The Gunspring
Rain hissed on the gargoyle’s back. Spittle sprayed through its teeth. Lizbet set an elbow on its neck. Cold damp seeped into her woolens. She leveled a heavy gunspring, tucked its sculpted stock fast against her shoulder.
She set an eye to the pupil of a long brass scope, shut the other. A hundred meters down, a sea of umbrellas milled on a broad, brick avenue under dripping orange trees and the hanging signs of shops. Uncounted slivers of pale faces showed under black, dripping canvas domes.
Lizbet examined them, noted each in turn under the cruciform reticule: A ginger man. A pockmarked woman. A teenager with a red nose. A bankerly mouse in tweed. Then, standing in the crowd, a silver mask: The anonymous veil of an aristocrat.
With a thumb, Lizbet flipped the gunspring’s priming catch. A high, slithery whine emanated from the weapon: The sound of its potent maincoil shivering, tightening the two 76-kilogram launch springs. A saboted fléchette clicked into the receiver.
Lizbet sighed, emptied her lungs. Her body stilled. The reticule steadied over the masked man. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
A slap of metal broke the air. The stock bucked. In the courtyard below, the masked aristocrat jerked as 440 grains of steel dashed and spun through his skull.
Rising from the damp gargoyle, Lizbet slipped, unseen, into the hiss of rain.
The Gunspring
Invented in 3374, the autoloading gunspring is the current evolution of ballistic technology. * It is a handheld weapon that utilizes sleek-yet-powerful compression springs to project metal fléchettes at sharply lethal velocity. **
Gunspring technology is, on a simplistic level, a progression of the crossbow. It utilizes the same firing form and stance, the same hair trigger, and similar ammunition: steel fléchettes.
Crossbows and gunsprings diverge at that point.
While a crossbow may be drawn and loaded by the strength of a man alone, gunsprings rely on mechanical means. These means are necessary: Modern launch springs are far too heavy to be drawn by a human in handy time—by hand or by cranequin. Mechanization is a net benefit to the weapon, as heavier springs allow more energy to be put behind a projectile.
The gunsprings’ power is made possible by odite, a metal with richly exploitable physical properties. Odite permits the construction of compact springs that release at speeds far exceeding steel counterparts. The springbow, one of several interstitial weapons between the crossbow and the autoloading gunspring, was first to exploit these properties, replacing steel crossbow limbs with odite alloy coil springs.
Centuries after the springbow came the leverette: A streamlined, lever-action weapon which, like the later gunspring, conceals its drive springs in protective housings lubricated with low-friction surfactants. Most leverettes feed from a tubular internal magazine in-line with the springs located just over or under the bolt sled. Newer models use a box magazine, mimicking an autoloader.
Today, it is the autoloader and its crucial addition of a maincoil that differentiates modern gunspring technology from the past. Advances in odite alloy—most notably the Guillotine Formula, named for Adalace Guillotine, who invented it 96 years ago—permit an incredible battery of energy to be stored in a hairspring coil the size of a small tin. In an autoloading gunspring, torsion generated by the mailcoil drives a internal autocranequin that draws the heavy launch springs, resets the reciprocating bolt, and nocks a woodpulp-saboted hardened steel fléchette into the chamber—all in rapid sequence. It does so at a rapid rate of reciprocation even while driving heavy spring weights, for the autocranequin provides a mechanical draw advantage in excess of 200-1. As such, modern launch springs are fast, responsive, and produce velocities and foot-pounds of force capable of defeating traditional munition plate armor. †
Today, this mechanization allows for a marked increase in rate of fire: up to 120 fléchettes per minute. The shooter need pause for only a split-second between shots before the springs reprime.
