Thursday, May 21, 2020

"Real life" adventuring gear

There are things in D&D that are … mistakes.  Like studded leather, it didn't exist (it's miss-interpreted brigandine).   But it stuck around.  And there are probably many others like this.

So it's nice, once in a while, to look at things.  People think that adventurers fight.  But the thing they do most is *travel*.  And traveling can be hard.  You can die of exposure.  So how did they do it back in the day?

Well... I don't know either.  But I found this on the web, and it's *very* inspiring:




I know my posting a link is not high quality content, but this quarantine has been hard.


Some things I note of import:

Food carried was light and dehydrated (oats) and carb rich.  A bit of salt was also carried - both flavoring but also to restore salt loss via sweating (if you "run out of salt" you will feel a lot of fatigue).  The goal here was not to have you full day's worth of calories, rather to have a bit of food to keep you going.  This would not have been sustainable over longer distances, but made a lot of sense.

Tools are more important than weapons - especially tools to repair  your gear, make a camp and make fire.  Tool that can act as weapon are probably great.  The same goes for armor.  Lightweight stuff that is multi functional is best - like a leather/sheepskin vest.

Making camp takes time!  Picking a good spot is important.  And a good spot for shelter may not be a good spot for defence.  Having a watch to keep the fire going when cold is probably as important as keeping watch for enemies.  

edit:  Thank  you Anne for the suggestion re imbedding :)

edit 2:  Spells like mending and prestidigitation would be *super useful* for adventuring.

edit 3:  Found this a few months later - wasn't sure it was worth a post of its own, so here it is:

https://www.vindolanda.com/blog/the-romans-camping-and-me

I found the notion that tends were made of *leather* to be interesting.

2 comments:

  1. We all need inspiration, so thanks for sharing this!

    My "pro" tip would be that embedding the video somehow feels more "effortful" than sharing the link, but really, the added commentary is what really drives something like this.

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    1. I'm not even sure how to do that ha! But I'll look into it :)

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