TEXT: MARTIAL 
  ARTS
  BY KENNETH
  HITE 
  MARTIAL 
  ARTS
  
  2
  MARTIAL ARTS
  G UMSHOE ZOO M
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  Publisher: Simon Rogers     
  Author: Kenneth Hite
  Layout: Hal Mangold     Artwork: Melissa Gay
  © 2013 Pelgrane Press Ltd. All rights reserved. 
  GUMSHOE ZOOM: 
  INTRODUCTION
  Not everything can support a game of its 
  own, or even a big sourcebook. For those 
  things, we present the GUMSHOE Zoom, a 
  sort of supplement focused on a key game 
  mechanic and its possible applications. 
  In general, Zooms are interesting poten-
  tial hacks, or intriguing adaptations of the 
  main rules. Some apply to one specific topic 
  or sub-sub-genre. Others cross all manner 
  of GUMSHOE turf; you can slot them in and 
  adapt them to tales of Cthulhuoid investiga-
  tion, mean superpowered streets, or alien 
  colonies alike.
  Zooms are experimental. That does mean 
  that they haven’t been playtested, neces-
  sarily. (If something in here is really really 
  broken – and it’s not, as this ain’t our first 
  rodeo – we’ll fix it in post.) But that also 
  means we encourage you to experiment with 
  them. Changing the cost, or prerequisites, or 
  point effect, or other mechanical parameters 
  of a given Zoom changes how often it shows 
  up and how much drama it drives. The dials 
  are in your hands.
  Zooms will change the focus of your play 
  if you use them. Putting a mechanic on the 
  table puts it into your game. Adding a Zoom 
  means more actions, possibly even more 
  scenes, using those rules. Since the Zoom 
  mechanics are intended to encourage specif-
  ic actions or flavors, to force a card in your 
  storytelling hand, they aren’t “balanced” 
  against “normal” actions or rules. In gen-
  eral, if you don’t want to see more of it, don’t 
  Zoom in on it.
  Zooms are optional rules. You can and 
  should ignore them if you don’t want them, 
  or change them at will. After all, if a given 
  Zoom turns out to be crucial to an upcoming 
  GUMSHOE game, we’ll change it to fit that 
  specific genre or form of storytelling.
  Table of Contents
  MARTIAL ARTS ........................................................ 3
  The Way of the GUMSHOE ....................................................3
  Acquiring Martial Arts Styles ...........................................4
  Using a Style .......................................................................5
  Signature Moves ................................................................5
  Style Cherries .....................................................................6
  Refreshing the Style ..........................................................6
  Mooks .................................................................................6
  Customizing Martial Arts .....................................................6
  Dials ....................................................................................6
  The “Martial Arts” Maneuver ...........................................7
  Sample Martial Arts Styles ...................................................7
  Hand-to-Hand Styles .........................................................7
  Aikido ..................................................................................7
  Bartitsu ...............................................................................8
  Boxing .................................................................................8
  Kevad-Tav ...........................................................................8
  Muay Thai ..........................................................................8
  Pencak Silat ........................................................................9
  Systema ..............................................................................9
  Weapons Styles ................................................................10
  Escrima .............................................................................10
  Kalaripayattu ...................................................................10
  
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  T HE WAY OF THE 
  GUMSHOE
  The GUMSHOE Martial Arts Zoom is 
  intended to model the sorts of sto-
  ries (usually movies) in which mar-
  tial arts combat takes center stage 
  in at least one scene. In addition to 
  straight martial-arts films like Enter 
  the Dragon or Ong-Bak, you can see 
  such martial arts foregrounding in 
  hybrid thrillers such as Raid: Re-
  demption, The Matrix, or Haywire, or 
  even as a set piece in a “straight” spy 
  thriller like The Bourne Supremacy. 
  Even if you’re not modeling such a 
  story, these rules model those scenes.
  In those scenes, hand-to-hand fight-
  ing supersedes gunplay both as a 
  means of character definition and as 
  a way to add excitement and tension 
  to the story. In some films the fight 
  scene serves a gunfight as the appe-
  tizer and the fisticuffs as the main 
  course. Other movies simply provide 
  bare-handed showdowns with the 
  absence of guns handwaved away 
  by the script, explained by sudden 
  surprise, or enforced by the rules of 
  the squared circle. The effect is the 
  same: the hero fights a lot of oppo-
  nents mano a mano, and we enjoy 
  seeing it.
