Hunting Spear

Appearance
A wooden spear with a spade-shaped tip made of metal, attached with adhesives.

History
Being easier to create than swords and giving the user greater range, which is vital when facing the numberless monsters that inhabit the world, and being generally easier to learn to use correctly, which is also vital for the various militias and adventurers who do not want or cannot afford to spend the years necessary to become swordmasters, the spear has proven itself a mainstay as far as weaponry goes. The obvious disadvantages of spears lies in the difficulty of using it in close quarters and their tendency to break due to strong impacts. Although those disadvantages are significant enough to make the sword more popular as a general purpose weapon against other sapients, the spear is undoubtly prefered and arguably more efficient against monsters who usually have ranged attacks and against whom the greater range of a spear is invaluable.

Since spears tend to break easily and that creating a spear on the level of durability of a well-forged sword or axe is prohibitively expensive, a cheap, easily and quickly produced spear model was designed and then made popular the world over. The Hunting Spear is by no mean viable for war as its steel tip is attached through sturdy adhesive bands that, as sturdy as they may be, will break off against armored foes. Still, the weapon is incredibly easy to maintain, inexpensive to create, and equally easy to repair (the adhesive bands are very durable and if the spear tip break off, the adhesives can be re-applied most of the time for a makeshift repair). It has thus become the primary and most popular weapon for rookie adventurers and militia.

Tactical Analysis
Despite its looks and lack of lethality, being a simple, cheaply-made spear, the hunting spear is a dedicated monster hunting weapon and as such, benefit from greater range and better flying speed than swords while still remaining lightweight and simple enough to use to be thrown at the same speed. This makes it a net upgrade compared to the steel sword, being capable of striking foes from a greater distance and with greater accuracy while delivering the same damage rate. This give its user an edge over many of the breeds of monsters who exist in the world, as it will allow the user to snipe at them from beyond their own attack range, forcing them to advance into the user's attack radius without being able to counter-attack. However, many of the sneakier and smarter monsters are capable of nullifying this advantage and in close quarters, the hunting spear is unfortunately no more effective than the steel sword.

Most adventurers will want to trade the dependable but quickly obsolete steel sword for one of these as soon as they can, with their low cost making the change a rather benign one on one's wallet. However, though the weapon is definitely functional and an improvement over the steel sword, its low level of lethality may motivate an adventurer to want to trade it for a different weapon type or a more advanced type of spear later on.