Rotes & Procedures

Unless otherwise noted, the following feats aren’t bound to any particular martial-arts form. The mage in question could be using Do, boxing, pankration, than vo dao, Muay Thai, lua, Shaolin dragon style, or whatever other real or fictional practice your character pursues. Most martial artists employ a mixture of practices and techniques, reflected in gamespeak by the specialties of the Martial Arts Ability. (See Mage 20, Chapter Six, p. 281.) In all cases, though, the martial-arts mage employs an esoteric level of the art – the arcane secret techniques that few people know about and fewer still can use.

Because those refined techniques are forms of technology, mere Brawl-ers cannot use many of them. As noted in the various entries below, certain techniques may be used only by characters with the Do or Martial Arts Abilities, not with Brawl, Melee, or other fighting Abilities. That said, many of these feats may be used with weapons as well as without them, assuming that the character has a weapon-based specialty, is using a weapons-based martial art like fencing, or – as with arts like kyuudou archery, kenjutsu, and so on – has a refined specialty in Melee or Archery.

The following section deals only with game systems related to magickal feats. If you’re running a martial-artist mage, we highly recommend that you study actual martial-art practices, and then define your character’s abilities through real-world legends and techniques. Authentic knowledge provides a cool foundation for imaginary magicks.