SINGAPORE, May 8 — Any Westerosi knows that in order to be worth your weight in Valyrian steel, you have to wield your own signature weapon — and it has to have a cool name, too.

But in the TV series "Game Of Thrones", Ned Stark’s great sword Ice and Arya’s Needle wouldn’t exist if someone hadn’t designed and curated those props — that someone is Game Of Thrones’ weapons master, Tommy Dunne.

And, yes, people are always telling him that he has the coolest job in the world.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that a few times. I must tell the producers that I have the best job in the world, allegedly. Slap them up for a pay rise,” quipped the Irishman, who has designed weapons for other series like "The Pacific" and "Band Of Brothers", as well as the movies "Braveheart", "Gladiator", "Saving Private Ryan", "Blood Diamond", "V For Vendetta" and more.

If you’re a Game Of Thrones fan, you’ve probably already thought about what signature weapon might represent you. Ironically, Dunne hasn’t.

“I’d have to get something Celtic, being Irish,” he mused.

“Wield a big shamrock or a big harp. Wouldn’t look very good, but it’d be definitely very Celtic!”

To have a fighting chance at appreciating the tools in the "Game Of Thrones" arsenal better, here are five incisive points Dunne made, including which cast member is the best fighter, which sword he keeps a particular eye on and why the new Dornish weapons you see this current season are the coolest yet.

1. Replica weapons made of bamboo or rubber are sometimes used in place of the real ones.

Dunne keeps multiple versions of the same weapon in different materials.

“We do have steel blades … but we have a lot of the same weapons with aluminium blades, and we have them in bamboo and rubber and sometimes even in plastic. For horse riding, for example, we use rubber so that if somebody falls off, they don’t fall onto a blade.

“Same with fighting scenes — we fight with aluminium, bamboo and rubber — it depends on how hard that fight has to be, how hard the choreography is and how proficient the actors or extras are in dealing with stunts.”

2. People are always asking to borrow the weapons for costume parties.

“I don’t give them out, for obvious reasons,” said Dunne.

“I wouldn’t give them any of the Game Of Thrones stuff, but I have my own personal items — medieval swords and generic swords — that I give out for charity gigs.”

3. It’s not true that pretty people can’t fight.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister, “would be probably the most proficient fighter”, said Dunne.

The character lost his right hand over the course of the show, so Coster-Waldau now uses his left hand in duels, but is “still very proficient”.

“Obviously, when he used his right hand, he was like dynamite — really, really fast. It’s not true that pretty people can’t fight.”

Similarly, actress Maisie Williams, who plays left-handed Arya Stark, is “very, very proficient” too, “given that the kid is right-handed”.

“The other one who’s very good would be Kit (Harington, who plays Jon Snow). Kit has so many battle and fight sequences. He’s progressed so much every season. He really is very proficient now — it’s second nature to him.”

4. Needle is one of the most dangerous of all the weapons.

Little Arya’s little sword, Needle, is actually the weapon you’ll want to keep your distance from if you’re on set.

“It’s a very narrow blade and really sharp to a point and it’s purely for puncturing or for stabbing,” said the weapons master.

“That’s a dangerous one; I have to keep an eye on it all the time, especially if we have the real one out, because if we’re very close to the camera, we have to be very aware of people around ... making sure they’re not in the area of the pattern of footwork Arya might be doing at the time.”

5.The Dornish weapons introduced this season are Dunne’s current favourites.

“My favourite at the moment is Areo Hotah’s axe ... It was so opulent, with so much brass and so much fretwork on the side,” Dunne said.

“I had to make sure it was not overly heavy and it’s wieldable and it looks authentic.” The whip was “a lovely one to make” because the whip protrudes from a snake’s mouth “and that’s obviously in keeping with the Dorne theme of the snake and the vipers. Plus our actor was absolutely excellent with the whip.”

6. Don’t nitpick on the “authenticity” of the medieval weapons.

Dunne had this to say: “It is fantasy at the end of the day. What I try to do is keep it as realistic as possible within 99 per cent of the world. We have the fantasy of the obsidian daggers that kill the White Walkers. So (there’s) a little bit of the mystic, but also the factual — the traditional swords, Ned Stark’s Ice, the Mountain’s and the Hound’s swords — all these weapons are practical ... and have a medieval theme to them.” — TODAY