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Japan's monastic warriors have fared poorly in comparison to the samurai, both in terms of historical reputation and representations in popular culture. Often maligned and criticized for their involvement in politics and other secular matters, they have been seen as figures separate from the larger military class. However, as Mikael Adolphson reveals in his comprehensive and authoritative examination of the social origins of the monastic forces, political conditions, and warfare practices of the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) eras, these monk-warriors(sohei) were in reality inseparable from the warrior class. Their negative image, Adolphson argues, is a construct that grew out of artistic sources critical of the established temples from the fourteenth century on. In deconstructing the sohei image and looking for clues as to the characteristics, role, and meaning of the monastic forces, The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha highlights the importance of historical circumstances; it also points to the fallacies of allowing later, especially modern, notions of religion to exert undue influence on interpretations of the past. It further suggests that, rather than constituting a separate category of violence, religious violence needs to be understood in its political, social, military, and ideological contexts.Sohei.jpg

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Japanese history is replete with monks and priests who were very skilled martial artists, and there was this interesting "revolving door" between the ranks of nobility (and later the ranks of bushi) and ordained life. The Katori Shinto Ryu, for example, is one of the oldest existing ryu, still centered at Katori Shrine in Ibaragi prefecture, practices sword, spear, naginata, shuriken, shinobi (!), siegecraft, and some other stuff. The Hozoin temple near Nara was another famous center of martial study in medieval Japan; it is said that Musashi went there to challenge / get a lesson from the abbot Innei who had developed a wicked spear style.

 

[Most] sohei were more like goons or mooks that lived in the temple and did dirty work, than warriors. They lifted heavy things, cleaned crap, dealt with dead animal carcasses, that sort of thing. There was a period of time when the temples and shrines used strongarm tactics to maintain political leverage and prevent taxes from being levied on their lands - they would send sohei into town to be a nuisance, in some cases to get a little out of control and cause a situation, and in a few really entertaining cases they would cart a sacred artifact or statue down the mountain and just leave it in the streets until the townspeople were so freaked out by this god sitting around possibly getting angry that they would entreat the nobles to relent to the temple's demands. Which usually worked! In short, they were like the brownshirts of ancient Japan.  -unknown

 

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From the Battle of the Bridge chapter of Heike monoatari, featuring a worker-monk:

 

"You must have heard of me long ago.  See me now with your own eyes!  Everyone at Miidera [Onjoji] knows me!  I am the worker-monk Jomyo Meishu [Jomyo Myoshu] from Tsutsui, a warrior worth a thousand men.  If any here consider themselves my equals, let them come forward, I'll meet them!"  He let fly a fast and furious barrage from this twenty-four-arrow quiver, which killed twelve men instantly and wounded elven others.  Then, with one arrow left, he sent the bow clattering away, untied and discarded the quiver, cast off his fur boots, and ran nimbly along a bridge beam in his bare feet.  Others had feared to attempt the crossing: Jomyo acted as though it were Ichijo or Nijo Avenue.  He mowed down five enemies with his spear and was engaging a sixth when the blade snapped in the middle.  He abandoned the weapon and fought with his sword.  Hard-pressed by the enemy host, he slashed in every direction, using the zigzag, interlacing, crosswise, dragon-fly reverse, and waterwheel maneuvers.  After cutting down eight men on the spot, he struck the helmet top of a ninth so hard that the blade snapped on the hilt rivet, slipped loose, and splashed into the river.  Then he fought desperately with a dirk as his sole resource.

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When Mongolian men wrestle in the Naadam games held annually since Genghis Khan founded the nation in 1206, they wear a particular vest with long sleeves but no shoulder covering and a completely open front exposing the whole of the chest, thereby allowing each wrestler to be certain that his opponent is male. At the end of each match, the winner stretches out his arms to display his chest again, and he slowly waves his arms in the air like a bird, turning for all to see. For the winner it is a victory dance, but it is also a tribute to the greatest female athlete in Mongolian history, a wrestling princess whom no man ever defeated. Ever since she reigned as the wrestling champion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, however, male wrestlers have only wrestled men. 

The princess, a great-great granddaughter of Genghis Khan, was born about 1260 and is known by several names: Khutulun, Aiyurug, or Aijaruc, all referring to moonlight. In opposition to her cousin, the emperor Khublai Khan, who enjoyed the luxury of the Chinese court, Khutulun rejected the temptations of sedentary civilization and sought to maintain the hardy Mongol way of life. She was a large and powerfully built woman, and she used her size and strength in the three Mongol sports of horsemanship, archery, and wrestling, as well as in the primary Mongol vocation of warfare.

