Talking about Games Winning Technique: Prana Pathway Inflammation

Had ourselves a little contest recently in a cropssover with the Talking About Games channel. He does good stuff, by the way; certainly including his stellar review of Lone Wolf Fists, but he talks about a lot of fine games and gaming philosophy.

Honestly thought he reviewed in the nude

THE CONTEST:

In words: “CONTEST! Write your unique, over the top, super-powered martial arts move in the comments section, with its proper, amazing name! Be creative, it could be anything, from kicks, to punching to grappling, etc., with extreme effects that you would normally only see in anime and manga. Remember that in this TTRPG, you are able to become a God, so there is almost no limit as to what you can do.

The martial arts move that I like the most, is going to win a Tian Shang Lone Wolf Fists core rulebook in PDF format. The contest ends this Friday the 5th, at 6:00PM CST, and within two or three days, I will announce the winner. If the winner never reclaimes the prize within three days of announcing the winner, another winner will be selected. Good luck!”

Our winning entry was submitted by our true-blue Ronwise Gamgee! And the text he submitted was as follows:

“The Prana Pathway Inflammation Technique. With this precise pressure-point strike, you can inflame the pathways of your opponent’s open chakras, causing them to constrict and cause a great deal of pain commensurate to the amount of prana the opponent has gathered (kind of like clogging up an artery that is jam-packed with blood cells). This strike deals an additional amount of damage equal to the prana that the opponent has gathered, all while wracking them in terrible pain (similar to that shocking sensation you get when you hold in a sneeze, put persistent). Should the subject willingly disperse their prana, they will alleviate the condition. If the condition is roleplayed, the character suffers intermittent, momentary paralysis every couple of seconds or so. If enacted mechanically, the target temporarily loses access to one focus slot and suffers a 1-die reduction to their Effort pool.”

This is a nifty idea for a Technique; it does lots of stuff! I like the “deals more damage if you have more Prana” thing, especially; there’s a neat contradiction there, because the guy you’d like to use it against (the guy with a ton of Prana) is best-equipped to prevent it.

It’s also incredibly Fist of the North Star, which I mean come on. That’s the whole reason I made this game.

After mulling it over, I came to the following:

This Technique rests very comfortably at the Expert level. It’s flashy and direct, and it works best when its accessible. The lower Kharma and Prana costs put it within range of most characters.
Its too similar to Five Gateways not to be some kind of derivation. So this is a Technique that escaped the grip of the Five Stars and made its way out into the wider Jianghu.
This is actually a Technique AND a special Imbalance.

So that lead me to the following design. Enjoy your Technique Ron!

Prana Pathway Inflammation

Expert-Level Technique

A variant of several Five Gateway Techniques, this infamous move somehow escaped the scrutiny of the Five Stars and traveled far beyond their borders. Many upstarts and false claimants to their legacy have trumpeted its mastery, although the true Five Stars would have known its disputed lineage. They would have been impressed, though.

Attack

Requires: (Arm, Awakened Chakra)

Cost: 12

Rank: 3

Facing: 6-9

Effect: You strike several key pressure points in a blur of rapid fist movements, unleashing a cascade of Pranic malfunction within the enemy’s Prana Meridians. filling the

Prana meridians with destructive vibrations. Rather than damage, this strike creates Aggravation towards a Prana Inflammation Imbalance. If it deals Aggravation to a foe,

increase the amount by the amount of Prana currently held in the targets Prana Pool.

Skill: Agility

Prana Inflammation: Physical Imbalance

Dramatic: Your body seizes and contorts at the worst possible moments in a series of “Prana Hiccups”

The originator of this Imbalance chooses when you’re paralyzed or otherwise lose muscular control from these convulsions, which allows them to amend any of your proposed actions ending in clumsy failure once per turn per Rank of the Imbalance.

Such descriptions can include attacks hitting nearby targets instead of their intended victim, dropping weapons or other held items, falling down in an uncoordinated mess, and other potentially catastrophic blunders.

This Imbalance poisons the well of your Prana; if your Prana Pool is ever reduced to 0, it is immediately cured, no matter its current Rank. This Imbalance can never cause you to die (but it can certainly make your wish you were dead; hiccups of the soul are exponentially more horrible than their mortal equivalent!). For the purposes of reducing your Prana Pool to 0, you may spend Prana for no game-effect (it cascades out of you in a display of pyrotechnics, but otherwise has no effect)