Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Difference between revisions

Hard to work with, but great against vampires. There's even a certain basis in reality for this - garlic contains [[wikipedia:Allicin|Allicin]], a potent anti-biotic and anti-fungal agent. Remember that the original vampire myths described them as [[Looks Like Orlok|plague carriers]] instead of [[Classical Movie Vampire|angsty nobility]] or [[Our Vampires Are Different|teenage estrogen bait]].

 

* ''[[Batman]]'': soaks his Batarangs in crushed garlic for dealing with vampires.

* ''[[Blade]]'': Blade's opponents are sent into anaphylactic shock by garlic based pepper spray.

 

* ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'': Hellboy adds it to his rounds just to be complete.

* Played with against non-supernatural opponents in the [[Roger Corman]] film ''The St. Valentine's Day Massacre'': a croaky-voiced gangster (played by a young Jack Nicholson) notes the belief that the garlic he's rubbed his bullets with will poison the wounds—kind of strange given what's known now about garlic...

 

 

* [[Ultraviolet (TV series)|Ultraviolet]]: Instead of putting it in bullets, they put it in smoke canisters. Minimal effect on troopies, knocks the "leeches" flat on their backs.

* ''[[Forever Knight]]'': In the episode "Hunted", a hunter shoots Nick with bullets stuffed with garlic.

 

* ''[[Castlevania]]'': [[All There in the Manual|The manual]] for the first game stated that Simon Belmont soaked his signature whip in garlic juice and holy water for seventeen weeks before assaulting Dracula's castle. This is kind of undone since one of the first powerups the game will give you after every respawn is a ball and chain weapon that replaces the whip, and retconned out almost entirely with the increasingly-complex history of the whip in later games.

* Played with in [[The Elder Scrolls IV|Oblivion]]. One quest requires you to kill a vampire, and reading his diary indicates that he has a weakness to garlic. He's annoyed at the fact that he's the only vampire who possesses this weakness (so far as he knows), making him a walking cliche.

Weapons made from [[Religion Is Magic|religious relics]] or containing pieces of such are often used against supernatural foes, often in combination with special materials.

 

* ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'': the Magdalene Order uses scripture-inscribed bullets laced with holy water as standard ammunition against demons. They also have a small number of bullets which use the power of one demon to blow up another, with near-nuclear effects.

** The demon bullet was deemed a failure, however, another bullet called The Gospel is perhaps the most powerful anti-demon bullet around, which is described as "a magic bullet made of a rare kind of silver that's synthesized using alchemy which has a spell inscribed on it at an atomic level." The results are quite devastating.

* ''[[Hellsing]]'': Alucard's bullets, like his gun(s), are made to order - each is made from the metal of a Lancaster cross that was specially melted down for the purpose. The fact that the rounds are also ''explosive-tipped'' helps as well.

** He later receives a gun which fires Macedonium silver-jacketed bullets with blessed mercury (quicksilver) cores. Those don't need an explosive added, since mercury, being a liquid with about the same density as lead, virtually explodes upon terminal impact anyway.

 

* ''[[Astro City]]'': "Confession" story arc, a squad of alien invaders is armed with holographic crucifixes, restraining cables soaked in holy water, and a two-handed stake-launching revolver. They are thus armed because {{spoiler|they know that the nocturnal super-hero Confessor is actually a vampire.}}

 

* ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'': as mentioned in the opening quotation. In the comics, the shells also contain garlic and cold iron shavings, and in all depictions are fired from a gun crafted out of a church bell.

* ''[[Dogma]]'': [[Silent Bob]] kills the demon Azrael with a golf club he stole from a cardinal. As it turns out, the previous owner blessed it to improve his score.

* ''[[Constantine]]'': melts gold from crosses to make shotgun shells.

 

* In Swedish folklore, lead bullets are not only "lucky", they are also the only way to hit various supernatural menaces like shapeshifters, witches and their familiars, and animals protected by fairies. But it can't just be any lead; it has to be taken from a church window, which makes the making of the bullets blasphemy.

** As a sub-clause of good luck hunting bullets made from church window lead, writer Gunnar Brusewitz mentions a fish made from silver and hung in a church as a prayer for good catches for fishermen. However, it was stolen by a man who made a ''fishing lure'' out of it, hoping the supernatural power in it would give him fishing luck. When you (presumably) endanger your eternal soul to get bigger pikes, fishing is [[Serious Business]]...

 

* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'': The Knights of the Cross each carry one of three swords (a broadsword that may or may not be Excalibur, a katana, and a saber). Each sword has one of the nails used in Christ's crucifixion worked in the hilt. While Harry used to believe that the sword had little powers on their own, acting more as a symbol [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|being powered by their wielder's faith]], the swords have shown that they are more than mere pieces of steel.

** It also provides us with an ''awesome'' vampire-slaying tool: a paintball gun loaded with garlic and holy water balls. It's up there with the stake machine-gun in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''.

