[Chuck Russell]

lots of poop, dead cows, and other nasty biological warfare stuff to be dropped in strategic places to cause death, disease and plagues. only reason i say this cause if your riding a dragon you prob don't have planes

[Joe Fults]

How about a MK 108 30 mm cannon (or four)?

[Jean-Carle Hudon]

The most fearsome projectile available : dried out balls of dragon fecies, it holds true to form with the question and is certainly a lethal thing to be hit with....and opens untold possibilities with regards to provenance...

[Nat Lamb]

Use the powers of funky action at a distance, so my wildly voguing fists could smite someone 30 feet away.

[Thomas A. Leigh]

Being a traditionalist, I would probably have to drop anvils, Acme brand safes, & grand pianos.
But before that, I'd have to soften up the enemy by dropping leaflets telling how Burt Renyolds & Samuel L. Jackson were sleeping with all their wives while they are away fighting.

[R Ashby]

I've said it before- you guys are awesome!!!! Thank you so much!

1st- the story is about the dragon rider, and less the dragon, so I'll have to limit the amount of "solution by dragon fire" that occurs. D&D and recent movies limit the number of breaths they do in a day. I rather prefer the idea of Jean's idea of it taking too much food/energy to create fire. So, it can be done, but only sparingly.

The dragon I had in mind was only a bit bigger than the one pictured on this thread- so not a gargantuan thing like Smaug. It's intelligent, and isn't controlled as much as consents to be ridden. Thus the rider doesn't need reins, and only needs something to hold onto (I'm working on this)

Here's what I've come up with so far, both based on your info and my own thoughts/research:

Archery: This is the obvious choice- but flying at too much speed would make this difficult. At first (when I posted) I decided that this was probably not realistic for 50mph+, but then I realized that a horse at full gallop is not that slower than that, and after looking into accounts of Mongol, Japanese and Plains Indian archery I decided that a composite recurved bow would be a good choice.

Sword: She already has a hand-and-a-half sword based on Nathan's Swiss Sabre, which would be good for mounted work, but not so good for dragon-back fighting, as your opponents are going to be too far.

Throwing Axes: Cool idea, but too heavy and not as practical as arrows.

Crossbow: too hard to reload (confirmed by the good folks here)

Lance: Too much like Dragonlance- and I'd like to avoid sounding like a take-off of a D&D serial. Also, If she could hit it with the lance the dragon could bite it for her, so what is the point? And, getting unseated would necessarily involve falling to death, thus making it impractical.

Long Polearm: I liked this idea- something like a naginata or one of the Korean polearms used in mounted combat, as it has reach, is effective to the sides, and would do a bucket load of damage. But if she chops into something that provides resistance, such as an armoured opponent, the force carried back into her arm and shoulder is going to either dismount her or do some serious damage to her hand/arm/shoulder, and therefore the idea is cool, but impractical.

Throwing knives: why do this when I can use arrows.

Javelins: A better idea- she could use short, heavy ones. The force of her throw working with the dragon's momentum could be good. But are they better than arrows?

Caltrops: Blooming good idea, that one! Definitely makes the cut.

Bottles of oil: I like this one- she could drop them on people and the dragon could put out a little puff of fire and light them up. Or maybe some type of napalm.

What about a really powerful slingshot? Something that could knock you silly, even if you were wearing a helmet. That'd be original!

I'm currently working on my 6th novel in the series. You guys have helped me at some crucial points- either by answering my questions or by providing information in previous posts. If anyone wants to read an excerpt or two of the ROUGH draft, let me know and I'll email something to you. It's the least I can do.

And for the record, trying to describe Nathan's sword is a pain in the butt!

[R Ashby]

[R Ashby]

[Thomas R.]

I like this thread - despite it's fictious contents - very much. It fuels my imagination on this freezing cold winter morning . Haven't read good fantasy for a long time, I guess. What a shame... Anyway, thanks for this hell of a dragon-ride!

Thomas

[R Ashby]

[Marik C.S.]

So, when are we able to get these at amazon?
I've got to wait until march for the last book of the Witcher series by Sapkowski and your books might fill that time

I like the slingshot idea, maybe combined with the darts/caltrops, that would make for a hellish weapon, shooting a bag of caltrops into someones face would possibly be a distraction for the target.

The reason you might want to use javelins rather than arrows is force, a javelin is heavier and thus has at the same speed as the arrow a much higher force, at the speeds we are talking about, it might have as much force as a ballista. And also throwing stuff is even easier than bending a bow at those velocities.

[R Ashby]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[R Ashby]

She carries a bastard sword, 4 throwing knives and either two long daggers or two short swords (falcata) she uses in tight conditions, or in conjunction with her big sword. She also has a stiletto she uses. She carries a recurved composite bow when out and about. If she falls into water, she'll surely sink with all that metal LOL

I originally thought of a polearm for her, but her initial training is as an assassin, and I wanted to keep her free to climb walls and do ninja stuff, which she couldn't do quite as easily with a polearm. Though her character has grown beyond the assassin role, she still reverts to her training when she needs to, and so prefers lighter, more maneuverable weapons. But she'll pick up whatever she needs, and often gets things made up for her when she needs something special for a job.

I'm still working on the dragon character- but I'm thinking that he might be a very small dragon- like the size of a mid-sized dog, who can magically grow large when needed. He stays small because this requires less food (helpless princesses and farmer's sheep), which draws less attention to himself. But when he needs, he can grow to large size, though while he is large he must eat correspondingly larger amounts of food, which means that when he is large he either 1) sleeps all the time, 2) eats all the time and then can stay large, fly and use his fire breath, or 3) eats regularly, but can not fly and breathe fire extensively- forcing him to choose one or the other.

