Ming Jing, the Hell Mirror Martial Art
(also known as the Martial Art of the Self-Mutilators)
By LordZaboem
Entrance Requirements : ME 12, PS12, and the character must have a PE of 13 or supernatural endurance (see Nightbane RPG for details about SN Endurance). This form is only taught to human inhabitants of the Nightlands or the doppelgangers who live there naturally.
Skill Cost : 6 years as a primary martial art, 4 years as a secondary
Author's Note : This martial art form is designed for use with standard N&SS/MC rules. Use in a Nightbane campaign setting is encouraged but should be handled slightly differently. Pay attention to the different bonuses offered by different physical skills. I would recommend allowing this form to certain characters at the same costs as Hand to Hand: Martial Artist. Humans use all of the martial arts powers normally, but the supernatural attributes of doppelganger characters prevent them from taking Body Chi or Kokyu. "Ming Jing" translates as "Hell Mirror." Although the origin of the name is a mystery, it is ironically appropriate. Hell Mirror Fighting was developed in the hellish Nightlands which are hidden from Nightbane Earth by the Mirror Wall.
Practiced by nomads deep in the Wastes, Ming Jing is perhaps the most unsettling martial arts style to come from the worlds of the Nightbanes. Waste wandering tribes are composed of escaped (or forgotten) doppelgangers, rogue hollow men, and the occasion very lost human. These barbarians face not only the harsh dry environment but also unrelenting attacks from monsterous predators like Lizard Kings. Even more dangerous are the incorporal predators which can not be fought with conventional weapons. The impoverished transients often own little to combat these threats other than their own bodies.
Many nomads have learned over time to gather and focus their own chi by wounding their own bodies. Their self-inflicted wounding is controlled but still very painful and disfiguring. Very many of the Waste Nomads learn at least the basics of Ming Jing under the cloaked sky of the Nightlands. Almost none live long enough to perfect the advanced techniques. Only a handful of Ming Jing masters (level 12 or higher) have existed over the last three thousand years. Although of these masters have been human or doppelganger, they are often mistaken for Nighbane due to their great power and the repulsive scars covering their bodies.
According to nomadic legends, a particularly long lived doppelganger created Ming Jing three millennia ago. Shang Po was a doppelganger who wandered the Wastes with a small tribe of humans. Shang Po's mortal reflection was the human Shang Po who resided on Nightbane Earth. Each was the ying-yang of the other without knowing of the others existence. Shang Po the human had somehow achieved a form of immortality. Whatever power preserved Shang Po the human also preserved Shang Po the doppelganger. Shang Po was already two hundred years old when he first challenged Hong.
Hong, a human, had been acting as the leader of Shang Po's tribe despite being a much younger and weaker man. Hong had decided to sell some of the tribespeople to a community of vampires in exchange for weapons and safe passage through their territory. All of the people in the tribe were horrified by Hong's plan, but only Shang Po the doppelganger had courage enough to oppose Hong.
What Shang didn't realize was that Hong had already sold his people out to the vampire intelligence. Hong had been transformed into a master vampire.
Hong quickly dispatched Shang Po by running him through the chest with a dull bronze sword. Hong marched his people into the vampires' sanctuary. Shang was left bleeding into the sand.
Despite his grievous wound, Shang Po the doppelganger could not die so long as his earthly twin remained immortal. Summoning his supernatural endurance, Shang pulled himself to shelter. He began to slowly recover.
Shang came to understand that his damaged body was channeling positive chi energy to the wound. He discovered that healing required positive chi. Shang taught himself how to borrow parts of this chi energy to augment the strength in the rest of his body. Like a broken bone growing back stronger than ever before, Shang was making his entire body stronger. Shang also learned he could gather smaller pools of positive or negative chi by inflicting minor flesh wounds on his body.
He slowly recovered over the next forty years. He never, however, allowed his chest wound to fully close. So long as the wound remained open, Shang Po grew substantially stronger.