Mongolian wrestlers were not paired by size or weight, and the rounds had neither spatial no temporal limits. The two opponents grabbed the other’s arms or waist until one forced the other to the ground. If any part of the body touched the ground, no matter how briefly, that contestant lost. Smaller or less skilled wrestlers might be thrown in a few seconds, but evenly matched wrestlers sometimes locked their arms around each other and pushed other back and forth like two bull elephants for as long as necessary until one competitor dropped.

Khutulun grew up with fourteen brothers and seemingly learned from an early age how to confront and beat them. As she grew older, she joined the public competitions and acquired great fame as the wrestler whom no man could throw. She became ever richer by winning horses from defeated opponents, and eventually her herd of ten thousand rivaled the herds of the emperor.

Among the Mongols, athletic victory carried a strongly sacred essence, and the champion was considered to be blessed by the spirits. Therefore, Khutulun’s athletic triumphs made her the ideal companion for her father in battle. Her presence, mounted next to him on the battlefield, extended her reputation for past athletic victories into an implied guarantee of dominance on the battlefield. Throughout their lives the two constantly defied the efforts of Khubilai Khan to rule over the tribes of the steppes of western Mongolia and Kazakhstan and over the mountainous regions of western China and Kyrgyzstan. They resisted every army sent against them and kept their homeland permanently free of rule by his Yuan Dynasty.

Khutulun followed an unorthodox method of confronting the enemy. She rode to the battlefield at her father’s side, but when she perceived the right moment, in the words of Marco Polo, she would “make a dash at the host of the enemy, and seize some man thereout, as deftly as a hawk pounces on a bird, and carry him to her father; and this she did many a time.” While such deeds of individual bravado held little strategic value, they certainly provoked discord and even panic in the enemy while enhancing her reputation as divinely inspired and blessed.

Khutulun was unusual, but not unique. Mongol women rode horses as skillfully as men, often carried a bow and wore a quiver, and they repeatedly appeared in early reports as fighting alongside men. The ability of women to fight successfully in steppe society when they failed to do so in most sedentary civilizations derived, however, from the unique confluence of the horse with the bow and arrow. In armies that relied on infantry and heavy weapons such as swords, lances, pikes, or clubs, men enjoyed major physical advantages over women.

Mounted on a horse and armed with a bow and arrows, a trained woman could hold her own against men in battle. Women fared better in combat based on firepower than in hand-to-hand combat. Although archery requires strength, muscular training and discipline prove to be more important than brute force. An archer, no matter how strong, can never substitute mere might for skill in shooting. By contrast, good swordsmanship requires training and practice, but a sufficiently strong person wielding a sword can inflict lethal damage without prior experience. Mongols, like their relatives the Huns and Turks, relied almost exclusively on the bow and arrow in warfare.

Because archery depended so much on training, the ability of women to use arrows effectively in war depended upon their developing their skills as young girls. In the pastoral tribes, both boys and girls needed to use the bow and arrow to protect their herds. The boys would take the larger animals, such as camels and cows, farther away to graze, while girls stayed closer to home with the sheep and goats. Since wolves would more likely attack a sheep or goat than a camel or cow, the girls had to be able to defend their animals.

With her success in battle and in sports, Khutulun refused to marry unless a man could first defeat her in wrestling. Many men came forward to try, but none succeeded. Her parents became anxious for her to marry. According to Marco Polo, a particularly desirable bachelor prince presented himself around 1280. Most opponents wagered ten horses, or at the most a hundred, to compete against her. This unnamed bachelor wagered a thousand horses, and Khutulun’s parents pleaded with her to take a fall and let him win.

An excited crowd gathered for the match. In the desire to please her parents Khutulun agreed to let the prince win. In the rush of competitive excitement as she stepped forward to face her rival, however, her filial resolve to please her parents melted. She grabbed her opponent by the arms, and found him to be more formidable than her usual challengers. He struggled against her, and they pushed this way and that, but she could not submit and allow herself to be thrown. The match continued for an agonizing long time with neither able to dominate. Finally, in a great surge of energy Khutlun threw him to the ground. She not only defeated but humiliated him, and he disappeared, leaving behind the additional thousand horses for her herd but having shattered her parents’ hopes of marrying her to a worthy suitor.

