Martial Arts

Martial Arts (MA)
While the Martial Arts have several schools and many styles within them, all Martial Arts share a single objective: to physically defeat opponents and to defend oneself or others from physical threat. In order to accomplish this, Martial Artists channel their essence fluidly while preforming athletic feats. The three Martial Arts Schools at the Academy are called Arms (Armamentation), Budo and

Compared to most other Traditions, the list of Martial Art essential abilities might seem limited. However, what lack in quantity, the MA abilities make up for in raw combative effectiveness. Rather than learning a lot of occult lore, spirit cosmology, spells or rituals, Martial Artists are trained and trained to smoothly channel essence through their nerves and muscle tissue as they move and to become living weapons that are almost inhumanly fast, resilient and deadly.

Most low level (Martial Arts 1-3) Techniques are general and can be learned by any school. They are divided instead into ranged (firearms, archery, thrown weapons like knives or shuriken) and melee (blades, sticks, unarmed). The higher level techniques are much more specialized and while often exceptionally powerful, they are also limited in scope and not especially utilitarian. They were created for dealing with "exceptional" situations and not typical combat. Some Martial special abilities "stack"-- by spending XP to develop a higher skill level (default is 1), they can do more for the same essence cost.

Players are encouraged to add lots of flavor-text to their martial art actions and let that, rather than complicated manuever mechanics, guide the details of the combat. Many Martial Skills can be combined and used together in attacks, creating epic effects but also devouring essence and adding to the risk of potential Flare.