Hi /tg/, I don't see this topic brought up often so I thought it'd be an interesting thing to ask about- In particular, I was hoping to discuss or brainstorm some ideas on how to visually communicate worldbuilding elements when coming up with a character's design and outfit choice.
Is that kind of thing something you'd be interested in talking about? I have a particular character in mind already, but if anybody else is having the same problem feel free to start posting your starting ideas here as well.
>>46834675
This is just vague enough to be meaningless.
>>46834675
Gonna need more detail, any observation right now would be too general.
>>46834675
>has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
Yes.
>>46834675
What's the world like, OP? We can't give you advice if you don't give us something to advise you on.
If I make a kingdom, for example, I'll often give the royal family some sort of symbol. And that symbol will be a recurring motif on heraldry, weaponry, etc. But I have no clue if that's what you're asking.
>>46834708
>>46834737
>>46834752
Sure, here are my own specifics:
The one I'm struggling with myself is a set of characters from a northern, snow-torn mountainous country. The weather is harsh, the crops are scarce, and for the most part the population is scattered among smaller villages and fortifications. What makes it unique is that this land has beast mounts that only allow female riders, meaning that the female population tends to be the warrior caste while the men are digging away at the shitty terrace farms.
Because of these unique mounts, warriors from this land are both unique to the world and exist as a bit of a commodity; it isn't uncommon for a family's primary income to come from the females of the family traveling abroad and working as mercenaries in neighboring lands. In fact, one of the final steps in officially joining the nation's military and being assigned to a battalion is to serve as a mercenary in another nation for a brief period after training.
I kept the OP vague in case anybody else wants to jump in and ask for help in their own.
>>46834675
It's indeed an interesting idea. Two problems here: A) it's simply too wide a subject matter, and B), this is really only relevant to artists and people who can actually do character design. I have a head full of ideas how characters inhabiting my world should look, but since I draw like the proverbial flipper-handed freak, and I don't have spare income to throw at commissions I don't know what much to offer to such discussion.
I've thought about armor designs reflecting the customs of war, about facial traits that reflect the harshness of the lands, about jewelry that separates classes and people of different religions, about materials from which the clothes are done, about the differences between attires of married and unmarried women, even about patterns of embroidery.
Except I can't draw nearly any of it.
>>46834839
>what makes it unique is that I invented a contrived reason for my setting to pander to SJW shitheads
KYS ASAP
>>46834839
>this land has beast mounts that only allow female riders, meaning that the female population tends to be the warrior caste
So what you're saying is that when this culture suffers a loss in battle, that loss is felt for literally decades to come, due to the loss of its breeding bottleneck.
>the men are digging away at the shitty terrace farms
What makes these mounts so spectacular in combat that they wouldn't be better served as livestock? Monster milk/meat/leather/wool is surely a better use of the time these men spend farming than trying to scrape a tuber or two out of worthless, frozen dirt.
>>46834839
While neat, that tells us absolutely nothing about the world's aesthetics. Are they Norse-inspired? Medieval European? Inuit? Imperial Chinese? If they're from a cold, mountainous country, odds are they'd have warm clothing, possibly using the fur from said beast mounts - and thus their horns/teeth/claws/whatever for ornamentation to avoid wastage.
I like it. As a gm its interesting to get character players involved this way but I tend to focus on items with mechanical benefits.
Keeping things simple, say one character wants firearms but anothe wants full plate. I have to decide if firearms are a new thing or full plate is an anachronism of the culture that that PC is from. Then I can start going through how the nations work, general tech level of the world, etc.
Certain art does make me add elements but I don't build a world up from it. There was a scrimshawed tooth dagger I really liked that I then incorporated into a cultures fashion but I already knew I wanted them to be seafaring.
>>46834847
>Except I can't draw nearly any of it.
I don't think that matters, just the idea and brainstorming aspect of it is fantastic to me. I love to hear what other people can come up with when it comes to culture and customs reflected in actual physical objects or traits.
>>46834855
>invented
Nah, it isn't my personal setting. And it makes sense from a physical perspective because the mounts are meant to be fast and agile, meaning that the burly, strong men who have been digging straight into rock their entire life are awful for riding them.
>>46834880
>What makes these mounts so spectacular in combat that they wouldn't be better served as livestock?
See above. They're better for climbing mountainous terrain and moving quickly among trees than they are for load bearing.
>>46834839
What part of it do you need help with?
