Hey there Symbi!

The way weapons are handled is really easy... Any weapon you see listed in the examples of cool-looking weapons can be of various sizes depending on how large and strong the character who owns it may be... Consider the fact that both a twelve-foot tall elephant and a three-foot tall mouse may each enjoy wielding crystal swords, but you can imagine that the elephant's sword would be made to be much larger than the mouse's sword... They are both crystal swords, perhaps even made by the same crystal artisan and in the same basic design style, but they would be quite different in size and weight, thus different in the relative Strength it would take to wield them by each character...and different in the amount of damage that each might cause...

To keep it simple, we based all Melee, Missile, and Thrown weapons on the Strength Characteristic.

If you check out page 230 of the Basic Compendium, you can read the Weapon Ratings section, which explains how a character's Strength determines what size of weapon he can easily wield (regardless of what the weapon looks like), and in the case of missile weapons, the maximum range you can use them at... The Standard Weapon Rating Table gives all the details you need to determine the size, damage, and distance range of your chosen weapon...

So for instance, if your character has decided to wield a Sustrumi Petjut (that cool multi-colored crystal sphere and Amber chain flail you asked about), then if your character has a Strength of 7, he would be strong enough to use a Large sized version of that weapon, which would do 7 Stamina levels of damage (plus Successes penetrating the opponent's defense roll) on a standard hit...

That same character would be strong enough to use a Medium-sized bow that could fire up to Middle Range (up to 300 feet; 0-100ft. at -0 modifier, and 100 - 300ft. at a -1 modifier, based on the Range Modifiers listed on page 223). Each arrow fired by that bow would cause 7 Stamina levels of damage (plus Successes penetrating the opponent's defense roll) on a standard hit...

Of course, your same character could choose to use a smaller weapon if he wished (thus doing only the highest damage within that smaller damage range), but that would be defeating the purpose of choosing a weapon that suited your character's Strength... Such a situation might arise if you tried to pick up a weaker character's smaller weapon in the middle of combat (let's say yours was lost or broken)...or if you decided to pick up small throwing shards, for instance, and tried to use them... The GM may decide to let you know that any particular weapon you decide to pick up might be in a smaller size range compared to what you are used to using (thus causing less potential damage)... That same character could also attempt to pick up and use larger weapons as well, but will still be limited to the amount of damage he can cause equal to his Strength, and will take a -1 penalty for every size category a weapon rates above the category allowed by their Strength...

The example at the top left of page 231 also illustrates these basic rules...

Essentially, weapons are merely "special effects" and are basically extensions of a character's strength and martial skill... This allows a player to choose any cool-looking weapon they'd like to use, and not worry about having to look up special sizes and damage for each one...

Hopefully this answered your question for you!

Scottie

Sure! You're very welcome! Glad I could be of help...

And thanks again for the compliment on the art!

Scottie