  If you think your game group might 
  enjoy seeing more martial arts 
  action in your GUMSHOE game, this 
  Zoom will provide it.
  Here are the stripped-down basics of 
  these martial arts rules:
  • 
  Buy a martial arts style for 6 build 
  points.
  • 
  During combat, use a signature 
  move from that style to get a 
  4-point refresh in the relevant 
  melee combat ability (usual-
  ly Scuffling, Hand-to-Hand, or 
  Weapons; the style ability).
  • 
  If you have a style and you roll a 
  6 on a test of that melee combat 
  ability, you’ll usually get some 
  kind of bonus (a “cherry”) for it.
  • 
  You can refresh a style again in 
  combat if you drop a foe (or three 
  mooks) to 0 Health with that re-
  lated melee combat ability.
  To reiterate, you don’t have to be run-
  ning a full-tilt martial-arts action 
  campaign to use this Zoom. You can 
  put these rules into any GUMSHOE 
  setting, whether published or origi-
  nal to your campaign. The only re-
  quirement is a GM and players who 
  want to see more people hitting (or 
  kicking, or slashing) each other. For 
  example, you could:
  • 
  Offer the agents in your Esoterror-
  ists or Night’s Black Agents game 
  the option of cinematic (or spe-
  cial-forces) levels of fight training, 
  or send them against villains who 
  have such skills thanks to magick 
  or vampire blood
  • 
  Set a Trail of Cthulhu campaign 
  in tumultuous China or an in-
  creasingly paranoid Japan, with 
  plenty of monsters that bullets 
  don’t hurt
  • 
  Add original-series Star Trek-
  style brawls and gladiatorial 
  bouts to an Ashen Stars or Gaean 
  Reach campaign
  • 
  Send the cops in your Mutant City 
  Blues precinct into Chinatown, 
  or after a drug-smuggling dojo 
  training super-fighters
  • 
  Create monsters for any game 
  that can only be killed by a fo-
  cused blow delivering the hero’s 
  chi energy to a vulnerable spot, 
  and wait for the players to figure 
  out that they need martial arts 
  skills
  • 
  Use these rules to model the 
  “never stay down” abilities of 
  inbred killers and boogey men in 
  Fear Itself
  From 
  ancient 
  Greek 
  pankration 
  to sword-swinging Musketeers to 
  zero-G judo in an orbital station, you 
  can add martial arts to any story, 
  any game, any where or when. If, 
  you know, you want to.
  ACQUIRING  
  MARTIAL ARTS STYLES
  GUMSHOE characters acquire mar-
  tial arts in styles: individual arts like 
  jeet kune do, krav maga, fencing, or 
  Brazilian jiujitsu. A “style” is deliber-
  ately vague; it might be a broad art 
  like “karate” or a very specific one 
  like kyokushinkai-ryu karate. In a 
  campaign based on classic wuxia 
  movies, every available style might 
  be a sub-branch of Shaolin kung 
  fu; in a cinematic pulp campaign, 
  the styles on offer might be a mish-
  mosh of whatever sounds coolest.
  It’s up to the GM whether adding this 
  Zoom adds to the characters’ fund of 
  build points. As a general guideline, 
  if every player character is expected 
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  (by the genre, or by the players as a 
  whole) to have a martial arts style, 
  increase the General build points 
  allowed each player by 6. If you’re 
  adding this Zoom midway through a 
  campaign, use the same guideline: if 
  all the heroes should be martial art-
  ists, just give everyone one free style 
  one time. After that, they can pay 
  with experience for future styles.
  If only one or some characters are 
  expected (or wish) to be martial art-
  ists, then choosing to buy a martial 
  arts style is a point-budgeting choice 
  like any other.
  AT CHARACTER CREATION
  During character creation, a player 
  may spend 6 build points to acquire 
  one martial arts style. You can buy 
  more than one style, but that risks 
  using up build points you might 
  want to put into Scuffling, Weapons 
  … or Firearms.
