Coming Back To Bite You In The Cuirass

Screwing around with archaic weaponry like it was a toy — like in this story — causes all kinds of problems. I almost died as a teenager due to that.

I hung out with a group of reenactors and European-style martial artists, and I had been experimenting with homemade practice armor. My stuff wasn’t pretty, but it cost almost nothing and was quite effective, as was demonstrated by this one idiot.

He was the cousin of one of our members that was visiting. He’d gotten ahold of a poniard dagger and was screwing around with it — slashes, stabs, etc. Just as I came around a corner to show off my newest, best cuirass — thankfully, I was wearing it — the idiot did a backhanded stab that thunked into the solar plexus area of the cuirass.

Everyone’s eyes got big as I rocked back on my heels. They’d been telling him to put the dagger away and stop screwing around before someone got hurt.

Luckily, the guy he accidentally stabbed was wearing armor intended for use with live blades, on the theory that if it could handle battle-sharp steel, practice weapons wouldn’t leave a mark.

The blade went in about an inch into the cuirass, and then the tip snapped off.

I got a few orders for armor pieces from people who saw that happen.

(Editor’s Note: A cuirass is armor consisting of a breastplate and a backplate fastened together.)

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