? About Quintessential Monk

[Furn_Darkside]

Unless you're playing an earth simulation, there's no reason a monk couldn't be from those countries.

Err.. I think the guy is just looking for some ideas.

Is that ok?

FD

 

[Samothdm]

Err.. I think the guy is just looking for some ideas.

Exactly. Obviously, I do have an imagination and can put something together. It just seems that this topic would have been addressed before. The monk class has been around since 1st Edition (even before that, in the Blackmoor Supplement, or was it Greyhawk?).

Martial arts developed in the "Far East" due to very specific cultural and political circumstances. You can of course take the exact same circumstances and transplant them to a western culture and viola, you've got your monks. But, that's kind of cheesey.

I'm going to hijack my own thread here: let's assume that the western monk orders are indigenous to the west (not transplants from "wanderings from the east"). How and why would they have developed these odd unarmed fighting styles?

What have others done in their campaigns?

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

Well I haven't done this in my campaign, but it could be that at some point a city might have declared it illegal for citizens to carry weapons and therefore people found other ways of being able to fight.

Granted that might be the reason they developed in the Eastern cultures in the first place. It just seems the most logical reason.

 

[Crothian]

Many styles are formed from the fighting styles of animals. In a fantasy setting, I think it would be far easier to base fighting styles off of the monsters. People see a Manticore take down a Griffen and imitate the Manicore's attacks and movements. That could work for any creature type of course.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

How and why would they have developed these odd unarmed fighting styles?

Psycho Dreamer hit on what I did in my last campeign- a king, long ago, feared the growing power of churchs in the area. So, he made it illegal for an officer of a church to wield a weapon. The churchs eventually developed different fighting styles and had a subset of clergy that became monks.

Some other ideas(some just modifications of earlier ones)-

Elves, gnomes, or whatever- developed a martial art style at first as a form of art. The art displayed the beauty in the movement of the body and how it can be used. It eventually developed into a martial ability for dealing with invaders.

Metal was/is rare in the world. Wood weapons are impressive, but are not efficient. Martial arts developed to deal with monsters that are stronger then most men.

A very strict area might have the criminals developing a style of hand2hand fighting. Being caught with a weapon is immediate grounds to get your hand cut off- so the thugs found a way to make themselves weapons.

Perhaps the area is big into gladitorial games. One school of gladiators first developed a fighting style so their fighters would not be defenseless if they were disarmed. Since then- unarmed combat has become a sport in itself in the area.

FD

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

Martial arts developed in the "Far East" due to very specific cultural and political circumstances. You can of course take the exact same circumstances and transplant them to a western culture and viola, you've got your monks. But, that's kind of cheesey.

What have others done in their campaigns?

The cultural circumstances in which Far Eastern martial arts developed can be duplicated in every fantasy setting. Maybe halflings are an oppressed minority and are forbidden to wield weapons, so they develop open hand styles.

The elves have huge amounts of time and patience and so by watching and mimicking the natural world they have developed Crane, Monkey, Dog and Tiger styles of fighting.

THe dwarves love contests of brute force and endurance, developing a more muscular form of sumo or just judo.

Some thoughts.

Plus, sailors are famous for knowing fighting styles from all around the world. French savate is thought to have developed some of its maneuvres from Dutch sailors who had travelled to the Phillipines.

The US Marine Corps officers are awarded the Marmaluke (sp?) sword, from a time when some marines saved the life of a middle eastern ruler in the 19th century.

History is a funny beast. There are all sorts of ways for things like fighting styles to move across cultures and geography. After all, Americans mainly learned about karate after they occupied Japan following WWII.

 

[Tonguez]

Just to remind everyone that there ARE Western Martial Arts traditions too.