  DURING THE GAME
  At any point in the game, a player 
  may spend 6 points (whether un-
  spent build points or accumulated 
  experience points) to gain a martial 
  arts style. The GM may require some 
  in-game development to justify the 
  acquisition of a style, or allow it as 
  a retroactive addition to the hero’s 
  past: “I have some knowledge, how-
  ever, of baritsu, or the Japanese 
  system of wrestling.”
  USING A STYLE
  At its basis, a martial arts style is a 
  pool of points that exists to:
  • 
  allow player characters to engage 
  in melee with an advantage
  • 
  reward the player for providing 
  cool flavor to a fight scene
  • 
  encourage and extend scenes of 
  melee combat in the game
  If it happens to match anything that 
  actually happens in the real world 
  of knee strikes and fighting knives, 
  that’s a bonus.
  To start using a martial arts style, just 
  add 4 points to the ability pool that 
  matches your style (Hand-to-Hand 
  for unarmed combat, Weapons for 
  armed combat, Scuffling if the game 
  doesn’t break melee down into armed 
  and unarmed versions). This ability is 
  called the style ability. “Extra” points 
  are lost, if adding the style points take 
  you over your rating. Best to start out 
  with a normal flurry of blows.
  When using a martial arts style, the 
  player must narrate his character’s 
  action in that style’s idiom. To make 
  this easier, each style comes with 
  a selection of “signature moves.” If 
  the gaming space is free of breaka-
  bles, the player might even mime 
  his strike, or emit an evocative series 
  of Shaw Brothers-style grunts and 
  thwacking noises.
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  The signature moves are just nar-
  ration. An elbow strike, a head butt, 
  a spinning back kick, or a shoulder 
  lock all have the same effect me-
  chanically: roll against the foe’s Hit 
  Threshold, and do damage. (Unless 
  you model them using a specific 
  maneuver such as a Called Shot, of 
  
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  course – the specific game will pro-
  vide details if such things are availa-
  ble.) Although the fight will feel more 
  “real” if moves have consequences, 
  or naturally flow from the previous 
  round’s action, the only real require-
  ment is that the player say what, 
  specifically, his fighter is doing in 
  the fight. Ideally, the player says 
  something awesome.
  Although the signature moves often 
  mention specific targets, they don’t 
  do any additional damage unless the 
  fighter uses a Called Shot (Night’s 
  Black Agents, p. 72; Esoterror Fact 
  Book, p. 46).
  Players don’t have to make these 
  moves up from whole cloth each 
  time. Martial arts, after all, mostly 
  center on practicing the same move 
  over and over until, indeed, the fight-
  er can use it instinctively (and repeti-
  tively) in combat. The style write-ups 
  below offer some signature moves 
  to get you started. Feel free to add 
  others, or change them up, writing 
  down good ones ahead of time. Other 
  possibilities include watching the 
  movies referenced, or just calling up 
  a few YouTube clips before the game 
  gets started to get the smackdown 
  juices flowing.
  If the player seems bored with nar-
  rating his martial arts prowess, the 
  GM should try to resist the urge to 
  rough justice. (“If you don’t care, nei-
  ther does the universe. No refresh 
  for you.”) Encourage telegraphic 
  description (“I hack his kneecap”) 
  and revel in the brutal simplicity 
  of the moment. Describe the move 
  in terms of the target (“As your foot 
  comes down on his knee, his whole 
  leg twists with a sickening crunch 
  and he falls backward into the coffee 
  table”), if you feel the scene still lacks 
  interest.
  STYLE CHERRIES
  When your unmodified die roll on an 
  attack attempt with the style ability 
  is a 6, you gain a bonus or advantage 
  called a “cherry.” Each style has its 
  own listed cherry, but if you want to 
  switch them around to suit your own 
  notion of modeling a given art, feel 
  free. The GM is, as always, the final 
  arbiter of whether a cherry is more 
  abusive than accurate.
  Many of these cherries apply to 
  combat options in Night’s Black 
  Agents or the Esoterror Fact Book. If 
  your game isn’t using the referenced 
  option, a natural 6 on the attack die 
  allows you to add +1 to your damage 
  roll from that hit.
  If you have more than one style, you 
  can use the cherry that matches the 
  last signature move you narrated.