Of course, no maincoil contains 120 shots worth of charge: Six shots is average. Magazines are matched to coils, and neither often exceed six shots. In higher capacities, reliability and safety are both of concern. High capacity magazines are apt to choke on their stacks of wood-saboted rounds, leading to jams, and high capacity coils become dangerously unstable. †† As such, coils are wound with just enough power to draw the launch springs a number of times equal to the magazine’s capacity (usually six fléchettes,) and gunners carry a coil for every magazine or a series of smaller magazines to match a single large (dangerous) coil.
Though coils and magazines may be swapped in seconds, coils themselves take a deal of time to recharge. This may be done properly and expediently with a lever-mill driven by a draft animal or steam engine or laboriously by hand using a peddle-powered field cranequin (or, if under dire need, a winding-spoon.) ‡ A lever-mill is expedient, but available only at armories, gun-dealers, and outfitted camps. Any manual winding option takes a great deal of time and is meant only for soldiers and cutters in the field, who complain of the many thousand winch-cranks required to fully wind a coil.
Tactical and Cultural Effect
The gunspring has relegated the crossbow and reflex bow to the past. However, it has not doomed the art of melee. The gunspring’s rapid salvo may dominate the opening throes of battle, but its slow dual-part reload allows melee combatants to close. Most soldiers would rather draw a sword and duel than reload whilst stationary. As a result, armed forces carry gunsprings in compliment to handaxes, pikes, and arming swords, rather than as a total replacement.
In civilian life and military roles deemed unfit for high-powered weapons, single-action leverettes are prominent. These weapons are somewhat less potent. They often lack any kind of magazine, requiring a fléchette to be thumbed into the receiver between every cranked shot. The better models have internal magazines, tubal or stacked, and these are often quite spacious, if time consuming to reload.
Maximization and Instability
Theoretically, a gunspring need not be limited to a mere six shots before reloading. This limitation is cautionary, rather than mechanical.
Gunspring coils are limited in size and power as they become unstable at extreme tension. An odite alloy coil already possesses great potential energy. It may burst, spewing razor lengths of twisting, shrapnel-like wire. An overclocked coil, one wound to contain more effective charges than intended, tempts fate.
Thus, high-power maincoils possess deadly potential. They allow a gunspring to fire an exceptional number of fléchettes before reloading, but also carry the risk of deadly accident.
⁂
Gunspring Stats
By popular interest, I’ve hashed together some gunspring rules for the world’s favorite adventure game, and various (maybe?) Oldschool games. Honestly, if you want gunsprings, try the Incunabuli system.
The intended stats for gunsprings are in the Incunabuli system playtest. They are customizable, and include rules and descriptions for munitions gunsprings made for various armed forces by multiple armories.
Weapons
Munitions gunspring: 150GP; damage as heavy crossbow; 15lbs; properties: Ammo (440gr fléchette, range 50/200,) heavy, magazine, two handed, coil drive (munitions coil,) repeating
Pistol gunspring: 80GP; damage as crossbow; 7lbs; properties: Ammo
(220gr fléchette, range 25/100,) light, magazine, coil drive (pistol coil,) repeating
Leverette: 100GP; damage as heavy crossbow; 10lbs; properties: Ammo
(440gr fléchette, range 50/200,) heavy, magazine, loading, two handed
Weapon Properties
Repeating: When you take the Attack action using this weapon, you may opt to make one additional attack.
Magazine: This weapon requires a magazine in order to attack. It must reload after making a number of attacks equal to the magazine’s capacity. Reloading is a standard action.
Coil drive (X): This weapon requires a coil matching X in order to attack. It must reload after making a number of attacks equal to the coil’s charge capacity. Reloading is a standard action.
Gear
Ammunition
220gr fletchette (6): 1gp
440gr fletchette (6): 2gp
220gr fletch’ mag: 2gp per capacity, min 6, max 18.
440gr fletch’ mag: 4gp per capacity, min 6, max 18.
