Slous' Trick and Combo Weapon Shop

Choral chimes clatter against the opening door. A merfolk with a long snout and damp scales pops up from behind a counter. His form has several features reminiscent of a seahorse.

“Welcome!” he bellows through a toothless smile at the end of his snout. “My name is Slous.” The wrinkles and shaky voice tell of his advanced age. “No doubt you’re here for the versatility of weapons meant for adventuring and self-defense. Smart one you are. There’s no basic swords sold within these walls. Sword that can turn into a whip? A flail that can disassemble into a club and bola? That’s what you’ll find here.”

Slous' Trick and Combo Weapon Shop

Slous' Trick and Combo Weapon Shop is a TTRPG companion book containing over 30 weapons that are either a combo weapon (a weapon that can be transformed into a different weapon) or a trick weapon (a weapon that appears to be a tool or has the full functionality of a specific tool). Each item has flavor text and an explanation on it's purpose, construction, and how to use it.

All items in the shop are system neutral, meaning you can use them for any fantasy game and apply the appropriate stats of the weapon types.

The book also contains a roll table of weapons and tools, allowing anyone to flex their creative muscles by rolling twice on the chart and crafting a combo/trick weapon based on the results.

Slous is the merfolk who sells the weapon, and a description of him, his motivations, his shop, and his place in the world are included. You can drop him and his shop into any river or ocean-side city. He's also totally normal merfolk and not a disgraced royal confidant who used to arrange assassinations... honest.

Everything was written by Jesse Galena. Direct all disgust or admiration to him.

A selection of items from the shop:

Dynamite Handle Throwing Axe

You are not going to believe this one. Extremely dangerous, so I can’t show you how it works, but I can explain it. Have you ever wanted to make something explode but when you throw the explosive, the thing runs from the explosive? Yeah. I got a solution.

Looks like a fairly normal throwing axe, but here at the bottom of the handle is a wick. The handle is full of black powder. So you light it, throw it, stick it into the target. As they’re recoiling from the pain of getting a hatchet head in them—boom! Absolute show stopper, this one. But also don’t carry a torch if you have these.

Hedera’s Whip-sword

Picture this: scary lady is swinging a sword in your face; gracefully parrying and slashing at you with a short sword. So you duck behind your shield. Then BAM! Her sword flops down, its length growing as she flings it around! The sword becomes a whip with segmented bladed pieces between the leather. She cracks it, snaking the whip around your shield and hitting you.

That’s the power of this. Close range, it’s a nice short sword: tough, sharp, and straight. Great in tight spaces. The moment you need it, the tension releases, extending it into a whip. Now with the proper room, you’ve got reach against your opponent and can get behind cover or shields. Master both forms, and you’d be the same caliber of fighter as she is.

Hydra Head Flail

So you’re in a tussle, right? Really winning the fight with your 3-headed flail. Fearing defeat, your foe flees, straight booking it away from you. They’re moving fast. Think you can catch up?

With this, you don’t have to. Detach the flail heads and you’ve got a bola! Chuck this bad boy at their ankles and watch ‘em fall. The bulb in the handle means even without the flail heads, the handle makes an excellent club, so you’re never without a weapon.

Umbrella blowgun

Cain sword? Old hat. Hurdy-gurdy repeating crossbow? It’ll trick the new person, sure, but not anyone who’s been around. If you silently mur—get past a threat that definitely could want to hurt you and have the safety of defense, you need this. Just blow into the handle and the dart shoots out the top. A little spout opens when a dart comes out and closes tight after.

The best part is the handle works like a revolver, so when you twist it, you line up one of six chambers, allowing you to hold six darts internally and shoot them one at a time. It fires whether the umbrella is open or closed, though it is harder to aim when it’s open.