Cromagh Answers!

May 15, 2003

Cromagh!

You seem to be a well travelled fellow, so perhaps you will know the answer to this. Where in the world can I locate some good non bikini style women's armor?

Certainly everyone offers the bikini style, and while it does lend it self to increased odds of making charisma checks, the stuff is practically worthless for defense. --I mean I might as well be wearing a fishing net for all of the good that it does me. If I could count the number of times that I have been pierced with arrows or stabbed with a spear, or cut in half with a sword due to the ineffectiveness of the design, well I would be a mathematician instead of a fighter.

Do you have any idea how many hit points I have lost from chaffing? And the dratted stuff doesn't even offer proper support. I need my arms free to swing my sword and not to hold these little pieces of chain mail together. Perhaps when I decide to stop adventuring, I will settle down and make a fortune selling real women's armor, but in the meantime I really would just like to find something that works. Do you have any suggestions?

Elitha, Human Amazon Fighter

Elitha:

Frankly, Cromagh is surprised you've lasted this long. You're foregoing swinging your sword in favor of keeping your armor from falling off? Wow, are your priorities screwed up! Modesty is for churches! It doesn't do anywhere near as much damage as swinging your weapon around with both hands, every chance you get!

Wait... that came out wrong.

What Cromagh is trying to say is that unless you're hiding something in your armor that combusts when exposed to oxygen, you're not doing anybody any big favors. Unless you're fighting while jumping up and down on a pogo stick, Cromagh is pretty sure that everybody else in the fight has much more important things on their minds than whether or not they can see your tan lines! And what makes you think that the average non-humanoid monster really cares? They can't tell the difference anyway!

Besides, Cromagh thinks you're overlooking the obvious advantages. Your armor is perfect for fighting vampires and medusas! They turn their gaze weapons on you, you drop your top, and their gazes naturally drop—only to fall upon your mirrored pasties! If people are going to look there anyway, why not take advantage of it! Why do you think Cromagh wears mirrors on his boots?

Er... moving right along. If you're really all that worried about protecting your modesty, try paint. Not latex paint, unless you're some kind of fetish Amazon, but ordinary old Weatherbeater house paint. A couple of coats ought to do the trick. Just follow the tan lines, and if you miss any spots, ask an Amazon friend to help you. Then you can return the favor by painting her tan lines. And you could listen to music while you paint each other. Maybe something with a wa-wa pedal....

Wait! Cromagh just had a thought! (No, a different one.) Maybe you'd be more relaxed if you just bought armor that was designed to stay on. Man, Cromagh can't believe you never thought of that! Aren't you glad you came to Cromagh with this, instead of putting up with a bunch of dumb jokes about your armor falling off? No need to thank Cromagh. It's Cromagh's job to think of these things.

So Cromagh thinks the problem might be that you're shopping for armor in all the wrong places. Learn to stay out of places with words like "Dungeon" or "Fantasy" in the title! Don't order your armor from catalogs that come in plain brown wrappers or that have a little rabbit's head motif on them somewhere. Just because these places make garments out of chainmail doesn't mean those same garments are designed to withstand a blow from an ogre's club! In fact, Cromagh is pretty sure those chainmail frillies are designed instead to fall right off if you jiggle around too much. Just look at it! How could it not be designed with jiggling in mind?

What you want to do is start your chainmail shopping at a ladies' clothing store. (Bear with Cromagh, here.) Get yourself a demure outfit, complete with a kirtle and barbette. Tell them you've realized that an Amazon fighter's place is in the kitchen, cooking dinner and making babies, so you're settling down and getting married. Yeah, it's a lie, but they will crack their spines bending over backward to turn you into a mousy little house-Amazon. That's okay—you want to project that image.

Then go to a jewelry store and buy yourself a big, gaudy gold ring with a stupidly large gem in it. Tell them that it's a gift for your future sister-in-law, who has terrible taste in jewelry and who you hate with a passion. They'll sell you the gaudiest, ugliest piece of precious metal they have in the store—probably at a discount, so they can get it out of the display case.

Next, go to an inn, and get a room. Go up in that room and change out of your usual adventuring gear into the demure outfit and big, gaudy ring. Pay a lady of the evening a gold piece to help you put on makeup that makes you look like a repressed housewife. Keep at it until you look like someone who hates adventuring and faints at the sight of monsters.

Now stroll into the nearest armorsmith's shop and tell them you need a suit of armor for your husband. Describe him as being just a little larger than you, with a violent temper and a magic, flaming greatsword. (Huh. Cromagh just described Cromagh. Just go ahead and tell them your husband is Cromagh.) Tell them he hates armor that doesn't protect him from injury, and once returned a "faulty" suit of armor to an armorsmith and used a shortsword to demonstrate all of the vulnerable spots in the armor's design.

Then, when they sell you the good armor, pay for it with the big gaudy ring, take the armor back to your room, give the demure outfit to the lady of the evening, and put on the good, non-bikini armor. It may not fit perfectly, but Cromagh's thinking that at least you won't spend your next combat trying to hold it on with both hands. The chafing will still be a problem, but you're not wearing this armor for comfort.

Now here comes the fun part. Strap on all of your adventuring gear and head straight for the nearest monster lair. Kill said monster. Somewhere in that monster's treasure there's bound to be a suit of magic armor. Put on the magic armor. Surprise! It's "one size fits all!" Now you have a suit of armor that fits you perfectly, doesn't fall off in a fight, and leaves your hands free to throttle anyone who suggests that you should be wearing a chainmail bikini!

But hang onto that chainmail bikini! Sure, it's impractical in combat—but if you can't imagine a situation in which a chainmail bikini would come in handy, Cromagh suspects that you might be misinterpreting the whole "Amazon" thing. After all, you're just a bunch of women who sell books and videos on the Internet. It's not like Amazons are some kind of society of warrior women who have chosen to live entirely without men.

That's just ridiculous.

Cromagh.

Cromagh and JD Wiker are the authors of Cromagh's Guide to Goblinoids, now available on RPGNow.com.

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