BronxWench

Lupa: “Wait, Kizzy likes Star Wars too?”
Shannon: “Yeah.  One time, after I set up a Tinder profile for her, she made me watch the Holiday Special...”

@ThundercloudI thought there might be the possibility of second language stuff, but I wasn’t sure. 

So, since Thundercloud brought up the sword, I figure I should at least share what I was thinking about.
First, obviously, as the one who has actually made a sword designed to be drawn from the back, Thundercloud, you’re the expert here.  What I’m about to say is just the thought process that went into trying to visualize what this thing would look like.  Just ignore it if it doesn’t make sense (or say Luzurial’s using magic...which she totally could be).
So, in Whore of Heaven, JayDee described Luzurial having a sword longer than her torso sheathed on her back (assuming Luzurial is 6 feet tall, that means the sword is a little more than 3 feet long).  The overhand draw looked really cool in my head, so I kept that for The Woman in the Statue, but then I was like “Crap!  The wings!”
Assuming Luzurial is like the majority of people, she’s right handed, so the scabbard is likely angled so that the hilt sticks out over her right shoulder.  In every depiction of angels or demons I’ve seen, the wings are shown as being attached to the scapulae (shoulder blades), but where on the scapulae varies, so the gap between the attachment points could conceivably be big enough that you could get the sword to pass between them while still having enough of an angle for the hilt to be reached over her shoulder.  Of course, this means that the other end of the scabbard has to pass either over or under one of her wings (the left wing, assuming a right-handed draw).
Passing over the wing is just fine when Luzurial is on the ground and doesn’t have to use her wings, but the second she needs to take off it’s gonna be super awkward, so it made more sense to me that the sword would pass under her left wing.  This is where angels have a serious advantage over demons.  Demonic wings are traditionally based on those of bats and thus have a wing membrane that must be joined to the torso to keep that section of the membrane taut, but angel wings are traditionally based on those of birds, and feathers maintain their shape without being glued to the torso.  Assuming there’s a bit of a gap between the secondary feathers and the attachment point (angels aren’t usually depicted with tertial or scapular feathers, just the primaries and secondaries), the part of the scabbard we need to deal with should be able to fit between the wing and the torso.
Now it’s true, of course, that when beating the wings, the scabbard could mess with some of the secondary feathers (those closest to the body) on the downbeat.  Thing is, because the wings are attached to the back of human scapulae, they actually don’t have the full range of motion that bird wings would; they can’t drop more than a few degrees past the horizontal because a human torso gets in the way.  This would mean that angels and demons would produce less thrust with each wingbeat, but I’m fairly certain magic is being employed here, since the wingspan generally isn’t big enough to loft a human-sized being anyway.  TL;DR, because the wings don’t actually have to go down that far, the scabbard shouldn’t interfere with the secondary feathers too much.
As far as what she does when actually drawing the sword, I think the scabbard is likely to have a non-traditional design, similar to the back scabbard from Shadow of Mordor, which covers the point and the edges of the sword, but is partly open so that she doesn’t have to draw the sword through the full length of the scabbard.

Drawing and sheathing it (especially the latter) would still be pretty tricky, but given that Luzurial is fourteen billion years old, I’m willing to bet she’s had so much practice she’s got it down to a fine art by now.
Again, I’m not pretending to be informed about this.  This was just what I was kind of picturing in my head.

Obviously I cannot claim to have any experience of drawing weapons with the aid of magic…but it seems even pretty minor magic that just hold the scabbard in the right position would help with lots of the real world problems. Real persons don’t have three hands, and especially not one ready to easily aid them behind their back.

Anyway the idea that Luzurial draws the sword below her wing is pretty consistent with my experience of what works. Problem is just that if such a long sword is hanging so far down will be a serious trouble when moving past doors, crowds etc.

Speaking about actual real world experiences I do have a mobile flag pole that is a bit more than 4 feet when put into pieces. On a LARP I carried it on my back as a LARP prop since the organizers agreed that it had a massive bonus if our group carried at all times. Without wings I could carry it strapped to my shoulder but I still had quite a few accidents with furniture, people and doors. To carry it further down would have been a nightmare since it would have been hanging out far too much on each side to move around.

