Neko Martial Arts

The way I am approaching it is kinda like this.

All Samurai are trained in Power Armor. All Samurai are good at hand-to-hand, weapons, and Power Armor weapons.
Power Armor samurai are specifically very good at Power Armor piloting and weapons. They are better at using all of their intricacies than the best non-PA Samurai. This means they are also not as good at all of the other Samurai things as a Samurai focused on non-PA combat. They are considered lower value by the 'real' Samurai who focus on the other, more traditional weapons, and are simply very good at combat while wearing a PA, and not specifically very good at PA combat.

Does that work? This is also why I put it at the very bottom of the Sora-Mai sub-styles tree. I could perhaps change the description a bit? Add something about that specialty veering away from Sora-Mai and almost becoming more of a modified piloting skill?


As far as the example names I have linked, I had two main qualifications:

• Be able to find a mention of this character along with a mention of this style
• Have a wiki article for that character

Some of the characters you have mentioned as better choices do not have wiki pages. If you can share the pages, I will change the names around. I ran across some of the people you mentioned, but they don't have wiki pages, so I didn't use them. Even if the ones I used aren't 'masters' or the style creators, they still have the style mentioned and have a wiki page to link to.

For now I did move Tsuya up to the main Sora-Mai area, since I think the head Samurai would be a good example of the base Samurai skill, even if she has other specialties.
I left Sumaru under the PA section because he did seem to specialize in that, even if he does have two swords listed. He also has his own personal style named, but I think I'm going to leave off the personal styles that don't then become their own schools with multiple users.


Ame's article seems like a good start, just do some general typo checking and flesh it out more. Maybe sure to mention who uses it on that page. Also you might want to specify that those 'common items' were more common in simpler times, I think.

Power armor is something you wear. You can use your martial arts with it on, or with it off. The main difference is that you're a lot harder to hurt when it's on you. If power armor doesn't have a style, it's probably because wearing power armor doesn't require you to change technique. The M7 Sarah is the samurai's special power armor and, at least historically, they all had one.

The reason I've not really had an confidence in the samurai organization is

1. Because the string of samurai players that showed up on the Eucharis plot over the years have bungled it, often by simply disappearing. So Hanako, who's a supposed princess, basically has spent almost the whole time (almost 9 years) on the Eucharis without the bodyguards, to the point where she stopped bothering to even recruit replacements anymore.
2. As Fred mentioned, I feel like changes to the samurai drifted them away from what I wanted them to be. I'm not going to go into details nitpicking because I don't think complaining about it when I was the one who approved it (I think?) is really proper.

So basically I washed my hands of them and let Fred and Doshii do what they want for their plot and they simply don't appear in my plot anymore.

Following whatever answer is given there, a second question: How is that reasonable if the Ketsurui Samurai are supposed to emulate samurai and bushido and the perfection in all things that those inspirations demand? Or are they just called "samurai" to sound Japanese-y?

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my 2cents on the matter is that the Samurai aren't really elite warriors, they are more like political officers, a tool to enhance the prestige of the family. The Samurai were kinda the same way, they weren't elite warriors in the sense that we think of them now, sure they were well practiced but they had rules they followed so as to maintain the status-quo of Japan.

This means they are more focused on looking the part, learning styles, and going through the motions of looking like samurai, rather than focusing on becoming the best killers around.

Wes said:

Power armor is something you wear. You can use your martial arts with it on, or with it off. The main difference is that you're a lot harder to hurt when it's on you.

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The way I'm looking at it, although this is very exaggerated, is like putting Bruce Lee into a full suit of knight's armor and handing him a musket. He does not stop being a total badass. However, the guy who trained for 10,000 hours on how to fire a musket while wearing full knight's armor is going to kill him without much difficulty.

Now of course a PA is way easier to use and hardly gets in the way if it's powered properly. Neko even use it as easily as they use their own bodies. But it's not 100% the same as their own bodies, and plenty of Neko don't use their own body's abilities to the fullest in the first place.


For what Zack said, I think we do have a few mentions of some of the styles being a bit more ceremonial. The one I'm working on is also used for performances more often than real combat. I think the Samurai page also mentions that type of position as well. Definitely the type of thing where a Samurai who is more flash than substance could probably handle untrained or average opponents easily enough, but some grizzled veteran who just knows how to brawl and fight dirty really well could surprise them.

I think this list is just about complete.

https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=wip:martial_arts

There are three 'unapproved' styles on the list, including the one I started with originally, that are being worked on right now. I am planning to submit this list tomorrow, then have those new martial arts submitted after it is approved. Hopefully that's not a problem, although this is a good place to ask since it seems likely some of you will be approving this page in the end.

Again, if I need to reword or rearrange something, let me know. Or if there's just a little something you thing needs to be fixed, feel free to change it yourself and just point it out to me after.


Also, I got some work done on my original style!

https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=wip:mugen_yoshu_senko
https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=wip:mugen_yoshu_senko:known_sedoka

Be warned that I am not really a poet. I'm just trying to make the example poems sound somewhat 'deep' and feel like they were translated from another language. In actual RP usage I was picturing mixing and matching more random lines, so that they're scattered about with gaps instead of full poems. If that makes sense.

Hopefully others will join in on the fun and adopt this martial art and write some more poems, or fragments, for it.

life is been messed up lately but I saw I got tagged by the great Reynolds and have a thought. My character Candon has a fairly diverse background, in which he learned from many people much more skilled and dangerous than him. He has some pretty odd but effective techniques that realistically could have originated from samurai training.

