star wars character thoughts (lightsaber nonsense)
fuck, just realized why a character of mine settled on a guard shoto for their design.
they're from coruscant. they saw coruscant cops with police batons, as well as gangers with appropriated ones, all the time due to how far down they were in the underlevels.
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. it's so simple.
star wars character thoughts (lightsaber nonsense)
plus, with just the right amount of design tweaking, it means their hilt *will not look like a lightsaber hilt* to the untrained eye or the non-Force-sensitive - just a baton that possibly has shock upgrades.
and with a blaster on their other hip, that'll draw more attention.
fuuuck
star wars character thoughts (lightsaber nonsense)
hell, when they get their Goal Blaster - WESTAR-35 in a beskar casing, with a fully-enclosed finger guard below the trigger guard, suitable for catching or parrying lightsaber blades - that's *definitely* gonna draw more attention than "a simple baton" on their hip.
right up until a lightsaber blade the color of molten copper mid-pour flicks out of one end like a viper's tongue during one of those spin-strikes tonfa are known for.
star wars character thoughts (lightsaber nonsense)
*bangs fists on table softly enough to not knock over their anarchy symbol* guard shoto aren't a bad idea, they've just been executed poorly!
re: star wars character thoughts (lightsaber nonsense)
@Felthry Here we go, rough design comparison: Guard shoto, lightsaber, shoto. Dimensions are very rough approximations, but serviceable. 
re: star wars character thoughts (lightsaber nonsense)
@Felthry Effectively a tonfa with a lightsaber blade emitter on one or both ends.
Edit: Lemme slap together an example real quick.