Ankylosword

THE FOSSILIZED SWORD OF THE PALERIDERS

The ankylosword was a weapon shaped from the fossilized spinal ridges and tail club of the extinct ankylosaur by the dangerous Paleriders. This nefarious band of raiders prowled the rugged valleys of the Harshlands and had long been a threat to the settlement known as the Bone Colony. Founded by a joint venture between Lord Administer Dumfrey of the Guilforge and the duplicitous Lord Copper of Coppertown, the Bone Colony was settled to excavate the ruins and colossal dinosaur bones found therein. The Paleriders first struck shortly after the first fossils were discovered, curiously wearing the bones as rattling armor or carrying them as ossified swords and cudgels. As more skeletons were unearthed, the attacks continued unabated until Dumfrey pulled his men from the dig site and relinquished his share of the settlement to Lord Copper. The raids ended for a time after that, until the Paleriders’ leader, Luger, rode in to town and demanded his cut from Copper himself. It came to be revealed that Lord Copper had paid the bandits to harry and harass the Guilforge men until Dumfrey’s retreat. Copper swiftly retaliated, scattering what remained of the Paleriders to the wind, but his reputation in the colony was tarnished and he returned to his mines at Coppertown. Without Copper’s protection, the diggers of the Bone Colony banded together to defend their town from the remnants of the Paleriders, brandishing the very same ankyloswords that were once used against them.

The ankylosaur was a plundering beast that once lived in the area of the Bone Colony many ages ago. It had a ridge of rockhard bone along its back, lined with sharp spikes, that terminated in a heavy calcified club at the end of its tail. Though fearsome in appearance, they were quite docile and their diet consisted of whatever plantlife they could find in the primordial Harshlands.

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