>>64133792
Yeah, they just parrot whatever they're told.
In general, you can learn a lot about how prevalent weapons were by looking at the antique market. Flails are pretty common. Nowhere near as common as swords, daggers, spears, and flanged maces, but more common than spiked maces, horseman's axes, and lots of other stuff. Picrel went to auction pretty recently.
There are some weapons that NEVER turn up on the antique market. The Japanese kanabo is one of them. In years of searching, I've never seen one. Though swords and jittes are a dime a dozen, and the Japanese also have their own flails. . .