Ribald (weapon)

Ribalds, also known as Gond's Pipes, were a type of artillery and the closest that the Gondsmen had ever come to producing battlefield weaponry.

Description
Ribalds consisted of a series of small gun barrels, twelve in total, laid side-by-side and clamped together, and mounted upon two-wheeled carts. These carts sometimes had a shield to protect the operators from arrows.

Their touch holes were arranged in such a way that they had a single fuse, thus making it so that a single sweep would set them all off together.

Weaponology
Ribalds took quite some time time to load or reload. This was because all of their barrels had to be cleaned out, filled with a charge of smokepowder and a projectile, wadded, tamped down, and finally primed.

The projectiles fired by ribalds were far too small to breach walls.

History
On the world of Toril, the ribald originated on the island nation of Lantan, during the Time of Troubles, after the deity Gond revealed to his followers how to make reasonably safe and accurate firearms that utilized smokepowder. From 1358 DR onwards, the Lantanna priests of Gond (mainly the specialty priests) would work to spread the use of smokepowder weapons, shipping them to Western ports.