Kevin A. Ranson : ThinkingSkull.com

This is what happens when you give a couple of Texans a description for a new kind of vampire hunter weapon: they build one, and the case it comes in.

The modular fauchard, aka “the decapitator.” Designed for ghouls to subdue and/or destroy neophyte vampires. Not recommended against elder immortals with a true understanding of their power. This weapon is featured in The Matriarch: Guardians.

Special thanks to Dragon’s Fire Forge who hand-forged the blades, created the connecting polearm and stake tips (mmm…steak tips). Box, “Osage Orange” stakes, and leatherwork by Tobin’s Turnings. These folks really outdid themselves, didn’t they? Here’s the original text this was taken from along with a hasty sketch I cobbled together:

Mustangs in the mid-1960s didn’t have much in the way of trunks, but his was big enough to hide the long wooden case inside that he took out. After closing the trunk, he carried the case to the bottom of the trailer steps for the extra light.

He heard Cole on the roof above him. “What’s that? A rifle?”

“Nope.”

Eric snapped the case open. There were three items inside: a three-foot metal bar than ran the length of the case, a wooden stake with a metal tip and a concave clip-point blade sharpened on the inside of the curve. The attachments had been balanced to complement one another when assembled into a five-foot long weapon, a blade on one end of the bar and a stake on the other. Eric twirled the polearm a few times to renew his feel for it; it was lighter than it looked and he liked how the weight felt.

“What the hell is that?” Cole asked.

“A modular fauchard,” he replied. “I’ve always called it a decapitator.”

“It doesn’t look vampire friendly.”

“It isn’t.”