Firearms
"It only takes one bullet."
There are weapons that inspire awe, others that inspire fear, and then there are those that inspire change. In Everwealth, nay, in all of Gaiatia, none embody this truth more than the firearm. A relic of The Lost Ages , it is no mere instrument of death, but a revolution made manifest in steel, powder, and smoke. Where once mages strode across battlefields like gods, hurling storms, tearing open the earth, immolating armies with a gesture, the firearm gave mortals a way to fight back, and fight well. With a single trigger-pull, even the humblest farmhand could humble a master warlock with no more than steady aim. In that first heartbeat of innovation, war, and the world, changed forever. Though The Fall shattered the great forges and factories that once produced them by the thousands, firearms endured. They became heirlooms, relics scavenged from ruins, mended with oil and prayer, their barrels kissed by trembling hands that knew the weight of history. A revolver in a bandit’s hand is no longer just a weapon, it is a proclamation, that the safety the law provides you only extends to law's ability to stop your assailant; And when guards equipped with naught but sword and shield face against such a threat... The rule of law shatters quickly. Inversely a rifle on a city wall speaks louder than any priest’s sermon, promising death even to marauding hedge-sorcerers who once believed themselves untouchable. Every working firearm is both a miracle and a curse, a whisper of a world that could have been, where steel and fire might have replaced spell and bloodline as the great equalizer. But scarcity has sharpened their myth. Rapidly dwindling irreplaceable ammunition are hoarded like holy relics. Black markets risk death to pass rusted rifles between trembling hands, while nobles pay fortunes to keep a pistol and its bullets locked in their vaults; Not just as a weapon, but as a symbol of tremendous power. Though the forges that birthed them lie dead, their legacy still bleeds into the present. To draw a gun in Everwealth is to summon ghosts, of dead kings, broken empires, and common men who dared to topple magick with steel. Even now, centuries later, the word itself still tastes like rebellion on the tongue.Utility
Originally created to end the supremacy of mages on the battlefield, firearms quickly became the gold standard for anti-personnel warfare. Their ability to kill at range, without the need for strength or spells, revolutionized combat. In modern Everwealth, firearms are used sparingly but with brutal efficiency. An assassin’s revolver may fire once a year, but that shot is worth more than a dozen blades. Warlords stockpile functioning rifles like holy relics. Even commoners speak the word “gun” with the reverence of a church bell. Misuse is common, broken fingers from poorly gripped barrels, backfires from decayed powder, or “clicking ghosts”, a term for loaded weapons that simply… don’t fire. Some say the gods themselves have begun interfering with their use.
Manufacturing
True firearm manufacturing died with the Fall. The industrial forges required to produce rifled barrels and standardized ammunition were destroyed or buried. Even now, the remnants of these facilities are picked over like graves. Attempts to restart production result in crude imitations, muskets that misfire more than they function, blunderbusses that rupture after a single shot. Crossbows and repeating bolt-launchers have become the “new” gun, though they lack the visceral immediacy and magick-piercing quality of true firearms. Efforts by The Scholar's Guild and Merchant's Meet to recreate the process are ongoing but plagued by sabotage, political disputes, and the sheer absence of infrastructure. Among numerous examples of proprietary brands with nuanced perks/detriments between them, there is a loose categorization across the board to organize them:
- Hand Cannon (Single-shot Pistol): An heirloom of the first inventors, this heavy, single-shot pistol relies on a sealed powder chamber rather than a flintlock. It spits a single lead ball or small scatter of shot with terrifying force, brutal in close quarters but painfully slow to reload. Commonly kept as a last-resort weapon by caravan guards and relic-hunters, its rarity makes each shot feel like a prayer whispered in smoke.
- Revolver (Multi-shot Pistol): A compact wheel-chamber sidearm that gave both magistrates and highwaymen the means to decide fates in seconds. When clean, it is reliable, firing a handful of ball rounds in quick succession; many carried mixed chambers, some with lead balls, others loaded with shrapnel for desperate close encounters. Favored by assassins who value the chance to silence a spellcaster mid-chant, its crack in the night is remembered long after the smoke clears.
- Service Rifle (Bolt-Action): The workhorse of Lost-Ages militias, a long-barreled rifle with a bolt mechanism that hurled full-metal rounds with precision hundreds of paces away. Infantry drilled in disciplined volleys could pick off cavalry or spellcasters before incantations were complete. Though ammunition has become rationed and scarce in modern Everwealth, a single preserved service rifle can still dictate the tide of a skirmish.
- Short Rifle / Carbine: A trimmed-down service rifle carried by cavalry, engineers, and scouts, prized for its quicker draw and shorter barrel in cramped docks or city streets. Though it sacrificed some muzzle force compared to the longer service rifle, it still fired the same full-metal rounds and offered a mobile soldier lethal reach. To see one slung across a rider’s back was to know speed and fire would arrive together.