>>46834855
>>>/r9k/
>>>/pol/
>>>/tv/
>>46834880
>What makes these mounts so spectacular in combat that they wouldn't be better served as livestock
This makes no sense whatsoever. He never suggested it was the only animal ever domesticated.
>>46834894
Personally, I feel like a Norse or Northern European aesthetic would fit best, although I'm not entirely devoted to one in particular as I'm still in the brainstorming phase.
Definitely a medieval time period, though, if we're going to frame technological progression and societal structure.
>>46834902
Wait, so the women can't even be hooked up with proper armor, or else the mounts will stop being able to carry them the same way they can't carry the men?
What you're really describing is a setting where CHILDREN would be the primary fighting force. Male children, probably, but whichever tribe went with an army of male children instead of adult women would be the tribe that can bounce back to its full population and then some after the next war, while all the others suffer catastrophic population losses in the next generation.
The reason why women haven't historically been soldiers has nothing to do with their physical capabilities. Armies have never had a problem drafting weak-ass men, because an extra body is almost always preferable to having one fewer soldier.
The reason why women haven't historically been soldiers is because if you lose a significant number of your soldiers that way, your population will retract if they were women because women serve as the population growth bottleneck.
I'm sorry, but your idea is bad. Your army of female, unarmed cheetah-goat riders would be a logistical nightmare compared to doing the same thing with male children or just on-foot adult male archers.
It reeks of an absolutely cringe-worthy abandonment of common sense in favor of fetishizing elite female warriors.
>>46834952
>Norse or Northern European aesthetic
Tibetan would make the most sense, if you want mountain-traversing skirmishers and people working terrace-farms.
>>46834972
>fetishizing female warriors
Honestly there's nothing wrong with that. I'm in a game that's literally built around all the player's fetishes, and it's probably the most fun, least smutty game I've ever been in.
>>46835018
Hey, if that's what they're doing, that's fine. They should just be straight about it, so that we all know which things to not call bullshit on because our disbelief is supposed to be suspended going in.
ITT: we talk about the world we want to play in by mot talking about the world we want to play in.
>>46834991
^^ this. go Nepalese/Tibetan or go home. dem monasteries too.inb4 "but that's Bhutanese", how about you suck a huge dick instead
>>46834839
Jesus christ man, that sounds magical realm as fuck. What's the mechanism for these mounts only accepting female riders? You need a reason that this occurs that doesn't sound like a flimsy excuse for you to shoehorn in your "this society's warrior caste is all wymyns!" meme.
Having your soldiers out of commission for nine months every couple of years just to keep the population stable would be horrible.
>>46834972
I'm not sure if I entirely agree with you. For one, the core issue with using child soldiers becomes that, well, they grow up. You end up losing your best fighters, any of them with actual experience, the second they make it past puberty. That's also completely ignoring the cultural stigma of sending small children to fight in war.
Also, you're speaking of the military force as if it's some huge, female exclusive entity when truthfully, it would both be much more fragmented in structure and the beast-riding group would only make up a small portion of it. There's a reason that their primary role tends to be mercenary work and serving as what's basically a commodity in neighboring nations instead of as part of an organized fighting force.
I'd also disagree with you on the idea of it being about some fetishized female warrior elite; this is one culture out of an entire world where, for reasons of geography and local fauna, females exist in a fighting/skirmishing class where they wouldn't be otherwise feasible.
>>46835216
Again, isn't my own world, but it doesn't seem nearly as illogical or magical realm to me as you're reading it.
>>46834902
>I love to hear what other people can come up with when it comes to culture and customs reflected in actual physical objects or traits.
Well then. Good amount of anthropological and historical research is generally the place for me to start.
I always though few aspects are key:
Ethnical traits: as most of the inspiration for my world building, I tend to imagine most of the inhabitants to have non-european features. Especially the steppe tribes who should have very distinct, weathered, sharp, somewhat mongolian-esque faces, with dark skin. It's to be in contrast to the few north-eastern coastal ethnical groups, who should have almost celtic features, fair skin and often red hair, or the "river" tribes that inhabit the wide lower flow and delta of a very Volga-like river, who I imagine to be small, with roundish faces, slanted eyes and almost olive-colored skin.
It's quite an important aspect, in fact, since my world does not feature any traditional fantasy races, I imagine the ethnical features of existing ethnical groups to be somewhat exaggerated.
The second aspect I consider quite important is skin modifications. This is something that is frequently glossed over as a largely irrelevant detail, but I like to think a lot about things such as ritual scarring, tattoo's and skin paints. There is a culture where female's paint elaborate ornaments on their skin with henna (or similar paint): members of different clans can identify themselves by clan-specific ornaments. Some cultures like to whiten their skin with white clay, or use other colors for ritual face-paints.