* ''[[Felix Castor]]'': Felix's landlord Pen fends off a [[Horny Devils|succubus]] with a shotgun full of filed-down rosary beads. It seriously ruins the succubus's day.

* In the ''[[Anita Blake]]'' books, in order to better kill vampires, Edward has been known to take a hollow point bullet, fill it with holy water and silver nitrate, and then seal it with wax.

 

 

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'': Many weapons for dealing with the [[The Legions of Hell|daemons]], who, while not [[Immune to Bullets]], are [[Implacable Man|damn hard to kill]]. The most obvious are the psycannon shells used by the Ordo Malleus. Depending on the source, these are either filled with various blessed materials or have anti-daemon runes and prayers carved onto them.

** Combining with [[Kill It with Fire]] gives flamethrowers loaded with Holy [[Elements Do Not Work That Way|Promethium]] (napalm with the mystical properties of Holy Water). The Grey Knights' Incinerator is the best known example.

** The forces of Chaos sometimes make use of daemon shells, which are bullets or artillery shells with a daemon bound within them. One the shell hits the target, the daemon's energy is released, causing a very large explosion of warp energy.

 

** Nunchucks made from Mother Teresa's bones,

*** These are, in fact [[Incredibly Lame Pun|nun]]chucks.

Iron, often [[Cold Iron]] or [[Thunderbolt Iron|meteoric iron]], is a traditional ward and weapon against magic, especially [[The Fair Folk]]. The term "cold iron" comes down to us from folklore, apparently as a poetic form of words (much as "cold steel" was used in later times). In various fictions, the definition of cold iron varies greatly.

 

* [[Elseworlds]] story ''Superboy's Legion'': where Ferro Lad proves completely invulnerable to the Emerald Empress' magic.

* In one ''[[Wolverine]]'' comic, the [[Incredibly Lame Pun|chestular]] protagonist is facing an opponent who is immune to any weapon forged by mortal man. He uses a weapon made of meteorite iron and forged by a demon to ruin said opponent's day.

 

* ''[[Saga of Recluce]]'': features two distinct types of magic: Order-mage and Chaos-mage. Chaos energy has difficulty working on iron due to the natural Order energy woven into it, making it a solid defense. Additionally, Chaos-mages tend to build up a large amount of the energy in their body, so direct contact with iron causes their skin to blister painfully, and in extreme cases can lead to death.

* ''[[Redwall]]'': Martin's ancestral sword is reforged by the badger lord of Salamandastron using meteoric steel in ''Mossflower''. The same sword is used by nearly every protagonist and has always slain the [[Big Bad]] of each particular novel (though not always directly, sometimes it is just used to, say, cut a rope holding a giant bell directly above the Big Bad).

** Considering an explanation, "cold iron" on ''[[Discworld]]'' is an overstatement and means just "below [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/146902/Curie-point Curie point]".

* ''Born to Run'': humans fighting [[The Fair Folk]] with, among other things, shotgun shells loaded with "Cold Iron, holy herbs, and blessed rock-salt." One character also has a seltzer bottle that's been filled with iron filings and given a "pagan blessing." When he sprays the blessed and iron-laced water directly into a banshee's mouth, its head melts.

* ''[[Soldier Son]]'' trilogy: iron beats any kind of magic and mages are "allergic" to iron. At the beginning of the series, the protagonist's country Gernia has subdued most of the magic-using peoples around them by switching from lead to iron bullets.

* ''[[The Spiderwick Chronicles]]'' book four: Jared confronts a faerie by pulling out a steel knife. His reasoning was that faeries don't like iron, and steel is at least part iron. It worked.

* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'':

** Charity and her nail gun

** As long as they have iron, ordinary bullets do extra damage against the fae as well - even if your opponent is the size of a semi.

* ''[[Steel Magic]]'': modern day steel utensils (like forks) are effective against magical creatures.

 

* In at least some versions of the stories, [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampires]] are slain with an iron pike rather than a wooden stake, and/or iron filings may be placed under a child's bed to ward off vampires.

** In folklore, wood stakes and iron nails are used to pin the vampire in its coffin (and then other things can be done to the body). It then dies and decomposes (and isn't coming back).

 

* ''[[Changeling: The Dreaming]]'': Cold iron (defined as "wrought iron") does aggravated damage to changelings... and if they die by it, their fae soul never reincarnates. The explanation is that the discovery of Iron working (and the coming of the Iron Age) was responsible for the end of the Fae golden age on Earth. Changelings, being creatures of dream and symbol, are especially vulnerable to it as a result.

** Later supplements explain steel not being so dangerous by the fact that it was invented by a powerful fairy long ago who sacrificed his life to insure it would be harmless.

* In [[Dungeons and Dragons]], fae and [[Chaotic Evil]] demons usually have some measure of damage resistance that applies to all attacks, except for those made with cold iron weapons.

 

* ''[[Princess Maker]] 2'': adventure section of the game, there is an [[NPC]] Elf that can change your daughter's statistics. However, he will run away if your daughter is equipped with iron weapon or armor. It's surprising how the developers [[Shown Their Work|thought of this]], especially when the game came from Japan.