Shang Po spent the next forty years tracking Hong. When the met again, Hong had not aged a day. By this time, Hong had created an army of vampires by kidnapping humans from earth one at a time. Five hundred secondary vampires and an uncounted number of wild vampires together had raided a Nightlands city and captured three thousand unarmed doppelgangers. They had been gathered for a blood sacrifice which was supposed to bring the Vampire Intelligence to their realm.
Shang Po challenged Hong to another duel. Not recognizing Shang, Hong gleefully accepted. Shang Po destroyed Hong with one mighty blow. Hong had been the Vampire Intelligence's only link to the Nightlands. Without Hong, all the other vampires immediately crumbled and fell into dust. Three thousand hostages stared in awe at the single doppelganger who destroyed thousands of vampires in one punch.
After that day, Shang Po the doppelganger wandered the Wastes for another eighty years. He aided other nomads whenever he could. He always remembered to teach them the basics of his techniques before leaving. At the end of this period, Shang Po simply vanished.
Training in Ming Jing relies upon basic strikes and kicks, but focuses most strongly on the ability to control pain. Ming Jing students are taught several techniques to handle pain. Students then continue the lessons by subjecting themselves to various forms of torture. A common technique is to visualize the chi energy radiating from the navel which Ming Jing calls the "birth wound." The visualization continues as the chi energy washes away the pain out of the body.
A constant danger to the student is addiction. Some students actually become addicted to pain. Every time a Ming Jing martial artist gains an experience level after the first, he must make three saving throws versus insanity. If all three rolls fail, the martial artist becomes addicted and will begin injuring himself not to gather chi but just to do it. Reduce the addict's ME to 1 and roll for one extra random insanity with each experience level afterward. Like any other addiction, an addiction to pain can be broken, but the addict can relapse at any time.
Costume: The chest may be clothed and even armored, but the arms and legs must be kept bare for access when performing self-mutilations. Traditionally, the miserable creatures who practice this style wear rags but not by choice.
Stance: Standing upright with legs slightly wider apart than shoulders, the martial artist holds his arms loosely at the sides. A knife or razor blade is held in the off hand. The primary hand is usually balled into a fist. Shoulders are drawn back. The mouth is either blank or frozen in scowl or grimace. When using negative chi, the artist will growl lowly and twich. When using positive chi, he will tend to stand still as a statue and not blink. The primary hand is held in a claw shape when negative chi is channeled into it and flattens into a knife hand when positive chi is focused on it.
CHARACTER BONUSES
Add +3 PE
Add +10 hit points (not SDC!)
Add +10 base Chi
COMBAT SKILLS
Attacks per Melee: 2
Escape Moves: Roll with Punch/Fall/Impact
Basic Defense Moves: Dodge, Parry, & Automatic Parry
Hand Attacks: Strike, Knife Hand
Basic Foot Attacks: Kick, Snap Kick
Special Attacks: Automatic Roll with Punch/Fall/Impact (new! - Because a Ming Jing fighter is so accustomed to pain and damage, they are better able to shake off the effects of a hard blow. He may roll with an impact to decrease damage as normal, but it does not cost him an attack per melee. He may do this as many times as he is struck, but he may not apply this move to self-inflicted damage.)
Holds/Locks: Choke
Weapons Katas: Knife (primarly used for inflicted wounds to self and less often used to parry, almost never used to attack)
Modifiers to Attacks: Critical Strike on a natural twenty, Pull Punch
SKILLS INCLUDED IN TRAINING
Martial Arts Powers: A character will begin with Chi Healing at first level. He will need this power to heal damage from self-inflicted wounds. The Chi Healing of these wounds does, however, leave unsightly scars.
