Bolstering Bill
Description
A good neighbour takes its name from the Marcher yeomen who make use of them in their fighting lines to help reduce casualties. A couple of soldiers armed with these pole-arms provide speedy assistance to a fellow warrior who has collapsed due to injuries, allowing them to move back out of the press under their own steam. A soldiers armed with a good neighbour may be a trained physician themselves, but more likely they are expected to keep fighting to cover the retreat of their comrade and keep the line solid.
In Highguard and Wintermark especially, it is common for a pair of champions to fight side-by-side, each equipped with one of these weapons (and occasionally other similar items such as the Bondring). In this case, the weapon is generally called a brother's beacon (Highguard) or a brothers' bulwark (Wintermark), regardless of the genders of the warriors involved.
In other nations one of these weapons may be called variously an indomitable hook or a bolstering bill. Indeed, the character of Bolstering Bill appears in a number of comic songs, stories and poems in various parts of the Empire as a simple yet well-meaning soldier-boy who helps his companions through any number of amusing or hair-raising scrapes with a combination of good humour, honest camaraderie and more than a little tough love. While these tales are generally accepted as being made up, the character of Bolstering Bill is sometimes mentioned as being an Exemplar of Loyalty
Rules
- Form: Pole-arm.
- Effect: Once per day you can use a hero point to use stay with me while wielding this weapon.
- Materials: Crafting a pikeman's press requires seven ingots of weltsilver and five ingots of green iron. It takes one month to make one of these items.