The Golarion Gazette

The gnome flickmace, originally dismissed as a “joke weapon” after its public debut nearly a decade ago, soon took the adventuring world by storm due to its rare combination of high stopping power, long reach, and ability to be used with one arm. While the weapon’s success soon inspired copycats such as the asp coil and scorpion whip, none of the copycats were ever able to achieve the performance of the original flickmace, giving the flickmace an over 90 percent market share in the category of one-handed reach weapons. However, allegations have surfaced recently that the claimed superiority of the flickmace was in fact the result of rigged weapons tests, and that in fact the flickmace is no better than any of its competitors.

The allegations began with University of Korvosa researcher Aeilethia Firebrand, whose research group was performing tests to evaluate the elven curve blade. As part of calibrating their equipment, they attempted to reproduce known results from other weapons, but was unable to reproduce published test data from gnome flickmaces. Firebrand and her colleagues believe that these tests may have been rigged to show higher results for flickmaces. Such rigging is “definitely technically feasible,” according to fellow researcher Jonathan Lionheart, but hard evidence has not arisen so far that rigging occurred, and investigations are ongoing.

Alva Brunhilg, a spokesgnome for the GLAW (Gnomish League of Advanced Weaponsmiths), said that the allegations are “completely false”. She attributed the controversy to “sizeism” and anti-gnome prejudice, pointing out that other ancestry-specific weapon types have not been subject to nearly as much scrutiny. Independent adventurers are out in force trying to uncover evidence that would confirm or refute the speculation, leading authorities to issue reminders that investigations must be conducted in accordance with applicable law.