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// Appendix: Armor and Weapons 
// Story: Game of Harmony 
// by CommanderApplejack 
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 Appendix


Armor and Weapons





Armor



Unicorns




Unicorn armor is made up out of a gold like metal that provides protection to the torso and head but less so to the legs. The main advantage to unicorn armor is that it's enchanted by Canterlot mages to withstand outside weather influences better.
Rank is determined by the color of the crest on top of the helmet, a red crest signifies the rank of soldier for example. 


Earthponies




Earthpony armor consists of thick steel, due to this the armor would be unwieldy for unicorns as without the inherent earthpony strength it would be too cumbersome for most unicorns to wear in a combat situation.
The armor itself protects more of the body than its unicorn counterpart, the house, like the unicorn one, has a crest but where the unicorn version has an artificial crest, the earthpony one has a slit to allow the ponies hair to flow through.
Rank is distinguished by runes forged onto the flank plate of the earthponies armor, when a pony gains a rank the entire back plate gets replaced by one that has the corresponding rune to the rank of the pony. A blank flank signifies the status of a regular soldier.


Pegasi




Out of the three races, pegasi armor is the least heavy since pegasi doctrine mainly revolves around speed and agility. The torso is protected by a tough leathery surface just as the flank is, The back legs are made up out of a tough fabric that is mainly designed to stop arrow fire from unicorns at medium to long range. The front legs are protected by two gauntlets that have the notable feature that they can both support an extendable blade if necessary. The Helmet does not have a nose guard to allow for flight goggles to be worn with it.
Rank is distinguished by a marking on the front of the torso but many pegasi have the habit to also paint their ranks on their helmets.


Weapons






1. Spear

A weapon utalized by both unicorns and earthponies and to a limited degree pegasi, The variant used by the Earthponies is usually longer than the unicorn ones as they use them in a phalanx as opposed to throwing weapons like the unicorn adaption of it.


2. Recurve Bow

A weapon exclusively used by unicorns to take out targets at range, the grip and string of the bow have small magic guiding crystals imbedded into them to allow for easier use by regular unicorns. Earthponies have been rumored to be developing a infantry version of their ballista called the 'crossbow' but these reports have yet to be confirmed.


3. Shortsword

Another exlusive weapon to unicorns the shortsword like the recurve bow has crystals imbedded into the hilt making it virtually impossible to knock one of these swords from the levitation of a unicorn unless you break said unicorns concentration. These weapons can't be used either pegasi or earthponies since the weapons can be riped from their grasps with levitation, the only race recorded to have been successful with these weapons other than unicorns have been griffins as they can tightly hold on to the hilt of the sword.


4. Extendable Blade

This pegasi weapon has been sighted as possibly the most versatile ever created, the module can be attached to nearly any supporting gauntlet and gives the user the ability to deploy a sword of varying sizes at any time. The weapon can be used by any of the races but since it's made by the griffins the only race with a steady supply of them are the pegasi. The blade is operated by pushing a button on the device to extend it and re-sheathing it by pulling the blade back in manually. Models also exist that can retract by a second push on the main button but those are rare since they are only given to officers.