Third: hairdo's. I tend to use these (in line with most common documented real-world-practice) to differenciate both between ethnical groups, but more importantly between different social statuses within the society. Braided hair means unwed girl in some society. Certain types of braids may be exclusive only to women of higher social standing, etc...
Care for me to continue?
>>46835246
No, it definitely is really fucking dumb, and the only reason to even pretend it's believable is for either fetish or social justice reasons.
Which is fine, if the setting creator were to straight up say, 'Yeah, that's why I did it, so suspend your disbelief.'
But he didn't - he tried to pretend like it was entirely sensical - and so we're fucking calling him on it.
>>46835246
There are very clear and concrete reasons as to why, in the long history of human society, there has never been a civilization that comprised its fighting force up entirely of women while men took on a domestic role.
It's because that society would fall the second they got into a tough fight with anybody else.
Unless these combat mounts provide a tactical advantage that is similar to what modern aircraft would have over iron-age heavy cavalry, the most logical response would be that this society ignores these mounts, has the women stay at home, and the men go out to fight on foot.
>worldbuilding by character design
Okay, let's do this. This here is Chubby Tumtum, whose job is basically that of a fantasy biohazard expert, using armor that's padded as shit and (not pictured) oven mitt-esque gloves over a magically infused cotton body suit. Now let's imagine a world where this is both considered practical and completely normal. What kind of threats are they dealing with and under whose employ do they work? etc.OP you should've really taken some time phrasing your thread opener
>>46835246
>>46834902
>>46834675
>women at war
>ever
LMAO, you get to stay in the kitchen and suck my dick bitch.
>>46835275
>>46835277
Well, agree to disagree, in that case. Either way, my job here (and the reason for the thread) isn't to tear apart the world for logical fallacies, it's to figure out how to communicate that world through a character's visual design and features. And I'm very interested in trying to figure out how to design the visual aspects of a culture like that.
>>46835259
And yes, I'd love for you to continue. Armor and clothing choice would be an awesome one to try and address.
>>46835277
There is one more thing you people haven't considered, and that is that the average height and weight of the male population can (and under such circumstances would) probably change. There is of course statistical difference between weight of men and women favorable towards the male populace, but assuming that such society would very generally benefit from small stature, the odds are that over several dozens of generations, the average size of a male would shrink, until it would reach a point where a sufficient number of men capable to ride the beast would be achieved.
It's simple: a good warrior get's to screw more. And those few manlets weighing as much as average women would quickly gain in prominence.
>>46835342
Fair enough.
Serious point, then? Tall boots with high heels were historically worn by cavalry and other riders. So, there's a very good, practical reason for your fetishy lady-cavalry to be wearing knee-high, high-heeled leather boots.
In their society, it might never even become associated with fancy shoes. With such a prominent female cavalry class, I'd expect for 'women in heels' to be a sort of a declaration of 'I'm a goddamn warrior.'
>>46835342
It's very hard to communicate your vision for a world when the world is easily picked apart through basic logical deduction. I'm not saying every part of it has to make sense, but you at least need answers for the basic questions that will come along with your world.
You need to have an answer for what the society does when its warriors deal with pregnancy. It can be contrived and weird, but you can't just ignore it.
You need to have an answer for why women, who are objectively less physically strong than men, are fighting while the men are at home. Is the society structured this way due to some genetic quirk that causes their women to be taller and stronger than their men? That's weird, but fine, it's an answer, and you need an answer.
You need an answer as to why these mounts, which are so crucial in combat, only accept women. And if women are less physically capable than men, why they aren't used simply for ploughing or heavy labor around their settlements as opposed to combat so the men can fight.
I'm not trying to shit on your efforts here, but you can't tell your audience to "agree to disagree" with you. That isn't how storytelling works. You need to convince them that the story you're telling makes some sort of sense. I'm not asking you to answer these questions as a critic, I'm your audience, and I'm telling you to inform me as to why I should believe what you're trying to tell me.
>>46835412
A culture of short, lean little motherfuckers.
Yeah, unless the mounts are a thing they've only had for a couple of centuries, that's the type of social pressure that could cause a phenotype shift.
>>46834972
>your population will retract if they were women because women serve as the population growth bottleneck.
No they fucking don't, resource availability does. Medicine does. Nutrients do. Populations don't grow continuously is women don't go to war, populations grow to a point that the environment and society can sustain it.