 

* ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'': has an interesting theory on "cold iron"; somebody [[Blind Idiot Translation|mistranslated]] [http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/00474.html "north-pointing" as "cold"], meaning [http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/00480.html "cold iron" is ''lodestone'' -- '''North Pointing Iron'''.]

 

* ''[[Whateley Universe]]'': "cold iron" is cold-forged iron or wrought iron, according to [[Word of God]], even if some fans are ''still'' arguing about it.

* ''[[The Salvation War]]'': gives us iron-tipped artillery in the form of High-Explosive Anti-Demon<ref>normal High-Explosive-Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds have a shaped charge with a copper liner so when they detonate they burn through the enemy armour with a jet of molten copper. HEAD rounds replace the copper liner with iron so instead of just burning through the demon like a HEAT round they burned through it with something that was poisonous to the demon and prevented its flesh from [[Healing Factor|regenerating]].</ref> rounds. Not that conventional (military-grade) firearms were any less effective against demons, over penetration of APFSDS rounds aside.

 

 

 

If the enemy is an alien or monster with a very specific, non-mythological [[Kryptonite Factor|weakness]], be it Kryptonite, Music, or Water.

 

* ''[[Tears to Tiara]]'': has both the [[The Empire|Holy Empire]] and {{spoiler|the [[Our Angels Are Different|angels]]}} use weapons made of Electrum, a holy metal, against [[Noble Demon]] protagonist Arawn. ({{spoiler|The latter made it the ammunition of a biological "[[Tank Goodness|divine tank]]", which was used killed him [[Death Is Cheap|the first time]]}}). In-game, any equipment made of Electrum given to non-human characters (elves, dragons, demons, etc.) is only as good as whatever they were wearing earlier. It doesn't lower their stats, but it doesn't boost them either.

* ''[[One Piece]]'': Devil's Fruit users are all weak to submersion in water (which is a pretty [[Weaksauce Weakness]] for pirates in largely oceanic world). Sea-Prism Stone is a rock that causes people touched by it to suffer the same [[Power Nullifier|power-nullifying]] and strength-draining effect as being submerged. Usually, it's used in handcuffs, restraints, and cages, but the marine Smoker walks around with a weapon made of the stuff despite being a Devil's Fruit user himself.

** Justified in that he uses thick clothes to avoid contact with the thing in question.

 

* [[Superman]]: [[Kryptonite Factor|Kryptonite]] is [[Superman]]'s one true weakness (usually), so it's hardly surprising that it's been weaponized against him. The most spectacular being the occasionally mentioned K-Bomb, a Kryptonite tipped [[Nuke'Em|nuclear bomb]].

* In an interesting inversion, Bloodscream seems to be able to recover from attacks by Wolverine's adamantium claws. Guess what happens when he faces Wolverine without the adamantium.

 

* ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'': there are warheads enhanced with ''[[H.P. Lovecraft|The Colour out of Space]]''.

 

* ''[[X Men Origins: Wolverine|X-Men: Origins]]'': Stryker manages to bypass both Wolverine's adamantium bones and healing factor by shooting him in the head with adamantium bullets. The bullets pierce his skull, and while Logan's brain can heal, his memories can't.

 

 

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'': The mission of the entire SG project was to exploit alien technology or hybridize it with conventional weaponry to defend the Earth.

{{quote|'''Gen. Vidrine:''' You're telling me that a ''slammer missile'' could take out a Goa'uld mothership?

** In the later seasons {{spoiler|Anubis warriors}} prove to be functionally [[Immune to Bullets]] which necessitates research into some of these.

 

* ''[[Rifts]]'': The New German Republic has discovered that hot uranium rounds prevent supernatural beings from [[Healing Factor|regenerating]] or even healing damage.

 

* ''[[Command & Conquer]]'': both Nod and GDI use specialized munitions. In Nod's case, they have a love for filling missiles with various breeds of [[Green Rocks|Tiberium]]-based explosives or gases, while GDI has developed sonic-based and EMP artillery shells and grenades.

* ''[[Monkey Island]]'' series: root beer is an extremely effective ectocide. It ''only'' works on ghosts—when Guybrush tries this on the resurrected Zombie Pirate LeChuck, he shakes it off and chastises Guybrush for trying to off a zombie with a mere soft drink.

* ''[[Hunter: The Vigil]]'': Task Force: VALKYRIE uses bullets treated with the power of SCIENCE! to turn them into super-high-energy rounds that can strike and harm incorporeal targets like ghosts.

 

* ''[[Nobody Scores]]'': one of the characters acquires a hunk of Kryptonite and goes to sell it to Lex Luthor. Superman takes them out from long range with a traditional sniper rifle of his own [[Failure Is the Only Option|before they even spot him]].

 

 

When only magic can affect a monster, sometimes infusing magic into a more mundane weapon will do a better job.

