Talon Musket

Written by: Ripshot

Everybody knows that the Concrete Forest has its fair share of guns and ammo, but unless it's a really sturdy gat like an AK-97, you'll know for a fact that they probably ain't gonna be good ones. Guns, like any machine, need the love and care of regular maintenence and the occasional repair or replacement if you wanna trust it with your life, and for many in the barrens, anything beyond the most barebones cleaning and makeshift fix-ups is a luxury, even among the better organised groups.
So when the Rampart needed to arm its people with something a little more reliable than a rattly pump-action, they decided to settle for a more old-school approach to putting the hurt into people far away and save their actual factory-made guns for a rainy day. At first it was mostly compound bows and crossbows, but then they came across some old hand-written books that showed them a thing or two about primitive metallurgy and gunsmithing, along with a few other tidbits. This led to the founding of the Rampart Falconers, a group of oldschool hunters in funny fur and leather outfits, but it also led to one of the settlement's first truly mass-produced weapons, the Talon.
And... I mean, it's a musket. Sure, the materials are a lot fancier than what they had when muskets were first around, and the reloading process as been shortened down to next-to-nothing thanks to the Rampart's engineering-sorcery, but it's still a musket at the end of the day. You drop a disintegrating-bag of powder down the muzzle, follow it with a metal ball-bearing, stuff it all down with a plunger and you're loaded, then you just cock back the ignition-hammer and pull the trigger at whatever you want dead. Wash, rinse and repeat.

For the record, the Falconers still carry modern small-arms with 'em alongside the musket. Some Howling Blades learned that the hard way thinking they could charge 'em while they reloaded.

— Saint Ain't

You might thing that a musket might not have a whole lot of pep compared to your fancy modern irons, but you're wrong. Between the Rampart's homebrew powder and the structural-engineering behind the Talon letting it handle pressures that modern arms would struggle to hold together with, that gun's hitting hard enough that it stays competive despite being a single-shot gun.

Actual old-timey mustkets had >.50 caliber munitions, but pretty anemic propellants compared to our modern chemical compounds. Talon Muskets use the latter in their loads, which is why it's built like a girder but punches a hole through a car door like it's nothing.

— Nocte

As with all Rampart tech, these guns and their ammo are technically for sale but the guys who made them are expecting a high price to let go of even one musket. Expect them to ask for at least a couple of AKs or the cash-equivalent if you're looking for your own black-powder fun, chummer.

Item type

Weapon, Ranged

Owning Organization

Rampart Falconers

Rarity

12F

Weight

5.9 KG unloaded

Dimensions

30" barrel, 46" total length

Base Price

3,400¥

Type

Sporting Rifle

Accuracy

4

Damage

13P

AP

-3

Mode

SS

RC

0

Ammo

1(ML)

Standard Upgrades

Sling

Reloading the Talon requires two Complex Actions.

The Talon can only fire its specific ball-ammo and black-powder packages, which can be purchased for 20¥ and 6R availability for twenty shots.