One's eyes can be deceptive and while the spirit is willing the flesh is always weak, especially when you leave your Neko body and take on a Minkan. Before a battle Candon closes his eyes and opens his mind to receive all the vast amount of information being received through his SPINE. He sees through the eyes of his armor, every detection system, every drone, any bit of data it can acquire goes straight to his brain. It's almost like an out of body experience. Flashbang grenades don't blind him, pain becomes dull in the flood of stimulus(dangerous, he could injure himself by accident with maneuvers), his senses are massively enhanced, and there is absolutely no delay between thought and actions.

I'm not going to say that he has perfected the art in any way, he has simply been copying what someone taught him briefly years ago. He's been doing it for years so he's efficient with the concept, but if someone was to hit him hard enough it would break his focus.

perhaps this could be part of the power armor school?

When it comes to Yamatai and power armor, my compromise goes like this:

Because of the value of a Samurai Power Armor Pilot, a separate school would not be established. To exclusively fight in power armor is to lose much of what a Samurai is — according to the Samurai themselves. It's not understanding or kind. It's how they view themselves and their duty in service to the royal family (and to the Empire).

While a Power Armor Pilot might not be a high-value Samurai, they most assuredly are a cut above the Star Army's regulars. They existed before SAINT, before the SOFTs or Black Spiral Fireteams. Samurai — even their gunsotsu and PA pilots — were Yamatai's first true special forces.

To put it into an American context (sorry rest of world), a PA pilot is like an Army Ranger who tried out for, was trained by and ultimately did not make Delta Force. They are still far above Regular Army, but they are not on the most elite level.

With that said,

It does make sense that Samurai would not want these PA pilots cut loose into SAoY units without a refined exit training regimen that will serve them in their new capacity. Something that is not on the level of a school, with all its ceremony and tradition and lore, but something akin to it — something where techniques are passed down, weapons training is specialized into what the M2 and M7 platforms have to offer.

What you have in there right now speaks to all that. I think that as long as it's made clear that it's less of a school and more of a specialized regimen, it's all good.

How's that sound, @Reynolds?

I think that was basically how I viewed it all along, yeah, but I changed a bit of the wording to make that more clear. Submitting it tonight, so hopefully this pleases everyone.

I gotta say even though I've never touched any samurai stuff what Doshii said makes sense to me. Like I could see a special training regimen that isn't a school making sense simply as a way to ensure quality control so wherever the PA specific samurai go they'll be so good at least in training they'll have the capability to teach others and be a model pilot to ensure the clan will look good to mundane troops. Like they don't need special techniques, just training good enough to make sure they don't hurt the reputation they have to uphold.

In Japanese martial arts terminology "school" basically just means "training regimen." A "school" is essentially akin to some old sensei's method and theory for teaching fighting techniques.

This is why I'm beyond confused at the need for a distinction, since it's just taking thematic words and making them un-thematic. But, hey, getting something approved is rad.

Well I guess it's all about feel and connotation/popular image. I imagine people feel there is more mystique in calling something a school than a training program. Plus schools make me think of organizations that have hereditary leadership and stricter methodologies while a training program is something anyone who's really skilled in a field can teach with their own unique approach.

I totally get what you're saying.

raz said:

In Japanese martial arts terminology "school" basically just means "training regimen." A "school" is essentially akin to some old sensei's method and theory for teaching fighting techniques.

This is why I'm beyond confused at the need for a distinction, since it's just taking thematic words and making them un-thematic. But, hey, getting something approved is rad.

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Straight up? Yamatai =/= Japan in every sense. Sometimes, Yamatai is Spacy Norway, America, Germany and even the Middle East.

Hell, sometimes Yamatai is Megatokyo (city, maybe webcomic). Sometimes it feels like Tokyo-3. We have gynoid catgirls; sometimes it's anime TV Japan.

Doshii Jun said:

Straight up? Yamatai =/= Japan in every sense.

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I'm well aware of that. Yamatai is a big assimiliative empire that comprises many cultures. But if you're saying core Yamatai and the things about Yamatai that are actually supposed to be (and always have been) culturally Japanese—aren't, then that's not the Yamatai I joined at all. This is off topic at this point, I guess, so I won't go any further than that.

Straight up? Met the author of MegaTokyo and got him to sign some stuff. Loved it as a kid, glad you brought it up. Had to mention I loved the mention.

So, are there any remaining non-evil Shadow Vipers, or teachers/practitioners of that style? Or has it just disappeared/died out/been outlawed? Question for you old timers...

The only mentions I could find on the wiki were talking about traitors, and one RP where people were hunting them down.

Paging @Fred for that one. Not sure what he'll release.

Someone pointed me to a post in the GM forum with more into on those guys. But, yeah, still not clear on the final status of the style itself.

The style definitely exists outside of the traitorous faction, as was stated by Fred himself in reference to Jo Midori in this thread. Even if the Shadow Vipers had never gone traitor, though, Kusariebi-no-Kage would probably be really rare and a very closely guarded secret technique. Stealth sentinels, after all, were one of the most highly valued classes before their betrayal.

What Raz said.

Though Stealth Sentinels weren't exclusive to the Kusariebi-no-Kage. They were just the best at it.

For instance: a Nitô Ryu Sensei, Kôsuka, has spent some time operating as a stealth sentinel. She has had trainees practice operating as such as well. A school leans towards certain strengths, but that doesn't make these strengths exclusive to that school.

So would it be plausible for me to make a Minkan studying this style?