He also gets two new powers, Releasing the Chi and Charging the Flesh
Releasing the Chi (new! - As a single melee attack, the martial artist may self-inflict a wound on the arm or leg to release a quick supply of positive chi. Only self inflicted wounds will release the chi, but the martial artist can not miss so a roll to Strike isn't required. The artist can not Roll with the Impact of this blow to reduce damage. This wounding is usually done with the knife in the off hand which does 1D6 damage. Because only certain types of nasty wounds will work, damage is applied directly to hit points instead of SDC. A bite may be used in place of of a knife wound, but the only does 1D4 damage and takes 2 melee attacks. The benefit is that the artist gains a temporary bonus of chi points equal to x2 the damage of the wound. Add this chi to the character's own chi pool. That bonus exceeds the cost of healing those same hit points. Yes, a character may kill himself this way if he goes too far, but a high level martial artist can generate great amounts of chi from nothing other than the plundering of his own body's natural healing energy.
Charging the Flesh with Chi (new! - Similar to Charge Object with Chi, this technique allows martial artist to focus positive or negative chi into a single limb before attacking. This ability will allow the martial artist to directly attack creatures which are not normally harmed by physical attacks like vampires and ghosts. Limitations are the same as with Charge Object.)
When other Martial Arts Powers become available at later levels, choose from this list. Powers (except Chi Healing) may be traded for any skill package but only if the training takes place on Earth instead of the Nightlands.
Body Chi or Kokyu
Hardened Chi or Shi Jin
Soft Chi or Chao Jin
One Finger Chi or Negative Empty Chi
Radiate Positive Chi
Control Negative Chi
Control Revulsion
Blind Man's Kata
Chi Ball Kata
Any Body Hardening Technique from Ninjas and SuperSpies
Any Martial Arts Techniques from Ninjas and SuperSpies
Languages: none
Cultural: First Aid
Physical: athletics
Survival: Wilderness Survival
Philosophical Training: Ming Jing teaches an unusual combination of anatomy similar to yogic theory, a dark and cynical version of Zen, and the general concept that victory comes by way of sacrifice
LEVEL ADVANCEMENT BONUSES
1st: Two attacks per melee, +2 to Automatic Parry and Parry, and don't forget Chi Healing
2nd: +2 to Roll with Punch/Explosion/Impact, select a Martial Arts Power from the list above
3rd: +1 to Strike, +1 Attack per melee but this extra attack may only be used to perform Releasing the Chi
4th: +10 SDC, +1 Dodge, +1 PE, -1 PB
5th: Select another Martial Arts Power from the above list
6th: +1 Attack per Melee, -1 MA
7th: +2 to Parry, +1PS, -1PB
8th: +2 to Roll with Punch/Explosion/Impact, +1 ME, -1MA
9th: +10 Chi, +2 Dodge, -1 PB
10th: At this level, the character intuitively learns how to draw chi from a nearly mortal wound to the abdomen or head. Unlike the cuts from Releasing the Chi, this wound need not be self-inflicted. Some healing is allowed to keep the martial artist from bleeding to death or gaining infections, but the wound should be kept open. By keeping the wound from ever fully healing, the body is over-charged with positive chi. Hit Points lost from the injury which created the wound are not regained until the wound is fully healed. The tradeoff is that the martial artist gains a number of positive chi points equal to the lost hit points every day. In this survival mode, the body may store up to twice the normal limit of chi.
11th: +1 to Initiative, +1 PP, -1 PB
12th: +3 to Parry, +1 PE, -1 PB
13th: Select another Martial Arts Power from the list above
14th: Death Blow on natural 20, +1 IQ, -1 MA
15th: +1 Attack per melee, +3 to Strike, -1 PB
Why Study Ming Jing?
There is no real reason to do it. No sane and healthy person would want to develop chi abilities by slicing themselves to ribbons. The cost, physically and mentally, is substantial. Fortunately, the Nightlands are filled with denizens who are neither sane nor healthy.
On the other hand, Mind Jing does offer an excellent edge to survival oriented characters. It also offers an interesting mixture of physical and chi powers. The Charge Flesh with Chi special power comes in handy against disembodied pests.
The style's weakness is in its own self-reliance. The martial artist is unable to draw on any other source of chi.