Weapon Discussion is a series where I choose a Fire Emblem weapon to design, 3D print, and then talk about! If you have any requests for what I should make next, drop them in the comments! I’ll take things like upvotes, availability of reference material, budget, skill level, my personal interest, whether someone else has already made it, etc. in consideration when picking the next one.
Welcome back to Weapon Discussion! Last time we talked about the controversial main weapon of the first Fire Emblem to be released in the West: Durandal!
Today we’re going to take a step down (although to be honest, I genuinely don’t know of any weapon in the entire series that I would have more to say about than that one!), and talk about everyone’s favorite dad’s weapon of choice, Urvan!
Disclaimer for this one, though, I personally haven’t played Path of Radiance (I’ll snag it on NSO one of these days, though!), and it’s been a long time since I’ve played Radiant Dawn, so I’ll be leaning on the wikis for a lot of this info.
I’ve never played Engage and am unsure how Emblem weapons work, so I’ll forgo talking about it here. It’s on my to-play list.
Before the Games
Not much is known about where Urvan comes from; just that it was made by a master craftsman and that it has come to be Greil’s weapon of choice. But why is the legendary swordsman Greil, formerly Gawain, one of the Riders of Daein, using an axe over a sword?
Well, as the story goes, while soldiers were trying to steal the Fire Emblem from him, he accidentally touched it, which made him go berserk. He slaughtered the soldiers, and when he was done with that, he continued on to kill anyone in sight–including, unfortunately, his own wife. She died having successfully wrested the medallion from him, so in order to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again, he severed the tendons in his sword hand in such a way that he could never effectively wield a sword again.
Sometime after that, he started his own mercenary group and fought in it wielding an axe–Urvan. (Side note, but if someone could tell me anatomically how you could cut tendons in your hand/arm in such a way where wielding a sword is impossible but an axe isn’t, please let me know.)
In Path of Radiance
Story
While Urvan isn’t obtainable by the player, it is used by Greil in his NPC appearance in Chapter 7. It seems he uses it in a cutscene to fight Petrine, one of the 4 Riders of Daein, and its description is what indicates it was made by an unnamed master craftsman (Although to be honest, I’m not sure if you have an opportunity to actually check it–the wiki shows him using it against someone wielding a brave bow, but I don’t know if that is from legitimate gameplay or not.)
Soon after that chapter, however, Greil is summoned to a duel by the mysterious Black Knight. He’s given the option of wielding Ragnell, sister sword to the Knight’s Alondite, but he refuses, and opts to continue with Urvan.
Now if he hadn’t slashed his tendons and had actually used Ragnell, would he have won? Perhaps, but as it was, the weapon triangle disadvantage proved to be too great, and he got his teeth kicked in.
Unfortunately, he died from his wounds, and for the next 3 years Urvan served as his makeshift tombstone.
Stats
Since Urvan was unused, it for all practical purposes doesn’t have stats.
My thoughts
There’s not a lot to work with here; the lore and use of Urvan in this game are severely lacking. I gotta say it does look really cool in the hands of Greil, but given that he dies so early it’s hard to give it a decent look before it leaves the story altogether.
In Radiant Dawn
Story
Throughout most of the goings-on in Radiant Dawn, Urvan presumably remains at the site of Greil’s grave, continuing to serve as its headstone.
However, in the base preparation before the endgame starts, King Caineghis of Gallia and his shadow, Giffca, meet with Ike, telling him that they felt what they believed to be a message from the Goddess, urging them to visit Greil’s grave. They borrowed (graverobbing!) Urvan, and felt that it belonged in Ike’s hands. It’s then used by Ike’s army throughout the endgame.
Stats
Urvan is an SS-ranked axe (the only one in the game), with 22 might, 17 weight, 110 hit, 5 crit, 1 range, 50 uses, 15,000 in sell value, and gives +3 resistance when equipped.
Like any other weapon (except, fun fact, Ettard), it can have its durability increased to infinity if a character equips it before the third part of the five-part endgame via being blessed by Yune. Only weapons that undergo this blessing can damage the last three bosses of the game.
