The Tourney of Storm's End

[Lord Rhodri Arryn]

Thanks! Just got home, but I don't know how long I'll be here (lots of errands today). Officially, Edrick, while my squire, is not my second, but I'll certain add some descriptions. I'll put them in the "Second Day Lists" thread, which has been more descriptive than the results thread.

And, as an aside, goddamn! My squire won the tourney! Now he deserves knighthood...

[Lord Rhodri Arryn]

I've completed the descriptive write-ups in the "Second Day of the Lists" thread. On to the melee!

[Deleted]

Damn that Timm Vikary to Seven Hells

[serdonaltyrell]

Got beaten by the customs man after all - goddammit!
Thanks for doing the description for me, RR.
On to the Melee for a bit of revenge on Jast

[Deleted]

Can we start the melee? The refereeing of rounds and such.

[serdonaltyrell]

Yeah, there's certainly enough online currently to make a start I think

[The Smith]

If the blades are blunted in the melee, how does one lose? Do they submit to an opponent, or are they just beaten senseless?

[Lord Rhodri Arryn]

A bit of both, I guess.

[darklyn]

In melee's the blades were never blunted. Either in the books or real times in the past. Their was always the chance of a mortal wound if you could not defend yourself.

[Axell Lannister]

I think you just fight until someone yeilds. Participants arent supposed to try and severely hurt opponents, though of course there may be a few who do.

[Lord Rhodri Arryn]

Is it too late to pull my Stormland knights out ? It'll be interesting to see who dies.

[Percy Rivers]

Here's the wikipedia description of a melee:During the Middle Ages, tournaments often contained a mêlée consisting of knights fighting one another on foot or while mounted, either divided into two sides or fighting as a free-for-all. This was, in fact, the original form of tournaments and the most popular between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—jousting being a later development, and one that did not completely displace the mêlée until many more centuries had passed. The original mêlée was engaged with normal weapons and fraught with as much danger as a normal battle. Rules slowly tempered the danger, but at all times the mêlée was more dangerous than the joust.

[Lord Rhodri Arryn]

Sounds good. I do imagine that a lot of men would yield before dying -- if they lost their weapon or shield, or their footing -- a lot of deaths on medieval battlefields came from a dagger to those that had fallen, for example, and folks would not bother with such coup-de-graces in a tourney melee.

But if we have a melee with two dozen knights, I would expect at least a couple deaths...

[guest1]

Hmm, spear might not be the best weapon for a brutal close-combat melee. The more I think about it the more I'm starting to have feeling, that a warhammer would be more practical...