Equipment chapter art caption issue.

[Timespike]

On page 100, a flail (spiked ball on a chain attached to a haft) is labeled as a morningstar (spiked ball attached directly to haft, no chain).

[Twowlves]

Timespike wrote:

On page 100, a flail (spiked ball on a chain attached to a haft) is labeled as a morningstar (spiked ball attached directly to haft, no chain).

Yep, I immediately noticed that too. Hope they fix it.

[Navdi]

From wikipedia:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flail_(weapon))

The flail is a medieval weapon made of one (or more) weights attached to a handle with a hinge or chain. There is some disagreement over the names for this weapon; the terms "morning star", and even "mace" are variously applied, though these are used to describe other weapons, which are very different in usage from a weapon with a hinge or chain, commonly used in Europe from the 13th century to the 15th century. In construction, the morning star and flail have similar, if not identical, spiked heads. Thus, morning star is an acceptable name for this weapon, especially as the name "flail" is also used to describe a style of whip used for flagellation.

The term "morning star" actually refers to the head of a weapon[citation needed] (the small round spiked ball) and can be used for either a morning star mace (on a shaft) or flail (if on a chain). Flails also sometimes had blunt round heads or flanges like a mace. Some written records point to small rings attached to chains on a flail used to inflict greater damage, but no historical examples are known to exist.

***

So there seems to be some more wide-spread confusion regarding the matter of what one is allowed to call a morning star and what is not. Technically the weapon in the picture is a "spiked ball and chain" and you can't really get more descriptive than type, but I suppose one could label that as a type of flail (morning star -type of head).

[Matthew Morris]

Yes Navdi,

But the D&D definitions have always been Morningstar = big spiky ball on stick, Flail = big spiky ball on chain. History and wiki aside, that's the concern here.

[Neithan]

Morningstar is a big spiky ball. You can have morningstar maces and morningstar flails.

[Timespike]

Again, this is the RPG definition we're concerned with, not the historical one. Because D&D has a big flanged mace (heavy mace), a little flanged mace (light mace), a spiky ball on a stick (morningstar), a short, stout wooden bashing device (club), a long, skinny wooden bashing device (quarterstaff), a long THICK wooden bashing device (greatclub), a little spiky ball on a chain (light flail), and a big spiky ball on a chain (heavy flail) all as part of its standard weapons lineup, and they all have different stats, it's important to distinguish between them with descriptions and illustrations in order to keep confusion down, even if the real-world naming conventions are more ambiguous. Erythnul uses a morningstar, Hextor uses a flail. They're NOT the same weapon in D&D terms.