Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
I need ideas for weapons and armor for a particular civilization, the People of the Waters.

Constraints:
* No good sources of iron[1], but plentiful ingredients for bronze.
* Jungle terrain. Similar to the Yucatan, without the limestone shelf (just normal, flat-ish jungle).
* Very hyper-organized society. Efficiency is their prime ideal. I'm thinking they do the Roman (post-reforms) model of building roads and forts and using standardized gear.
* Lots of slaves (taken from neighboring cultures).
* Very expansionist.
* Local opposition is similar to pre-columbian aztec/mayan indians, except not organized at all beyond the tribal level.
* Magic exists, but it's not super common here, at least at the military level.

I'm thinking stiffened, reinforced leather and cloth armor, wooden shields, and bronze spears and swords, with various missile weapons (javelins, bows, etc). Does that sound reasonable?

[1] the ancient[2] iron and coal mines are located in the hills, which are the current habitat of very nasty things that are pretty content to stay there, as long as they're not disturbed. The People of the Waters aren't stupid--they don't disturb them when they can avoid it.
[2] there was a major, civilized, high-medieval-tech (plus magic) nation here about 200 years ago, but that died catastrophically[3]. Not much remains, and the jungle has eaten most of the ruins.
[3] being the beach-head for an invasion of demons, plus the end of all magic for 50 years, plus massive natural disasters including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes lasting months, etc., all about the same time will do that.
If they have bronze weapons they will probably have at least bronze helmets too...

Bronze scale armor was easy to do, and was created quite early in history... they could rivet or stitch rows of bronze scales over the leather and cloth armor...

Bronze breastplates, greaves and maybe manicas and/or spaulders wouldn't be too difficult to craft, either...