Boxing and Prankration have been mentioned
Don't forget Savate (French Kickboxing) and also various Wrestling styles (Corno-Breton, Cumbrian etc)
Vikings had a system of unarmed combat and of course we hear legends of the Fianna

As a minimum standard the Fianna had to be able to jump their own hieght (Leap of the Clouds) and hunt unarmed (Unarmed Attack). Apparently another test was to be buried up to your neck in a hole and then have spears thrown at you. If any of the spears hit you failed the test (deflect arrows -the hard way)
We also know the Culculain(sp?) probably the most famous Fianna was able to enter a WarpSpasm (Epic Rage?)

Anyway my point is that their are Western Martial Arts traditions which the Monk can be adapted to just rename the powers (Ki strike = Bear Spirit Claw, Diamond Body = Iron Body, Quivering Palm = Curse of the Morrigan) and change the fluff.

 

[Ham_Slaad]

In my campaign world, monks are generally limited to a particular area of the world that is mineral-poor and has very little access to metal, so unarmed combat and training of the body as a weapon was created to help fill that void. Their whole philosophy is developed around self-reliance and a rejection of the implements of life that make things easier.

This philosophy has spread somewhat to other areas of the world, but is generally considered too rigorous for most people's tastes.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

Anyway, thanks for your response. I will definitely check out the product when it hits my LGS. And, I hope you didn't take my questions as criticism - since I haven't seen the product yet I obviously can't critique or criticize it.

My main question was - what if you want to have an order of regular eastern-style martial artists, but in a western setting. Say, they're doing karate or tae kwan do, or whatever, but they're called something else (western-style names). Why would they be there?

No worries on the questions. Questions are great, and to be expected- asking questions about a book is like taking a car for a test drive.

As to your question, there are chunks of info in the book that touch upon that issue (notably some of the character concepts), but for the most part I avoided tackling that issue directly. There are two reasons why:

1) 128 pages only go so far. When I first put finger to keyboard with the QM, I thought "How am I ever going to fill all this space?" Soon enough though, it became a question of "How am I ever going to fit all this stuff in this space?"

2) This answer is related to 1. I had originally intended to include a section on directly merging East ( kung fu-isms) and West (default Euro fantasy), but I decided, after I started writing it, that the info I could provide would be too generic to be truly useful. It was a personal taste decision on my part.

Looking over this thread, I'm impressed by the answers others have given to your question.



Here's some other tidbits about the book:

The tournament section includes descriptions, flavor rules and minor crunchy bits for boxing, pankration and Corno-Breton wrestling- all of which make for a great change of pace. Drop a Corno-Breton tourney into a local fair, add a few farm boys and a professional wrestler who wanders the local fair circuit, and you have a session's worth of entertainment. There are also some rules for Sumo, a Korean Sumo variant (similar to Corno-Breton) halfling table wrestling and an Orc game called Throw Horns, which is based off OLD school Mongolian wrestling.

The Double Hammer stylist in the Alternative Fighting schools is a Western boxer, pure and simple. He hits like a medieval freight train. There's also a wrestling stylist that is very well suited to Pankration/Greco-Roman wrestling. There is also a Sumo variant (which I am particularly fond of), as well as 3 (?) more.

The new weapons section includes brief flavor text with each weapon which actually describes how the weapon is used and what its forms (kata) are like. It isn't a comprehensive, in depth description, but I think that, given the exotic nature of so many martial arts weapons, it will be a welcome surprise for players and DMs. I mean, honestly, I've studied martial arts for years, and I had NO idea what a siangham even WAS, let alone how my characters would fight with it.

There's both a Lion Dancer PrC and rules for lion dancing. I've never quite understood why there hasn't been any mention of lion dancing in a D20 book before now, as it's a huge part of Chinese culture and kung-fu movies.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Just be nice- my ego bruises easily. On the plus side though, it is truly massive

Patrick Y.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

I've never quite understood why there hasn't been any mention of lion dancing in a D20 book before now, as it's a huge part of Chinese culture and kung-fu movies.

Awww.. well, first you have to ask them to dance- and that is awkward enough. I would rather just stand by the punch bowl.

FD