>>46835412
See, now, this could be cool. If these mounts were prized for combat, eventually natural selection would dictate that this society's most successful males would be of a size to utilize them.
Thus the most sexually attractive males would be short and lean, probably being much smaller than their sexual partners. It could make for an interesting trope-flip of a barbarian society's most imposing males being massive, musclebound badasses and more like modern racing jockeys.
I like it.
>>46835342
so you wanna know how to make visuals for your world that convey your worldbuilding without infodumps? hate to say it, but look at some darksouls shit.
>>46835460
Again, I think you're thinking of these mounts as a fully-fledged fighting force and not as a form of skirmisher class. They're fast and agile, which makes them terrific for scouting or hit-and-run, but in a direct combat situation they'd be absolutely fucked. In that case, strength and bulk are clear negatives while being swift and petite would be positives.
Think of this culture as much more tribal and local and much less centralized and organized than you currently are.
>>46835530
>Thus the most sexually attractive males would be short and lean, probably being much smaller than their sexual partners
>mfw this is how I wrote my homebrew orcs
i-it's not because I'm a manlet IRL or a-anything, I swear
>>46835530
Also, yes, I definitely like this as well.
>>46835517
>No they fucking don't
They absolutely do. Breeding-capable women are exactly one of those limited resources for population growth, even if they're not the only one, and if it falls below a certain threshold, you'll start having generations smaller than the previous one, and that's a Big Fucking Problem.
>>46835517
No, populations of any species will die if there aren't enough fertile members to continue the species. This happens all the fucking time.
>>46835530
>modern racing jockeys
Yeah, that's exactly how this culture's sexual ideal of men would develop, given the noted constraints.
The question is whether they would also wear drag, since women would dominate military affairs for just long enough that their fashion would be the normalized style for warriors.
>>46835547
>Think of this culture as much more tribal and local and much less centralized and organized than you currently are.
Sending out your prospective troops as mercenaries seems like an odd choice here then. They send money back home, but what use is money in this tribal, decentralised society?
>>46835547
>Think of this culture as much more tribal and local and much less centralized and organized than you currently are.
Then it makes even LESS sense for any given limited tribe to send one of their few women off to war, and it provides an even BIGGER advantage to the tribe that figures out how to field a similar force of manlets or child soldiers instead.
The only reason why women are starting to become part of our modern military forces is because our societies and military needs have shifted so far beyond the tribal scale that 'losing a significant percentage of our breeding-age women to war' isn't even a thing that we'd be risking.
>>46835547
Saying that just because a society has a small population means that it cannot engage in or be engaged in all-out war is incorrect. Whether or not the mounts are skirmishers or formation-based cavalry is irrelevant to the issues I'm rising - if they are fighting, they will be dying. And if they are dying, the riders cannot reproduce. Also I'm assuming that they cannot ride these mounts while pregnant, at least not without causing great risk to the child, which raises the reproduction problem again.
So I posit - how the hell would this society deal with a bulk of its fighters becoming pregnant at the same time? How would this not pose such a colossal risk to them that they would eventually be caught in a precarious position due to it?
I like the alpha-male jockey idea better than "only women can ride". It just makes more sense - you still get to buck the trope of a barbarian society's most successful fighters being big, burly males. But instead of women, it's just tiny men. You can still use it to examine domestic power dynamics - all the most attractive females bunking with men they are a head taller than. But unlike your original proposition, it actually makes sense.
>>46835608
that culture would probably not develop feminine clothing in the Western sense. other things would be seen as feminine. maybe look into Scythian/Sarmatian fashion.
>>46835608
I think you're mixing up the causality here. Men would grow smaller in order to ride the mounts, not start out smaller for no reason. If these mounts are integral to the military, there would be no real phase during which the women controlled military affairs.
They would probably start out with big, mean motherfuckers being their top warriors. But those guys would be outclassed by manlets riding combat mounts, and the military would grow smaller in stature. They wouldn't go from being female-dominated to male-dominated.
>>46835401
Yeah, attire should be next. But it's a big subject matter.
The first thing to consider, above everything else is material. Both for civilian clothes and army. What sources of fabric do you have? Wool, hemp, flax, silk? Something more exotic? How accessible they are? Material of clothes is generally one of the most significant ways to showcase your social stature. The more rare and fine the material are, the higher is the social standing, obviously, though one thing people don't always consider is the matter of coloring. Colors and paints were often expensive, with some colors being significantly more expensive than others. You know that black-and-white dotted fur coat that kings wore? Well, they wore that because it getting the fur of winter-colored stoat was just fucking difficult to get. So expensive that only a king could get that.