I think the takeaway from this nerdy discussion is that Luzurial must be drawing the sword below her wings, but that most likely she uses magic to change the position of the sword when she need to draw it.

Kizzy gets around it by not forming a physical sword at all, but basically a flame light sabre. Seraphs gonna Seraph.

@InBrightestDay The wings do throw a big curveball into stuff when trying to decide how they wear things. There’s a lot of stuff that the wings would just get in the way of.
@ThundercloudHaving done little hands on work with swords it’s cool to hear it all from someone who does. Though, I’m curious what a sheet is… is that the scabbard? Is it a term I’m not aware of? I’ve just not heard it before.

 

I meant scabbard...it was second language issues that intruded on my writing ability.

Oh my goodness. I’m sorry. I hope you get well soon.

I researched life in Wales at the end of the Roman occupation for one story, and wound up using a soap recipe based on horse chestnuts for another story. Yes, I overthink things….

The wings is really an issue with a sword on your back. After building a sword sheet that works on your back and on your waist I can say that drawing your sword over your shoulder is very error prone unless you make the sword very short like in the Conan movies. Moving through a forest with a over the shoulder strapped sword is a horrible idea.

If I wanted to draw my much longer LARP sword in a reliable fashion I had to make the sheet worn so that the sword was drawn around my shoulder so to say. This kind of setup would be impossible with wings.

I think the only real possible solution for over shoulder drawn large weapons is using the solution used in the Berserk manga where the main anti hero has a special sheet that is mostly chains and only the tip of the sword resting is resting in a proper sheet.  A special strap keep the sword connected to his shoulder so when he pulls his sword it actually goes 90 degrees backwards from his body before he pulls it free. In real life such a sheet would work for drawing the sword but the sword sheet would bang into your back on each step until you was in too much pain to walk at all. Some kind of special strap that kept the weapon fixed while walking, but loose when you want to pull the sword could maybe work.

On a side note...I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to read  Berserk...a very depressing setting that is filled with demons, monsters, corrupted churches and lots of lots of victims that are slain in the worst possible fashion.

I researched life in Wales at the end of the Roman occupation for one story, and wound up using a soap recipe based on horse chestnuts for another story. Yes, I overthink things….

I researched life in Wales at the end of the Roman occupation for one story, and wound up using a soap recipe based on horse chestnuts for another story. Yes, I overthink things….

I have been trying to design armour for succubae, that might get a few sentences of description, and have been just pouring over so much armour through history, fashion, to make it practical, sexy, and work with them damn wings.
So I certainly know the feeling.

Also, nothing wrong with doing all the research. S’surely gonna make it more authentic!

“He might be fuckin’ his Mom and his Sister but dammit the math needs to be right” ~ University of Alabama, Physics Department motto.

Day shift muses are all hungover after hitting the wine too hard.

Sounds like a great story though!
I reckon all writers must be curious people. All of us do lots of research, more than we strictly need (or ever use). Perhaps the combined google search history of humanity’s writers would contain the entirety of human knowledge.

Out of curiosity, what did the nuclear physics have to do with the story?

haha. Reminds me of just looking up underground rivers and six hours later I was reading equations for nuclear physics. 

Overboard and swallowed by a whale, but that’s okay. There’s plenty of us down here in the belly of the over-thinking-shit beast. You’re in good company. 

I’m happy you’re back! The internet feels less like a giant dick when you’re running around encouraging writers. 

Yes, Brunei putting the clocks back 1000 years isn’t the best sign of progress is it?
Great you had a holiday ya loved though although, yes, the train service is pretty terribe. I hope Wales and the Opera prove good at the end of the month!
Thanks for the reviews!

Oohh, Wales… 
It’s wonderful to have you back, though.  
 

Oohh, Wales… 
It’s wonderful to have you back, though.  
 

Don’t worry about reviews.  I think we all know you’ll get to them at some point.  Welcome back!