Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8412214" data-attributes="member: 6704184">I agree with most of this. For sure. Fact is, D&D needs more diverse creators on the primary team. I really think that cultural baggage should be embraced, not shied away from. It is worth the effort to do so with care and intentionality. I do think the Monk is a bad name unless the class were to consume the cleric, and basically become a different class. If the class should stay fundamentally a “warrior powered by discipline and esoteric/mystical wisdom” then it should drop its hyper-focus on unarmed and Unarmored combat, and get a name change, and broaden out its cultural inspiration quite a bit.  Mystic, esoteric, warrior orders, are a damn near universal thing. Every region of the world has them. The East Asian Shoalin, Sohei, Samurai bushi absolutely, but also the various Muslim Dervish orders (carefully, bc western fantasy has not been careful here in the past, and hasn’t done well as a result. Saladin Ahmed has a great treatment of a dervish order in his novels), the Irish Fianna, and many others I don’t know enough about to speak on. Hell, even the Hermetic Alchemy inspired sword masters of the Renaissance, especially Thibault and the Spanish Circle, fit here.</blockquote>