 

* ''[[Fate/Zero]]'': Emiya Kiritsugu's custom "Origin Bullets" were filled with his own powdered bones, which contains Kiritsugu's dual Origins (base 'orientations' of an individual) of 'Binding' and 'Severing'. A magus uses magecraft to defend against the bullet? The Origins are forced directly onto his [[Functional Magic|Magic Circuits]], overloading them and ripping them apart.

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'': Tatsumiya creates her own spell-imbued bullets for [[Demon Slaying|exorcisms]] and the like. {{spoiler|Later, she gains a special ''time-displacement rounds'' use within one day, which work as an effective [[One-Hit Kill]] for the ultimate in battlefield removal}}.

* ''[[Outlaw Star]]'' featured Caster shells. Although the exact terminology fluctuated slightly depending on who was doing the talking (and who was dubbing/subtitling the episode), it all boiled down to "big ass guns that fired bullets which exploded into magical spells." The guns themselves were rare, but the more simple Caster rounds were relatively easy to find; when Gene needed to get the ''really'' good ones to take on the [[Big Bad]] he needed to track down the trio of semi-ageless techno-sorcerers that made them in the first place.

 

* ''[[Hellraiser]]'': In the "Razing Hell" comic mini-series, written by the [[Retroactive Recognition|Wachowski Brothers]], the protagonists manage to make bullets out of some of their own bones (starting with a fallen comrade who tells them how to do it with his dying breath, and later, in one desperate situation, a character uses his own pinky finger to make more ammo), since one of the only things that can hurt the [[Legions of Hell]] is Leviathan's own power (which has tainted them too, since they were its prisoners). They use this knowledge to begin a grim but very effective [[La Résistance]] campaign against the cenobites and the puzzle-box guardians.

* [[Superman]]: in the [[Silver Age]] Kryptonians could only be harmed by three things: other Kryptonians, kryptonite, and magic. So if you don't have any green rocks handy, get that [[Captain Marvel|Billy Batson kid to shout Shazam]] near him.

* To take down Black Adam, a bullet was made from a piece of the Rock of Eternity

 

* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'': The Others are creatures born of winter and hate everything warm. Though they fear fire, their speed and combat skill makes them difficult to set alight. Fortunately, in this world [[Lost Technology|Valyrian steel]] and obsidian ([[Call a Rabbit a Smeerp|also called dragonglass]]) are associated with dragon fire and can slay them. A flimsy obsidian dagger wielded by [[The So-Called Coward|the obese and combat-aversive Samwell Tarly]] pierces an Others' ice of armor like butter and actually ''melts its hands when it tries to pull the knife out''.

* ''[[Tortall]]'': griffin-fletched arrows always hit their targets, and Stormwing-fletched arrows go through magic shielding.

* ''[[Special Circumstances]]'': Generally speaking, weapons imbued with the spirit of a member of the titular organization are often either the only way or the best way of slaying a supernatural beastie. There's also a discussion, at one point, of how normal, non-spiritual FBI agents could battle the supernatural, using "[[Cold Iron]]" bayonets for their rifles.

 

* ''[[GURPS]] Technomancer'': The magical metal Necronium, is used primarily as a power source (and can sometimes poison those exposed to it and bring them back as the [[Zombie Apocalypse|living dead]]), whilst depleted Necronium is toxic to all magical creatures. Depleted Necronium is also completely unaffected by magic, allowing it to penetrate nearly all protective spells.

* ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'': Primium for the Technocracy, which is essentially a kills-supernaturals-dead weapon. Using it in a laser makes its wounds as agonizing to vampires as sunlight, Primium bullets hurt werewolves like silver does, and if you're afraid of magic users, plating yourself with Primium stops magic dead (some of the time at least.)

* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'': any weapon can be enhanced with magick. Imbued projectile weapons, including crossbows, rifles and shotguns, launch/fire imbued projectiles. It's not necessary to killing monsters, but sure helps.

 

* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'': you can cast an enchantment spell on your weapon that can boost damage. If you use the [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|alignment rune]] (IE: using the Xelatoth rune on monsters aligned with Chatturga), it boosts damage even more. Some weapons are firearms, especially in some of the levels based closer to present-day. Wanna plug a minion of an [[Eldritch Abomination]] with a WWI-era Enfield rifle imbued with the power of that Abomination's rival?

 

* ''[[Twokinds]]'': the most efficient way to take down one of the series [[Evil Tower of Ominousness|Evil Towers of Ominousness]] is to shoot the tower's core with a magic-imbued arrow.

 

Silver weapons, including [[Silver Bullet]]s, are commonly used on [[Our Werewolves Are Different|Werewolves]] and (less frequently) [[Our Vampires Are Different|Vampires]], stemming back to the idea of silver being a pure metal and/or associated with the moon. (Note that in [[Real Life]], silver and copper do have biocidal properties. The idiomatic "silver spoon", as well as the common brass doorknob, is very effective at killing bacteria on contact. [[wikipedia:Silver nitrate|Silver nitrate]] is one of the oldest disinfectants, and one of the few such remedies still commonly used.)