Khutulun’s colorful and unusual public life without a husband provoked much speculative gossip not only in her father’s kingdom, but also among chroniclers and envoys of the adjacent Muslim territories. Her political and military enemies who had not been able to defeat her on the battlefield alleged that she maintained an incestuous relationship with her father and thus would take no other man while he lived. Realizing the price her father paid for such malicious propaganda, Khutulun chose a man from among her father’s followers and married him without wrestling him. He was her husband, but he was the man of her choice. Even in submitting to marriage she remained undefeated as a wrestler.

Khutulun consistently outperformed her many brothers, on the wrestling field as well as the battlefield. While Qaidu Khan’s other children assisted him as best they could, he increasingly relied on Khutulun for advice as well as for political support. She was unmistakably his favorite child, and according to some accounts, he attempted to name her to be the next khan before his death in 1301.

Her brothers resisted. She may not have actually wanted to be monarch as much as to be the chief officer of the army. She placed her political support behind her brother Orus in return for a plan to make her commander over the military. The two maintained a loyal alliance for only a few years, and by 1306 Khutulun, about forty-five years old, was dead under unexplained circumstances that gave rise to stories of diabolic plots against her life.

Although mentioned in a variety of Muslim sources as well as in the accounts of Marco Polo, Khutulun almost disappeared into the fog of historic myth. Only by chance was the story of the wrestling princess resurrected in a twisted way in the eighteenth century. In 1710, while writing the first biography of Genghis Khan, the French scholar François Pétis de La Croix published a book of tales and fables combining various Asian literary themes. One of his longest and best stories derived from the history of Khutulun. In his adaptation, however, she bore the title Turandot, meaning “Turkish Daughter,” the nineteen-year-old daughter of Altoun Khan, the Mongol emperor of China. Instead of challenging her suitors in wrestling, Pétis de La Croix had her confront them with three riddles. In his more dramatic version, instead of wagering mere horses, the suitor had to forfeit his life if he failed to answer correctly.

Fifty years later, the popular Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi made her story into a drama of a “tigerish woman” of “unrelenting pride.” In a combined effort by two of the greatest literary talents of the era, Friedrich von Schiller translated the play into German as Turandot, Prinzessin von China, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe directed it on the stage in Weimar in 1802.

More than a century later, Italian composer Giacomo Puccini was still working on his opera Turandot at the time of his death 1924. Unlike his other operatic heroine, Madame Butterfly who lived and died for the love of a man, Turandot rejected any man whom she deemed inferior to her. His opera became the most famous of the artistic variations of her life’s story.

How a culture treats the past often tells us more about the people doing the remembering than about the ones being remembered. In Western culture the tale of Khutulun became a story of a prideful woman finally conquered by love. The Mongols kept her in their memory as a great woman athlete and warrior whose achievements are still remembered today in the open vest and the victory dance of the warrior. Every time a wrestler dresses for a match and every time he dances in victory, they honor the achievements of the greatest female wrestler in Mongolian history. Both the wrestling rituals in Mongolia and the diva on the opera stage preserve two aspects of the life of one of history’s greatest female athletes.

CONTRIBUTOR
Jack Weatherford

Jack Weatherford is a former professor of anthropology at Macalester College and the author of several books, including Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America, The History of Money, and Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.

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I am enjoying the very highly rated Netflix series, Marco Polo.  I've read fair criticism of it, too, such as this from Fei Fei Wang, Marco Polo's story doesn't have a “theme". Think about it, what did Marco Polo do? What was his impact on Mongolians or his native Italians? If his action doesn't make impact beyond himself, his story wouldn't matter all that much. For a Hero's journey to be successful, his action must benefit people beyond himself (short people with hairy feet destroyed the one ring and bring peace to the world; Luke destroyed emperor Palpatin, bring peace to the world; The Pevensie siblings cross over to Narnia, become the Kings and Queens and bring peace to the land…) There must be a payoff at the end. What is Marco Polo's pay off? Did he bring any European technology to Asian and benefit the people there? No. Did he bring any Asian technology back to Europe and benefit the people back home? No. Did his action changed anything in Mongolian empire? No. He's there, and record shows he had done nothing.

...the original Marco Polo story was never about a hero's journey. Marco Polo was indeed well traveled (it was disputed whether he actually make it to China, let alone the court of Mongol Emperor). And he got bored when he was put in jail, so he start telling stories. The the appeal of his story was never about what he did or his impact to the world. The appeal of his story was what he saw, his experiences in a far away land, and many wonders there. But in a modern world, when that part of the history is very well researched and freely accessible to anyone who's willing to do a google search, that appeal is greatly reduced.

