Zornhau Forums

Well, as I said, you can always cover the maille (with a light cape, or something) and you should be fine, not drawing attention - but, what is more important, cooler than wearing a thick arming doublet. I believe people might also become suspicious, when you're wearing this very thick gambeson, sweating like a swine

If this play by post game isn't already full, I'd love to be a part of it. I'm kind of a forever GM and this might be the only chance I get to actually play the game.

I've already posted my character in another topic, if anyone wants to check him out.

DannyBoy wrote:If this play by post game isn't already full, I'd love to be a part of it.

I have no idea, if we are "full" (33 is in charge), but I believe everybody should have a chance to play a bit. The game is brand new, we are all excited and we should enjoy it together.
If there's no other way, I'm happy to share some playing time / place in the group with you. We could assume that my character must step back in shadows for whatever reason and than you can play more.

The more the merrier!

As far as armor goes, I was more talking about the visibility than the protection provided when I was talking about Gamberson and Jack of Plates. Obviously if you can wear a light maille hauberk with short sleeves and no skirt people probably won't notice. If your hauberk goes down to the knees and shows bare steel, people are going to assume you are looking to start trouble.

Another thing to consider is plausible deniability and daily wear. A Jack of Plates has specifically been designed to be comfortable. If you get into an altercation and get dragged before a judge, can you really say with a straight face "I was just walking my dog, minding my own business in my maille hauberk, and from out of nowhere this guy jumps out..." The more heavily equipped you are you less likely people are going to believe you are the innocent victim.

Again I will remind this is a city campaign (a civilized area). The vast majority of NPCs are going to be wearing cloth and holding a dagger most of the time. It would be perfectly possible to play an entirely non-combative character that properly utilizes uses local law enforcement to their advantage. Most fights are going to be on your terms; that is, you could find a way to resolve the conflict without having to draw a weapon, like bribery, intimidation etc. The ones that aren't your choice almost certainly won't be battles to the death.

Getting caught with your cuisses down probably isn't going to be an issue. Also, I would fully expect most characters to have good armor if the occasion should arise, but most days it's been left at home.

A jack of plates is also quite heavy, though. I mean, about as heavy as a mail byrnie (maybe a little less) and when you're wearing it, people will probably quickly discover you are armoured, and armoured well. Wikipedia says:

"This type of armour was used by common Medieval European soldiers and the rebel peasants known as Jacquerie.[1]
The jack is similar to the brigandine. The main difference is in the method of construction: a brigandine is riveted whereas a jack is sewn. Jacks of plate were created by stitching small overlapping squares of iron in between two canvases. The garments weighed about 17 pounds, which made them much more pleasing to wear than solid breastplates. They allowed soldiers with weapons to rest the butts of the weapons firmly against their shoulders, which wasn't feasible with smooth surface plate armours. The present day equivalent of a jack of plate is a bullet-proof vest."

So if the guards drag you before a judge, you still have to explain, why you are wearing a medium-class armour, more suited for soldiers on the battlefield, than civilian use.

A gambeson is also quite problematic. When it is warm and you are wearing one, you are going to stick from the crowd. No sane person would be dressed like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODS7ksbBRuE
when it's hot. So I suspect you would draw much more attention, then while wearing a mail byrnie covered with a thin, bright (to repel sunrays) layer of cloth.

I would personally go for a mail byrnie (for it's breathable, sinks heat and is easy to hide) in this scenario, but if you rule that overheating is not a thing and gambesons or jacks with plates are apprioprate, than fine.

What you say makes a lot of sense Korbel, so to make sure I hadn't just been making things up I spent a bit of time looking into it.

The Gambeson (AKA Aketon, Padded Jack or Arming Doublet)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson wrote:In late fifteenth century Italy this also became a civilian fashion. Men who were not knights wore arming doublets, probably because the garment suggested status and chivalry.

MET Museum (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/afas15/hd_afas15.htm) wrote:A rare example of the influence that armor, or rather the implied privilege and status of wearing armor, could have on civilian costume is demonstrated by an Italian trend of the second half of the fifteenth century, recently published by Tobias Capwell. During this period it appears to have been regarded as fashionable to wear so-called arming points on garments intended purely for civilian use. Arming points are essentially pairs of strings that are normally attached to the arming doublet (a sturdy garment worn underneath armor) in order to secure individual elements of the armor to the body. In later fifteenth-century Italy, these points appear to have acquired fashionable status through their inherent quality of bestowing an aura of chivalry on the wearer.

