I grew up going to TRF and worked there as a 'boothy' in my late teens back in the 90's. Still travel there from time to time.
I can tell you for absolute fact that the most common motifs on leather armors and bags and such are: Celtic knots, the Moorcock 'Chaos star', and (I lump these all together) Baphotmet like ram and goat heads, skulls, Bulls, pentagrams sonnerands and other "badass brootal heavy metal" type motifs.
And, of late unfortunately, the next most popular motif is fucking steampunk gear garbage which seams to have overtaken the Wiccan/goth pentacles, alchemical/astrological symbols, trees of life designs and such.
(If you doubt me, I will go to the TRF vendors page in a bit and link you to the online storefronts.)
*Edit: to clarify when I mentioned DnD and fantasy, I mean to indicate a general group of interest groups with interests including: DnD, fantasy fiction such as Moorcock and Jordan and movies, speed metal such as Blind Guardian or Iced Earth, Tolkien, renfaires, the SCA, larps, etc. The kind of stuff parodied by that cartoon about the metal band from Cartoon Network. Please note that much of the examples are biased towards the late 90's to turn of the century, so sound outdated probably.
Like you, I have noticed that as fantasy became mainstream, oh, about the time that the Lord of the Rings movies came out and even normies got into it, that steampunk (and I would add faggotry) became more common in the subculture.
I guess I'm saying that gaming, (by that I mean tabletop) has always been counter-culture, but until the mid 2000s it was dominated by nerdy types, even the Vampire the Masquerade LARPers. But it was never explicitly satanic, merely accepting of pagan ideas and symbolism. I'd put the dividing line with the end of TSR and Hasbro's purchase of them. They changed the marketing with the introduction of 3rd edition D&D for "diversity" and here we are.
But that armor, with that design, was a deliberate choice, just as is the occasional dude who shows up as a crusader with the red cross at a ren faire. It wasn't random fantasy knight guy is what I'm saying.
I grew up going to TRF and worked there as a 'boothy' in my late teens back in the 90's. Still travel there from time to time.
I can tell you for absolute fact that the most common motifs on leather armors and bags and such are: Celtic knots, the Moorcock 'Chaos star', and (I lump these all together) Baphotmet like ram and goat heads, skulls, Bulls, pentagrams sonnerands and other "badass brootal heavy metal" type motifs.
And, of late unfortunately, the next most popular motif is fucking steampunk gear garbage which seams to have overtaken the Wiccan/goth pentacles, alchemical/astrological symbols, trees of life designs and such.
(If you doubt me, I will go to the TRF vendors page in a bit and link you to the online storefronts.)
*Edit: to clarify when I mentioned DnD and fantasy, I mean to indicate a general group of interest groups with interests including: DnD, fantasy fiction such as Moorcock and Jordan and movies, speed metal such as Blind Guardian or Iced Earth, Tolkien, renfaires, the SCA, larps, etc. The kind of stuff parodied by that cartoon about the metal band from Cartoon Network. Please note that much of the examples are biased towards the late 90's to turn of the century, so sound outdated probably.
Like you, I have noticed that as fantasy became mainstream, oh, about the time that the Lord of the Rings movies came out and even normies got into it, that steampunk (and I would add faggotry) became more common in the subculture.
I guess I'm saying that gaming, (by that I mean tabletop) has always been counter-culture, but until the mid 2000s it was dominated by nerdy types, even the Vampire the Masquerade LARPers. But it was never explicitly satanic, merely accepting of pagan ideas and symbolism. I'd put the dividing line with the end of TSR and Hasbro's purchase of them. They changed the marketing with the introduction of 3rd edition D&D for "diversity" and here we are.
But that armor, with that design, was a deliberate choice, just as is the occasional dude who shows up as a crusader with the red cross at a ren faire. It wasn't random fantasy knight guy is what I'm saying.