The Gorean sheaf arrow is slightly over a yard long, the flight arrow is about forty inches in length. Both are metal piled and fletched with three half-feathers, from the wings of Vosk gulls. Mixed in the arrows were the leather tab, with its two openings for the right forefinger and the middle finger, and the leather bracer, to shield the left forearm from the flashing string.
(Raiders of Gor page 68)
Slowly, singing in a guttural chant, a Tuchuk warrior song, he began to swing the bols. It consists of three long staps of leather, each terminating in a leather sack, which contains, sewn inside, a heavy, round metal weight. It was probably developed for hunting the tumit, a huge, flightless carnivores bird of the plains, but the Wagon Peoples use it also; and well, as a weapon of war. Thrown to low the long straps, with their approximate ten-foot sweep, almost impossible to evade, strikes the victim and the weighted balls, as soon as resistance is met, whip about the victim, tangling and tightening the straps. Sometimes legs are broken. It is often difficult to release the straps, so snarled do they become. Thrown high the Gorean bola can lock a man's arms to his sides; thrown to the throat it can strangle him; thrown to the head, a difficult cast, the whipping weights can crush a skull. One entangles the victim with the bola, leaps from one's mount and with the quiva cuts his throat.
(Nomads of Gor page 24)
And there was, too, the great bow, of yellow, supple Ka-la-na, tipped with notched bosk horn, with its cord of hemp, whipped with silk, and the roll of the sheaf and flight arrows. I counted the arrows. There were seventy arrows, fifty of which were sheaf arrows, twenty flight arows.
(Raiders of Gor page 68)
The bow is not commonly favoured by Gorean warriors, but all must respect it. It is the height of a tal man; its back, away from the bowman is flat; its belly,facing the bowman, is half-rounded; it is something like an inch and a half wide and an inch and a quarter thick at the center ; it has considerable force and requires considerable strength to draw, many men, incidentally, even some warriors, cannot draw a bow; nine of its arrows can be fired aloft before the first falls again to the earth; at point-blank range it can be fired completely through a four-inch beam; at two hundred yards it can pin a man to a wall; at four hundred yards it can kill the huge, shambling bosk; its rate of fire is nineteen arrows in a Gorean Ehn, about eighty Earth seconds; and a skilled bowman, but not an extraodinary one, is expected to be able to place these nineteen arrows in a Ehn into a target, the size of a man, each a hit, at a range of some two hundred and fifty yards. Yet, as a weapon, it has serious disadvantages, and on Gor the crossbow, inferior in accuracy, range and rate of fire, with its heavy cable and its leaves of steel, tends to be generally favoured. The longbow cannot well be used except in standing, or at least kneeling, position, thus making more of a target of the archer; the long bow is difficult to use from the saddle; it is impractical in close quarters, as in defensive warfare or in fighting from room to room; and it cannot be kept set, loaded like a firearm, as can the crossbow.
(Raiders of Gor page 2)
I learned as well the rope and bow. The bow, of course, small, for use from the saddle, lacks the range and power of the Gorean longbow or crossbow,, still, at close ranges, with considerable force, firing rapidly, arrow after arrow, it is a fearsome weapon.
(Nomads of Gor page 66)
Above the shield was a suspended helmet, again reminiscent of a Greek helmet, perhaps of the Homeric period. It had a somewhat 'Y' -shaped slot for the eyes, nose, and mouth in the nearly solid metal.
(Tarnsmen of Gor page 22)
The simple helmet, innocent of insignia, with empty crest plate, of curved iron with its 'Y' -shaped opening, and cushioned with rolls of leather.
(Raiders of Gor page 68)
The helmets of the north are commonly conical, with a nose-guard, that can slip up and down. At the neck and sides, attached by rings, usually hangs a mantle of linked chain.
(Maruaders of Gor page 73)
His lance had a rider hood under the point, with which he might dismount opponents.
(Nomads of Gor page 14)
The lances of the Wagon Peoples are not couched. They are carried in the right fist, easily, and are flexible and light, used for thrusting, not the battering-ram effect of the heavy lances of Europe's High Middle Ages. Needless to say, they can be almost as swift and delicate in their address as a sabre. The lances are black, cut from the poles of young tem trees. They may be bent almost double, like finly tempered steel, before they break. A loose loop of boskhide, wound twice about the right fist, helps to retain the weapon in hand-to-hand combat. It is seldom thrown.
(Nomads of Gor page 15)
On the saddle there was also hung, on one side, a coiled rope of braided boskhide.
(Nomads of Gor page 11)
I was most fond perhaps, of the balanced saddle knife, the quiva; it is about a foot in length, double edged; it tapers to a dagger like point.
(Nomads of Gor page 67)
Most quivas, incidentally, are wrought in the smithies of Ar.
(Nomads of Gor page 124)
He wore beneath his cloak yellow wool, and a great belt of glistening black, with a gold buckle,to which was attached a scabbard of oiled, black leather; in this scabbard was a sword, a sword of Trovaldsland, a long sword, with a jewelled pommel, with double guard.
(Maruaders of Gor page 172)
The round shield, concentric overlapping layers of hardened leather rivited together and bound with hoops of brass, fitted with the double sling for carrying on the left arm, was similaly unmarked. Normally the Gorean shield is painted boldy and has infixed in it some device for identifying the bearer's city.
(Outlaws of Gor page 21)
The spear was a typical Gorean spear, about seven feet in height, heavy, stout, with a tapering bronze head some eighteen inches in length. It is a terrible weapon and abetted by the somewhat lighter gravity of Gor, when cast with considerable force can pierce a shield at close quarters or bury its head a foot deep in solid wood. With this weapon groups of men hunt even the larl in its native haunts in the Voltai Range, that incredible panther like carnivore which may stand six to eight feet at the shoulder.
(Outlaws of Gor page 21)
I had again my sword, that wine-tempered blade of fine, double-edge Gorean steel, carried even at the siege of Ar, so long ago, with its scabbard.
(Raiders of Gor page 68)
