Equipping a fantasy adventurer

submitted by Cornfed from self.Fantasy

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[–]Cornfed[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Yes, heavy metal plate would be out but chain-mail is fairly light. There would be other options such as a brigantine. Roman soldiers apparently marched in the lorica segmentata. I don't see why the layered gamberson I posited wouldn't work. It would only weigh perhaps 10kg and in a temperate climate would serve the function of regular clothing.

In terms of equipment it would depend how long your quest lasted. You can go without food for a long time. Presumably you could hunt for food. You could use bushcraft. You could generally stay at inns or with people some of the time. You could have a water canteen on your belt which you could refill occasionally if we are not assuming you are in a desert. Perhaps you could replace the bow with an atlatl, which could save on space and allow you to make your own ammo. Otherwise I think I have it about right for practical combat effectiveness. No point in travelling light only to be killed by the first hostile monster or soldier you encounter.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

You can go without food for a long time

If you're chilling at home, yeah. Other health issues aside, you can look at someone as having a bank of 3500 calories they have available to spend for every lb of weight they have above starvation, but basal metabolism is eating up 2-2.5k of that every day also.

And that's not the only issue, below 1200 calories or a without a certain amount of fat, and our hormones stop functioning correctly.

Also refeeding syndrome, which is really unpleasant if not fatal. Once you go as little as two weeks without calories, eating again can make you very sick.

And blood sugar levels. People get light headed without food.

I didn't mean to go on so much about this one point and now I have to run, I'll try to address more of your reply later.

[–]Cornfed[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I've gone more than two weeks without food. I'm actually 4 days into a fast now. Yes it can cause problems but they can be managed. Suffice to say, probably you could hunt for food when you couldn't buy food. On the average fantasy quest, would your character really have to go that long without food he wasn't carrying? We are presumably assuming he is not already emaciated or diabetic or whatever.

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Depends what kind of country he's travelling through.

An inhabited place would have some kind of inn a day's walk from each other (for exactly that kind of traveler). Out in the wilderness you'd probably have to think about conserving your calories and how you can live off the land. And just hunting isn't going to keep you going so you're going to have to put a few hours aside each day just to find food.

[–]Cornfed[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Maybe you set snares at night. Once a week or so you catch a pig or deer. You gorge yourself, cut and dry strips of meat and live off them the rest of the time. In the right environment you could probably do that indefinitely.

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If you are catching something once a week that means you have to carry a week's worth of food.

A few strip of meat a day won't sustain you if you are walking all day and burning calories. This is why people used to have bread as their staple food.

[–]Cornfed[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That doesn't follow. The need for food is generally overrated.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Are you active? I'm not sure how active I could be during long fasts. I did a 3 month, limited liquid calorie diet with multivitamins but a lot of that was sitting around and I had excess weight to burn. But then I've also gone two weeks without any calories when I had oral surgery and became very ill when eating again. I didn't think not eating for two weeks while my mouth healed was a big deal until it was.

On the average fantasy quest

A 3 day journey to a dungeon, explore it, kill all kobolds and to get back to town hauling a ton of loot. You gotta figure that's at least a week. I guess you could just endure the hardship as long as nothing went wrong.

In style though I think you'd want to mount an expedition with teams of horses, carts, and underlings to die in the dungeon.

[–]Cornfed[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm fairly active, although I'm going to curtail my workouts a bit. I imagine heavy labour or adventuring on an empty stomach would be a bit of a challenge, but we could assume that the average fantasy hero would be a bit younger and tougher than me. Of course you would want an army behind you, but most quests assume that is not possible or desirable. Anyway - a week. You gorge yourself, carry some biltong to chew on, catch the odd opportunistic meal. No big deal.