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Thoughts on tail armor
3 years ago
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-- CURRENTLY ON HIATUS -- I haven't actually written anything journal-like on here in, what, years? But I had an idea I wanted to discuss XD Sometime recently, I was talking with a friend about whether medieval/fantasy furries would armor their tails in battle. As a fantasy writer, I watch and read a lot about medieval fighting, both European and Japanese, so I have some idea on this. For this, I'll limit it to your typical, proportionally-lengthed fox, wolf, catfolk, etc tails. Not MY tail, which I think we can all agree is not ideal for fighting. Or sitting in cars. Or swimming. >.>
Short answer is you'd generally not need to armor your tail. First, your tail would rarely be in any danger to begin with. Second, there's not a lot of armor you COULD put on a tail to meaningfully protect it.
For the first point, a tail is simply not a target for an attacker. It's not a vital organ, the least important appendage for fighting, and most importantly: It's BEHIND your opponent! Picture a duel. The attackers face one another and maintain a few feet of separation at almost all times. In a large battle, the soldiers are in formation and battle is generally done with bows, pikes, and cavalry. Even an assassin is not going to go for the tail if they have the opportunity for a vital area. The only time a tail may be in danger -- from incidental damage -- would be in a disorganized melee, and those were much rarer than media thinks they were.
So if you DID want to armor your tail in case it receives a badly-aimed downward stroke in a melee, what can you do? You could wrap it in tough cloth, like linen. Or a lighter cloth, and then wrap it with a long piece of boiled leather, using a string to lace it tight like a shoe. These could both help deflect an attack, but they come at a cost of flexibility. You're not going to be able to bend or move your tail much at all, and if you go for leather, it's likely going to just hang down limp behind your legs and get in your way. Metal plating would make this even worse -- that would add a lot of weight to a body part that doesn't have a lot of strength. The best thing I can think of plate-wise would be something almost lobster-like with scalloped, overlapped metal plates attached to your belt or faulds, and you just belted your tail into that apparatus. But overall, skirt armor over the top of the tail, covering the upper tail while leaving the bottom (by your ankles) exposed would be pretty effective -- but you'd be wearing that to protect your THIGHS, not your tail XD
The one situation where a tail is most likely to be an actual target for an opponent would be if someone were to try to flee from a close-quarters fight. Y'know, literally turning tail. A swift attack of opportunity (where my D&D nerds at) and you've got a trophy! Because of that I can see how a medieval furry culture would begin to see severed tails as a mark of cowardice. It may even become a form of punishment for desertion. In an even more meta sense, armoring one's tail before a duel could be interpreted as hesitancy or a willingness to flee and seen as dishonorable.
But hey, this can all be thrown into the sun under the rule of cool XD If you wanna put on tail armor in art, go for it! I'm actively ignoring tail armor in sci-fi stuff even though in THAT it actually would be extremely important to have as part of a space suit/armor.
And if you want me to write you something fantasy-themed (or a variety of other things), I'm still open for comms!
Short answer is you'd generally not need to armor your tail. First, your tail would rarely be in any danger to begin with. Second, there's not a lot of armor you COULD put on a tail to meaningfully protect it.
For the first point, a tail is simply not a target for an attacker. It's not a vital organ, the least important appendage for fighting, and most importantly: It's BEHIND your opponent! Picture a duel. The attackers face one another and maintain a few feet of separation at almost all times. In a large battle, the soldiers are in formation and battle is generally done with bows, pikes, and cavalry. Even an assassin is not going to go for the tail if they have the opportunity for a vital area. The only time a tail may be in danger -- from incidental damage -- would be in a disorganized melee, and those were much rarer than media thinks they were.
So if you DID want to armor your tail in case it receives a badly-aimed downward stroke in a melee, what can you do? You could wrap it in tough cloth, like linen. Or a lighter cloth, and then wrap it with a long piece of boiled leather, using a string to lace it tight like a shoe. These could both help deflect an attack, but they come at a cost of flexibility. You're not going to be able to bend or move your tail much at all, and if you go for leather, it's likely going to just hang down limp behind your legs and get in your way. Metal plating would make this even worse -- that would add a lot of weight to a body part that doesn't have a lot of strength. The best thing I can think of plate-wise would be something almost lobster-like with scalloped, overlapped metal plates attached to your belt or faulds, and you just belted your tail into that apparatus. But overall, skirt armor over the top of the tail, covering the upper tail while leaving the bottom (by your ankles) exposed would be pretty effective -- but you'd be wearing that to protect your THIGHS, not your tail XD
The one situation where a tail is most likely to be an actual target for an opponent would be if someone were to try to flee from a close-quarters fight. Y'know, literally turning tail. A swift attack of opportunity (where my D&D nerds at) and you've got a trophy! Because of that I can see how a medieval furry culture would begin to see severed tails as a mark of cowardice. It may even become a form of punishment for desertion. In an even more meta sense, armoring one's tail before a duel could be interpreted as hesitancy or a willingness to flee and seen as dishonorable.
But hey, this can all be thrown into the sun under the rule of cool XD If you wanna put on tail armor in art, go for it! I'm actively ignoring tail armor in sci-fi stuff even though in THAT it actually would be extremely important to have as part of a space suit/armor.
And if you want me to write you something fantasy-themed (or a variety of other things), I'm still open for comms!
Regardless, tails are cool, and I support more big handy tails!
I wholeheartedly agree that in fantasy, shield-bearing tails are cool, though XD
Now in sci-fi it is needed for other reasons like space walks and the like.
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46854097/
But realistically, they'd need to be covered to help protect against solar radiation and the lack of pressure
In fantasy games, when I have the opportunity to use a tailed species, I rarely if ever describe armor for it, or, at most, a few small overlapped light leather segments over the base of the tail to prevent accidental injury, but little more. It's more an afterthought than a primary armoring under fantasy circumstances.
Now I’m thing of all the possibilities….
^.^
I dunno if you've ever played Nimin's fetish fantasy here on FA, you have to be a mouse or lizard to use the tail spike weapon for the reasons mentioned above; that's also where I'm pulling my logic from.
Edit: That's not to imply an anthro wolf COULDN'T tail whip someone, but I feel like it would hurt more if all that fur wasn't in the way.