The youtube video you linked at 4:58 https://youtu.be/ODS7ksbBRuE?t=298 wrote:a couple of other facts about the glorious gambeson. The gambeson was often used by itself but also in conjunction with other types of armor it was one of the main garments people would wear underneath mail. Chainmail but also plate as well and indeed as an extension of that it also became a fashionable garment that people would wear in their everyday lives because many knights were going around wearing gambesons as part of their armor and because knights were very noble and had a high status in society, well people wanted to reflect that in their daily life, and guess what they started wearing gambeson's just because they wanted to say "well I'm a knight too" and in all honesty they look pretty cool as well.

The Doublet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublet_(clothing) wrote:The doublet developed from the padded garments worn under armour, such as the gambeson, aketon, and arming doublet.

The Jack of Plates

https://myarmoury.com/feature_spot_quilted.html wrote:These new, thinner quilted garments are called arming doublets (or arming coats, jacks or pourpoints). They were usually shorter than the previously described aketons and gambesons, and had full length sleeves. Arming doublets provide an armour attachment base in addition to providing comfort in wear. Since plate covered most, but not all, of the body (like some joints), the arming doublet was sometimes covered with mail to add more protection to vulnerable spots like the armpits or groin. A marvelous surviving example in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, exemplifies this trait. Arming doublets opened on the front and were usually laced. ... It is also worth noting that a standalone defense, much thicker than the arming doublet, is (was) called a "jack." These garments were popular in the 15th and 16th centuries and were made much as the arming doublet was, but were much thicker. In essence they served the same purpose as aketons, but since jacks were made from multiple folds of cloth, modern enthusiasts prefer to call them by a different name to distinguish them from the stuffed aketon/gambeson construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1500–50_i ... an_fashion
This link shows 18 examples of men in the period wearing Doublets in civilian context, some of which are Italian. As far as heat is concerned, apparently that was the price of fashion.

Some images of historical pieces (no reproductions or artists impressions here!)
1580 English Jack of Plates


Carles VI of France. 14th Century Gambeson. Believed that Charles's garments were meant to be largely processional clothing items rather than real body defense, however, they do display the general construction that is believed to have been used for making quilted defenses.


A 1660 Gambeson


A 1506 painting of an Italian man wearing a Doublet


A 1525 painting of an Italian man wearing a Doublet

And finally, comparing google image searches for Jack of Plates, Doublet and Gambeson shows the three looking awfully similar to me. I couldn't find any contemporary examples of a Jack of Plates, but you can't really tell it apart from a doublet by the look of it.

In all my digging I couldn't find any example of someone wearing mail outside of a military or funeral effigy context, let alone an Italian from the time period. Having said that, could someone wear mail under their clothing? Absolutely. If I was looking to assassinate someone, I would put mail on under my clothes if I had it. But I think you would have a far easier time convincing a judge you were just minding your own business if it was found that your everyday fashionable doublet has some metal plates in it than explain yourself wearing mail as a separate layer of clothing (that is strictly a piece of military equipment).

This is all pretty interesting, thanks.
But according to this:

"There are two distinctive designs of gambeson; those designed to be worn beneath another armour, and those designed to be worn as independent armour. The latter tend to be thicker and higher in the collar, and faced with other materials, such as leather, or heavy canvas. This variant is usually referred to as padded jack and made of several (some say around 18,[4] some even 30[5]) layers of cotton, linen or wool. These jacks were known to stop even heavy arrows[5] and their design of multiple layers bears a striking resemblance to modern day body armor, which substituted at first silk, ballistic nylon and later Kevlar as fabric."

I believe people were inspired by this first kind of a gambeson, intended to be worn under the mail or plate (as knights do), which is thinner - and they probably made it thinner again, because they didn't need much thickness in every day life. They wanted something resembling a knights gambeson and I suspect ended up with a garment which is far less protective (let's say, 5 or at most 10 layers), than the thick, actual gambeson, made to be a stand alone armour for the battlefield.

And if you are arrested and a judge discovers, that you were wearing a "true" gambeson / jack of plates, than he might ask: "well, so you were trying to look like you're wearing a typical, fashionable garment, but in reality you had a sturdy armour? why?". So, for him this could be almost as suspicious, as wearing a mail.

