can I say. Short machete. Wide. Heavy. Evil curves. Double edged.  Integral guard and blade finger choil, possibly for choking up and better control. AND it looks like it comes in black. Which is really just all kinds of WIN.  BUT… It costs and arm and a leg. But if you can afford one, at least you’ll know they’ll be harvesting your limbs in style.

Umm… wait… Was I not supposed to say that out loud?

Tactical Golok – [Szabo Inc]

When I think of Feng Shui, the Chinese system of organizing your environment in order to maximize positive Chi (aka Qi/Chakra/Energy) flow, the last thing that comes to mind is an axe. However, I suppose, from my admittedly limited knowledge of how it works, there doesn’t seem to be anything in the rulebooks that says Feng Shui cannot work through an axe.

In fact, it seems kind of implicit that an axe should affect the feng shui of any environment, it is in, depending on it’s placement. But now I’m just rambling…

The topic of this post, obviously, is an interesting little axe I ran into a while back. Ostensibly called the Chinese Feng Shui Axe:

Chinese Feng Shui Axe

As you can see, it’s an unusual little, all metal axe, fairly simple in design, with a relatively small (as axes go) crescent shaped head, a contoured gourd shaped pommel, and a spike on top. And, or course, the requisite red hair tassel to redirect the blood that might result from employing a little “Feng Shui” reorganization of someones face with said axe..

Hey, I kid, I kid… For the record, I do not condone the arbitrary reorganization of other peoples faces with axes, or, for that matter, any other kind of weapon. Except scalpels. In which case you must be a plastic surgeon, and the person must have been absolutely hideous to start with. But I digress.

This axe actually looks kinda cool, and seems like it would be a little heavy, but fairly effective. But it is, in fact, supposed to frighten bad Chi away. At least according to the website I found it on. Me personally, I think I’d employ a much larger, quite a lot more intimidating axe for that particular task.

I mean seriously. Have you seen the sheer amount of bad Chi floating around nowadays?

Chinese Feng Shui Axe – [Online Oriental]

Ok, So I will readily admit that the title of todays post was highly influenced by thoughts of thanksgiving turkey…Light meat or dark meat… It’s all good… But I digress.

You may recall a few posts I’ve done in the past on weapons made of wood. Some of them have been about reproduction, prop or cosplay weapons, weapons you could give to your little rascals, or for cosplay (costume play), designed primarily to be a safe alternative to the real thing.

Macahuitl

However, I’ve also posted about weapon designs that, while made primarily of wood, were still quite lethal as edged weapons. The Macahuitl was one such weapon, using flint or obsidian blades, embedded in a wood frame shaped like a club, or a large broadsword. And then there was the Leiomano, which accomplished the same thing, using shark teeth, but packaged in a small axe form factor.

Leiomano

But I recently ran across an even more beautiful design, yet another based on the small axe form factor, but without any kind of hard blade material whatsoever… Just wood. Really hard wood… Have a gander at this:

Samoan War Axe

Now chances are, the edge would be nowhere as keen as that of a macahuitl, so this would be more likely used freehand as a club, or to break or dislocate bones than an actual cleaving device,  (unless you had a hard surface to chop against and were willing to keep whacking away until the job was done :/ )  However,  it is just a beautiful piece of work.

I just love this thing. Between the smooth and highly polished finish on the weapon, the Samoan patterns on the blade, and the absolutely evil lines on this axe, I just love it to death. Ok, maybe not to death, since I kind of like being alive, but you get the point.

The points on this thing are amazing. The deep bevel of the edge is accentuated by the light colored patterning of the blade area, making it look almost like a thick slab of dark steel. The patterning runs all the way down the shaft, stopping just short of the light colored jute or twine wrapped grip. The combination is just sweet.

Truth be told, I think this wooden axe looks more both more beautiful  and sinister than most of the other evil steel axes I’ve posted on this site so far…

And that’s no small feat for a weapon made entirely of wood.

Samoan War Axe – [My Armory]

Yes. That is the question of the day. If old man Grim used and axe instead of a scythe, what would it look like? To be honest I have no clue. I just can’t imagine my O’l buddy Grim using anything other than a scythe. He’s really quite attached to that thing. They have some symbolic history together, something about harvesting souls or some other sappy poetic schmaltz.

