Silla Crossbow

For more than a thousand years, the Crossbow was a standard armament for Human armies. The first crossbows arrived with the first human settlers of Granmor, and helped them carve our territory in this new and strange continent. The benefits to the settlers were enormous, where one trained crossbowman fell, another could take his place with just some elbow grease and a few days' training. However, the design did have its drawbacks, including heavy metal parts, difficult maintenance, and slow rate of fire. All this would come to change in the year 797 PE.
The Verdon-Idrion War had been dragging on for more than fifteen years, with both sides pushing back and forth in multiple campaigns that saw conflict devolving from a feudal pitched-battle system into a more modern attrition warfare paradigm. With manpower and resources dwindling, George Sprague recognized the need for weapons that would give the Verdonese an edge. A siege engineer in training, Sprague was able to take the crossbow "back to the drawing board" and reimagine its mechanisms in a way that complimented the design of a traditional bow. The result was a draw-assist powered by a pre-tensed second bow with a longer string positioned with its drawstring facing opposite from the first. This second bow pushes the draw-assist backward when the user draws the bow, providing a counterforce that pushes in the same direction the user is pulling, effectively increasing their draw strength. After the arrow is released, the aid is pushed forward again by the user, positioning another arrow fed in from the side to be nocked automatically by the internal mechanisms.
Despite its appearance, the Silla is a devilishly simple design, especially by comparison to some of Sprague's other contemporary work. All the parts can be made by woodworkers and metalworkers of middling talent. Indeed, the prototypes were entirely wooden and the only metal parts needed were reinforcements to the basic parts, especially where the firing bowstring made contact with the other mechanisms. In fact, the Silla not only lowered the bar to drawstring Archery, but made it possible for it to be done with smaller, faster, and easier to manufacture crossbow bolts. This is because since the user no longer needs to nock the arrow to the bow's curve, the arrow can be far smaller than the maximum draw length. This helps make up for some of the internal friction that would otherwise slightly reduce arrow speed and range. However, normal arrows can also be used with an appropriately built Silla.
The name Silla was proposed by Sprague's Northern-born apprentice, after a legandary bowman of the pine-barrens. The invention was demonstrated by Sprague to the Verdonese Army in the Winter of 797 PE. According to history, Sprague asked the Verdonese general to bring his 14 year old daughter, a courtly young woman with no combat training, as well as his best longbow archer to the demonstration. With Sprague's design, the story goes, the girl was able to match the master archer in drawing speed with no training required, firing off five arrows in nine seconds. Ten thousand Silla Crossbows were commissioned on the spot.
Today, the Silla Crossbow has so completely replaced its clunkier older brother that the word "crossbow" generally refers to the Silla Crossbow instead. Over the course of just a few centuries the design spread across Human and Dwarven lands. The weapon was a major factor in The Free Cities' conquest of the Great Desert, allowing Human Bowmen to more easily achieve the level of skill shown by the much longer-lived Dark-Elven marksmen. From the Glacial wastes of the White Horn to the misty bays of Southmark, the Silla Crossbow is an enduring symbol of Human (and especially Verdonese) ingenuity.
With modern day Silla Crossbows holding a clip of ten bolts, the full manpower of an Archery regiment can be brought to bear all at once, unleashing a nearly continuous rain of bolts onto the advancing enemy. Cheaper than a longsword and shield, a Silla Crossbow is a common weapon for hunting and self defense and are carried by merchants as well as the bandits who beset them. Fitted with simple sights as part of the Silla frame, upgraded with adjustable ironsights, or even outfitted with an optical scope, accuracy with a Silla is far more intuitive than a regular bow.

original video: "The Crazy Pendulum Bow!"

Craftsman with fully drawn Silla Crossbow.

Inventor(s)

George Sprague (752-629 PE)

Access & Availability

Ubiquitous

Complexity

Moderate