 

* ''[[Werewolf By Night]]'': the armor and weaponry of [[Moon Knight]] was specifically tailored for werewolf fighting, laced with silver throughout.

* ''[[Batman]]'': story <ref>"written by Bob Kane" early</ref> pits Batman against a vampire, whom he kills (he did that back in the day) by melting down some silver candlesticks, forging bullets out of them, and shooting the vampire.

* ''[[Fiends Of The Eastern Front]]'': the main character melts down silverware and forges them into bullets for his machine gun to fight Constanta's vampire troops.

 

* ''[[Underworld (film)|Underworld]]'': the vampires fight with bullets filled with silver nitrate.<ref>better known for its real world use in the eyes of newborn babies to prevent infection right after birth, and in photography</ref> Considering how thick and silvery it is, one assumes it is a VERY saturated solution (silver nitrate is usually thin and black).

* ''[[Blade]]'': at least the film and TV adaptations, uses silver-coated steel in his melee weapons (spikes and swords).

 

* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'': tightens the qualifications by having a cursed werewolf that can only be killed by ''inherited'' silver.

* [[The Bartimaeus Trilogy]]: Silver is used as a weapon against spirits, since Silver actually causes damage to their essence, and can destroy them if given enough time. Iron also works to a lesser degree.

 

* ''[[Blood Ties]]'': Detective Mike Sellucci is given silver bullets made for his police-issue Glock 9mm to kill a wendigo. He pumps it full of silver before the creature explodes.

* ''[[Friday the 13th: The Series]]'': a werewolf was strangled with a Kodak film roll with silver in it.

* In ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', silver blades and bullets will dispatch zombies (reanimated by dark magic), shapeshifters, werewolves and more.

 

* ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'': werewolves use silver knives on each other.

* ''[[Werewolf: The Forsaken]]'': if silver touches a werewolf's blood, it burns them for aggravated damage and has a rare chance of messing up their [[Healing Factor]]. Unlike in ''Apocalypse'', however, using silver on another werewolf is a ''major'' sin on the [[Karma Meter]]. It's also implied that the Pure get messed up ''worse'' than the Forsaken because they never sought forgiveness from Luna for the death of Father Wolf.

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'': there are rules for coating any weapon with "alchemical" silver. This applies a penalty to using the weapon so many players will carry a silver coated sidearm. Magical weapons typically don't need coating.

 

* Though ''[http://theglen.livejournal.com/131998.html some]'' [[Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG|variants]] apparently are over the top:

{{quote|1117. Can't strangle a werewolf with a roll of Kodak film, no matter what we all know it's made out of.}}

 

* ''[[Wallace and Gromit|The Curse of the Were-Rabbit]]'': the bullets needed are gold. ''Twenty-four [[Incredibly Lame Pun|carat]] gold.''

* Parodied in a [[Robot Chicken]] sketch: A werewolf is shown running from some kind of hunter and gets shot. The werewolf then claims "Only a silver bullet can kill a werewolf!". The hunter then proceeds to shoot the werewolf into a bloody pulp with a chain gun, light the mess on fire, snort the ashes, crap it out on a toilet and get processed in a sewage plant. Cut to 3 kids playing some sort of tabletop game, with the game master reading from the book and saying: "It says it's STILL not dead!"

 

* ''[[Blood Rayne]]'': Agent Rayne has blades either coated with silver or made of a silver alloy.

 

 

A common way to kill vamps, using UV rounds, grenades, lamps, or other tricks. The implication is that a number of supernatural creatures are susceptible to [[wikipedia:Ionizing radiation|ionizing radiation]] (by definition, light capable of tanning skin is ionizing), which is often used to sterilize tools and food, tying into the concept of supernatural creatures as plague carriers. It also means that someone should perhaps attempt to kill vampires with X-ray machines or plain 'ol [[wikipedia:Depleted uranium|depleted uranium]].

 

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw9ZeXB2uKs&feature=player_embedded This] Audi commercial.

 

* ''[[Ergo Proxy]]'': the only way to kill a Proxy is with shells that emit UV radiation, because the Proxies {{spoiler|were designed to terraform the world back to normal and then disintegrate when the sunlight came back}}.

* In ''[[Gantz]]'' Kei at one point uses a UV lamp to great effect against vampires.

 

* ''[[Blade]]'': has flashbangs and UV flashlights.

* Paralleled on occasion in some weapons against Superman developed from the spectograph of [[wikipedia:Rao (comics)|Rao]] ([[wikipedia:Krypton (comics)|Krypton's]] red sun) which takes away his powers until he is again exposed to solar rays.

** Notoriously used by the Soviet Union in Frank Miller's classic, ''[[The Dark Knight Returns|Batman: The Dark Knight Returns]]'' <ref>in which Superman took his devotion to ''Truth, Justice and the American Way'' to include enforcing US Policy abroad.</ref> who had tempered a high-yield nuke to do as much ecological damage as possible. Effects included a hemisphere covering EMP and a dust cloud that blocked out the sun in very literal nuclear "winter" way. Since Superman was trying to intercept and redirect the ICBM, it almost kills him because he is left with almost no exposure to his solar power source (he somehow drains energy from some plants to get back on his feet, but is still noted to be operating well below his peak power weeks later).

