Blame this.
Arm Canons
Given the role that bells play in occultism and theurgy, it’s unsurprising that Arm Canons exist. Assuming that one knows that active supernatural activities go on all the time, and that the forces of Good are proactive about fighting the forces of Evil. If one is not aware of such things, then Arm Canons can come as a rather entertaining surprise.
Making a pair of Arm Canons is simple. All you need are some salvaged canons (the piece of the bell that you hang the actual bell from) from a consecrated church bell that was at least 800 years old. Once you have that, you give the pieces to a certified Master Bellfounder who also happens to have True Faith, and have him (the Roman Catholic Church at least has never tried this using a woman Bellfounder) work on it for the requisite year and a day until he’s turned them into two highly-polished metal bracers. Then they go out to be blessed by a member of the appropriate clergy, who surprisingly does not have to have True Faith (apparently Donatism really is a heresy).
Arm Canons are activated by putting them on, then vigorously smacking one against the other so that the arms form an X pattern. What happens next depends on who is front of the bearer of the Canons at the time. If the ‘target’ is any entity that has made a formal pact with Hell – which is to say, all demons and any human that has sold his or her soul in exchange for demonic aid or power – then the target is catapulted through the air at a velocity that would blast him or her through of a modern wall. Otherwise, nothing happens. Note, by the way, that Arm Canons can be used to blast a demonologist or actual demon out of the crowd that he’s hiding in without harming any of the innocents in said crowd. Because miracle.
Please note that this is not a humorous or dramatic flying through the air: the point of the Canons is to reliably pulp humans and at least slow down demons some. There’s also no reset time on these items, because they’re specifically designed to hurt the forces of Hell and nobody in Heaven cares about balance. Arm Canons are simply extremely rare in any campaign world that doesn’t have open miracles happening in public (they’d probably be more common in superhero worlds, for example). The forces of Heaven won’t hand them out to anyone who isn’t discreet: aside from the difficulty of manufacture, using an Arm Canon on a demon will immediately get the attention of any other demon in the vicinity. They’re mostly used in final assaults on Infernal strongholds, or in truly isolated localities, or on July 28th.
Why July 28th? Well, nothing supernatural ever makes into the papers that day. And, no, nobody knows why.
Here I thought they were priests that could be attached to one’s arms. Silly me.
I decided to stretch myself a bit. 🙂
I read “canon” and thought “cannon”. I was thinking, arm cannons, what’s the big deal? There’s the Warhammer, the Awesome, the Victor…even ED 209 had arm cannons.
I probably should have read that a little more closely.