Ignoring enemy weapons, ballistae, crossbows, staves, and Laguz-specific weapons, Urvan is one of the 11 SS rank weapons available to the player in Radiant Dawn (and by extension, the entire series), and the only Axe to be so.
Unsurprisingly, it has the highest might of any Axe, but interestingly enough is tied with the Double Bow and the Wishblade for the highest of all weapons.
Surprisingly, however, it’s tied with Rexaura for highest accuracy in the game, which is rather against-archetype for an axe–although, to be honest, while axes are the least accurate in the iron/steel/silver tiers of weapons, some of the least accurate weapons in the game are lances, axes, and bows.
Since max weapon levels are determined by class in Radiant Dawn, the only characters capable of wielding it are, in order of recruitment, Nolan, Jill, Haar, Brom, Kieran, Ike, Titania, and Boyd.
My thoughts
The fact that Urvan conveniently shows up for the last fights of the game is a little bit of a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario, but you know what? I’m here for it. Like, sure, being left for eternity as a tombstone would be a nice end for the weapon of a warrior who finally found peace in death, but being pulled back in action for the final fight to symbolize Greil helping his son one last time is cool enough that I give it a pass. Screw it, it’s the epic finale where we’re gonna kill god; let’s take Dad’s old axe and throw that into the mix for good measure!
Although, admittedly, its reintroduction was a bit, shall we say… unceremonious. Here’s the entire base conversation, which, by the way, if you don’t select it you just don’t get Urvan:
Caineghis: Ike. I have something to give you.
Ike: Hey, this is…
Caineghis: It’s called Urvan, if I remember correctly. I borrowed it from your father’s grave.
Ike: Why?
Caineghis: Honestly? I have no idea. But I felt a sudden urge to visit Greil’s grave on the morning of our journey. When I told Giffca my idea for a little side trip, he said he thought the same thing.
Giffca: I believe we were guided to your father’s grave by a divine message from the goddess.
Caineghis: When I saw your father’s axe, I was convinced that I had to take it to you. I felt that’s what your father would have wanted.
Ike: …Maybe he and my mother are looking over us from somewhere else. All right. It’s my father’s, so it’s only right that I take it.
See what I mean? I’m a bit torn that this wasn’t more impactful, but then again, there are tons of different pieces falling into place before the final fight, so it’s not surprising. The base convo above this involves the Queen of Crimea’s uncle personally joining the war after being drugged to insanity, forced to serve in a separate war as a general for the enemy, recaptured, and then cured, so it’s not the most significant thing happening at that time.
It is kinda hilarious though that Ike is given his father’s old axe, taken from his grave, and he’s just kinda like “ok, cool, I guess? I’ll take it, but… anyone else wanna use it?”
And hey, that’s a good question! Who should use it? In my playthroughs of the game I’m not sure who I gave it to, despite using Haar, Brom, and Nolan one time or another in the endgame. I think I assumed that it was an Ike-only weapon, but then never used it because Ragnell was just better. I was in, like, 7th grade, ok! I wasn’t the sharpest cookie.
And along those lines while you can give it to Ike, I don’t think you should. It’s a bit strange that Ike can even get all the way up to SS rank in axes, given he can’t even use them before promoting, but if you hang up the legendary versatile unbreakable Ragnell after his promotion at the start of part 4 and only focus on using axes for the two chapters he’s available before you get Urvan, you might be able to get him up in time to use it, but…again, why? He can use it for the first two parts of the endgame, but he’s forced to equip Ragnell to receive the Goddess’ blessing, so you’d have to equip it on another SS axe user, get it blessed, and then give it back to him, which means another one of your units is out of a weapon.
But who’s the best person to give it to? The answer’s pretty simple–whoever your axe user is during the endgame, if you have one. I’d say it’s clearly the best axe in the game–even Nolan’s exclusive Tarvos is outclassed in every way except weight, which doesn’t matter since in Radiant Dawn weight is negated by the user’s strength–something Nolan is expected to have over 17 of as a level 1 Warrior. He should absolutely have that if you’re bringing him into the endgame.