I think we should wait for armour section in the rules Agamemnon and higgins provide, and we will see, what makes sense, which armour would be appriopriate.

(I'm not stubborn in this idea, that we SHOULD wear mail... I mean, when you first wrote about gambesons, I visualised my character wearing something like this:
https://armstreet.com/catalogue/full/ga ... adding.jpg
and it looked cool, really cool. Than I realised: "wait, Korbel, you are going to play in Venice, it might be really warm, and you intend to wear an equivalent of a winter jacket?!? God, it's gonna be painful!". This is why I started this topic)

I don't see that much of a difference in protective quality between a "true" gambeson and a doublet, so much as the difference in what body parts they cover. A "true" gambeson covers the neck, arms, torso, groin and thighs whereas a doublet protects only the neck and torso.

Yes, if you had a "true" military gambeson (and not a fashionable arming doublet) you would face similar scrutiny as that of someone wearing mail. In any event, cloth or padded armor was commonly worn by civilians and metal was not.

99% of NPCs are going to have a combat pool of ~10 and be equipped with nothing more than a doublet and cinquedea or rapier. I expect any of the player characters to be able to murder people trivially easily. The interesting part is whether or not murder is the best option or if they can get away with it afterwards.

Go ahead and wear whatever heavy garments you want. There is plenty of historical precedent for ridiculous clothing being worn in Italy at the time. I'm not going to make you roll for heat-stroke but sinking like a stone in the canals of Venice is totally something that could happen.

thirtythr33 wrote:I expect any of the player characters to be able to murder people trivially easily.

You sure it's gonna be trivially easy? Let's say Marras is now only wielding a dagger (he's not a noble, after all), and he is going to fight a NPC with a rapier. Armour is equal. Marras is at 12 dice, NPC at 10 (+2 for range control), so even with SAs firing it's quite a challenging fight. One lucky roll for a NPC and Marras is in trouble, or at least quite far from winning a fight "trivially easy"

That's pretty much a worst case scenario though, and hes still got the advantage. If he fires an SA or has a short sword (that non-nobles can wear), hes probably got a 15 vs 10 dice lead. Hes also got a Steel of 3 and the Hardened Edge, most civilians aren't even going to be willing to fight on after someone takes a wound.

Also, players usually travel in groups, especially if they think a fight is coming up. DannyBoy, Hector and yourself have all indicated that your going to play man at arms type characters, so yeah. I'm probably going to be using the Simple Combat rules on any nameless NPCs as well, in the interest of saving time.

So, as a non-noble what weapons I am allowed to wear? Is rapier off-limits and thus my current proficiency is no longer a viable option.

Marras wrote:So, as a non-noble what weapons I am allowed to wear? Is rapier off-limits and thus my current proficiency is no longer a viable option.

I suppose daggers, messers (not the big ones), short swords, clubs...

Obviously I will wait for what 33 has to say about this but otherwise I might have to see what other proficiencies would work better with a short sword if rapier is not appropriate.

Sword and buckler could probably be done with a short sword, to be fair (since there isn't a specific "rapier" proficiency).

So here's what I know about weapons in the civilian context of the this period in Italy.

• Everyone could wear a weapon of ~1.5 feet or shorter. There are countless examples. This would include Dagger, Messer, Short Sword or Buckler. The Cinquedea was particularly popular in Venice.
• Owning military equipment and training in it was legal, but walking the streets with it was not.
• Nobles LOVED stylizing their dress after military equipment, the doublet and rapier being the "civilian" versions of the military gambeson and longsword.
• Peasants also LOVED stylizing their dress after the nobility if they could afford it. So much so that Sumptuary Laws were introduced in an attempt to stop them.
• Sumptuary Laws were a lot more restrictive to women than men.
• The typical penalty for breaking a Sumptuary Law was a minor fine.
• Rapier is a weapon made for civilian Dueling.
• Dueling was supposed to be only for nobles but was often imitated by people of lower class.
• In Italy, whether or not you were a noble was a a very ambiguous thing. Often rich merchant families were "elevated" to noble status if they made large enough donations.

So in theory, Rapier is supposed to be only for nobles. In practice... people probably broke this law fairly often, the law was rarely enforced and when it was enforced the penalties were not very severe.

Like Hector said though, Sword & Buckler would apply to Shortsword (with or without buckler) as easily as it does to Rapier.