What would you do to make the story of Marco Polo a Hero's Journey, with a cast of Player Characters?

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Re: Marco Polo campaign and/or convention game setting.  I'd rename this, since it's a team game.  How about Pax Mongolica, or The Silk Road, or Xanadu?  Another name you like better?  I'd start with the game being more historically accurate (no spoilers), then depart greatly, because, Player Characters and such.  Pull elements from the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge-

 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure-dome decree: 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 
   Down to a sunless sea. 
So twice five miles of fertile ground 
With walls and towers were girdled round; 
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 
And here were forests ancient as the hills, 
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 
 
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! 
A savage place! as holy and enchanted 
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted 
By woman wailing for her demon-lover! 
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 
A mighty fountain momently was forced: 
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: 
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 
It flung up momently the sacred river. 
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 
Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; 
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 
Ancestral voices prophesying war! 
   The shadow of the dome of pleasure 
   Floated midway on the waves; 
   Where was heard the mingled measure 
   From the fountain and the caves. 
It was a miracle of rare device, 
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 
 
   A damsel with a dulcimer 
   In a vision once I saw: 
   It was an Abyssinian maid 
   And on her dulcimer she played, 
   Singing of Mount Abora. 
   Could I revive within me 
   Her symphony and song, 
   To such a deep delight ’twould win me, 
That with music loud and long, 
I would build that dome in air, 
That sunny dome! those caves of ice! 
And all who heard should see them there, 
And all should cry, Beware! Beware! 
His flashing eyes, his floating hair! 
Weave a circle round him thrice, 
And close your eyes with holy dread 
For he on honey-dew hath fed, 

 

And drunk the milk of Paradise.
 
An early adventure- recovering a Buddhist temple from Taoists who seized it,* recasting Hundred Eyes, the Taoist martial artist as the opposition leader.
 
Late or last adventure- Marco Polo and company escort the Blue Princess Kököchin to Arghun Khan, in Persia, on his way home to Venice.*
 
I'll continue to read, for more material.  What ideas do you have, especially for a theme such as the Hero's Journey?
 
*Historical
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Cross post - today Chuck Norris is 77th level. What is your favorite Chuck Norris joke?

The fact that all of these Chuck Norris is so tough jokes exist when he had his butt handed to him by a skinny kid named Bruce Lee. And Bruce has no Bruce Lee is so tough jokes. Heck, Mr. T seems to be his only rival in toughness, and they never fought at all.

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Fact check - his birthday was the day before yesterday, but since it's him, we celebrate all month. Re: Bruce Lee - there are no Bruce Lee jokes, because Bruce Lee is no joke. However, did those two ever legitimately fight? Taking a fall for a movie role does not count.

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Fact check - his birthday was the day before yesterday, but since it's him, we celebrate all month. Re: Bruce Lee - there are no Bruce Lee jokes, because Bruce Lee is no joke. However, did those two ever legitimately fight? Taking a fall for a movie role does not count.

Both are true. Bruce Lee is no joke, and taking a fall in a movie is not a fight.

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I choose to call this game, see above, "The Silk Road," and not to recast Hundred Eyes as the opposition leader.  He and Marco will be pregens.  I've completed Marco, already, and a Mongol shaman; Bo.  I've barely started more pregens; the Abyssian bard; Asra, and the Buddhist Warrior Nun; Azalea.  I intend to put together more pregens, such as a Mongol warrior and a Lin Kuei ("Forest Demon," Chinese precursor to the ninja).  What other pregens would be good?

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marco-polo1.jpg?auto=format&lossless=1&q

I choose to call this game, see above, "The Silk Road," and not to recast Hundred Eyes as the opposition leader. He and Marco will be pregens. I've completed Marco, already, and a Mongol shaman; Bo. I've barely started more pregens; the Abyssian bard; Asra, and the Buddhist Warrior Nun; Azalea. I intend to put together more pregens, such as a Mongol warrior and a Lin Kuei ("Forest Demon," Chinese precursor to the ninja). What other pregens would be good?

Is this a "wire-fu" battlefield game?

 

If so, then I can see there being as a pregen character a woman who is a daughter or granddaughter of a general and can hold her own in combat.

