Colonial Chrome

So, I'm in the process of making my next Star Wars character. The game's going to be set somewhere around 600 BBY, which means Jedi being their heyday. Of course, the character that I'm making is a Jedi, and one of the most important aspects of a Jedi is their lightsaber.

Lightsabers, in my opinion, considered much like the daisho (katana and wakizashi) that samurai carried. It should be unique, original, and say something about the owner. Luke's lightsaber, when he made his own, looked a lot like Kenobi's, showing his respect for his former Master.

Now, I'm not talking about blade color. Blade color's not really an issue at this point, as there are only 4 canon blade colors (blue, green, violet, and red). What I'm pondering is the style of the hilt. Do I go with the standard straight hilt, or the curved hilt? Anyone have an opinion on which hilt design is better?

The hilt style is dependant on the type of fighting style you are trained in. curved hilt suggests knowledge of fencing fighting styles.

Count Dooku's hilt was curved, but this is because as a Royal he had to be a trained swordsman. He got this training before he became a jedi.

A curved handle lets you keep your blade pointed forward, but limit other blade manuvuers.

A straight hilt allow more and harder manuvuers and they allow the weilder to use two hands more effectively.

Well, lightsaber hilt styles are somewhat based on sword styles of the real world. Straight and curved hilts reflect the straight and curved blades of swords in our world. Someone with a straight blade will have to wield their sword differently than one with a curved blade.

hm... desgin of the hilt...

Before giving ideas, I need more information. So that we can think about new and cool stuff.


An Ithorian Lightsaber, for example, was made from a piece of wood from a "mother tree"- tree from an Ithorian Herdship. Color: green (another sign for his nature-loving user)

A NSC of my "collection", a Jawa, who disguise himself as droid mechanic, wears his little lightsaber (straigth hilt) disguised as a screw driver. If not in the time of RiseoftheEmpire, he would have made it from this base too. Color: yellow

My SC-force-user wears a straigth-hilted two-and-half-hand-lightsaber, which can only be activated by force. The silver hilt was made this long to give it more maneuvrability, no second blade will emerge. The color of the blade is a silvery white

If you want to personalize your hilt, think about the history and background of the char and you will find ideas...

Having fought with both, I'd say from personal experience, a straight handle is superior - it allows a much greater flexibility in both attack and defence. The latter is perhaps more prominent - I can take a full swing from a heavy blade on my kat without worrying about having it bounced out of my hands. The same cannot be said for my cavalry sabre.

on sabre design in general, two pointers -

As a SW GM of twenty years I respect the KISS rule when it comes to Jedi. Straight handled blue or green normal length sabre always goes down better with me than anything else.

The other is an aside really, but one of the things I like about sabres is that they activate via a sliding switch - not a button, which is why you can draw them at different speeds. You can also draw them to different lengths by moving the slide to different positions. We see both of these in Vader's blade quite clearly. I've just always liked that.

Good point. I've been debating it a lot, and after looking things over, I'm thinking the Straight hilt is the way to go. It also allows more of an Iaijutsu / Kenjutsu style of lightsaber duelist that I'm wanting to go with for the character's fighting style. No, to just sit down and actually design out the 'saber hilt.