Boom Stick

The Boom Stick is essentially a staff-shaped gun that fires projectiles or, more often, energy blasts. If of the magical variety, it can be a "focus" for the user's magic power, making it easier to fire magic bolts (though the user is still perfectly capable of using just his hands). Often gives a regal flair to the user, and is handy to use in melee if needed. Of course, such a weapon is unwieldy and hard to aim. What differentiates the Boom Stick from the Magic Wand is that the Boom Stick is not necessarily magical and is really just for shooting people. If it is capable of regular spells, it's a Magic Staff.

The name of this trope is a play on "This Is My Boomstick", but is otherwise unrelated to those Boomsticks or the one who hosts the Death Battle show named Boomstick. May also be a Swiss-Army Weapon. Compare Sword Beam for blades.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Kazuki's Sunlight Heart from Buso Renkin, which when he's not using it like a normal lance can fire energy blasts.
• "The Mad Pierrot" from Cowboy Bebop uses a cane gun with seemingly unlimited ammo to devastating effect in "Pierrot Le Fou".
• Ifurita in El-Hazard: The Magnificent World uses a staff that fires energy beams. The staff itself is of a technological nature.
• Over the course of the Lyrical Nanoha franchise, Raising Heart and company become increasingly gun-like over time, even getting clips, cartridges, and a trigger in The Movie. This is actually the standard weapon used by members of the TSAB. However, few of their weapons ever become as gun-like as Raising Heart. Storm Raider, the usual device of the character in the picture, has a combat mode that looks more like a Dragunov SVD than a magic weapon, Teana's Phantom Mirage is either a single or a pair of sci-fi looking pistols and Runessa's Silver Dagger is an actual firearm with an Armed Intelligence mounted on it.
• In Outlaw Star, Ron MacDougal has a caster gun shaped like a shakujo ^note A mendicant monk's staff with jangly metal rings on the head. It shoots magic.
• Elie, from Rave Master uses a weapon like this. When handed a staff she starts using it as if it's one of these too.
• Saint Seiya's Poseidon can concentrate his divine Cosmo on his trident and shoot out devastating blasts from the spearhead.

Comic Books

• New Gods: Big Barda's Mega Rod is a baton like weapon which can extend to a longer staff and fire powerful energy blasts. Kalibak has a similar weapon called the Beta-Club.
• One of Deathstroke's weapons is a staff that can fire energy blasts or bullets.
• The Kingpin sometimes uses a cane that fires laser beams or releases knockout gas.
• Manhunter: Kate Spencer wields a staff weapon called a Power Baton which once belonged to one of her predecessors, Mark Shaw. It is a Swiss-Army Weapon whose function includes a magnetic pulse emitter and a sonic maser which produces a similar sound to Black Canary's sonic scream.
• Guardd's Power Staff from The Others (1995), which is a technological staff with a mace on one end, an axe on the other, and the ability to shoot energy blasts and cut through anything, even time and space.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Clutch the Opossum carries a rifle disguised as a Classy Cane, befitting his role as a retirement-age Arms Dealer.
• Vampirella: The Scarlet Legion's arsenal includes metal spear-like weapons that fire red laser beams.

Films — Live-Action

• The Wakandan Military in Black Panther carry spears that fire devastating concussion blasts. According to Killmonger, a shot from a single spear can kill a tank, and when used against T'Challa in his Black Panther suit, they clearly hurt.
• The weapon of choice for the Slayers in Krull are staffs that fire laser beams. They still seem highly impractical because they appear to only have one shot each.
• Tim the Enchanter in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, wields a staff that can be used as a rocket launcher and a flamethrower.
• Special mention must go to Inara's staff... thing from Serenity, which unfolds into a crossbow.
• The Staff Weapons in Stargate. Unlike the later series, these staves are very much lethal, and make a strange sound when used in melee, like if they tazed their targets.
• Thor: Odin's (and later Loki's) spear, Gungnir, which fires energy, controls the Bifröst, and activates the Destroyer.
• In the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, the Russian mobster Zukovsky carries a cane to help his bad leg. However, when he gets injured his Moment of Awesome comes when it turns out that his cane is also a potent (and accurate) firearm.
• A unique example in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Gambit causes explosions by channeling his power through his staff.

Literature

• The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden's Blasting Rod is a carved stick that is specially enchanted to aid his fire spells. He also has a staff, but it acts more like a Magic Wand (and a staff).
• The Lando Calrissian Adventures: Lando starts carrying a cane in his old age, claiming it makes him look dignified (he doesn't actually need it). In tight situations, though, it has a built-in holdout blaster, and a voice-activated function to shock whoever was holding it (in case he gets his blaster-stick taken away from him), specially modified to prevent Jedi from using their abilities while being shocked. Crazy-Prepared doesn't begin to cover it.
• In Without Remorse, John "Clark" Kelly uses a Bangstick (see under Real Life) against one drug-dealer by casually walking past (dressed as a bum) then jamming it into his chest.
• In the Darkness Series, the Fantasy Counterpart Appliance of guns is the 'stick', a sort of mass-produced magic wand or wizard's staff used by infantry that fires energy blasts (but they can be attenuated by heavy rain).
• In Moriarty Athelny Jones has a single-barreled shotgun built into his cane.

