Can glass weapons like in Skyrim be useful in real life?

Set aside the question of the Skyrim not-really-glass weapons. How about the real thing? Obsidian (volcanic glass) was one of the two major blade-making materials of the stone age; the other was flint. read more

In real life, weapons are [occasionally] made out of broken shards of glass. The problem is that glass doesn’t break nicely, and so each weapon has to be designed specially to fit with the shards of glass. They couldn’t be mass produced. Also, in case you’ve never banged glass rods around, glass breaks easily. read more

Sure, it may be very sharp, and you can certainly cause lethal damage with a large glass shard, but in combat you need to have a weapon that can last a while. Various South American and Central American civilisations developed the macuahuitl : a wooden weapon with segmented edges made out of obsidian, volcanic glass. read more

Moonstone's primary use in Skyrim is for Elven and glass armor/weapons. In real life, Moonstone is a type of mineral gemstone (a form of Feldspar -an extremely common type of mineral), and is not too far from how it looks in-game. read more