 

Another pregen could be a martial artist slash oriental doctor type, specialising in acupuncture, acupressure, herbal medicine, and correcting ki flow.

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Red Lady (Ulaan Khatun)

 

Also Known As: Red Widow, Persian Princess

 

Background: Red Lady is a noble traveler from the Ilkhanate, the independent Mongol state centered in Iran.  She is the paternal aunt of Ghazan and Kharbanda [O ̈ ljeitu ̈ Ilkhan]. Among the Mongols, she is greatly respected, often referred to, highly revered and her words are valued and appreciated. She is sharp-minded and courageous, skilled in horsemanship [dha ̄tshaha ̄mahwa-furu ̄siyyah]. She was married to Urab, and her dwellings were not far from the borders of the lands of Islam, the Mamluk Sultanate.

When her husband was murdered, she rode on her own and killed his killer, beheaded him and hanged his head on the collar of her horse. It stayed there for a long time until she was approached about it and she then got rid of it. Some say that she only got rid of it when instructed by a royal decree [yarligh]. She never married again after Urab.

Aqqush al-Afram desired to marry her. He wrote to her about this and the Mamluk sultan and Sala ̄r started writing about him. He offered her Homs and its environs as a marriage gift [.sada ̄q] but she drove away his envoys and answered them with rejection. She said: “I advise faithfully [an.sah.u] the people of Muhammad, may peace be upon him. I do not advise this person or the other and if my words of advice [muna ̄.sah.a ̄t ̄ı] in favour of the Muslims are what stirred al-Afram’s interest in me, then I shall not continue to give them good advice [una ̄.sih. uhum]. How does al-Afram dare to approach me? Who is al-Afram? My most insignificant horse groom [ku ̄talj ̄ı] is like al-Afram.” 

 

Personality: Red Lady loves good deeds and the benevolent.  She dislikes the diminishing role of women with the Islamization of her home, so she headed east.

 

Quote: "We are amused."

 

Powers/Tactics: She has the prowess of a classic Mongol warrior, which includes the slyness of a hunter.

 

Campaign Use: She needs new bodyguards and such, and will invite our characters to apply for the jobs.

 

Val Char Cost

 

13 STR 3
14 DEX 12
13 CON 6
12 BODY 4
13 INT 3
11 EGO 2
15 PRE 5
16 COM 0
 
6 PD 3
6 ED 3
4 SPD 16
6 REC 0
26 END 0
26 STUN 0
 
6" RUN 0
2" SWIM 0
2 1/2" LEAP 0
Characteristics Cost: 50
 
 
Cost Martial Arts Maneuver
 
3 Defensive Shot:  1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +2 DCV, Range +0, Strike
4 Choke Hold:  1/2 Phase, -2 OCV, +0 DCV, Grab One Limb; 2d6 NND
3 Martial Grab:  1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, -1 DCV, Grab Two Limbs, 23 STR for holding on
3 Martial Throw:  1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +1 DCV, 2 1/2d6 +v/5, Target Falls
4 Jink:  1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +4 DCV, FMove, Dodge, Mounted Or On Foot
3 Weapon Element:  Axes, Maces, Hammers, and Picks, Blades, Lances
 
Martial Arts Cost: 20
 
Cost Skill
 
2 Animal Handler 12-
3 Breakfall 12-
3 Charm aka Seduction 12-, 14- vs. Mongols
3 High Society 12-, 14- vs. Mongols
2 KS: Archery 11-
2 KS: Wrestling 11-
3 PS: Hunter 12-
1 Language:  Old Mandarin (basic conversation)
3 Language: Persian (fluent conversation, literate)
0 Language: Mongolian (idiomatic)
3 Paramedics 12-
2 Navigation 12-
3 Persuasion 12-, 14- vs. Mongols
3 Riding 12-
3 Stealth 12-
3 Tactics 12-
3 Teamwork 12-
3 Tracking 12-
2 Weaponsmith (Bows) 12-
0 Everyman Skill- KS: Mongol Culture 8-
2 WP: Classic  Mongol Weapons 
 
Skills Cost: 49
 
 
Cost Talent
 
8 Mounted Warrior (HTH and Ranged Combat)
 
Talents Cost: 8
 
Cost Perquisites
 
2 Fringe Benefit: Member of Lower Nobility
5 Money: Very Well Off
4 Reputation: Mongols appreciate, respect, value and highly revere her, 14-
 
