A slingshot is a weapon many may have had their hands on, especially as children, when they made one out of a natural fork and some leftover rubber. With many commercial and artisan makers, and whole clubs and competitions dedicated to target slingshot shooting it’s quite easy to get into the hobby even as an adult.
While their history is rather short compared to other weapons, slingshots are sometimes used in various works of fantasy fiction. Mostly they are depicted as a “youngster” weapon, or a makeshift weapon. Are they worth using in your game? Short answer of course would be: if you want to, use them. But read on if you want to see my thoughts about slingshots in fantasy settings. In this first part I will provide some basic information and examples from fiction. In the next one you will get the when, how, and why I would use them in a fantasy setting.
Sling vs. slingshot
First thing we have to get off the table is this – slings and slingshots are completely different devices, using different laws of physics to propel the projectile, and should not be confused. Often they are, though in a world of ringmail, studded leather armor, and dire flails that can hardly surprise anyone.
A sling is essentially a piece of string with a pouch for a bullet in the middle that you shoot by swinging the whole thing above your head or to your side – no spinning – and releasing one end of the string. A slingshot on the other hand is a rigid frame of wood, metal or other material, usually Y-shaped. The pouch is connected to the ends of the fork by bands of rubber, and you shoot the thing by drawing the pouch with bullet like and letting go. With a sling you need some some space, slingshots should work fine even in tighter places. This of course has implications concerning their usefullness in various situations. You might not be able to use a sling in a long narrow corridor (have to test this), and trying to use a slingshot to shoot someone a hundred metres away is probably inefficient.
Materials
The slingshot consists of three main parts – the body, bands and pouch. While competitive shooters would probably disagree, the pouch doesn’t matter from our point of view. Leather is ok and easily obtainable in probably every setting. What matters are body and bands. The body can be of any material strong enough to withstand the stresses put on it by flexing the bands. This can be the most traditional wood, but also metal, bone, or various plastics (with or without a metal core). So the body is also quite clear and easy to find in any setting. What makes it difficult are the bands.
Slingshot bands are made of rubber. That’s it. That’s why slingshots didn’t exist in our world until rubber was invented and widespread enough. It’s also why slingshots in a world without rubber or a passable substitute look out of place. Catgut is not a good substitute, as it’s not flexible enough. Try using violin strings for your first slingshot. Though it probably could be used in a sling.
But we are in fantasy and there might either be another material with qualities similar to rubber, or rubber itself might be available via the wonders of alchemy (more on this in an upcoming post). For example the body parts of some monster might be flexible enough to substitute rubber. Maybe even whole bodies of some worm species could serve as bands. It’s fantasy, so it shouldn’t be hard to come up with something, but I believe you should have that something thought through, so when someone comes asking, you have an explanation ready.
Slingshot wielders
Let’s take a look at some characters using a slingshot as their preferred weapon. I’m not trying to count every one of them, since folks over at TV Tropes have already done this quite extensively. I’m picking a few that come up to my mind when I think of slingshot-wielding characters, and only in fantasy (-ish) settings. So no Bart Simpson, sorry.
Evil Twin: Cyprien’s Chronicles (2001)
There was a time when platformers enjoyed a much greater popularity even among PC gamers. One of those is Evil Twin by In Utero. The main character is the titular Cyprien, an orphan who has to visit a grotesquely fantastic world to save his friends. It has a very Alice in Wonderland feel, and from what I remember it had cool level design, if somewhat less original story. I’ve been trying to get my old copy to work, but to no avail. Once I’m able to replay the game, I might write a post about it.
However the reason I’m mentioning the game is that Cyprien uses slingshot as his primary weapon. This goes well with the “youngster” image of slingshots in media. Throughout the game special ammunition can be found, including bubblegum and paper planes. That doesn’t make much sense, but since the game setting is some kind of nightmare dreamworld, I guess it doesn’t matter.
Kender
I have never read a Dragonlance novel, nor have I read either the old or the recently issued setting supplements. I know next to nothing about the setting other than that it has dragons and kender. Based on what I learned on various sites I probably couldn’t appreciate the kender in a game (or novel). Maybe if I read the novels they could grow on me, who knows?
Anyway they use a number of signature weapons and two of these employ slingshots in their design. They are the hoopak, essentially a staff with a slingshot on one end and a spear tip on the other, and the chapak, which is a hand axe with the back of the axe head extending into a slingshot. Both supposedly also serve as musical instruments – the hoopak as a bull-roarer, and the chapak handle is hollowed with finger holes, so you can remove the axe head and plugs in the finger holes and use it as a flute. And those two belong to the more sensible weapons in the kender arsenal.
The hoopak is referred to as a staff sling, which it obviously isn’t. It’s a slingshot on a staff and that’s not a terrible idea. Joerg Sprave even reviewed his rendition of a weapon like this from the One Piece manga (see below). The descriptions of hoopak I found vary but it seems it is supposed to be working both as a slingshot when planted in the ground by the spike, or as a staff sling. I think this goes with the general theme of kender weapons – trying to slap as many diverse uses on them until they become unusable or silly. If we keep it as a staff/spear with a sling on one end, it’s ok. If we change the sling into a slingshot and find rubber somewhere, it could work as well. Just stay away from catgut, please.
