Armor and Helmets

 

Armor

I also learned the use of the shield, primarily to meet the cast spear obliquely so that it would deflect harmlessly. Towards the end of my training I always fought with shield and helmet. I would have supposed that armor, or chain mail perhaps, would have been a desirable addition to the accouterments of the Gorean warrior, but it had been forbidden by the Priest-Kings. A possible hypothesis to explain this is that the Priest-Kings may have wished war to be a biologically selective process in which the weaker and slower perish and fail to reproduce themselves. This might account for the relatively primitive weapons allowed to the Men Below the Mountains. On Gor it was not the case that a cavern-chested toothpick could close a switch and devastate an army. Also, the primitive weapons guaranteed that what selection went on would proceed with sufficient slowness to establish its direction, and alter it, if necessary.

{Tarnsman of Gor - 48}

Helmets

Above the shield was suspended a helmet, again reminiscent of a Greek helmet, perhaps of the Homeric period. It had a somewhat Y-shaped slot for the eyes, nose, and mouth in the nearly solid metal.

{Tarnsman of Gor - 22}

He wore a conical, fur-rimmed iron helmet, a net of colored chains depending from the helmet protecting his face, leaving only holes for the eyes. I could not see his face because of the net of chain that hung before it.

{Nomads of Gor - 10}

The second rider had halted there. He was dressed much as the first man, except that no chain depended from his helmet, but his wind scarf was wrapped about his face. 

{Nomads of Gor - 14}