Perquisites Cost: 11
 
 
Cost Equipment  
 
0 Brigandine Armor: 4 PD/4 ED, OIF 
0 Small Shield: +1 DCV, 5 STR Min, OAF 
0 Survival Kit: +1 with Climbing, Mending, Navigation, Paramedic and Survival, OAF 
0 Lasso: Entangle 5d6, 5 DEF, Entangle and Character Both Take Damage, 1 Recoverable Charge, 6m Range 
0 Small Axe: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1d6+1, 0 END, OAF, 8 STR Min 
0 Scimitar: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1d6+1, 0 END, OAF, 12 STR Min 
0 Lance: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1d6+1, 0 END, OAF, 12 STR Minimum, No STR Bonus 
0 Medium Bow, 1d6+1K, STR Min 9, 16 Recoverable Charges, OAF, 2H, 350m Range 
0 Heavy Bow, 1 1/2d6K, STR Min 10, 16 Recoverable Charges, OAF, 2H, 350m Range 
0 Frog Crotch Arrows, 1d6K, 8 Recoverable Charges, OAF, 2H, 150m Range  [Notes: Designed to cut lanyards, bowstrings, etc.]
0 Willow Leaf Arrows, 1d6K AP, 8 Recoverable Charges, OAF, 2H, 350m Range 
0 Whistler Arrows: +15 PRE, Signals or Inspires Fear only plus 1d6K, 8 Recoverable Charges, OAF, 2H, 150m Range 
0 Flaming Arrows: 1d6K, Sticky, Continuous, 8 Continuing Charges lasting 5 Minutes each, OAF, 2H, 225m Range 
0 8888 cash
 
Total Character Cost: 138
 
Pts. Disadvantage
10 Distinctive Features: Mongol Warrior:  (Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)
20 Hunted by Shih (Chinese Knights):  8- (Mo Pow, NCI, Harshly Punish)
15 Reputation:  Merciless Raider from the Steppes, 11- (Extreme)
10 Social Limitation:  Subject to Orders (Frequently, Minor)
 
Disadvantage Points: 55
Base Points: 100   
Experience Required: 0
Total Experience Available: 17
Experience Unspent: 17
 
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Here's a Disadvantage (Complication) for Buddhist Warrior Nun Azalea of post #70 - 

Distinctive Features:  Theme Song: Seeing her brings to mind your favorite nun's singing, such as this calming mantra by Ani Choying Dolma https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8twD0xPgHvU Disguise is an effective counter. (Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)

 

Attached is her picture.  She let her hair grow as a mark of shame because she did not succeed in preventing the capture of her convent by the Wu Tang Clan, specifically, the Qi zhi shanyang di diyu (Seven Goats of Hell).

 

post-9907-0-07479700-1494519886_thumb.jpg

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Cross post, best represented by Evasive?

 

Translated excerpt from Jin Yong novel

 

After having reached the tenth level of the Dragon and Elephant Wisdom Dexterity, the Imperial Priest wanted to test out his new level on these experts. He saw that Zhou Botong raised his fists and attacked himself, so he too raised his fists and wanted to intercept Zhou's fist. Before they actually exchanged blows, Zhou Botong could hear a series of light popping sounds coming from the Imperial Priest's arms. Zhou Botong was startled and knew that his adversary had a strange fist power and did not dare to receive it straight on.

Zhou Botong lowered his elbow a bit and used his Vacant Fists skill. 

The blow by the Imperial Priest had as much power as 1000 jin-(1 jin is 1/2 kilogrammes). One could not say it was comparable to the strength of dragons or elephants but it was impossible for mere flesh and blood to receive such a blow. But when he intercepted the fist of Zhou Botong, it felt empty and vacant like there was no strength in it at all. He was somewhat shocked and used his left palm to strike out again.

Zhou Botong felt that his opponent's power was omnipotent, he had never seen this before. Zhou Botong loves martial arts and whenever he knew someone who had a special skill he would challenge that individual to a duel. He has encountered numerous martial artists in his life, but even he had never heard or seen such strong power released by the Imperial Priest. He did not know what skill the Imperial Priest used, so he used his 72 Vacant Fists to battle the Imperial Priest. He used void to intercept solid and nothingness to block solidity. By doing so he has rendered the awesome power of the Imperial Priest useless, but it was also impossible for him to wound his adversary. The Imperial Priest attacked with several stances now, it seems his stances could not even tickle his adversary. He became frustrated that his dexterity, which he trained many years in, has not helped him gain the upper hand.

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