The Short Weapon Rule: Removing the Weight Requirement Under 18 Inches

At the Ragnarok XXXI War Council in 2016, Dagorhir adopted a simple but meaningful change to its weapon construction rules: Blue weapons under 18 inches in total length would no longer be required to meet the normal minimum weight and balance requirements.

Under the updated rule, weapons 18 inches or longer remained subject to the established minimum weight requirements, while shorter weapons could be constructed without having to artificially add weight simply to satisfy a standard designed around full-length swords and similar weapons.

The change was an easy fit for Dagorhir because it complemented the major tenets of the game: playability, realism, and safety.

Playability

The minimum weapon weight exists in part to prevent extremely light full-length weapons from gaining an excessive speed advantage. On a typical 30 to 40 inch sword, reducing the overall weight can make a meaningful difference in how quickly the weapon can be accelerated, redirected, and repeatedly swung.

That concern becomes far less relevant with a weapon under 18 inches.

At such a short length, the weapon has very little leverage and very little distance through which the striking surface can accelerate. Its practical speed is already dominated by the fighter's hand and arm movement rather than by the characteristics that make an unusually light full-length sword advantageous.

A short weapon also still carries the weight of its core, foam, handle, cover, and other required construction materials. With that base weight concentrated into less than 18 inches instead of being distributed across something closer to a 34-inch sword, removing an arbitrary minimum weight does not suddenly create an exceptionally fast weapon.

Most importantly, these weapons provide no inherent battlefield advantage comparable to an underweight full-sized sword. Their dramatically reduced reach is itself a substantial limitation.

The rule therefore removed a construction restriction without creating a new competitive advantage.

Realism and Variety

Removing the minimum weight and balance requirement also opened the door to a wider variety of small weapons.

Dagorhir's equipment rules have always had to balance historical inspiration with the practical realities of padded full-contact combat. Applying the same weight expectations used for larger weapons could make small historical weapon concepts unnecessarily bulky or difficult to reproduce.

The 2016 change allowed builders greater freedom to create short weapons that better represented their intended size and proportions.

Daggers, large knives, short clubs, compact axes, and other small weapon designs could be built without adding unnecessary weight merely to satisfy a rule that offered little benefit at that scale.

That increased the variety of equipment that could appear on the battlefield and created additional options for fighters interested in experimenting with different fighting styles and historical concepts.

Safety

From a safety standpoint, the change required no reduction in Dagorhir's normal standards.

Short weapons remained subject to the same weapon inspection and safety testing requirements as every other weapon on the field. Removing a minimum weight requirement did not remove padding requirements, construction standards, striking-surface requirements, or the responsibility of weapons checkers to reject unsafe equipment.

The short length of these weapons also inherently limits the amount of force that can be generated at the striking surface.

A longer weapon allows its striking surface to travel through a much larger arc and reach significantly greater speed at the end of a swing. A weapon under 18 inches has considerably less distance from the wielder's hand to the point of impact, limiting that effect.

In practical terms, the weapons affected by the rule were already among the least threatening melee weapons on the field in terms of reach and potential striking force.

There was little reason to require additional weight in the name of safety when the weapon still had to successfully pass the same physical safety inspection as any other piece of Dagorhir equipment.

A Straightforward Rule Change

By Ragnarok XXXI, the reasoning was straightforward.

The old weight requirement provided little competitive or safety benefit when applied to weapons this short. Removing it did not create a meaningful speed advantage, did not weaken Dagorhir's safety standards, and allowed fighters and builders greater freedom in the kinds of weapons they could bring onto the field.

Instead, the change supported all three goals at once.

Playability was preserved because short weapons gained no significant competitive advantage from the reduced weight.

Realism benefited because builders could produce a greater variety of appropriately sized small weapons without adding unnecessary mass.

Safety remained intact because every weapon continued to undergo the same construction requirements and safety inspection before being allowed onto the battlefield.

For those reasons, dropping the weight and balance requirement for weapons under 18 inches was readily adopted at the Ragnarok XXXI War Council and quickly became an accepted part of Dagorhir weapon construction.