Ideas for Samurai

[Allyrion]

If you want to get technical, historically, Samurai were archers, and they only really carried swords because, A if someone broke through, they needed a defense, and B, because they could afford good ones, and so they showed them off.

What? No.

1. I don't think Ardor was getting technical, they were asking what type of character is evoked when you call it a Samurai.
i.e. what is an iconic Samurai.

2. Samurai were everything. Yea they were the archers, but they were the foot soldiers (swords and spears) and the cavalry as well.
Some were politicians, poets, historians, advisors or anything non-peasant related.
Even so, there were poorer Samurai who were essentially farmers as well.
A significant amount of Samurai took no part in battle.

The very early Samurai were, indeed, archers. That was almost proto Samurai though.
It wasn't long before the sword actually took over as the main weapon for the majority of their history.
As the Samurai class developed, almost all of them were trained in the sword just as a basic childhood education.

Archery, though, became more specialized subclass.
Hence the iconic Samurai Swordsman is still more accurate, and symbolic of the class.
They actually developed a sword culture for a long time.

What's not accurate is elaborate Samurai armor, which weren't ever battled in.
Anyway, I think SE is working with iconography rather than historically. (As they should for such a stylized game)