SpaceCadetStumpy

Great, thanks a bunch for the replies man.

Hey, thanks a bunch. The baleen armor is really interesting, and I'll look into that. I'd also heard so many differing reports on leather and boiled leather armor that I really didn't know what to think about it.

Do you know if the moose hide armor was practical, or just for the status? I mean, I know it wasn't totally useless or anything, but would the moose-hide be actually used in combat situations?

Hey,

Are you aware of any historical examples of more non-traditional materials (metals, cotton, silk) for arms and armor? Y'know, outside of the further back use of just stone or obsidian for arrowtips, axes, and small blades.

As for why I'm asking this, I'm a big fan of medieval arms and armor, but a bigger one of sword and sorcery fantasy. While almost all fantasy worlds are astoundingly horrible at representing arms and armor properly, which irks me a good deal since I think the reality is far more interesting than the fiction in many of these cases, I've been enamored by the use fantasy materials in arms and armor, such as animal or plant parts. In this case, I enjoy seeing designs that don't end up as pure simulacrums of traditional materials, like a mystical cloth that works exactly the same as cotton or silk but stronger, a metal like orichalum or mythril, a weapon carved from a bone that is treated as a regular sword or whatever.

I've tried to look into historical non-metallic arms and armor but (as expected) haven't found much, outside of the occasional ceremonial armor or bone knife. The few things I've found were very dubious as to their authenticity or practical use, such as saw-like weapons made from shark teeth (I like the idea that they're replaceable, which is something that's needed for a weapon that can't be sharpened in a traditional sense), or a shortsword from a billfish's bill. Just hoping you might have come across some weird oddities in your research. Thanks for your time.