"Should I come to you with a stick..."
This stick is one of the most versatile tools in the narrative arsenal. You can stick food on it, hit people with it, or even use it to cast magic. In the right hands, it can also symbolize everything from simple rustic wisdom to royal authority. The ordinary stick has also done great service as an Improvised Weapon and a key component of MacGyvering. This is an index for sticks, rods, staves, poles, clubs, canes and walking sticks, and all related tropes. This is not a place for giving specific examples of people using sticks.
Compare Sword Tropes.
Tropes
- Batter Up!: The use of a baseball bat as a weapon.
- Bindle Stick: When destitute, you carry all your worldly possessions in a handkerchief tied to a stick.
- Boom Stick: A stick that can shoot ranged attacks.
- Broomstick Quarterstaff: The use of a mop or broom as a weapon.
- Cane Fu: The use of a cane as a weapon.
- Carry a Big Stick: The use of a club as a weapon.
- Classy Cane: High-class characters carry fancy canes around.
- Combat Cue Stick: Using a billiard cue as a weapon.
- Flying Broomstick
- Golf Clubbing: The use of a golf club as a weapon.
- Low-Tech Spears: Spears are used as an archetypical weapon for less technologically advanced peoples.
- Magic Staff: A big magic stick that makes spells happen.
- Magic Wand: A small magic stick that makes spells happen.
- Martial Arts Staff
- Motivation on a Stick: Motivating someone to move by dangling a desired item to a stick hanging in front of its face.
- Naginatas Are Feminine
- Pipe Pain: The use of piping as weapons.
- Poking Dead Things with a Stick: Finding a dead body or creature and poking it with a stick.
- Primitive Clubs: The use of simple wooden cudgels as a mark of a group or character's primitiveness.
- Shock Stick: A stick that generates electricity.
- Staff of Authority: People in charge carry impressive-looking sticks.
- Sword Cane: A sword hidden inside a stick.
- Telephone Polearm: The use of a pillar-like object as a weapon.
- Telescoping Staff: A stick that can become longer.
- A Thicket of Spears: Massed infantry fighting in formation with polearms.
- X on a Stick
- Wooden Katanas Are Even Better: Sword-shaped sticks are as good as or better than swords.
- Wooden Stake: Killing evil by pushing a stick through its heart.