So why monks?

[Ranger REG]

There were plenty of Chinese men in the Old West, so the half-Chinese angle was completely unnecessary except to justify a white guy playing the lead.

Yeah, but a Chinese monk searching for a Chinese father is too typical. A half-Chinese monk searching for a white father is atypical. Such a TV show kinda break the taboo about interracial relationships and the result of having a biracial child.

Kinda like having Star Trek's Kirk and Uhura kissed on TV (though we didn't see the actual liplock as they camera angled to the back of Kirk's head).

 

[fusangite]

Actually, you can find something kinda like the D&D monk in few odd places in the literature, myths, and/or traditions regarding the Rosicrucians. I've seen at least one reference in a translated German work, itself drawing from an older source, that certain Rosicrucians were trained in unorthodox unarmed fighting methods. Damned if I can remember the name of the text right now, though.

Very interesting. Of course, unless you subscribe to a masonic conspiracy theory, they are pretty darned recent. Still, please post if you find the name of the text -- it would fit very well into the campaign I want to run next based around the 19th century Sioux Ghost Dance.

 

[jrients]

Pretty darned recent? The Fama Fraternitatis was published in 1610. The rapier isn't much older than that.

 

[MoonZar]

Anyway i dont understand why the monk bother some people, this a great addition to the game. After all they didn't have a martial artist or unarmed combat class in the core game.

Some will tell me that you could take the feat unarmed strike and play a fighter but we all known that this not enought again undead, beast and other monster.

I know that not everyone like oriental stuff, but If people don't like it they could simply doesn't use it or don't allow it in their game.

MoonZar

 

[Chimera]

Anyhoo, the two seasons of Kung Fu DVD collections are available now.

hijack

Got 'em.

The only thing that really burnt me on them was the special dinner with David Carradine and a bunch of others where they did nothing but stroke his considerable ego. Started off good but got real annoying really fast. Especially as Radames Pera worshipped David and had this thing going for how great it was to be a part of this huge mythical thing...

...but David would have no part of it, treating Radames with contempt when not outright ignoring him.

/hijack

 

[diaglo]

hijack /hijack

was that Kill Bill 1 or 2?

i can't remember David C ever treating anyone with anything but contempt on screen.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Pretty darned recent? The Fama Fraternitatis was published in 1610. The rapier isn't much older than that.

And the Fama was a fiction, though one that was made a reality- much later. Most of what passes for "rosicrucian" teaching is simply Theosophy, some medieval occultism, and the works of a few Christian seers painfully (though very interestingly) welded together.

Though the idea of a Rosicrucian-esque order which teaches the skills of the Monk class in a D&D setting is a cool one. I like it...

 

[jrients]

I found the book I think contained the reference but I couldn't find the reference itself: Willy Schrodter's A Rosicrucian Notebook.

Publishing a book that dense sans index ought to be a crime, I tell ya.

And the Fama was a fiction, though one that was made a reality- much later.

Right. I thought the issue was hand was whether or not the monk existed in Western European myth, literature, or tradition. Kookie pamphlets about non-existent mystic orders count as literature and given the impact they had on the occult scene they ought to count as myth and tradition as well.

Though the idea of a Rosicrucian-esque order which teaches the skills of the Monk class in a D&D setting is a cool one. I like it...

All of the sudden monks don't look so darn non-occidental, do they? That's why I brought it up.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

All of the sudden monks don't look so darn non-occidental, do they? That's why I brought it up.

So are you saying that monks are occident prone, or merely disoriented?

The Auld Grump, who uses monks for some games, and not for others...

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Hijack:

At GenCon last year, a friend of mine went to get Carradine's autograph. He said he had to first somehow break through the "Wall of Bourbon Vapor" spell Carradine had cast around himself.