Flails

Considered wild and unpredictable weapons, flails are set apart from all other types of melee weapons by the flexible length of rope or chain incorporated into their design. They also carry a reputation as something of peasant weaponry, owing to the origins so many have as implements of menial labor such as grain-threshing flails, animal-driving whips, or the common staff. Still, no one on the receiving end of their punishing blows can doubt the efficacy of flails as weapons.


There are two broad types of flail: a long, two-handed infantry weapon with a cylindrical head, and a shorter weapon with a round metal striking head. The longer cylindrical-headed flail is a hand weapon derived from the agricultural tool of the same name, commonly used in threshing. It was primarily considered a peasant's weapon, and while not common, they were deployed in the Ecumene in the early Discovery Period. The smaller, more spherical-headed flail appears to be even less common; it appears occasionally in artwork from the last century onward, but many historians have expressed doubts that it ever saw use as an actual military weapon.

Mechanics & Inner Workings

Flails are weapons consisting of a striking head attached to a handle by a flexible rope, strap, or chain. The chief tactical virtue of the flail was its capacity to strike around a defender's shield or parry. Its chief liability was a lack of precision and the difficulty of using it in close combat, or closely-ranked formations.
These lighter flails were typically used as one-handed weapons from horseback, but there were also heavy flails and dire flails for infantry that required two hands. Flails could be used to trip opponents and their flexible chains increased the chance of entangling an enemy's weapon, thereby disarming them.

History

Flails have generally fallen into disuse in many nations because of the availability of technologies such as combine harvesters that require much less manual labor. But in many places, wild rice can only be harvested legally using manual means, specifically through the use of a canoe and a flail that is made of smooth, round wood no more than 30 inches long.
In the past, when raids of villages and smaller agrarian settlements were much more common, farmers could only defend themselves with farming implements. Over time these implements have adapted to combat specifically, leading to the creation of the flail weapon group.

Item type

Weapon, Melee