Hand Cannon
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Basic Information

The ancestor of all small arms the hand cannon was humanity's first foray into portable black powder weapons1.

Nothing more than a tube for a barrel2 with a crude handle and a cannon lock firing system it was traditionally inaccurate and unsafe to use. As a weapon it was only really suited for firing at packed masses of men or very large targets like elephants, but had impressive penetrating capacity and created a very intimidating flash and cloud of smoke.

These primitive designs were upgraded over time and eventually replaced by the matchlock - although they saw extensive battlefield use they were unable to outcompete the bow and crossbow in the relevant niche. Purely a military weapon with no sporting application they remained something of a gimmick even when sucessfully applied.

The term hand cannon is also used as a slang term for high powered and/or large calibre handguns …

Sources

Bibliography
1. full source reference

Game and Story Use

  • An unlikely weapon for a PC - unless he's going after elephants (or dragons or giants) - this is better used as set dressing.
  • Unless he is able to invent buckshott early and make a primitve shotgun.
  • An ogre PC might have a chance at controlling one of these, but is still unlikely to hit anything with it.
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