Crysknife (D20 Modern Equipment)

A crysknife is the formal weapon of the planet's native Fremen. It is a double-edged curved knife, the blade about 20 centimeters long. The crysknife comes in two forms, fixed and unfixed. Unfixed knives are raw sandworm teeth used as weapons. They need to be stored in proximity to an electrical field produced by the human body or they will disintegrate after a period of time. Fixed crysknives are put through chemical processes to keep them permanently intact.

According to the religious beliefs of the Fremen, a crysknife must draw blood each time it is unsheathed before being sheathed again.

All young Fremen must go through a ritual, confirming their adulthood. This ritual is sealed with the gift of a crysknife to the adolescent warrior

Use: The Fremen combat style is based around the use of the crysknife, not on the use of offworlder projectile weaponry, though they have been known to use rifles with terrifying results over long range.

Since large plants and large pieces of woody materials are not common on Arrakis, the knife is not a utilitarian style like a Bowie knife or kukri. It is designed mainly with fighting in mind. The Fremen have a strict code against possession by a foreigner of their knives, and have been known to kill outworlders who they think will smuggle one off Arrakis. A Fremen warrior facing capture might kill himself, but before dying will shatter his knife on the nearest hard object.

Experienced Fremen knifefighters using crysknives were frequently able to defeat Sardaukar swordmasters in single combat, provided that the Fremen were not taken by surprise. Nonetheless, that feat was never portrayed as something that was easy for the Fremen to do.

Fremen are known to compose poems to their crysknives.

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