  REFRESHING THE STYLE
  After you have used the pool points 
  from your style, you can refresh the 
  style and gain another 4 pool points. 
  To refresh your style, you must 
  take a foe to 0 Health or below with 
  damage from a successful use of the 
  style ability. If you wish, the refresh 
  occurs immediately after the take-
  down.
  MOOKS
  In games with mooks (usually face-
  less, 
  nameless 
  opponents 
  with 
  Health ratings of 1 or 2, who pad out 
  the villain’s entourage but regardless 
  of their combat skills drop after one 
  good hit), knocking three mooks to 0 
  Health or below is the equivalent of 
  taking out one worthy foe.
  C USTOMIZING 
  MARTIAL ARTS
  The Zoom mechanics above are de-
  signed to fit conceptually into the 
  “standard game space” of GUMSHOE: 
  capable characters, with action 
  modeled on common storytelling 
  conventions. But an individual GM 
  may want to blow up or (compara-
  tively) de-emphasize the role of 
  martial arts in her game. This sec-
  tion helps her customize the rules 
  to fit exactly the kind of story she 
  wants to tell.
  DIALS
  These options change the Zoom me-
  chanics. The GM may want to tinker 
  with these dials until the flavor fits 
  the table as a whole, as well as her 
  notions of genre and excitement.
  DIALING IT UP
  The following changes make mar-
  tial arts more powerful, prevalent, 
  or prominent in the game. A full-
  fledged wuxia or swashbuckler game 
  might wind up using all of them!
  • 
  Lower the cost of buying a style 
  from 6 build points per style to 5 
  or even 4. The cheaper they get, 
  the more martial arts styles a 
  given character can buy -- but the 
  more details the player needs to 
  keep track of.
  • 
  Automatically give a character 
  with Scuffling, Hand-to-Hand, 
  Weapons, or another relevant 
  melee combat ability one free 
  martial arts style when they 
  build (or reach) a rating of 12 
  or better in that ability. People 
  don’t often get that good at fight-
  ing without learning something 
  about it.
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  • 
  Raise the points gained or re-
  freshed by using a style to 5. This 
  almost guarantees a big mar-
  tial arts move about halfway 
  into a fistfight, which matches 
  the rhythm of most movie fight 
  scenes.
  • 
  Allow points from using a style 
  to exceed the hero’s rating in the 
  style ability. For example: 
  Chuck (Scuffling 8) has spent 2 
  points from that pool so far. He 
  announces a spinning back kick, 
  activating his Muay Thai style 
  and adding 4 points for a tempo-
  rary total Scuffling pool of 10.
  • 
   This lets players start the fight 
  in style, and will tend to shorten 
  combats as the PCs take out more 
  opponents in the early going.
  • 
  Let the player pick which cherry 
  activates if he has more than one 
  style. This encourages multiple 
  styles per character, which might 
  or might not be what you want.
  • 
  Supercharge the style cherries: 
  They are always in effect, wheth-
  er you rolled a 6 or not. This really 
  helps distinguish different styles 
  from each other, but it makes 
  martial arts an even more domi-
  nant factor in the game, with a 
  feel more like powers than abili-
  ties.
  DIALING IT DOWN
  These changes, by contrast, make 
  martial arts less powerful in combat, 
  or less useful for players. They don’t 
  make them worthless – if you don’t 
  want more martial arts in the game, 
  don’t use this Zoom at all! – but they 
  do bring them back toward “real-
  ism.”
  • 
  Restrict the availability of styles 
  to characters with a rating of 8 or 
  more in the style ability. People 
  don’t often get good at a martial 
  art without being generally good 
  in a fight.
  • 
  Lower the points refreshed by 
  using a style to 3, only giving 4 
  points for a really good narration 
  of the trained blow. This brings 
  martial arts styles back into line 
  with other maneuvers.
  • 
  Restrict cherry use to points spent 
  from a refresh. Once the pool 
  empties, the cherry is gone until 
  the next refresh of that style. This 
  adds more book-keeping, but 
  limits the potentially “unbalanc-
  ing” effect of individual cherries.
