Transcendence Equipment Examples

This page is by no means, and should not be considered, all-inclusive. Basically, it's to give examples of what might be available, assist players in maintaining a unified aesthetic, and help you mine for ideas on artifacts and weapons.

Melee Weapons

Edged Weapons

Vibroblade-a vibroblade is a universally common "melee weapon", as much tool as emergency weapon. Of limited use against heavier personal armors, vibroblades are generally weapons of last resort as well as civilian pathfinding and utility tools.

Hollow Blades -exotic laser weapons favored by assassins and bodyguards in Tian and Hashmalah for their cutting power and ease of carrying. The hollow blade is not a true edged weapon, but a handle that contains a telescoping rod with an emitter at its top and bottom. When activated, the blade springs to life and runs a laser beam between the two points, which can easily cleave through several feet of unprotected flesh and cut through hardened steel and high-grade composites with great ease. It is less effective against ceramics and ablative materials, and is a poor defensive weapon because it cannot be used for stabbing, but an absolutely lethal weapon regardless.

Powerblades-standard powerblades come in all varieties, from light daggers to axes to heavy two-handed swords. Using a disruption field to enhance a high-frequency edge with a high-density strike face, a powerblade is a standard issue melee weapon for just about every planet's armed forces. Variants from the high-frequency blade such as chainsaw or monowire blades also exist as powerblades.

Energy Blades-energy blades are a combination of contained plasma and forcefields, which allows them to keep an extraordinarily sharp edge and parry conventional weapons. Inertial field generators, and adaptive counterweights in the hilt give the illusion of blade mass with computer assistance, reducing the amount of retraining necessary to use an energy blade. Energy blades are superior at causing injury but more expensive and less durable-parries which would merely damage a power blade can overload an energy blade, causing it to go into emergency shutdown, or even melt into uselessness.

Blunt Weapons

Blunt weapons generally operate in two ways-either the weapon is used to deliver a crushing blow and a munition at point-blank, or the use of inertial amplifiers increase their blunt trauma impact, snapping bones and rupturing organs through armor. The former is more useful against heavier armor but requires skill to place a solid blow, while even glancing blows by inertially amplified weapons can cause grievous injury on personnel without inertially damped armor.

Impact Hammer-these heavy warhammers have a snubnose plasma or slug weapon built into their strike face, and heavy distortion fields. Upon impact, the distortion fields overload any shield systems in the armor, and the warhammer fires either a high-explosive slug or a plasma jet into the target at point-blank. Skill is required to place the muzzle of the snubnose cannon directly on the target to maximize damage, but the damage an impact hammer can cause is

Inertial Cestus-used by Dorian brawlers in pankration, the Dorian hand to hand martial art, impact cestuses have small inertial drives that function in "amplification" mode upon impact, greatly increasing the inertia behind the blow. Secondary systems damp the recoil force, ensuring that the user does not tear his own arms off with a poorly aimed punch. Although poor at penetrating armor, the sheer inertia of such blows can cause heavy damage due to blunt trauma.

Ranged Weapons

Due to advancements in materials science outstripping advancements in ranged weaponry, ranged weapons have become somewhat less useful and caused a resurgence in melee weaponry, as sustained fire is needed to bring down foot soldiers. However, they are still an important component of a soldier's arsenal and every civilized soldier is expected to master both blade and gun.

Slug Weapons

Slug weapons are kinetic accelerators, generally using electromagnetic acceleration, possibly in concert with gyrojet or electrothermal propulsion. Standard slug ammunition comes in several varieties, from armor-piercing delayed fragmentation to incendiary to toxin-equipped. Most ammunition for slug weapons comes in glassy blocks of programmable polymer that are adaptively shaped into munitions with the desired qualities, and in the case of electrothermal weapons, reservoirs of liquid explosive. These blocks have caused many soldiers to refer to their weapons as "glass guns".