- Automatic Rifle (Light Machine): An early automatic weapon, heavy and bipod-mounted, that could spit a belt or magazine of lead balls in a rattling storm. It devoured precious ammunition, but its suppressing fire shattered formations and forced armies to scatter. Today, only a handful remain functional, relics of fortress stores, their roar remembered in old soldiers’ nightmares.
- Tripod Heavy Gun (Heavy Machine): A monstrous, crew-operated firearm bolted to tripod and wall alike. Feeding on large-caliber rounds or canister shells, it devastated massed infantry and early war engines. Slow to move and slower to load, but its thunder was so absolute that crossing its sights was tantamount to suicide. Few survive, and those that do are guarded like crown jewels.
- Trench Shotgun (Blunderbuss-style): With a wide bore and short barrel, this weapon vomited buckshot or whatever scrap was loaded into it, shredding foes in alleys, ruins, and boarding decks. It was less about range than certainty, a terror of close combat where no armor or spell-shield held long. Its rarity is less important than its reputation, for even the rumor of its bark can scatter men.
- Bolt-Action Sniper (Long Rifle): A long, rifled barrel honed for silence and patience. Marksmen used it to fell commanders, sappers, or sorcerers with precision-crafted rounds, some designed to pierce armor itself. A single crack from the shadows could end a siege before the armies ever clashed. Today, very few are left, each one kept in reverent secrecy.
- Volley Gun (Multi-barrel Salvo): A cumbersome rack of short barrels designed to fire all at once, spitting dozens of lead balls in a single thunderous salvo. Reloading was agony, and recoil bruised even the strongest shoulders, but its shock could collapse enemy ranks in moments. More often preserved as a ceremonial relic than deployed, its thunder is now the stuff of legend.
- Hand Grenade & Launcher (Pistol-launched or Standalone): Though not a firearm in the truest sense, these crude explosives were thrown or fired from short tubes, scattering shrapnel or flame across enemy trenches. Dangerous even to their wielder, they were prized by engineers and sappers as the answer to barricades and clustered foes. Few intact grenades remain, and each is a relic of volatile death.
- Light Mortar (Infantry Support): A simple tube and baseplate that could arc shells high over walls or into ruins, its rounds bursting in thunderous shock. Though crude, it could pin down companies or break fortified lines where rifles could not reach. In modern Everwealth, most mortars are improvised nightmares, their sound still sending townsfolk running.
- Arc-Quenched Round (Experimental/Anti-Mage Ammunition): The most whispered relic of the Lost Ages, these experimental bullets were said to carry arcane-dead ore or alchemical powders that disrupted spellcasting on contact. Fired from standard rifles or revolvers, they were unstable, costly, and morally reviled, never produced in great number. In Everwealth, their existence remains half rumor, half black-market blasphemy, an answer to sorcery that burns both caster and shooter alike.
Social Impact
The invention of the firearm changed the social order forever. No longer did birthright or magickal lineage guarantee survival. For a brief window of time, a stable-handed farmhand with a good shot could fell a court mage, or a king. This terrified those in power. During the height of their availability, firearms were regulated, taxed, and seized by ruling factions. Whole wars were fought over their stockpiles. After the Fall, many were lost, but the memory remained. Even now, nobles flinch at the sight of one drawn, and some city-states outlaw them entirely, not out of fear of death, but fear of the idea they represent.
Access & Availability
Today, firearms are rare but not extinct. Most belong to the highest echelons of royal guards, private collectors, or relic-hunters with more courage than caution. They are sometimes seen in the hands of caravan elites, noblehouse enforcers, and battle-proven mercenaries. Entire black market operations exist solely to salvage old guns or harvest parts from broken ones. Reproducing firearms is theoretically possible, but practically a nightmare. Industrial capacity is crippled, and ammunition stores from the Lost Ages are stale or unstable. What remains is scavenged, hoarded, and prayed over.
Complexity
Firearms are intricate devices. While simpler than some forms of spellcraft, their precise engineering demands tolerances and materials no longer widely available. To function properly, a firearm must balance metallurgical refinement, chemical reliability, and calibrated moving parts, none of which can be consistently guaranteed in Everwealth’s post-Schism economy. The knowledge required to repair or reload a firearm is restricted to aging engineers, ex-Guild tinkerers, or deviant alchemists. Entire working examples are often built from half a dozen cannibalized cousins. When one breaks, there may be no coming back.
Discovery
The firearm was not born from curiosity or innovation, but as many things in Everwealth are, desperation. As wars in the earliest eras of The Lost Ages dragged on, magick-users dominate battlefields, their power unmatched and unanswerable. No shield, no armor, no wall could survive a well-timed bolt of lightning. The common soldier was nothing more than fodder. In the ironworks beneath Mount Khareth, lost to the Schism, a coalition of Dwarfish engineers and Human tacticians devised a mechanical device capable of flinging metal faster than the eye could follow. The earliest prototypes were unreliable, but when they worked, they felled mages before they could finish a chant. Warfare would never be the same.
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