Bloodborne Weapons and Their Real Life Counterparts

[dropcap size=big]B[/dropcap]loodborne is said to have less weapons than the Dark Souls series, but the arsenal is fairly interesting because of its use of two different modes for each weapon. Some of the more intriguing Bloodborne weapons are the Beast Claw, the Threaded Cane, and the Reiterpallasch. For fun, we’d like to take a look at the unorthodox real life weapons that most resemble the above mentioned!

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The Beast Claw :

The Beast Claw is unique because transforming the weapon actually changes your left hand into a monstrous wolf-like claw. What real life weapon most resembles the Beast Claw? Well, for this I’m going to present two weapons from India that are very similar in concept.

First, the Katar. This weapon appears as a single blade at first, until a trigger is activated, and suddenly you’re staring at three deadly blades! Its design was meant to intimidate as much as do damage.

The other one is the Bagh Naka, which was a claw-like weapon from India that went over the knuckles, or could be concealed in the palm. It has four to five blades and was inspired by native tigers. (The weapon’s name translates as “tiger’s claw.”)

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The Threaded Cane :

The Threaded Cane is one of the first basic weapons you can choose from when beginning Bloodborne. Its two forms consist of an ordinary combat cane, and a sort of bladed whip.

To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t find practical real life examples that were like the threaded cane, not even modern ones. And yet, canes have been used for many centuries as a “gentleman’s” weapon. Most of us are familiar with cane swords…but do you know about cane guns? Sometimes referred to as “poacher’s guns,” they were originally meant for gentlemen to use on wild game of opportunity. These weapons are exceedingly rare and coveted by collectors.

Fun fact! Back in 2003, a man in Pennsylvania used a cane gun in a bank robbery. True story!

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The Reiterpallasch :

The Reiterpallasch is a rapier that transforms into a gun. While I couldn’t find a practical example of this exactly, I did learn that sword guns did exist. (And no, they don’t look anything like Squall Leonhart’s.)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art currently has an early 1600s Spanish sword with an Agujeta flintlock six-shot revolver. This was, I think, the earliest historical example I’d seen of a weapon of this kind. Later in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, we see similar weapons cropping up in various parts of Europe and India.

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Do you know of any more interesting real life weapons that are similar to those found in the game? Share them with us below!

Bloodborne is the selection for the April 2015 “Not Crowdfunded, But…” series. You can read more Bloodborne articles here.