Glass Pistol-glass pistols are top-loaded pistols with their barrels low and close to the trigger, freeing up the entire top section of the weapon for a block of ammunition, giving them superior ammunition capacity to normal magazine-fed pistols. When empty, only the thin plastic case (used to protect the ammunition block from weather) is left, which is automatically ejected. Variations on these sidearms are used throughout civilization and even by barbarian powers.

Hoplite Morph Weapon-the Hoplite morph weapon is a fairly standard weapon for heavy infantry, combining ranged and melee attack capability. Its primary function is a slug rifle firing armor-piercing ammunition at a high rate of fire or shapes , but it also possess a powered bayonet which can be folded up for melee fighting. In melee, the weapon can be extended to up to 30% of its normal length providing a large spear, or maintain its normal profile if the reach is excessive.

Mark 11 Rifle-used by Kosalan skirmishers and inspired by the god Rudra's weapon of choice, the Mark 11 rifle is a long linear accelerator that fires specialist biotoxin ammunition. These large-caliber slugs pierce armor and break up on contact with living objects, spreading a host of deadly nanoviruses. The use of large-caliber slugs allows each slug to possess a weak disruption field to weaken shields, but makes every shot by the Mark 11 expensive, such that it is only issued to master snipers.

Beam Weapons

Coherent lasers and particle beams are used as extremely precise, long-range energy weapons that require continuous time to penetrate shields and armor, but are extremely accurate and long-ranged. Lasers can burn through lightly armored or heavily armored but slow targets with ease, but are subpar against agile foes.

Laser Rifles-Laser rifles are typically issued for soldiers who may have to take on heavy infantry, as their cutting nature allows them to eventually penetrate the armor of an infantryman which slugs or plasma would only batter. Laser weapons of various stripes have seen extensive service across the civilized nations, proving themselves capable of scalpel-like precision in an expert's hand.

Plasma Weapons

Plasma weapons are hybrids of slug and energy beam weapons, firing discrete pulses of slower-moving plasma (hence their name). These weapons are powerful and capable of wounding multiple lightly armored personnel in close formation due to their blast effects but relatively slow to fire and difficult to acquire. Most plasma weapons have an "overcharge" setting similar to the ability of slug rifles and cannon to fire large explosive slugs, sacrificing rate of fire and ammunition capacity for firepower.

Pulsed Plasma Projector-Hashmalan dedication to the craft of high-energy physics and the taming of fire (and other elemental fury) has kept them at the forefront of plasma weapons technology even with the competition of the Tian. Not very subtle, the large (12 kilogram) support weapon is commonly used to back up a platoon of Immortals or other elite infantry with its powerful bolts.

Firelance-The repulsion of the demonic invasion of Tian resulted in a rather harsh awakening for their soldiers. Leveraging their size and scientific mastery, Tian had begun issuing these compact plasma rifles to their elite soldiers, giving them the punch needed to take out larger, armored foes at range with a directed spear of plasma. Slow-firing and somewhat inaccurate but incredibly powerful, the firelance is a devastating single-target weapon in the hands of a skilled user. Unique among plasma weapons, it uses pre-charged cartridges rather than a battery/reaction mass combination, making it easier to handle and load than comparable designs. Recently these weapons have spread somewhat to the rich and famous of other powers.

Exotic Weapons

Things that don't neatly fit in other categories.

Javelin-rocket-propelled laser-guided spears with high-explosive warheads are used by various skirmishers as single-shot ambush weapons, and useful against light armor or infantry. They're like shoulder-fired missiles that you can throw, basically.

Gyroscopic Chakram-used by Kosalan elite soldiers and a handful of gods, the gyroscopic chakram is a semi-intelligent bladed weapon that has its own reactionless motor. It attacks the designated target autonomously, using a fast-spinning saw-edge and integrated disruptor fields, until its power is low and it automatically returns to the user's hand. Most of these soldiers use multiple sets of these weapons, allowing them to engage multiple targets or tear a single target apart with a veritable swarm of these weapons.