  • 
  Restrict style refreshes to one or 
  two per combat, again more in 
  line with other maneuvers. This 
  removes some of the incentive to 
  turn every fight scene into a giant 
  side-scroller, and may also miti-
  gate player arguments over steal-
  ing kills from each other.
  BUT IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!
  The goal of this Zoom is to model martial-arts fight scenes, not to slow down a scene to fight about martial arts.
  It’s far from impossible, or even unlikely, that a player or GM has actual martial-arts training. She should abso-
  lutely use that knowledge, just like any gamer should use special knowledge, to enhance her own enjoyment and 
  that of the other players. If you want to swap out a new signature move you’ve trained on in person, or seen in 
  competition, for one of the suggestions provided here, go for it! The goal is to engage the player in her character’s 
  actions, after all.
  It becomes trickier when it’s not your character making signature moves. Individual GMs may well welcome 
  positive, exciting amendments and contributions from their players for NPC martial-arts moves. But the player is 
  always the author of her own character’s awesomeness. Don’t narrate someone else’s coolness. And, as they say 
  in improv, never negate.
  If a player narrated a move for his character that doesn’t fit your understanding of the martial art, well … too bad. 
  Perhaps her character trained at a different dojo than you did, or learned a slightly different version of that style 
  from her sensei. Maybe he habitually blends in MCMAP strikes he learned in the Marines, or has an old injury that 
  prevents the move you thought he should make. Perhaps she read the tactical situation in a way the GM didn’t ex-
  plicitly describe, and switched up her move accordingly. If you can’t help thinking about a cinematic martial-arts 
  move in real-world terms, think about how to justify the player’s action, not how to prove it didn’t happen.
  
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  THE “MARTIAL  
  ARTS” MANEUVER
  A maneuver called “Martial Arts” 
  appears in some GUMSHOE games, 
  such as Night’s Black Agents (core-
  book, p. 75) and Esoterrorists (Esoter-
  ror Fact Book, p. 50). That maneuver 
  allows a 3- or 4-point refresh, once 
  per combat, in exchange for some 
  suitably bone-crunchy flavor dia-
  logue.
  This Zoom can, but does not neces-
  sarily have to, replace that maneu-
  ver, which becomes a sort of utility 
  refresh. It does not gain any special 
  cherries or side effects.
  To avoid confusion, if you’re using 
  both this Zoom and “Martial Arts,” 
  you might want to change that ma-
  neuver’s name to something like 
  “Dojo Hand.”
  S AMPLE MARTIAL 
  ARTS STYLES
  Here are some examples to get you 
  started building martial arts styles 
  for your game. You can find more in-
  formation on more styles in Wikipe-
  dia, elsewhere online, or in Thomas 
  Green’s Martial Arts: An Encyclope-
  dia. For pre-gamified shortcuts, I rec-
  ommend looking into GURPS Mar-
  tial Arts by Peter dell’Orto and Sean 
  Punch, and The Ultimate Martial 
  Artist for the HERO System by Steven 
  S. Long.
  Needless to say, these brief summa-
  ries are broad, cinematic generaliza-
  tions intended to get the uninitiated 
  into the spirit of martial arts action 
  relatively painlessly. If you know 
  enough martial arts to pick nits, 
  you know enough to write your own 
  flavor text.
  The styles are arranged under their 
  likely style ability. If the specific 
  game you’re using this Zoom in uses 
  only one ability (usually Scuffling) to 
  handle all melee combat, all styles 
  provide refreshes in that ability. In 
  those games, cross-training arts 
  such as escrima and bartitsu will be 
  more powerful.
  HAND-TO-HAND STYLES
  These styles do not emphasize 
  weapons in their training, comprise 
  the unarmed portion of a broader 
  discipline, or are not commonly as-
  sociated with weapons in popular 
  culture.
  AIKIDO
  Developed by Ueshiba Morihei in 
  1920s Japan, this art emphasizes 
  movement, 
  especially 
  sidesteps, 
  dodges, and throws. The goal of the 
  style is to minimize the aikidoka’s 
  action, using and redirecting the 
  foe’s energy.
  Sean Connery uses aikido in Rising 
  Sun; 7th-dan aikido black belt Steven 
  Seagal uses this style in most of his 
  films.