Munitions coil, charge cap. 6: 20gp
Pistol coil, charge cap. 6: 10gp
Wind spoon: 1gp
Services
Full coil recharge (lever mill): 5sp
Gear Descriptions
Coils: May be overclocked to increase their charge capacity by up to +6. An overclocked coil risks exploding on an attack roll of 1, or if the coil is struck (e.g., if a character falls prone while holding it, or if the coil is hit by an attack.) Roll a d6 to see if it explodes. A roll equal to or below the coil’s overclock bonus capacity causes the spring to explode, dealing 3d10+5 slashing damage in a 10-foot radius, destroying the coil and, if loaded in a gunspring, the gunspring.
Wind spoon: During a rest, a character may occupy themselves winding up a discharged coil. So long as they undertake no other activity but winding, they may recharge the coil by up to 50% of its capacity. A wind spoon cannot cause a coil to gain more than 50% charge.
Feat
Springer: You may reload a gunspring’s coil and magazine using a single action. When rolling a d6 to see if a coil explodes on an attack roll of 1, roll with -2. You have resistance to slashing damage inflicted by exploding coils.
Do keep in mind that 5E is not a game that lends itself to simulating this kind of weapon. As such, certain compromises in flavor and “balance” might be present. To see the gunspring better represented, check out the Incunabuli system playtest.
If a reader has suggestions on how to make these rules more elegant or functional, do comment. If interests exists for more 5E conversions, let me know about that, too.
Author’s Note
Check out that scuffed gunspring I animated.
Every nice thing in Coastal gameplay should have at least one terrible downside/sin for every wonder. The gunspring epitomizes that. It’s a semiautomatic that you can make tantalizingly more powerful, but will also explode into razorwire if you mishandle it/roll a critical failure.
8 comments on “The Gunspring”
I love this idea. I think that it is especially great in how it can basically bring guns, but not gunpowder to the table.
Does explosive powder exist in any form?
Yup. Nitroglycerine exists, so there is potential for double-base smokeless powder, if not other kinds. I make (expensive) nitro stick grenades available in my games. Overall, spring weapons could lose dominance, if there existed a drive for it. The discovery of an extraworldly land rich in nitrates (perhaps beyond some sea-gate far to the West) could create a gunpowder arms race and make a cool ongoing world event to play around with.
What’s the status of artillery on the Coast? Howling cannon-springs unwinding hundred-pound mainsprings to hurl man-sized spears? Double-base powder-fired cannons? Ballistae and catapults?
I’d define the Coast as being in a transitionary period in terms of weapons, particularly heavy weapons and artillery. I’d compare it to the very late 1800s (including antebellum WWI): A wide variety of designs are hitting the market, busily vended to military organizations with a strong subtext of “you’d better get your hands on this before the other guy does.” With that context, I’d say there’s a lot of heavy weapons out there, freshly available, and they’re as varied in effectiveness as in design. I’d not hesitate to include solid-fuel rockets (Le Prieur or Congreve rockets, a la “rockets’ red glare.”) I’d also include parachute bombs launched via large spring catapults, plus shell-firing spring mortars. Overall, heavy weapons, especially Northern examples, are largely antipersonnel, designed as they likely were to combat beastman and ragwretch incursions on the Northern borders of Firlund. For stylistic reasons, plus the Coastal nations’ lack of recent experience in international war, cannons are probably huge, maybe breachloading, and largely considered a tool for killing ships and fortifications.
To keep in theme with the rest of biomechanical sorcery, would it be appropriate to replace odite with a biological spring similar to the ones in Windup Girl? It would replace a mineral that is probably a strategic resource that is probably controlled by state governments, to something that could be one of the most common things to haul out of dungeons. Then you could have neosorcerers trying to recreate them and grow much bigger versions, maybe by brewing up some monstrous grasshoppers or locusts.
It’s possible that both exist. Odite, in its value and scarcity, mimics aluminum at the turn of the century. The formula for a sorcero-biological replacement could be subject to great competition between banks hoping to fence it to a military power such as Lothrheim or Belvirine (who are at war.)
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