I dunno- I'm still working on it. Magic can be used to fix some problems like these in fantasy, but I think relying on it too much makes the story weak. I find it more interesting to model dragons on big predators such as lions, big bears, orca or goannas, giving them weaknesses that are inherent in big predators. Resources are the big limiters for them- it's all about energy consumption vs energy production. So he is limited because he stays small much of the time, or when he is big he flies but does not use fire, or uses fire but does not fly, or he is having to eat a lot. In my second story there is a dragon riding bounty hunter who feeds his quarry, and anyone else he feels like, to his dragon sort of like a chinese fisherman will feed bits of fish to a cormorant or otter he has trained to do the dirty work for him. But that dragon was big, dumb and slept all the time when he wasn't being ridden. This one is an actual character in the book, so he is intelligent. A totally different species. I guess it would be like comparing a sperm whale to an orca or dolphin. Or maybe a great white shark to a dolphin.

I'll have a look at those Roman spears. I like the spear idea too. I'd want spears for the big stuff, and arrows for the smaller stuff. But then if the rider has to carry the stuff when the dragon is not full size, spears may be of limited practicality.

LOL- maybe I should have her wizard boyfriend conjure up a bazooka and be done with it LOL

[R Ashby]

martiobarbuli might be the go- they are light and small enough to be carried, but are also heavy enough to be effective in flight.

[Zac Evans]

Why not have the dragon roughly the same size as a large horse all the time. That way he isn't very impractical, but needs to eat a lot still. If he's a young dragon, then that could explain why he can't use his breath so often, maybe it's a thing that comes about in dragon puberty. As for mounted weapons, javelins are one of the best at high speed as you just have to feed them into the target rather than throw with any force. I'd suggest a long sword as well, so she has something to use if people get too close. Also, they can fight back to back if cornered then. Maybe she should have a small short bow as well to use for hunting and sniping in case dragon riding isn't appropriate.

For saddles, the roman style is awesome, and helps to suggest the idea of passive control, as there aren't any stirrups, only 4 horns:

http://www.findonvillage.com/p1980_romans_0398.jpg

add a handle for when the dragon has to fly upside down and you've got a lovely lightweight and apparently very comfortable saddle.

[R Ashby]

[Jean Thibodeau]

When travelling a pack horse & a riding horse and at least one servant/companion/apprentice fighter to do some of the work and to keep watch when sleeping and watch your back: This means a few extra weapons like a couple of spare swords like a longsword ( twohander ) and a more compact travelling sword/large dagger ( Cinquedea ).

Small personal weapons:
A) 15" stout bladed Rondel.
B) 10" bladed Ballock, or quillon, or baselard, or Eared dagger.
C) 2 to 4 small 4" blade throwing daggers.
D) Utility/eating knife ..... last ditch fighting knife.

Useful stuff:
A) Small axe for fighting or utility use.
B) Medieval Chopper also for fighting or brush clearance.
C) A buckler can be useful with the riding sword.
D) Spiked mace if one has to fight someone in heavy armour.

All this extra stuff not a large burden with at least a pack horse or mule and some of the weapons would be available to the servant.

Oh, a large wolf/dog can be very useful to keep watch or sniff out ambushes and might even be interesting keeping the dragon from seeing the dog and horses as potential food when in it's large form ..... actually the dog and dragon could be very friendly with the dog being very confused when the dragon in large form sort of look at it salivating and resisting the temptation to take a less than friendly bite.

A talking intelligent Raven could be a good arial scout and could memorize messages and be a talking messenger pigeon

Well, just giving you sub-plot ideas here for either comic relief and these can sometimes lead to interesting plot lines.

If I'm not careful I might get tempted to write a book myself.

[Craig Shackleton]

So my first response was going to be a telescope and a signal mirror. I'm thinking military application here, where having an exclusive overhead view of events would be more valuable than one dragon's combat ability, but it depends on the context.

However, if you are debating between javelins and a slingshot, why not split the difference and use an atlatl or some similar kind of dart/spear thrower? Personally I think it's a better choice from the back of dragon than a bow, as the lower spar of the bow seems likely to interfere with/be interfered with by the wings, neck, tail, etc. As with all of these things, it depends on the anatomy/body shape of your dragon. Personally I find it more interesting if the dragon's form presents challenges to the rider than if it is optimized for being ridden. So it seems to me that the area of a dragon's body that might be strong enough to support a rider is also the part that supports the wings, meaning it would be hard/impossible to ride it like a horse with the legs hanging down the sides. You'd either have to kneel on it's back, or hang your legs forward over the shoulders (sitting more like in a chair), or sit right on its neck, which isn't as strong as the back.

Since you get to design the dragon, you can design it however you like, of course. As I said, I just prefer when stuff like this involves the character discovering unforeseen problems and/or different advantages than anticipated.

"General I've rigged a harness up so I can hang below the dragon, and fight troops on the ground as he flies over!"

"Do you really think I'm going to risk my only dragon in direct combat? Get up in the sky and tell me where their supply wagons are! And if you see any archers, bug out!"

[F. Carl Holz]

a buddy of mine once said something about ninjas draining eggs and filling the shells with crushed glass, sand, pepper, or whatever else to cause havoc on the eyes. when they needed it they would just crush the egg in their hand and "throw" it at their adversary effectively blinding them. don't know if there's any truth to any of that but if you were being chased while flying I can see that sort of thing working out pretty well for you. sort of like the whole oil slick thing they do with cars in the movies... course i don't know if that really works either :P