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “I enter under the attacker’s strike, 
  and catch his arm in a lock as he 
  passes.”
  “I apply ikkyo, the first technique: 
  grab his wrist and elbow, press the 
  ulnar nerve, and twist him to the 
  ground.”
  “His charge opens him to ko-
  shinage, so I drop my hips be-
  neath his strike, check him, and 
  flip him into the wall.”
  CHERRY
  On a roll of 6, you may do damage 
  as normal and then immediately 
  make a free Throw attack (Night’s 
  Black Agents, p. 76) against your foe. 
  If you succeed, he lands out of point-
  blank range, moves to the end of 
  the rank order in combat, and takes 
  damage (-2 or -1) depending on what 
  he landed on.
  BARTITSU
  The British engineer Edward Barton-
  Wright invented bartitsu in 1898, cre-
  ating one of the first modern cross-
  training arts. He based it on judo 
  and jiujitsu, adding techniques from 
  boxing, Swiss schwingen wrestling, 
  and savate. Mediocre promotion and 
  a shortage of pupils closed his Bartit-
  su Club in 1902, his art remembered 
  only as Sherlock Holmes’ martial art 
  “baritsu.”
  Bartitsu also incorporated a number 
  of stick- and staff-fighting tech-
  niques, using umbrellas, Penang 
  lawyers (lead-weighted canes), and 
  gentlemen’s walking sticks as the 
  weapons. You can buy bartitsu twice 
  to get both armed and unarmed 
  combat styles of bartitsu (or, in a 
  game with only one melee combat 
  ability, use bartitsu with both fists 
  and sticks).
  Sherlock Holmes’ fighting style in 
  Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shad-
  ows is based on historical bartitsu.
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “I slip his punch, move in fast, lock 
  the elbow, and snap.”
  “I bob under his blow, get him in a 
  wrist-lock, and pivot him around 
  his own axis into the armoire.”
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  “As he closes I move in, grapple 
  him by his belt, and lever him off 
  balance into the floor, smashing 
  down with my free leg.”
  CHERRY
  On a roll of 6, you may do damage as 
  normal and then immediately make 
  a free Smash attack (Night’s Black 
  Agents, p. 76) against your foe. If you 
  succeed, you smash him into some-
  thing hard or breakable (-1) or hard 
  and projecting (+0).
  BOXING
  The “sweet science” goes back to the 
  ancient Greeks. During the 18th and 
  19th centuries, the rules were codi-
  fied and matches shortened. Begin-
  ning in the 1890s and exploding in 
  the 1920s, amateur and semi-pro-
  fessional boxing became one of the 
  most common, and popular, urban 
  sports in the Western world. If a Trail 
  of Cthulhu Investigator has a martial 
  arts style, it is overwhelmingly likely 
  to be boxing.
  There are more great movies about 
  boxing than any other martial art. 
  For 1930s boxing, try Cinderella Man, 
  The Spirit of Youth, or the original 
  Kid Galahad; you can sneak in some 
  1940s pugilism with Somebody Up 
  There Likes Me, Rocky Marciano, and 
  the immortal Raging Bull. Many of 
  Joe Louis’ best knockouts, and films 
  of his fights with Max Schmeling, 
  are on YouTube.
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “I bear into him, pounding his rib 
  cage with jab after jab.”
  “I shuffle my feet back and as he 
  leans in, nail him with a right 
  cross to the temple.”
  “I weave to one side and hammer 
  him with an uppercut that lifts 
  him off the ground by his jaw.”
  CHERRY
  On the turn after a successful attack 
  roll of 6, if you can make a Called 
  Shot to your foe’s head (+3 to Hit 
  Threshold), that attack will do an ad-
  ditional +3 damage and force an im-
  mediate consciousness roll against a 
  Difficulty equal to your attack total 
  (roll + spend).
  KEVAD-TAV
  This is the primary martial art of the 
  tavak (Ashen Stars, p. 24), an armadil-
  lo-like alien race of self-engineered 
  warriors. It attempts to mitigate the 
  tavak inclination for berserk combat 
  by focusing on simple, aimed blows 
  to enemy torsos and faces. Like the 
  Earth martial art of taiji on which the 
  hoplocrat Kevad based it, its training 
  emphasizes calm, centered medita-
  tion and muscle-memory katas.