 

* ''[[Van Helsing]]'': had a full spectrum sunlight grenade. He didn't know what it could be used for, but he thought it would come in handy.

* ''[[Underworld (film)|Underworld]]'': As pictured above, the Lycans go armed with bullets filled with a liquid that emits ultraviolet radiation. It works very well.

* ''[[Blade]]'': Has UV lights on his car and weapon-mounted tactical light. Hannibal King's guns shoot UV-radiating bullets.

 

* ''[[Dark Conspiracy]]'': had ultraviolet lasers for use against vampires.

 

* ''[[Vampire Rain]]'': the protagonists fight the titular vampires with UV knives (which can [[Breakable Weapons|only be]] [[Too Awesome to Use|used once]]) in addition to their arsenal of conventional firearms.

 

If the enemy, usually a vampire, is vulnerable to wood, the solution is to upgrade the stake into a wood tipped bullet or more powerful and faster reloading crossbow.

 

 

* [[Norse Mythology]]: only mistletoe could harm Balder; everything else in the Nine Worlds had promised not to hurt him, because Balder was [[Bishonen|just so damn pretty]]. (The mistletoe probably would have promised too, but Frigga forgot to ask it.) [[Magnificent Bastard]] Loki simply could not resist the opportunity this presented...

 

* ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'': wooden bullets were used to threaten the Count in ''The Holmes-Dracula File''.

 

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and its [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Angel]]'': both use crossbows, and Angel has two devices that extend stakes hidden in his sleeves. Connor also used an automatic-staker in his first appearance as a teenager.

* In ''[[True Blood]]'', the Fellowship of the Sun developed quite an arsenal of wood-tipped projectile weapons.

* Wood is used against vampires all over ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'', in forms ranging from a standard hand-driven stake to a crossbow to ''wooden bullets'' that can be fired from a standard pistol.

 

* ''[[Rifts]]'': has wood-firing railguns ([[Justified Trope|with embedded metal cores for the magnets to work on]]) on occasion for dealing with vampires. It also has actual depleted uranium shells (Not ''quite'' depleted, as these were described as still being more radioactive than normal DU rounds), which for reasons unknown retard magical abilities to heal. These are great for those pesky critters that fight you down to their last MD point and then teleport off and return an hour later fully healed, giving you the time to hunt them down and finish the job. There are also shells made of non-depleted uranium that actively interfere with magic use by anything they embed in. Both can be cured by physically removing the round, however digging into your side with your own claws is generally A Bad Idea.

 

* ''[[SaGa Frontier 2]]'': Wooden swords are the weapon of choice for most people the world, since magic cannot be channeled through steel weapons. [[The Chessmaster|One character]] uses this limitation to his advantage, however.

* ''[[Hunter: The Vigil]] Task Force'': VALKYRIE sometimes uses specially treated wood bullets against vampires-the bullets can come in all sizes, and can be used to effectively "stake" a vampire at range.

 

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': Riff comes up with [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/981004 this baby]. Too bad it only holds one second's worth of ammo and takes two days to reload.

 

For weapons that combine various weaknesses into one shotgun shell, sword, or what have you. Just to cover all the bases.

 

* ''[[Astro City]]'' "Confession" story arc (see above): Mordecai Chalk, a cyborg monster-hunter. He had a shotgun that fired shells with wolfsbane and holy water, mechanical parts etched with holy symbols and crafted in iron and silver, and an on-board computer that references thousands of occult tomes. {{spoiler|It doesn't do him any good.}}

 

* In ''[http://www.grandt.com/Journey/stories/WhenTitansClash.html When Titans Clash]'' by Tenhawk, the Knighthood used counter-supernatural artillery rounds that were "... ''based around a core of three kilos of military grade high explosive which was surrounded by a sphere of blessed silver segmented into frangible pieces approximately one cubic inch in volume. This was in turn surrounded by pure meteoric iron in a second sphere, segmented into similar pieces''."

 

* ''[[Discworld]]'': In the undead bar of Ankh-Morpork, the bartender, Igor, has a weapon as follows:

{{quote|"Like many barmen, Igor kept a club under the bar to deal with those little upsets that occurred around closing time... Igor's weapon of choice was a little different. It was tipped with silver (for werewolves), hung with garlic (for vampires) and wrapped around with a strip of blanket (for bogeymen). For everyone else the fact that it was two feet of solid bog-oak usually sufficed."}}

* ''[[Elemental Masters|Reserved For The Cat]]'': the heroine carries a revolver loaded with two Cold Iron bullets, two Silver bullets, and two Blessed Lead bullets, plus extra ammo of all three types. It's anyone's guess which type offed the mystical [[Big Bad]] at the end of the novel.