Live-Action TV

• Jaffa like Teal'c, as well as the Ori foot soldiers in the Stargate-verse have this as their weapon of choice. The inherent difficulty in aiming such weapons (which are designed more to terrify civilians than to be truly effective weapons of war, as is lampshaded at least once) explains how the heroes can survive despite almost always being massively outnumbered by Jaffa mooks. Some highly experienced Jaffa such as Teal'c and Master Bra'tac, however, are so proficient that they can reliably hit their targets without needing to aim (or in some cases, without even being able to see the enemy). There's also a pretty badass-looking martial art that uses the staff weapon as a...well, staff.
  • They do demonstrate that the weapon is very good for mass fire techniques. Take about a dozen Jaffa and overlap their fire, and everything in their path dies. Unless the "everything" is a Kull Warrior, in which case Hilarity Ensues.
  • The Sodan are a clan of more practical Jaffa warriors who frequently use personal cloaking devices in order to ambush their opponents (something the majority of the Honor Before Reason Jaffa don't do). Also, since their tactics often involve hit-and-run attacks, doing so with enormous and heavy staff isn't very practical. So, they carry a severely-shortened version that can't be used in melee combat anymore but is much easier to aim and carry (they actually have straps for them). To compensate for not being able to use their weapons in melee fights, they have developed an even more badass form of hand-to-hand combat. Cam Mitchell only learns the basics of it but is later able to fight another Sodan warrior (who ambushed him) to a standstill (he also happens to be a Colonel Badass).
• The High Guard's Force Lance in Andromeda. It can, however, shrink when used in gun mode, making it less awkward to aim (not that you'd need it, its projectiles are homing, unless they are used to fire on someone whose name appears in the main credits, who usually have ECM generators).
• Merlin has a magical sidhe staff, that fires a blast of magical energy that can even kill a sidhe. Despite it being a cool and effective weapon, he's only used it in three episodes (The Gates of Avalon, To Kill The King and The Changeling).
• Earth 2's native aliens, Terrians, wield special staffs that allow them to channel lightning-like energy bursts or magnify sunlight into a powerful light source. More of a subversion of the trope, as these aren't the usual directed energy weapons, though they can be used well in self-defence.
• Power Rangers Zeo (and the source series, Chouriki Sentai Ohranger) had the Gold/King Ranger's Golden Power Staff/King Stick, a battle staff that could draw energy into the sphere atop it, then fire spheres of energy at a target.
  • Later on, Power Rangers Lost Galaxy (and the source series, Seijuu Sentai Gingaman) had the Quasar Launchers, extending cudgels that could compress into bazooka weapons.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000—
  • The Eldar have fire-pikes, directed fusion weapons designed for anti-tank work that usually just look like long-barrelled guns, but have been interpreted by several of Games Workshop's model sculptors as fitting this trope instead.
  • There are also a couple of examples like the Guardian Spears of the Adeptus Custodes (polearms with inbuilt Frickin' Laser Beams) and the Necron War Scythes and Staves of Light (with inbuilt Gauss weapons).
  • In Necromunda, the religious House Cawdor often wields improvised polearms with a firearm attached to it, usually an autogun or a blunderbuss. Other than being a very cheap and affordable weapon, which is an important issue given House Cawdor is one of the poorest, such weapons resemble the aforementioned spears of the Adeptus Custodes, whom the House reveres.
  • The Kroot Rifle is a borderline example: it's a rifle, but hardened for sustained melee and a bayonet perpendicular to the direction of fire at both the end of the barrel and on the stock. It appears to be not so much a gun with melee attachments, as it does a traditional Kroot weapon redesigned to incorporate a ranged weapon. Despite being closely associated with the advanced Tau Empire, this attitude would fit the rumors that the Kroot deliberately keep their own technology levels low to keep their species physically strong.
  • In the lore, there is a weapon called the Bolter Cane. As the name implies it is a cane modified to fire what is essentially a miniature rocket bullet. As expected these rather dandy weapons are liked by certain Rogue Traders.
• Warhammer Fantasy has a few bound spell magic items (items that allow any character to have a single auto-use spell every turn in addition to other spells) that take the form of staffs - the Lizardmen have two that contain offensive spells.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, meanwhile, has the Freeguild Fusiliers, the ranged troops of the Cities of Sigmar. Compared to their rough predecessors in Warhammer Fantasy, the Empire Handgunners armed with muskets, they wield the more primitive hand cannon (see the Real Life section below), mounted on their pavise shields.
• A number of pen-and-paper RPGs, have staffs with a "pre-programmed" blast that even a non-mage can fire off.
  • Staves in Dungeons & Dragons third edition (and 3.5) are like this.
    • Only a few of them. Staves contain multiple spells, and in most cases at least some of those spells are non-offensive ones, making them not this trope.
• In GURPS: High-Tech there is a baton like weapon that can fire a single shotgun shell, based on the real life Bangstick.
• Boomsticks appear in Magi-Nation, as seen here.◊