Again, examples of my world: the aforementioned river tribes have to rely heavily on what they can find in the river-bank marshes. Which means few animals with hides or fur. Instead, they wear light clothing made out of harsh hemp that grows in the marsh soil, women often wear skirts made out of reed. Similarly, most of their accessories, such as their "backpacks", their shoes etc are all basketry-based. Actually, since they are used to traveling through marshes, and the climate is warm they don't wear that much clothes all together. They do have, however, bastery-based shields as a part of traditional military apparel. Most of their decor and jewelry is based again on things most common: bird feathers and clams, fish and snake scales, red and white clay-based body paint. Metal - already sparse in the settings, is extremely rare around these parts, so their weapons are again made out of reed - spears (often without a metal head), bows and arrows, blowdarts.
In contrast to them, you have the nomadic steppe dwellers. (cont.)
>>46835615
I'm assuming trade and commerce would still be a thing, especially so when particular resources become scarce among certain groups. I would almost imagine the nation not exactly being a leech off of neighboring nations, but certainly being reliant on the success of their neighbors and the goods/income that can come from them.
The idea of them serving as mercenaries was both that they can get high wages out of the demand for such a commodity, and that it helps to build esteem and reputability for the society among their neighbors.
>>46835639
True, which is why the manlet idea is pretty nifty and I'll see about bugging our GM about it.
>>46835652
Yeah, agreed. I like the idea too, it's just a matter of what the world I've been trying to work with already is. Like I said above, I'll bother the GM.
And if we went with the jockey idea after all, the same question still exists; how can I represent that world and society through their design, beyond the simple manlet physical qualities?
>>46835639
Make no mistake here, the reason our military has been pressured to include women is because of the degeneracy of our society as a whole. You know how Rome had female gladiator fights shortly before its eventual fall? Sending women to battle instead of keeping them where they belong is always a foolproof way to identify the collapse of a civilization.
>>46835711
>And if we went with the jockey idea after all, the same question still exists; how can I represent that world and society through their design, beyond the simple manlet physical qualities?
So, relationship dynamics would probably be the first to change. If the society's most attractive women have a raw physical advantage over the society's most attractive men, you'd see a bit more of a balanced power dynamic within the context of the home. Essentially, the husband would still be the one out fighting for a living and the wife would still be the one taking care of the house or farm, but the wife would probably have greater say in domestic decisions because the husband can't really beat up on her, even though he may well be the village's best martial fighter. So there's that - home power dynamics, gender roles behind closed doors, women having a greater say in politics is very likely. There's a lot to explore there, and you can still do a lot of what I assume was intended with the setting which is explore a society where females have more agency than what is typical. Play with that, see what you come up with.
>>46835790
Addendum - either what was described here would happen, or men would begin to prefer women who are even smaller than they are. Before you know it, your northern barbarian society is pygmies with standard social dynamics. I think it could go either way.
>implying men wouldn't just forcefully take over control of the military by using their superior strength and intellect
Some shit tier worldbuilding you got there m8
>>46835711
>how can I represent that world and society through their design, beyond the simple manlet physical qualities?
Fitted pants and knee-high heeled boots.
Jackets/cloaks that button/fasten in such a way that they don't blow open while riding - riding is a cold-ass profession while in the mountains. Maybe some kind of masks/masked helmets for the same reason?
Armor with an extreme focus on protection-per-pound. If the weight limitations are extreme enough that women and manlets are the only viable cavalry, things like plate armor would be a godsend, while chainmail would be impossible. The same goes for barding, on the mounts.
If they have the blacksmithing/metallurgy abilities within their culture to produce plate armor, that would be a VITAL industry for them. If they have to import it, that would be an extremely important trade link - one that could be leveraged by politically-inclined persons.
Anyway, if I had to paint you a picture? Short men in heeled boots, fitted trousers, foreign breastplates, fur-lined jackets which fasten in the front, and helmets with masks to protect against the wind.
So, basically, they'd look like the medieval version of someone wearing a bomber jacket and a full-face motorcycle helmet, and riding the animal equivalent of a lightweight Japanese crotch rocket. Underneath the jacket would be a slim breastplate.
These tiny badasses would be the sexual attraction equivalent of fighter jet pilots, and their clothes would be popular among civilians for the same reason.
How's that, homie?
>>46835920
Fuckin' fantastic, thank you. That's definitely giving me a good idea of what to aim for.