Not my cup of tea, really, but he’s all about it. For a guy who spends a lot of time snatching the life right out of unsuspecting peeps at the drop of a hat, he always comes across as a bit of a tragic emo/goth. The perpetually covered face, the dark clothes, the endless angst, always carrying that blasted scythe around regardless of whether he’s actually on the clock or not… Meh. But I apologize. I ramble.

Back to the question at hand. If Mr. G. Reaper were to use an axe, what would it look like? Well, I still can’t say. I admit it. I have no imagination. Sue me. So instead I’m going to show you what some one else thinks it might look like. Allow me present the Grim Reaper Battle Axe:

Grim Reaper Battle Axe

Now this is an evil axe. Just the kind of thing I like. Big, crude, heavy, evil edges and lots of points and hooks and barbs and such, with but a token attempt at finesse. Just look at it. Not that Mr R. would ever use it, but you cannot possibly argue that this isn’t a an axe worthy of a reaper-type entity. Heck I’d use it, and reaping is just a hobby I indulge in part time when I’m bored.

What we have here is a huge, 51″ slab of solid, polished stainless steel. On one end a large almost medieval glaive-like double bladed axe head, complete with center spike. Coming down from the head, we have a leather wrapped grip, and then a short, but particularly nasty looking section of serrated blade. below that, we have another leather wrapped grip section, and below that we have a triple barbed hook, ending in a sharp, rather unforgiving looking, talon like point.

Now truth be told, I think the mechanics of this weapon are horrific. I mean, ergonomically speaking, you’d have to be a Klingon, or Vulcan, or have trained using a Bathleth or a Lirpa, or some similarly esoteric weapon, in order for this weapon to make sense. And that void/spike in the center really violates my sense of mechanical aesthetics. Why the huge void cut out of the center of the the Axe head? For weight reduction maybe?

And even then, why attach that point just above that by two really thin looking stems. It’s certainly a cool design feature, but it seems like it would be the first thing to break if subjected to any bending forces. And then, as if those weren’t enough, there’s a serrated blade in the very section of the weapon that your hand would be likely to slide into? I dunno ’bout all that. I would rather think most folks would like to keep their fingers. But that’s just my opinion.

It just seems to me that a person wielding this weapon would be cruisin’ for a bruisin’… Or didn’t really like their fingers very much. Which would be a shame. BUT on the other hand, every inch of this thing says “I mean business.” And by “business”, I mean “Bringing the pain”. Big time. So I’m on the fence. And unfortunately my old pal Mr. R has remained strangely silent on the issue. No surprise, I suppose, given that none of my concerns regarding self mutilation at the hands of this monstrosity would apply to him.

So what do you think? Is this… Axe Thing… (of ultimate evil) reaper material? Or not?

Grim Reaper Battle Axe – [North Star Collectibles]

I found a rather unusual axe a few days ago. Perhaps it’s not *that* unusual. Especially for a fantasy weapon, since By definition, they really don’t have to adhere to any standardized design specification. However I thought it was an interesting design nonetheless, more or less because its’ designer opted to incorporate some interesting organic touches, and combined them in an unusual way:

Stingray Fantasy Axe

We have what appears to be an axe with a cast metal handle designed to replicate some sort of animal horn. The shaft curves to one side, as it extends down to the grip, which is itself cast to look like it is wrapped in leather. The pommel is capped by a faux gold ring which, in turn, terminates in a rather cool looking little faux gold spike.

The head of the axe is equally interesting, starting with the two copper or brass looking rings that are made to look as though they are screwed into the faux gold plated horn haft. Attached to each of these two bands are the cheeks of the blade, themselves adorned with an almost Incan looking pattern.

The curvy steel blades appear to be embedded in, and extend from the aforementioned axe cheeks, and bear an unusual set of curves, possibly intended to replicate the wings of a great mythical stingray. Not that I’m any expert or anything, but I don’t know of any stingrays have that particular “wing” formation.

And now that I think about it, horns of this nature generally occur on land animals, not aquatic creatures. But then again I’m no expert in horned aquatic creatures either. The narwhal comes to mind, but if memory serves, a narwhals horn is actually a tooth formation, and not an actual horn, like a stag or a deer has.

So we have, in effect, a stingray, with steel “wings”, ostensibly formed of horn, bolts, a stinger of unknown origin, and leather wrap, all, in turn, cast in some unknown alloy, and steel. Yeah. Layers upon layers of artistic metaphor at work here ladies and gents. It boggles the mind. Art. Gotta love it.

