Injuries from stoning

[seekingnevada]

Setting: Fairly generic medieval fantasy

Situation: There's a big crowd gathered, and... long story short, it turns very nasty. I'm intending for the two women that are the focus of this whole mess to end up being stoned by the crowd - the area where everyone's gathered is covered in seashore-style stones of the sort that fit in the hand nicely and

Comments

[snakewhissperer]

a general mob will have good throwers and bad throwers. Some will be accurate, some way off, so depending on who is aiming for what, your stones could go anywhere you please

[seekingnevada]

See, this is why I love this community.

I figured it might be one of those 'anything from here to there' type answers, but wanted to know what I was dealing with. Thanks for this, it's really given me things to think about when they turn up with said injuries.

[snakewhissperer]

Your welcome!

[quatorze]

The "not do any serious damage" part is debatable... a stone the size of a superball, if it's thrown hard and happens to hit a suitably sensitive area (for example the temple), can result in a fatal injury.

[seekingnevada]

I think it's possible to kill barehanded by striking the temple, if you know what you're doing. But yes, I am aware that one hit to the right place could easily be fatal, I'm just using the odds against it.

[dustthouart]

Metal plated embroidered robes?

Sorry, I'm just fascinated. Is that something that actually existed in history?

[seekingnevada]

Well, when I say "generic medieval fantasy", I'm fudging a bit. I have this con-culture which is about one-part Celtic to one-part 'Curse of the Golden Flower', with another two-parts that... came from nowhere, really. The werewolf is also wearing men's robes, which explains why they're more armoured.

I... er... can only find the drawings of the women's robes, unfortunately. If you've seen 'Curse of the Golden Flower', that's the general look, but they've been deliberately made to be more armour-like so there's a breastplate been incorporated into the design and what-have-you. I can try scanning in the other images if you want, though they're pretty massive.

[jillbamfette]

It's not much of a stretch to take the idea behind a Coat of Plates and extend that to a robe, really... it's an interesting idea. though i think the plates in the lower half might be uncomfortable if they constantly banged on the legs. not armor at all, but i had a perpetual bruise on my calf from a portfolio case repeatedly banging against it when i was in art college.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_plates

[sollersuk]

That's why coats of mail didn't go more than an inch or so below the knee.

[sollersuk]

Riding: it's rather difficult to hold someone on a horse. If the helper is on another horse, they have to lean a long way sideways and keep the horses exactly in pace with each other; if they're on foot, the rider is a long way up. It would be a lot safer to put her up pillion behind another rider, and if she's not up to holding on, tie her to the rider

[seekingnevada]

Re: riding. She's an absolute slip of a thing, so they do put her on a horse with someone else. That was badly phrased on my part though, sorry

[corvideye]

For the plausibility of the stiffened linen part, you might look at Greek hoplite armor... some versions of the cuirass were made of layers of stitched and glued linen, esp. the 'skirt' of tassets. I think more likely stiffened with glue than with starch (which will knock right out of fabric if you strike it--no use at all against an impact).

[seekingnevada]

Sorry, I have bit of a bad vocabulary when it comes to clothing, and can get away with it because the viewpoint character is just a little bit, "Ooh! Shiny!"

But yeah, I knew there was linen armour out there, and figured it would make a lot more sense than metal armour covering the legs. Plus, of course, there's a question of what's likely to be the biggest target for a would-be assassin. Thanks for the heads-up about how to describe it, though~