 

* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': the hunters have to improvise a variety of weapons to kill a variety of creatures. The hunter's arsenal makes use of most of the above, ''except'' [[Our Vampires Are Different|garlic]]. The most frequent example is their use of shotgun shells loaded with rock salt against ghosts. Ghosts cannot act on iron, and are killed when their remains are salted and burned. Bobby's saferoom is walled with Iron treated with rock salt. Holy weapons can be found with holy water, which cannot be crossed by demons, or holy ''oil'', which cannot be crossed by ''angels''. This has even been weaponized into a [[Supernatural (Anime)/Funny|molotov cocktail]]. Angels also can be killed by And when all else fails, there's a magical gun and knife that kill ''everything''. {{spoiler|[[Contractual Boss Immunity|Except when they don't]].}}

 

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'': includes a plethora of monsters with varying types of damage reduction, such as werecreatures, demons, fey and others, which often results in adventurers carrying around extensive collections of weapons ("No, we need a ''silver'' magical weapon that does piercing damage, not a cold iron one!"). Both melee weapons and ammunition for projectiles are often made from these special materials.

** An insanely genius item introduced in one of the [[Ravenloft|Van Richten's Guides]] was a weakness-detecting arrow. Rather than a traditional point, it had needles from over a dozen different substances, like cold iron, gold, silver, wood, and so on. When fired, it does minimal damage to its target, but also does not embed itself. After it is recovered, the wielder can see what substance did the harm based on which other needles are broken or bent, and (depending on the target) which needle has the blood stain.

** There are magical weapon enhancements that can compensate for the "golf bag scabbard" problem. Metalline weapons overcome any damage reduction based on the material composition of the weapon, Transforming weapons can change shape into other types of weapons which deal damage in a different manner (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, or some combination), and Shadowstriking weapons can temporarily attune themselves to a particular creature and overcome whatever damage reduction it happens to have.

 

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'': many of the enemies are immune to typical weaponry. Spirits in particular can only be harmed by silver, daedric, or magical weaponry. Oddly enough, [[Never Bring a Knife to A Fist Fight|beating the bejeebus out of ghosts with your bare hands]] is more effective than some of the most powerful types of swords and axes in the game.

 

* ''[[Parallel Dementia]]'': Fall and other Nightmare hunters use blessed weapons (to combat demons), obsidian (for angels), garlic (for undead), iron (for fey), amethyst (for spawn), and silver (for therians) to combat the various types of Nightmares.

** On at least one occasion, Fall is given specially made ammunition incorporating all of these at once, because she's about to head into an extremely tense situation and standard operating procedure (using a test clip loaded with one of each kind of ammo, in a specific order, so that you can switch to full clips of the appropriate variety when you find the one that works) would be dangerously time-consuming.

 

* The legendary Usenet poster 'Gharlane of Eddore' once proposed a design for a Standard Generic Monster Load, which was:

{{quote|Silver bullet; hex-scored jacketed hollow-point filled with a gel made of Holy Water, wolfsbane, garlic, fugu toxin and curare, laced with dimethyl sulfoxide to provide tractor-solvent Spreading Factor. Traditionalists can also cut crosses in the bases of the bullets, and have them blessed by a priest. .44 magnum 240-grain load over the standard Elmer Keith hunting load, 24 grains of IMR 2400 (the manual says 21.8 grains is maximum, so don't use the 24-grain load if you have a cheap revolver). These work reliably on Vampires, Werewolves, the generic Undead, and Evil Human Minions like [[The Renfield|Renfield]], with sublime indifference. }}

If bullets won't kill it, then obviously the answer is to make better bullets. If they're just really well protected, use a harder material like bronze or tungsten. If somebody's playing tricks with magnets, use compressed plastic. With magnesium, you can [[Kill It with Fire]]! Or perhaps you can recycle their phlebotinum and [[Hoist by His Own Petard|Hoist Them By Their Own Petard]].

 

* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'': When traditional firearms [[Immune to Bullets|prove useless against the diclonii]], the antagonists resort to [[BFG|anti-tank rifles]] loaded with purpose-made tungsten slugs.

* Kittan in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' at one point attempts to hold off a Mugann with a shotgun packing "Spiral shells". A more impressive one is issued to Grapearls, producing huge explosions ''and'' a shell to contain the aftermath of a Mugann going blooie.

* Sven from ''[[Black Cat (manga)|Black Cat]]'' packs an array of interesting bullets, and among these there are blue-tipped ones that [[Instant Ice, Just Add Cold|freezes]] the opponent on contact.

 

* ''[[X-Men]]'': Magneto, Master of Magnetism is often faced with plastic or composite weapons, and was locked in a "plastic prison" on more than one occasion.

** In the original animated series a Sentinel boasts about how its plastic coating stops Magento's powers... Magneto's response is an annoyed "You fools, this whole ''ship'' is my ''weapon!'' and promptly throws the huge generators nearby through the Sentinels.

