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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Igwilly" data-source="post: 7246353" data-attributes="member: 6801225">Honestly, I feel like I’m talking to the walls here, but...“Qi” isn’t just a fancy oriental name for RPG “mana” or stuff like that. Qi (or Ki) has a much deeper meaning, which actually relates to D&D since its earliest days.We aren’t talking about your regular Arcane Magic – which is the power you get from cosmic cheat codes – and neither Divine Magic – when someone else does the cheat codes for you. Ki is its own thing. Quite hard to understand and even more difficult to explain. In my vision, this energy (not using scientifically accurate terms, here) permeates the existence. It’s in the land; it emanates from the bonfire you just lit; the clouds and winds are the Ki or Earth itself. It certainly plays its role in the creation and maintenance of the world. However, it can best be felt at its peak: Qi is the source of life. The so-called “vital force” that keeps all mortals alive and breathing. The concept of “life force” is a quite important one, even for Western thought. It was once a legitimate scientific concept (until certain experiments were made), but it persisted in our imagination. If you think about the old-school, AD&D concept of Necromancy, you’ll find out that Necromancy is the manipulation of the life force by magic. This is my favorite definition of Necromancy, and vital to the way I imagine stuff. I was shocked when I realized that Necromancy might be just manipulating Ki in and out of creatures, using two “poles” to change that force: Life (Positive Energy) and Death (Negative Energy).I won’t go so far as making Ki = Oriental classes. A good example of a ki-using, non-Asian class is the well-famed Swordsage (3.5 Tome of Battle). Many of its maneuvers are clearly supernatural, and they invoke Ki as their explanation. The Crusader could do some interesting stuff, and could be assigned some sort of “Divine Ki”.In addition, there’s another oriental concept that is just as intriguing as Qi: the Kami, from Japan. Contrary to popular belief, Qi is a Chinese concept; it didn’t originate from Japan. “Kami” is the main belief of Shinto, which can be described as a mid-way point between animistic spirits and polytheist gods. Honestly, instead of throwing the Samurai and Ninja into Qi, we may as well link them to the Kami. Of course, that doesn’t stop us from linking the Kami to Qi! (Which is something I already started doing).Anyway, my main point is: the concept of Qi itself is quite unexplored and can lead into a power source of its own, with or without Asian-themed classes. However, both Qi and Kami are big concepts about how a given fantasy world functions, but I think that’s fine. I see classes mainly as tools to create my world instead of obligatory character rules for every single world in a given system/edition. Use just what you like and ignore the rest, that’s the golden rule to create a setting, right?</blockquote>

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