Of course this is the beauty of “Fantasy” weapons. The designer gets to pick what level of reality to adhere to. And how deep the rabbit hole goes. But when all is said and done, I think the overall look is actually pretty cool. A fantasy sting ray, complete with steel wings, and a curved, spike equipped tail. A work of organic art. Except made entirely of metal.

I wonder if this stingray is domesticated. Forget piranhas. I’d love to have an aquarium full of these. 

Stingray Fantasy Axe – [Amazon]

If a woodchuck could chuck wood? Ah yes, the quintessential question of the nature of a creature that has apparently been inappropriately named. There is no answer… And yes. My whimsical reverie was spawned by an actual weapon. A rather unusual weapon, in that it is made primarily of wood, though this doesn’t make it any less menacing in appearance…

The Leiomano

[view full size]

Now you might be wondering what this weapon has got to do with wood chucks chucking wood… Well I’ll tell you. There are a number of sites I encountered that listed this weapon as a “Hawaiian Throwing Axe”. Get it? A wooden throwing weapon? So like if a woodchuck could chuck wood, (and this woodchuck also just happened to be a weapons fanatic) this is probably what they would be chucking. Right at your head. Ouch. Except for one thing. This isn’t really a throwing axe.

Yeah, sorry. This is in fact a Hawaiian melee weapon. Seriously, if you look at the design, you can see that it would be ill suited to throwing. Weapons designed for throwing usually use harder materials, as many a throw could end up hitting something hard, like a rock, the ground, etc. This weapon uses wood, cord, and shark teeth. Shark teeth fastened in place with a twine of sorts. And while shark teeth are great for ripping up soft flesh, they would not survive an impact with a hard place, much less the leather thong or twine holding it in place.

Here’s another example:

[view full size]

As you can see from the pic, the teeth are aligned just right so that any blow from this, glancing, pulling, cleaving, etc would almost certainly draw blood. And while it might not be as effective as a sword, you better believe that a battle with combatants taking repeated hits from this would get torn to shreds and bleed to death.

And if you take into account that the heavy wooden head could probably deliver pretty hefty blows all by itself, even without the benefit of shark teeth, you can see how this would make for a very effective melee weapon. Here’s a closer look at how it’s all put together:

[view full size]

That is one lethal and mean looking weapon. Even if it’s made out of wood. And string. And shark teeth. No self respecting woodchuck would go anywhere near one of these…

Leiomano – [Kumulau.com]

Today I thought I’d talk about another interesting designer melee/throwing axe I ran into a while back.

Fantasy Axe

Now the first question that popped into my head when I read the description, and then looked at the axe, was: Couldn’t anyone come up with a more fitting name than “Fantasy Axe”? Did marketing run out of fantasy weapon descriptors? Bah! Anyway, this axe has a lot of similarities to the War Shark axe I blogged about not too long ago. They may have had the same designer.

But unlike the War Shark axe, the Fantasy axe seems to have a lot more aesthetic design cues that do not appear to have any functionality beyond trying to make it look… Fantastic… At which they do a mediocre job. Not that it’s an ugly axe mind you. It looks good. Just doesn’t seem to deliver what the name promised. Freakin’ marketing…

I will say however that it does have the kind of wicked points and curviness about it that I really like. It certainly beats the snot out of the Reaver Axe I blogged about a while back. In fact with slightly more depth to the design, I think this axe would have made a better companion for the Reaver sword than that poor, butchered excuse of a battle cleaver did.

The fantasy axe does have some good things going for it, in that the spike opposite the axe blade seems like it could do some damage to armor, and is better positioned to do so than the on the War Shark. It also looks like it would be better suited for throwing, though how much so is hard to tell. But it does look cool nonetheless, and complemented by the nifty leather-wrapped handle, it seems like a nice, all around melee/throwing weapon I could see taking into battle with me, were I a medieval warlord…

Fantasy Axe – [Realm Collections]

I recently came across a pair of weapons from the very short-lived, but extremely good (I thought) Sci-Fi TV-series-turned-movie: Firefly: Serenity

Reaver Axe and Sword

In the movie, the super genius scientific human weapon experiment known as River Tam (played by dancer/actor Summer Glau) relieves members of a race of evil mutants called the Reavers of their weapons, and proceeds to methodically, mercilessly, you could even say gracefully, eliminate them, one after the other, until there are literally none left in the building to challenge her.