* ''[[The Mighty]]'': Gabriel Colewas given some special bullets. It turns out that it's {{spoiler|Special condensed nitrogen bullets to use against the invulnerable Alpha One since he needs to breathe more oxygen than most people.}}

 

* ''[[Transformers Film Series|Transformers]]'': The "6000-degree magnesium burn" of "high-heat 105mm sabot rounds" fired from an AC-130 gunship allowed the US military to hurt the marauding Decepticons in the movie (it's not much, but it worked rather better than normal bullets). Discarding-sabot rounds being neither hot, magnesium-laden or used by AC-130s, this has little to do with military practice or actual physics, though it is implied that weapons technology in the movie-verse is different because many human technological advancements came from studying Megatron's body.

** By the second movie, the human NEST teams are shown carrying heavily-upgraded, large-caliber assault rifles and machineguns that can actually inflict damage on Decepticons; the NEST units and Marines fighting the Decepticons at the end of the movie prove surprisingly effective against the Decepticons in the all-out battle that results.

* In ''[[Posse (film)|Posse]]'', Jesse Lee has some of the stolen gold recast into golden bullets he intends to use on his father's killers. Father Time explains that, according to New Orleans voodoo ladies, gold is the only way to kill a demon. In Jesse's case, the demons are symbolic rather than actual.

 

* [[Hammerverse]]: there's all sorts of strange weapons and ammo. One example is the "osmium penetrator" used by some of the other merc companies. These weapons take a rod of osmium, put behind it roughly a liter of propellant, and force it down a diamond-coated barrel to flechette thickness. It emerges as a osmium needle well capable of getting through tank armor, though it has little effect on personnel (the needle just blasts through people as if they weren't there, and since it doesn't splash, it just makes a very small hole). And powerguns, that fire ''bolts of energy'' from polyurethane wafers as ammo.

* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'': Kincaid at one point uses Dragonsbreath shotgun rounds to turn his disposable shotguns into flamethrowers. This inspires Harry to read up on ''other'' unusual shotgun rounds, including flares.

* ''[[Alloy of Law]]'': Anti-Allomancer rounds. The expensive ones are made out of Aluminum, the cheap ones vary based on target: Coinshot rounds are fronted with ceramics that will keep going when they push on the metal, Lurcher rounds contain ceramics surrounded by metal and fragment when pulled, Tineye rounds are excessively loud, Thug rounds are enormously over-sized.

 

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': UNIT's final appearance in the old version, following an absence of some years, it was shown that they had got tired of facing [[Immune to Bullets]] menaces and developed special bullets to even the playing field. These included teflon-coated armour-piercing rounds for robots and Daleks ("A non-stick bullet?" the Doctor muses), high-explosive rounds for Yetis, [[Weaksauce Weakness|gold-tipped bullets for Cybermen]], and [[Silver Bullet|silver bullets]] just in case. {{spoiler|The silver bullets turn out to be very useful.}}

** This continues in the new series, where UNIT uses rad-steel coated bullets {{spoiler|to counter the Sontarans' anti-bullet field (that expands the copper casing of normal rounds and stops the guns firing)}}.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' episode "Regeneration", the Borg adapt their force fields to block Earth Starfleet phase pistols after a few shots. The ''Enterprise's'' engineers manage to boost the weapons' output, making them effective again ... temporarily.

 

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'': has several examples, like Hellfire rounds, shells filled with a mutagenic acid that causes a near-instant and very painful death to anybody unfortunate enough to get hit by one, Dragonfire shells, which explode in a burst of superheated gas and Kraken bolts, which contain cores made of [[Thunderbolt Iron]].

* ''[[GURPS]] Ogre,'': the standard anti-personnel round is "ap-fizz dizzy-doo" (APFSDSDU): armor-piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding sabot, depleted uranium.

 

* ''[[Resident Evil]] 3'': in addition to normal grenade rounds, also has acid, fire, and [[Kill It with Ice|ice]] grenades. ''Code: Veronica'' also features anti-BOW gas rounds.

** While we're on the [[Survival Horror]] note, the [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower|tail end]] of ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' features bullets laced with the protagonist's mitochondria. And that's not even touching the fact that the game's main feature is [[Elite Tweak|elite gun tweaking]] to make bullets that freeze, burn, tranquilize, or poison with acid and cyanide. (Then there's the crazy things the guns themselves can do, barring the already-powerful-enough rocket launchers.)

* ''[[The Godfather (video game)|The Godfather]] 2'' has incendiary rounds as a reward for completing a certain crime ring.

 

* Jack Yaeger's gun in ''[[The Mercury Men]]'' fires bullets made of solid light, apparently the only thing that can kill the Mercury men.

 

* In ''[[Centurions]]'', energy specialist Rex Charger had assault weapon systems that fired missiles that contained... energy-changing stuff. Magnetic shields, light, [[Energy Absorption|energy that was absorbed by a gun]]—the missiles were [[Techno Babble]] shells. This meant that they were exactly as powerful as the plot demanded: on separate occasions, Rex blew up a [[Swirly Energy Thingy]] and ''killed a black hole.''

 

[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]

[[Category:Bullet Index]]