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: The second boss of the Mysterious Console DLC is a hooded insect mage wielding a staff with a spherical top that fires off scattered bullets capable of taking various shapes joined together into different directions once fired off.
• Bloodborne has the Rifle Spear, a "trick weapon" that can transform between a spear and a shotgun with a bayonet.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure: Tio's Orbal Staff, which shoots spreads of energy orbs and can transform into an energy cannon.
• Ieyasu Tokugawa from Samurai Warriors wields a spear whose head unfolds to reveal a cannon.
• The basic Cuotl foot soldiers in Rise of Legends use staves that fire Slow Lasers.
• The awesomest version of this ever is, of course, the Pfhor fighter shock staffs in Marathon. They're swung like a staff even when doing long range.
• XenoGears: The Executioner carries a staff that performs a variety of Ether-based attacks when activated.
• A number of computer-based RPGs have staffs with a "pre-programmed" blast that even a non-mage can fire off.
• Staves in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are often enchanted with magic-missile spells (among other kinds) which are free to cast. However, they cannot be used in melee.
• All staves, wands and such rod-like items in the Serpent Riders trilogy. The sole exception is the simple staff, the Emergency Weapon of Heretic.
• In Saints Row and its sequel, one of the most powerful weapons is the 'Pimp Cane' which is... well, a stick. With a built-in shotgun, which is obscenely powerful, capable of blowing up a car with two blasts or so. At impressive range, even...
• The Guardian class had these in Tabula Rasa; it was their class weapon capable of dealing considerable damage in hand to hand combat as well as firing type-specific ranged attacks. Electrical staves fired ball lightning, Incendiary staves fired... well, fireballs, and so on.
• Sort of inverted in Civilization IV. While archers would draw short swords to fight in melee combat, longbowmen just smacked people around with their longbows, staff-style.
• Tales of Graces has Pascal, whose stave can actually function as a rifle.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy IX: The Racket-type weapons◊, for Dagger and Eiko, which allow them to (literally) fling a ball of energy at the enemy. These are quite useful, as they allow the normally weak mage-characters to deal somewhat decent amounts of damage (due to these weapons drawing on their Magic stat, rather than their Strength stat).
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Nael Van Darnus wields a halberd named Bradamante with an integrated firearm that can fire regular bullets or be infused with magic to fire more powerful shots. Gilgamesh wields a replica of the weapon named Pradamante in the two boss fights against him.
  • Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII has Wutai soldiers using polearms that can flip around to be used as rifles.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy has Emperor Mateus use his staff as a conduit to manifest his spells, with his Dynamite attack directly manifesting as an orb of energy charged up on the end of his staff and firing at the enemy.
• Conqueror's Blade features a handful of units (Fire Lancers, Liao's Rangers, and Wuxing Pikemen) armed with real-life Boom Sticks:
  • Fire Lancers and Rangers use the firelance, a type of primitive firearm which is basically a gun barrel on the end of a staff. The user just lights the fuse, points the barrel at the enemy, and lets the thing go off. In close quarters, Fire Lancers and Rangers can use their lances as bludgeons.
  • Wuxing Pikemen have an even cooler weapon - a spear with gun barrels on the end that can shoot either primitive shotgun shells or turn into a flamethrower. And yes, this weapon is historically accurate.
• The staff weapons in Dragon Age can fire beams of magic when used by mages.
• The Guards in Metal Arms: Glitch in the System use these, mounted on halberds. They're quite powerful, shooting a huge spread of laser bolts with a decent range. In close quarters, they do a very wide sweeping attack.
• The Battle For Wesnoth features Dwarves, who use thundersticks. The sprites show something like flintlock muskets, but the portrait for the Thunderer/Thunderguard has a hand cannon, as described in Real Life below.
• The MMPORPG Dark Age of Camelot features a wizard staff called "Weno'iak's Boom Stick". Doesn't really do anything that any other wizard staff in the game doesn't do, but it does it with cool graphicy fire effects.
• Wizards in many roguelikes can't cast magic bolt unless wielding a staff.
• One of the many functions of Krystal's staff in Star Fox Adventures, though considering you can't move while using it you get the feeling Fox would have preferred his blaster.
• Staves and wands in Guild Wars often have properties that enhance spellcasting, but on their own, they just fire unguided magic projectiles. Like all other weapons in the game, you don't need training to use them, but they're much less effective if you don't have the proper attributes.
• The staffs in Kid Icarus: Uprising, which are sniping weapons.
• Dark Souls has the Dragonslayer Spear as a close example of a boom stick, its heavy one handed attack launching lightning bolts at the cost of the weapons durability.
• Fully learning Electricity tech discipline in Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura lets you craft Tesla Rod, a staff that shoots balls of lightning when swung. It's also fairly practical, taking little space in inventory, using cheap batteries, dealing rare electrical damage and having decent speed and highest damage-to-ammo rating in the game.
• A good number of the weapons available in Realms of the Haunting, varying from daggers and swords to literal staves. They are all magical and recharge over time.
• In Batman: The Telltale Series, the main villain of Season One fights using a staff that fires concussive blasts.
• Warframe has the Speargun weapon class, which is exactly what it sounds like: a spear that can fire projectiles from its head. They can also be used as throwing weapons and tend to have effects that trigger in the area that the Speargun landed, though unfortunately, they are strictly projectile weapons and cannot be used for melee.
• Destiny 2: The Witch Queen introduced the Glaive weapon type, a versatile polearm that can be swung as a melee weapon or shoot blasts of energy, and can even project a shield.
• In LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, while the Kingpin can rely on his natural super strength (due to being a big fig) he also carries a jeweled cane. Which also hides a gun, giving him a ranged option.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Eunie's main weapon is the Gunrod, a staff used to channel ether whose bottom end doubles as a rifle.

