Bec de corbin

The bec de corbin (Old French: "crow's beak") is a medieval European pole weapon consisting of a hammer head and spike mounted on a long pole.

Similar to the Lucerne hammer, it differs in that the stout fluke (or "beak") is the primary striking surface rather than the hammer head. The hammer face is generally blunt (rather than multi-pronged as in the Lucerne hammer), and the beak was stouter and better-designed for punching through plate armor. The spike was also shorter and sturdier.

The vast majority of replica "bec de corbin" are in fact closer representations of Lucerne hammers; historical survivors of this polearm type seem to be few and far between.

A related name, bec de faucon ("falcon's beak") is a name for the poleaxe; other weapons referred to as bec de corbin include the maul and the horseman's pick.

Appearances:
 * An early appearance of this weapon in video games is in the Forgotten Realms computer game Curse of the Azure Bonds, which faithfully ports the bec de corbin as per Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules. Thanks to Gary Gygax's obsession with polearms, the bec de corbin also appears in numerous roguelike-games inspired by D&D, including Nethack.


 * The bec de corbin appears in Diablo II as a polearm, though the appearance is not that of a spiked pole hammer, but rather, that of an elaborate halberd.
 * A more recent MMO appearance of the bec de corbin is Lineage 2, where it is, again, graphically represented as a halberd.
 * Unusually, the bec de corbin can be summoned as a weapon in the Nintendo DS game Scribblenauts.