‘len : derivation of TE term “length”, corresponding to approximately one meter, or the effective kill radius of most melee weapons. Suffers from the same limitations as ancient cubits, i.e. without a universal reference point, may vary as much as +/- 20% depending on the proportions of the local ruler.

Heh. “Ruler”.

‘dolen: two ‘len. The approximate kill zone of most polearms, or the average height of most pure strain humans (male, female, and otherwise).

This puts the effective (untrained) range of stone age flatbows (shortbows) at 10’dolen; steam age muskets and iron age crossbows at 20’d; iron age longbows at 30’d; and industrial age bolt action rifles at 100’d.

Not that Dungeon World classic tracks range like this. Iron Age ranged weapons have a range of near, far, or both; with “near” being defined as “the whites of their eyes” / their face will haunt your dreams, and long is farther than that.

Apocalypse World adds eXtreme, to mean “beyond far”, for heavy weapons and sniper rifles.

Which practically translates to “far is unaided visual range: 20 meters to 200 meters / 10’d to 100’d”. And eXtreme is anything requiring magnification, which for most folks is going to count as “attacks against a surprised or helpless foe” anyway.

Also. there’s something to be said for measuring smaller distance in “hands” of 100mm, (ten to a ‘len, 3 to a foot). The casual anthropomorphism in the face of sentient animals and plants feels slightly transgression.