Talk:Morley/@comment-1500935-20180623092916/@comment-16533050-20181206091441

User:Glithess wrote: ''They make a very similar sound effect when firing, and function almost identically. And as we know from looting the tallboy's, they fire incendiary bolts, which are - you guessed it - whale oil based.''

Yes, the items dropped by the Tallboys are indeed Incendiary Bolts, but the bolts actually fired in-game from both the Tallboys and the Watchtowers function similarly to the Explosive Bolts found in The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches DLCs.

We have noted this on both the Compound Bow page (which is the weapon used by the Stilt walkers), the Watchtower page and the Explosive Bolts page. The only difference seems to be that unlike the bolts found in the DLCs, the explosive bolts used by the Tallboys and the Watchtowers explode immediately upon impact.

That is not to say that they aren't still manufactured from whale oil.

As for what came before, I'd mentioned that there were regular shot (maybe from a Harvey Smith post) but as mentioned I can't find any references unfortunately.

That aside, it is possible that crossbow were more widely used. Compound bows are utilized by the tall boys, Corvo has his own crossbow with numerous modifications for it. Emily has one, the Howlers use them, the Whalers use a modification of them, etc...

Also, crossbow bolts are found all over the place from wanted posters inside Galvani's Offices in the first Dishonored (in the sleeping area for the guards no less) to various spots throughout the city. Maybe some are stashes from the Whalers in case they run out, but some are in legitimate areas and in plain site suggesting that the weapon is not markedly unusual to the average citizen.