The other one, chapak, is supposed to be a handaxe with a slingshot on prongs extending from the back of the axe. The slingshot uses catgut, of course. I imagine this setup would provide a very uncomfortable and weak grip when shooting the slingshot, and the bands and pouch would get in the way of hacking with the hatchet. That the haft is hollow with drilled fingerholes (plugged when not in use), so it can be used as a flute, blowgun, and snorkel is just a cherry on top of this unpalatable pie. Again there seems to be a desire to cram every possible utility into one weapon. And it would not work well.
One Piece
During Joerg Sprave’s slingshot era he made a reconstruction of a staff slingshot used by the character Usopp. Apparently it’s one of the character’s three different slingshots. I’m not familiar with either the manga or anime One Piece past “it’s got some wacky pirates”, but it seems using a slingshot isn’t the strangest thing and it probably doesn’t look out of place. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, if you’re a fan.
Legend of Zelda
Link uses a slingshot in several of the titles. My firsthand experience with the series is quite limited, having played only Ocarina of Time for a short while. From what I’ve gathered online, the slingshot is not a particularly powerful weapon in the games, and often it is used to solve puzzles rather than fight enemies. Sometimes it may stun them, which is always nice. In some of the games Link only uses the slingshot while he’s a kid, so again it goes with the “youngster” themes. Not much is told about the materials used for the slingshot construction, but we know that Deku seeds are used as ammunition. As a side note, for shooting stuff like seeds, nuts, etc. a slingshot seems to be a better choice than a sling. Slingshots don’t rely that much on the weight of the projectile.
The Hobbit series (2012-2014)
The Peter Jackson adaptation of The Hobbit is very good overall (though nowhere near the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and mostly makes sense. There are comedic elements interwoven into the narrative and each successive movie strays further from the books.
Our interest this time is one of the dwarves, Ori. He is portrayed as a young scribe using a slingshot for a weapon. It is only a minor detail in the scope of the movie, but it suffers from the same problems as other slingshots in fantasy. There should be no rubber available to make the bands, and it doesn’t fit the setting. I understand that the creators wanted to make each dwarf unique a tried to give Ori the unarmed youngster image, but this wasn’t a good choice. Slingshots don’t really belong in Tolkien’s Arda. It is however interesting that during the dwarves’ flight through the goblin warrens Ori uses a sizeable warhammer. So he’s not limited to the slingshot.
Walking Dead series (2010-2022)
Not so long ago (well, a few seasons I guess) several new characters appeared in the Walking Dead and two of them, the sisters Connie and Kelly, were using slingshots.
Somehow this felt out of place even though Jörg Sprave based a great portion of his Youtube channel on zombie-killing slingshots. Maybe this has something to do with the slowly deteriorating quality of the show in general, with new characters being a lot less likeable than the original survivors or even the ones we got a bunch of seasons in. Anyway it’s an example that ticks the “youngster” archetype (at least with Kelly) and actually doesn’t need any handwaving, because there would be a lot of usable slingshots available after the walker apocalypse.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
I have left this one for the end of the article. It could be seen in the trailer, but I wanted to watch the full movie before finishing this article. The young tiefling druid Doric uses a slingshot mounted sideways on her forearm. She uses it for flinging stones at her enemies, but more like a distraction or stun than for doing serious damage. For that she’s got her Wild Shape. Near the end of the movie Doric also shoots a small sachet from the slingshot, so here it’s used as a delivery system.
Once again no explanation for the slingshot’s existence is given, so it’s probably a case of fantasy handwaving. Since Forgotten Realms is a more colorful setting than Arda, it didn’t look out of place. And if you don’t need it explained, this is the way you can do it in your fantasy setting. Just stay away from catgut.
Final remarks
In this first article of two I have provided a very basic description of a slingshot, hopefully distinguished it from a sling, and listed a few examples of fantasy fiction featuring slingshots. As I said in the introduction, part II will be about using slingshots in your game.
The examples from fiction are quite arbitrarily picked and I’m sure you could find a lot more even without consulting TVTropes. I might seem a bit harsh on the kender weapons, but those things are really bad. Any handwaving is better than totally missing the mark, as with using catgut for slingshot bands. In The Hobbit the slingshot Ori uses is unnecessary and feels out of place for no good reason. On the other hand, the Dungeons and Dragons movie handles its slingshot quite well. The creators probably relied on the fact that it’s a high-magic fantasy setting and it works.
What about you? How do you feel about slingshots being used as weapons or tools in fantasy? Do you care whether it makes sense or don’t need any explanations as long as it’s cool and/or the slingshot has good stats? Leave a comment and follow the blog or our social media so you don’t miss the second part!
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