Great crossbow

A sketch by Nadul DaRoni of his invention.
Great Crossbrow
Basic Information
Type	Siege engine
Creator	Nadul DaRoni
Rules Information
2nd Edition Statistics
Value	1250 gp

The great crossbow was a unique variety of siege engine developed by the gnome inventor Nadul DaRoni in the late 14^th century DR.

“

Most sieges are easy to begin and hard to end. I thought to myself: What siege weapon could break a fortress? What siege weapon could break down a castle door? or fell a tower? or smash a wall to rubble? And I thought: what heavy thing could impact to do this? A boulder? a small brick building? a family of giants? These things are thrown easily by a great catapult, but arc too highly and tumble too oddly to be accurate. I thought: perhaps a tree, if shot like a quarrel, would do such damage.

”

— Nadul DaRoni musing on the thought process that led to him developing the great crossbow.

Description

As its name implied, the great crossbow looked like a crossbow but massively scaled up, with three wheels mounted along each side of its base. Moving and aiming the weapon required a team of four demihumans and horses, while loading it required a team of eight demihumans and four horses.

The great crossbow was designed particularly with trees in mind, having them emulate the quarrels used in crossbows, though earth or stone could also be used as ammunition. The largest size of straight trunk the weapon could hold was 30 feet (9.1 meters) and 2 feet (0.61 meters) wide. DaRoni recommended pine trees stripped of their branches as the most ideal option and suggested that covering the weapon in dry pine needles made for a much slicker launch.

In tests conducted by DaRoni, it was observed that the great crossbow was capable of smashing solid towers and razing walls that were 3 feet (0.91 meters) thick.

History

The great crossbow was originally made for King Azoun Obarskyr IV of Cormyr, but never saw use during his reign. Eventually, the entrepreneurial Aurora convinced Nadul DaRoni to sell copies of the great crossbow and his other inventions for special order through Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue. The catalogue listed the great crossbow for a price of 1250 gold pieces, though Aurora noted that all of the listed prices for DaRoni's inventions were only rough estimates of what he would actually charge.