>>46835969
An additional note? Light cavalry like this - especially with the available height advantages offered by mountain-travel - would almost certainly be archers. They'd have sabers/spears, sure, but their main tactic would be to launch a volley of arrows, fall back, regroup, and then hit again.
Getting pulled into a melee as lightly-armored troops on fast-but-light mounts would be throwing away all of their advantages, so they'd try to keep out of arm's reach at all costs.
>>46835573
>>46835596
OP hasn't exactly suggested any mass mobilizations. The number one limiting factor of population size in an area generally unsuitable for agriculture is food availability. The fact that he's saying these women are away from home as mercenaries and send money back makes them anything but the bottleneck: if a portion of land can support say, eight people, four men and four women, then if one of those women leave, then unless they return, the land can supply another child who eventually grows up. If the woman who's away provides financial aid from afar, then odds are even more people can be sustained on the same land, as they can purchase more food, more workers, better tools, or whatever. In this case then, the disappearance of the woman does not in any meaningful way create a more narrow bottleneck, at least not as far as I can imagine. Usually it'd be more efficient to send the man anyway, since he's stronger, but if the beasts haven't yet been bred large enough, then it's not too strange to imagine a woman being a better choice, since an inferior warrior on a superior mount isn't necessarily worse than, and could possibly be superior to, a superior warrior on an inferior mount. It'd of course be one thing if we were talking Roman Republic or post-Napoleon era mass mobilization, but that's not what OP is talking about.
That said, there needs to be a reason why this war mount hasn't yet been bred large enough to handle male riders.
>>46835704
The apparel of the steppe nomads is based mostly around rough, but warm wool that their mounts/primary herd animals (which are sort of a cross between a cow and a dog) provide. Unlike the river tribes, where both men often wear only a loincloth and a turban, and women frequently have only a reed-made skin and body paint, clothing of the nomads heavy, thick, often multilayered. There is less obvious difference between male and female clothing two, in fact women only wear special womanly clothes clothing during festivities and times when the tribe is settled (including during pregnancy and early motherhood), as the heavy, traditional female dresses with long multilayered skirts aren't very practical during the horse(?)back travel. Headwear is also important, both for males and females: some tribes wear turbans and veils much like Tuareg tribes: generally speaking, loose hair is considered inappropriate sight outside of one's privacy or household. Both men and women let their hair grow out, men always braid them, women often just hide it under a scarf.
For these tribes, braiding and jewelry is extremely important. Different tribes have their own typical embroidery. Richness and skillfulness of embroidery represents one social status. Braiding skills are considered extremely important for women. Males further demonstrate status by wearing fur gauntlets, boots, shoulder pads or hats (fur is generally rare and expensive), females wear heavy metallic jewelry on their headbands or sown into their scarfs.
Some tribes, living around the south, also learned the tradition of henna-painting from a more arabian-esque settled cultures living at the southern reaches. In general though: where the river tribes were wearing "bare necessities" and walking around half naked, for the nomads it's typical they try to put as many layers between themselves and the world around them explose as little skin as they can.
(still interested in more?)
>>46835920
Fucking impressive, honestly.
>>46835969
>>46836067
Additionally, because of how important plate armor would be for the cavalry? Being a non-cavalryman hooked up with plate armor would be a sure sign that you're either rich or elite. That's not the kind of thing that happens by accident. Normal infantry are the folks who wear chain; if you wear plate, there's a REASON why someone thinks you're more important than the cavalry that could have otherwise armored.
>>46836103
Depends on whether or not plate is able to be fashioned at home. If the extent of the society's with smithing is maybe some simple re-working of plate, a cavalryman owning plate armor could double as a kind of trophy, armor he's removed from fallen foes who hail from places where plate is common tech.
Just for added flavor.
>>46836136
Yeah, the eliteness of it just becomes more extreme the less-accessible plate armor is to these people. If the average cavalryman is actually just armored in a few layers of leather and wool, then being a swordsman with a full breastplate is a Big Fucking Deal that lets people know how serious of a contender you are.
>>46836168
>the Queen exclusively wears full plate with plate ornaments and plate jewellry in public to show how much of a tough motherfucker she is
>>46836251
Yeah, exactly. You've got to be rich, elite, or both for plate armor to enter your wardrobe, and it's seen as being either the mark of a supreme badass or a supreme poser.
>>46836251
Even her helmet has breasts.
>>46836394
>how would you know its a women if her helmet doesn't have tits, Chad??
>>46834895
Full plate and firearms coexisted on the battlefield for almost 100 years.
