Where is a Weapons Dictionary when You Need One? by Jeffe Kennedy

[Note from Frolic: We are so excited to have author Jeffe Kennedy guest post on the site today. Take it away, Jeffe!]

One of the things about writing fantasy is that the story is, well, literally not of this world. Especially the kind of romantic fantasy I write, which is alternate world. That means I get to make everything up.

Thing is, though—even though I’m a huge fan of the MSU method (Make S**t Up)—I still have to ground everything in a world readers already understand. Cuz, if I wrote a book in an entirely alternate world language, no one’s going to get far reading that. So, what I do when I need to name a person, place or thing in my fantasy world, is Google it, then modify the word in some way.

You know how authors always joke about how an investigation of our Google searches would make us look crazy, if not criminal? Um, yeah.

While writing THE ORCHID THRONE, I saved a bunch of links for things I Googled.

Like the ancient Greek to English dictionary and the Irish Gaelic dictionary. There’s also the Elizabeth Golden Age images, orchid images, and—of course!—Origami Maniacs.

But the real rabbit hole of a search came in when I went to name my hero’s favorite weapon. See, Conrí has been working in a mine since he was boy, and when he leads a rebellion of prisoners to escape, it’s not like he had a sword handy. What he does have is basically a bag of rocks. He makes a bag of fabric salvaging from the clothing of other prisoners who’ve died, gradually fills it with rocks he can collect when the guards aren’t looking—and there you have it: a heavy, blunt weapon he swings with devastating effects.

So, what is that kind of weapon called?

I Googled everything I could think of.

Sling No—because you hurl rocks out of one.

Mace No—that has a shaft with a heavy thing on the end.

Flail This popped up because people Google what’s the difference between a mace and a flail. Turns out that a flail is a mace that has the head attached by a chain rather than to the shaft. Who knew? Also: not what I was looking for.

Incidentally, the same search taught me that a morning star is a medieval weapon consisting of a spiked ball mounted on a shaft, resembling a mace, but with spikes! A mace has, at most, flanges or small knobs. Go figure! Also: still not what I was looking for.

Okay, time to get serious. I flexed my fingers, juiced up my Google-fu and went for more elaborate search strings.

“What is a bag of rocks called?” All landscaping stuff. Surprisingly many images of piles of rocks.

Changing to “sack of rocks” yields lots of explanations on what “dumber than a sack of rocks” means.

“Bag of rocks as a weapon” Did you know some schools have had to ban students bringing bags of rocks as weapons? Me neither. Also, apparently Crown Royal bags are excellent for this purpose.

“Improvised weapons rocks” is even worse—more than you ever wanted to know about rock-throwing.

People, I went to every medieval weapons website I could find. The Google, it had failed me.

Then I went to my medieval weapons-enthusiast friends. (Right? We all have at least one.) They all had great suggestions for fancy weapons names. Nothing for what I needed.

You know what I finally did? I named Conrí’s weapon a bagiroca. Sounds pretty good, huh? One of my beta readers asked me, with a puzzled frown, “Is this word basically ‘bag of rocks?’”

Yes. Yes, it is.