Web Animation

• RWBY
  • The staff that Sun Wukong wields arguably counts. It's a staff that disconnects and becomes a pair of nunchucks that are also shotguns.
  • Secondary villain Roman Torchwich has a cane that can fire an unstable flare or discharge of what appears to be Dust. It even comes with a flip-up reticle for aiming.

Web Comics

• The lilliputian Mowanians in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! use weird-looking staff-shaped rayguns.

Web Original

• Linkara recently unveiled his own Gold Zeo Powerstaff, which mainly served the purpose of shooting Mechakara with golden lightning three or four times.

Western Animation

• The Cuphead Show!: The Devil's pitchfork can unleash fire from its tip, as well as lightning, which is shown when Cuphead repeatedly zaps The Devil while trying to give him the pitchfork back.
• DuckTales (1987): In "The Masked Mallard", Scrooge temporarily takes up the popular billionaire hobby of Part-Time Hero vigilantism. One of the gadgets Gyro builds him is a cane that shoots laser beams.
• Kim Possible:
  • The red-suited Mooks carry similar energy crackling staffs on occasion, both serve more as intimidation that any functional purpose.
  • Warmonga also carries one, which Kim used to destroy the Doomsday Device Of The Week.
• My Little Pony 'n Friends: Grogar's troggle minions are armed with lances that shoot weaker versions of his caging beams from their tips.
• The Owl House: In Luz's recounting of Good Witch Azura's story, she holds her staff over her shoulder like a rocket launcher, cocks it, and fires a massive blast of magic.
• ReBoot:
  • Megabyte's Binomes use these.
  • Code Masters have Gibson Coil Pikes who behave like this.
• In the episode of Samurai Jack "Jack and the Spartans", the Spartans carry what appear to be ordinary spears... which actually carry rocket propelled grenades in the tip.
• Steven Universe: Pearl's spear can fire energy blasts in quick succession. She can charge it for a sizable explosion. A sufficiently agile or skilled opponent can dodge them, though.
• Storm Hawks: Piper's crystal staff can be used as such with a crystal mounted on the end, though more often than not it's wielded as a Martial Arts Staff.

Real Life

• Real Life gives us Roman candles.
• Truth in Television, the ancestor of the modern gun was the hand cannon (or hand gonne) which was basically a tiny cannon affixed to the end of a staff, used as early as the 13th century.
• Bangsticks - or Power Heads - are a spear shaft with a short-barreled gun permanently attached to the end. They are designed to be used underwater by divers to hunt or defend against large predators like sharks. The firing mechanism is activated by thrusting the end of the barrel into the shark's skin, forming a seal between the muzzle of the weapon and the target. As contact shot weapons, Bangsticks do most of their damage by discharging hot, burning gunpowder directly into the target. They are typically loaded with waterproofed blanks, but everything from conventional ammunition to novelty hand-loaded cartridges have been used with varying degrees of success.
• Some have built custom Nerf blasters out of a simple PVC pipe with spring mechanisms inside and a trigger button of some kind (usually a clothespin) on the outside.
• The cattle prod is essentially a short-range Boom Stick.
• Cane guns are precisely this trope: a gun concealed inside a cane. They see a lot of use in Spy Fiction, which is Truth in Television to some extent, but most real cane guns are carried by defense-conscious elderly folk.

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