Some NIU students know Susan McMaster as the founder and president of Horizon Management. But few know about a second business McMaster operates.

Ten years after founding the real estate management firm, McMaster founded Weapons Unleashed, a company that buys medieval clothing, props and weapons to sell to the general public. She is the only employee.

A love for historical re-enactment led her to become a purveyor of Medieval and Renaissance clothing and weapons. After a date took her to the Bristol Renaissance Fair in Kenosha, Wis., last year, her interest in historical role-playing was piqued. After visiting Stronghold Castle in Oregon, Ill., where the tour guides draw tourists into skits, she was hooked.

“When you get busy in the adult world you forget what it’s like to be a kid,” she said.

In her search to find clothing and accessories appropriate for a wench living in England sometime between 1550 and 1650, McMaster looked at Web sites for retailers all over the world before discovering the LaPaloma hat shop at the Bristol Renaissance Fair. To her surprise, the proprietress, Pam Palmer, lives in DeKalb. McMaster decided to found a new company promoting businesses like Palmer’s.

“One of the toughest things to come up with is footwear,” McMaster said.

A pair of period correct men’s boots, for example, can cost $400 to $800, but with the help of McMaster’s company, one can learn how to embellish $60 work boots with $80 worth of material available at any leather shop.

Weapons Unleashed also can help role players attain costume swords. The company carries replica swords covering a time spectrum from A.D. 1000 to the dawn of the 20th century, including samurai swords, fencing foils and Civil War era swords. They also can special order more obscure weapons like Irish and Scottish swords. “I can get any swords that need to be gotten within two weeks.”

“Looking for swords [on the Internet], I found a lot of swords weren’t period correct and cost $350 through most retailers,” McMaster said. “For something you’re going to wear nine to eighteen times a season as part of a costume, that’s excessive.”

She added that she could acquire stock wholesale from swordsmiths. As a result, she can market most of the swords in her collection for about $100.

By comparison, the Noble Collection’s on-line catalog offers a range of ornamental swords and daggers ranging from officially licensed replicas of the “Braveheart” sword for $295 to the Merlin’s Serpent Heart Crystal Dagger for $1,950.

HistoricalWeapons.com has a sale on Japanese katanas and Chinese Tai Chi swords with prices from $195 to $629. Spanish blades cost between $69 for the Alphonso X Sword and $450 for the Tizona Sword of [Emperor] Charles V.

With costume swords, the emphasis is on the handle or hilt rather than on the blade, because weapons are supposed to remain sheathed at one’s side. They are actually “peace tied” in their sheaths with leather or string on fairgrounds so they can not be drawn by other people.

Eventually, Weapons Unleashed may expand into selling other kinds of period weapons, “but not full suits of armor, which easily cost $2,500 and up,” McMaster said. “I can recommend a blacksmith in the area who can do the work.”