I may be nit-picking a bit here, but it's awfully hard to to crush things violently with a sword unless you're turning it sideways which the art does not reflect. This would be quite hilarious, however.
Clearly you have never heard about a crag sword. Favored weapon of the crag barbarians in a PnP i can't remember the name of they are so dull and so heavy that they do 4 times the crushing damage compared to the slashing damage.
Swedish RPG Eon But on that note, real life medieval broadswords and greatswords were crushing weapons more than slashing. Greatswords were blunt edged. This didn't stop them from dismembering people... Note that this blunt edged approach was a response to the armor of the time. Being sharp wouldn't make them more deadly, it would just get them stuck more easily, leading to the death of the wielder.
Note that there was some variance, and it depends on exactly when and where in europe. Broadswords weren't truly blunt, but they were more wedge like than sharp, similar to an axe, they have been likened to the medieval baseball bat, as they caused mainly crushing injuries on the chainmailed combatants at the time. Not all two-handed swords were blunt either, but renaissance mainland europe straight ones were, these were a response to the platemail armors at the time, better to dent and crush the armor, than get your sword stuck in a fresh cut. I think the scottish claymore was actually sharp, but then it was designed to take out horses, and unarmored men, not men in armor. Similarly the swiss flamberge swords were sharp, but they were designed to destroy pikes, so the cavalry could charge in after(the survival rate for such a soldier was poor to say the least, but they were the best payed).