  This can serve as a sample of a com-
  pletely invented martial art, as well 
  as a guideline for inserting a new 
  martial art into a pre-existing cam-
  paign. In such a case, the cherry 
  should tie as directly as possible into 
  a unique element of the setting.
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “I strike forward into his hip with 
  my claws, driving him off bal-
  ance.”
  “I roll to take his blow on my back, 
  then kick behind me to smash his 
  femur.”
  “I focus on the space between us 
  and move my core into it, follow-
  ing up with a series of slash-jabs 
  to his kidneys.”
  CHERRY
  On a successful attack roll of 6, you 
  also refresh 2 pool points in Resist 
  Battle Frenzy as the well-placed blow 
  re-centers your perceptions of your-
  self.
  MUAY THAI
  The Thai national martial art goes 
  back to the 13th century. A ruthless, 
  aggressive style, its “eight points” 
  (hands, feet, elbows, knees) encom-
  pass far more than the kickboxing 
  style it is best known for.
  The best muay thai showcase movie 
  is Ong-Bak; Gina Carano’s mixed 
  style in Haywire is based on muay 
  thai.
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “I see him going for a roundhouse 
  kick, so I snap his other leg out 
  from under him.”
  “As he closes with me, I spin and 
  smash him in the eye with my 
  elbow to really get him bleeding.”
  “Time for a kradot chok: I fake a 
  kick, pivot-jump off my leg, and 
  nail him from above with a right 
  cross.”
  CHERRY
  Muay thai training emphasizes re-
  sistance to pain, taking blows con-
  stantly on the shins and forearms. 
  On a successful attack roll of 6, you 
  also refresh 2 Health points lost 
  to hand-to-hand fighting as your 
  innate toughness comes to the fore.
  PENCAK SILAT
  An umbrella term for a number of 
  Indonesian silat, or fighting styles, 
  pencak silat (or pentjak silat) com-
  
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  bines throws, strikes, and evasion 
  maneuvers. A low stance, almost a 
  crawl, characterizes harimau silat, 
  along with brutal strikes at the 
  center line of the body. 
  It also has a knife-fighting version 
  utilizing the kris, or wave-bladed 
  dagger. As perisai diri, it is the mar-
  tial art of the Indonesian army.
  The 
  insanely 
  great 
  martial-arts 
  movie Merantau focuses on hari-
  mau silat, as does the non-gunplay 
  portion of the survival-action thrill-
  er Raid: Redemption. Both star Iko 
  Uwais.
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “I grab his wrist and trap his arm, 
  then strike his collarbone with 
  my elbow.”
  “I drop into depok, roll past his leg, 
  and smash up at his groin.”
  “I duck under his swing, ram my 
  shoulder into his kidney, and 
  chop him on the way down.”
  CHERRY
  On an attack result of 6, your Hit 
  Threshold against that foe increases 
  by 2 until the end of your action in 
  the following round, as a flurry of 
  strikes has confounded him.
  SYSTEMA
  The Soviet military developed a 
  number of martial arts from the 
  1920s to the 1950s; they cross-pol-
  linated and cannot meaningfully 
  be separated now. “Systema” is the 
  general name given to the Spetsnaz’ 
  military martial art; it has much 
  in common with its contemporary 
  style sambo. Both emphasize grap-
  ples, limb locks, and bone breaking 
  blows.
  The fights in The Double were cho-
  reographed by a systema master; to 
  the extent the fight in Eastern Prom-
  ises uses any style at all, it resembles 
  sambo with knives.
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “I slap him in the ribs to slow him 
  down for an elbow lock.”
  “I bear him down onto the broken 
  glass and twist his leg under-
  neath me.”
  “I lock his leg with mine, pull him 
  in, and hyperextend his knee.”
  CHERRY
  On a 6, the Difficulty of a Called Shot 
  to that foe’s joint is reduced to his 
  normal Hit Threshold for your next 
  action. A Called Shot to the foe’s 
  joint adds +2 to normal unarmed 
  damage.
  WEAPONS STYLES
  These styles emphasize weapons in 
  their training, comprise the armed 
  portion of a broader discipline, or are 
  commonly associated with weapons – 
  usually really cool weapons -- in popu-
  lar culture.