River Tam - Serenity

As a side note, as contemporary modern weapon fight scenes go, I found that particular fight scene to possess some of the most aesthetically pleasing choreographed sword fight sequences, second only to that of actor Wesley Snipes antics in the Blade movies. Ms. Glau really puts her dancing experience to good use. But, as usual, I digress.

Reaver Sword

The thing about this pair that caught my eye was the Reaver sword. It posseses a kind of barbaric grace, almost as if it were a physical representation of a dancer practicing a most lethal ballet. Combining both sinister curves and a kind of brutish simplicity, it was perfectly suited for it’s role in the movie.

Reaver Sword - Hilt Detail

Now the axe, on the other hand, mades no aesthetic sense to me. Looked kind of like a mutant cleaver. Perhaps it does make sense, given the kind of creatures the reavers were, but I just didn’t get the right feel from it’s aesthetics. But given that, in the fight scene I mention earlier, River Tam used both the sword and the axe to great effect, I suppose it would have been an even greater evil to omit the axe from the collection.

Reaver Axe

Me personally, I would have been happy with just the sword…

Reaver Sword and Axe – [Kult of Athena]

As I have stated before, I have always been a big fan of throwing axes, especially those of the smaller, more versatile variety. I recently came across one of the more timeless classic throwing axe designs, I thought I’d share.

Antiqued Francisca Axe

Allow me to introduce the Francisca. The Francisca (sometimes also called the Francesca) throwing axe represents, in my humble opinion, one of the most elegant but functional designs that ever to grace the word of throwing axes.

Notwithstanding it’s visual simplicity, it is a weapon that has been very well engineered. The head of the Francisca has been contoured in such that it is both quite beautiful, but was designed to be an excellent throwing weapon, providing the widest possible sticking/cutting range, especially for a small, single-bladed throwing axe of it’s size. It is also designed to be the perfect weight for speed, and could easily be used as a melee weapon, while still being heavy enough to shatter an opponents wooden shield.

All in all, a very beautiful Frank design. A close look at the aesthetics of the head of a Francisca, reveals that the Francisca axe design incorporates a range of complex curves and contours that I normally see reserved for knives and mid sized swords. Quite impressive. And of course I should mention that this particular reproduction gets brownie points with me for coming in black…

Francisca Throwing Axe – [Reliks]

Next up on our list is yet another interesting axe. A royal axe. A knightly axe. A dark axe. I present:

Black Knight's Royal Axe

Now most of you may not find this weapon particularly contradictory, but I decided to blog about it specifically for that reason. I think the general idea of the axe (as represented by how it has been named) to present an interesting oxymoron.

First off, in medieval times, (regardless of how Martin Lawrence or Monty Python may have portrayed them) a black knight was generally the European equivalent of a Japanese rōnin – A masterless samurai. Being a black knight may not have carried the same dishonor that a rōnin might have in japan, however they were equally disliked by liege Knights because they were wildcards.

A black knight would be just as likely to fight for you as against you. In fact you might find one fighting by your side during one battle, and on the opponents side the next. Almost by definition, a black knight ostensibly held allegiance to no one but himself. Not exactly a trustworthy fellow. Royalty wouldn’t necessarily mean anything to such a knight. Which is why I find the the idea of a “Royal” Black Knight to be contradictory. Unless they were medieval secret agents…

As if that weren’t enough, I’ve always thought that most medieval knights carried swords, not axes. I’d hardly think a Black knights would be an exception. And I’d think that the ones that did see fit to carry an axe would usually carry a smaller, lighter, melee style axe, not a full fledged, double bladed monstrosity. But I guess I’m just splittin’ hairs now.

Disregarding any contradictory symbolic nuances, the design of this axe is an excellent example of a very traditional axe making. But that is about the only thing traditional about it. The color treatment of this weapon is very striking, with a black blade and handle, with both silver and gold accents. The overall design is quite impressive, from the prominent silver point on the butt of the axe and the two gold bands strategically placed to provide elegant contrast with the rest of the weapon.

In spite of the reservations I have about it’s nomenclature, the aesthetics of this axe really does justify it as royalty. The contrast of light and dark is well done, and it would come high on my list of recommended weapons for any “royal” dark knight… If that is their real name…

Black Knight’s Royal Axe – [True Swords]