Armor

Armor is generally powered and integrated with the user via direct neural interface. The armor of civilized powers not only protects, but enhances athleticism, battlefield endurance, and strength. All armor generally has integrated sensors throughout its "skin" and provides medical support via surgical nanomachinery, and will self-seal, as well as self-repair over time. Below are semi-representative examples of light, medium, and heavy armor types. Note that these are not the sole armor types in existence, no part of the equipment list is all-inclusive.

Myomer Armor-commonly used by light infantry who prefer stealth and speed to raw protection, myomer armor is an artificial muscle suit with limited protection provided by the toughness of the artificial muscles, a thick layer of ballistic elastomers reinforced by interwoven carbon nanotubes, and integrated field projectors. Thin metal "bones" provide skeletal support for the user, and a coating of radar and thermal dampening material allow skirmishers and other light infantry to outmaneuver heavier infantry on the field. To dissipate its heat burden, the armor generally possesses lines of thermo-optical heatsinks to dissipate waste heat, which seem to "glow" when active-leading to the "glowing line" phenomena seen on myomer suits in combat. Needless to say, this glow can be shut down if stealth is a necessity (although doing so greatly reduces endurance at maximum augmentation), and the armor can either store heat or dump it via the soles.

Laminar Armor-Laminar armor is used by the soldiers of Marduk and Hashmalah. Heavier than light myomer armor, laminar armor thickens the myomer, and layers over it multiple semi-ablative alloy bands, which protect the torso and parts of the arms and legs. These light plates are spaced and shaped to deflect explosives, projectiles, and blades, and upgraded shield generators further increase resistance. An excellent combination of maneuverability, endurance, cost, and stealth, laminar armor is a solid, balanced armor system. The lamellar armor used by Vistula, Tian, and Midgard is roughly comparable in design and toughness, but replaces the banded armor with ablative ceramic tiles. This improves its protection against single attacks but reduces its repeat-hit protection somewhat.

Hoplite Battle Armor-Hoplite battle armor is commonly seen used by the soldiers of Hellas and representative of most heavy armor. Massing approximately 75 kg, the armor is full body hard armor, encasing the entire soldier with centimeters of ceramic and amorphous metal, as well as a body-hugging shield. Although massive, its thick myomer musculature and heavy exoskeleton allow its user to move as if entirely unencumbered, and a small inertial motor allows it to not only guide thrown weapons after launch but make incredible leaps despite its mass. Its sole weaknesses are a large thermal signature, a relatively short combat endurance, and its expense.

Hussar Orbital Cavalry Armor-Hussar orbital cavalry armor is the heaviest protective equipment seen in Vistula space, used only by the druzhinas of the most wealthy and powerful warlords. A gigantic, fully-sealed juggernaut of metal, its main feature are its "wings", which not only grant it the ability of flight, but also allow it to drop straight out of orbit and onto the planetary surface, combat-ready as soon as it touches the ground, paving the way for the rest of the raiding party. It offers excellent protection and some of the greatest mobility amongst the various types of heavy armor, and its battle endurance is surprisingly long if it isn't making excessive use of its flight system, but its thermal signature is significant, and the price is extraordinary; only the finest craftsmen can build one, and in the scattered nations of Vistula, their services are few and far between - and always extremely expensive.

Hashashin Commando Armor

Civilian Equipment

Servitor Automata-ranging from walking tables with small tentacle limbs to humanoid machines, servitor automata are given varying intelligence and autonomy and capable of accomplishing basic tasks. Simple ones can merely move around and do basic household work, while the most advanced models are granted human intellect and can do complex tasks with minimal supervision.

Guard Animals-genetically engineered for loyalty and enhanced physical and mental ability, guard animals are extremely easy to train and loyal to whoever purchases them, but dangerous when provoked. These run the gamut from dogs, to wolves, to more exotic animals such as lions and tigers and serpents and other, stranger things, and are often cybernetically enhanced.