  ESCRIMA
  This Filipino style is functionally 
  identical to kali, arnis, sinawali, pa-
  nanandata, and other Filipino mar-
  tial arts that focus on two-weapon 
  defenses and attacks. There is an 
  empty-hand component to escrima, 
  
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  but it emphasizes using improvised 
  weapons in the absence of sticks or 
  knives. If the fighter only has one 
  weapon, she still uses the “live hand” 
  to control, trap, or interfere with her 
  foe’s weapon arm.
  Jason Bourne uses escrima (and a 
  rolled-up magazine) in the classic 
  fight in The Bourne Supremacy; Sao-
  irse Ronan practices and uses escri-
  ma in Hanna.
  ASSOCIATED WEAPONS
  Knife, balisong (butterfly knife), dulo 
  (short stick), yantok (baton), ma-
  chete, small improvised weapon, 
  latigo (lash)
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “With a swirling redondo, I whip 
  my stick through a full circle, 
  passing through his wrist.”
  “I smash his metacarpals with the 
  butt of my knife.”
  “I cut twice at his arm to force him 
  out of his triangle and into my 
  other blade.”
  CHERRY
  Pick one when you choose this style. 
  If you choose this style twice, you 
  can pick both.
  •	
  Sandata: On an attack result 
  of 6 when using an improvised 
  weapon, you roll two dice for 
  damage and keep the larger 
  result, then modify it as normal.
  •	
  Largo Mano: On a 6, the Diffi-
  culty of a Called Shot to that foe’s 
  hand-held weapon is reduced to 
  his normal Hit Threshold for your 
  next action. Rolling an unmodi-
  fied 4-6 on that Called Shot auto-
  matically disarms that foe; oth-
  erwise, do half normal damage 
  to his hands.
  KALARIPAYATTU
  Originating in India’s Kerala state 
  around the 9th century A.D., kalari-
  payattu (or kalaripayit) bases itself in 
  whole-body training including mas-
  sage and meditation. However, it is a 
  practical, weapon-focused art incor-
  porating jumps, crouches, and free 
  movement along with aimed strikes 
  at pressure points.
  Jackie Chan (!!) uses kalaripayattu 
  in The Myth; Aishwarya Rai uses 
  a version of it on about a million 
  Ostrogoths in The Last Legion; for 
  whatever reason, Bollywood movies 
  have been relatively slow to adopt it, 
  preferring conventional Hong Kong 
  action styles.
  ASSOCIATED WEAPONS
  Cheruvadi (baton), katar (punch 
  dagger), kettukari (staff), otta (curved 
  club), sword, urumi (flexible sword)
  SIGNATURE MOVES
  “I switch my staff into a horizontal 
  strike for his solar plexus.”
  “I jump aside and reverse the knife 
  into his kidney.”
  “I duck under his swing and stab 
  up into his armpit.”
  CHERRY
  On an attack result of 6, you can 
  spend 1 Weapons point to lower your 
  foe’s Hit Threshold by 3 until the 
  end of your action in the following 
  round. (This is a less expensive Feint; 
  see Night’s Black Agents, p. 74.)
  MARTIAL ARTS WEAPONS
  Blunted or padded weapons (such as practice weapons or competition 
  fencing swords) do 1 point less damage than the listed amount. They 
  cannot score Critical Hits.
  Weapon
  Damage
  Balisong, baton, dulo, katar, knife, lash, shuriken, small 
  improvised weapon, staff, tonfa, umbrella, walking stick
  -1
  Epée, foil, kusari, machete, otta,  
  Penang lawyer, singlestick, tiger claws
  +0
  Katana, rapier, saber, urumi
  +1
  SPECIAL WEAPONS TRAINING
  You may take Special Weapons Training (Night’s Black Agents, p. 76; Eso-
  terror Fact Book, p. 51) in as many Martial Arts Weapons as you like, as 
  long as they match a style you have acquired. Each weapon for such a 
  style costs 5 build points instead of the normal 6.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Ken Writes About Stuff/Ken Writes About Stuff Vol. 1/Gumshoe Zoom - Martial Arts.pdf