However, forging is a thing in Radiant Dawn. I’m not going to pretend to know the most optimal way to use the forge (I don’t think I even touched it at all when I played it), but you can forge a Hand Axe or Silver Axe… wait… I’m looking up how it works…oh dang, the best thing you can do is increase the might by 5, the accuracy by 25, and the crit by 15 for a 7.5X price markup, which makes them have 10 more crit than Urvan but 8 or 3 less might, respectively. Forging a Hand Axe or Silver Axe like this will run you 4687.5 or 10,800 gold, respectively, and selling Urvan can net you 7500. Is a 14 might, 95 hit, 15 crit versatile forged weapon better than a 15 might, 65 hit, 5 crit versatile Tomahawk or the 22 might, 110 hit, 5 crit non-versatile Urvan? I’m not a big enough FE expert to tell you if the versatility and +10 crit is worth it for 8 fewer damage on every hit, but I feel like… no?
1-2 range is, however, still nice, and that brings me to one complaint I do have about Urvan’s stats–not when you compare it to other axes, but when you compare it to other SS weapons; namely the Wishblade (lance) and the Double Bow (please tell me you figured out what kind of weapon this one is). It has ten higher hit, but the exact same crit AND might–you’re telling me the giant axe packs the same punch as a bow or a spear? And those weapons are both versatile! The Double Bow is one of the only bows in the entire franchise with close-range combat, and every potential wielder other than Astrid (who from what I understand kinda sucks in this game) is a Marksman, which gives them 3-range on every bow. So yes, pretty much anyone with the Double Bow will have 1-3 range with 0 downsides. The Wishblade is less ridiculous, but I feel like Urvan should have been given a bit more might in order to make it stand out as the sole strongest weapon in the game (again, not counting enemy-only weapons, ballistae, crossbows, and Laguz weapons), instead of in a 3-way tie with two weapons that have better stats.
Of course, +3 resistance is cooler than +3 strength and definitely cooler than +3 luck, but still. I don’t think that it thematically should be throwable, so I think its stats should be bumped up a bit.
These are by and large small gripes though; it’s not like it’s a bad weapon without it or anything.
Urvan Overall
Truth be told, unlike Durandal, Urvan doesn’t really have much to discuss “overall”--given how it’s only usable in Radiant Dawn, I put most of my thoughts above.
However! I can talk about the design. I like it! Aside from maybe the teardrop splash pattern near the blade, I really like the design!
Unlike most of the other non-throwing axes in the Tellius games, Urvan is perfectly symmetrical, which (aside from being a lot easier to 3D model) gives it a sense of pristine perfection and superiority. Given that silver weapons are generally seen as the strongest ones in the series, Urvan being gold signifies that this weapon is stronger than even the strongest you may have seen thus far. There’s something really solid about how the blade and the handle are joined, even if the golden part that joins the wooden and the metal parts of the handle seems like it might break easily.
Like quite a few of the Tellius “legendary” weapons, you can’t really call Urvan legendary in the sense that it didn’t appear in any legends–it presumably was created in the current age. However, it still physically looks the part and, despite its overall lack of fanfare in the games it appears in, I think it’s good just as an “oh and here’s one more powerful thing before you start the endgame” weapon.
I do feel like it would have been great to see it get a tad more Might just to make it stand out a bit more compared to its fellow SS-ranked physical weapons, given all of them (Vague Katti notwithstanding) have 1-2 range. The fact that it’s so dang accurate, however, is pretty darn cool.
Good weapon!
Wrap-up
That’s it for this one, folks! The next weapon has yet to be decided, so if you want to see a certain weapon made and discussed, drop it in the comments below!
Unlike these last two, I’ll have to pick it, gather reference materials, model it, print the prototype, test its fit, fix any issues I see with it, reprint it, test it, print the real ones in full color, film/edit/upload the assembly video, write up the build instructions, take/edit the thumbnails, and upload the model. Provided I don’t run into any supply-chain issues, this probably will take about 2 weeks from start to finish. Of course, since I do other stuff, I don’t know when I’ll start, but it’ll happen sometime!
And of course, if you want to print it yourself, here you go.