Five Thunders

Nature: Aggressive Origin: Kun'lao Flourish: Forceful

The official martial art of the Kingdom of Wei. Five Thunders is so culturally and religiously relevant to the Kingdom of Wei that its entire society is built around learning this style. Five Thunders is ferocious, straightforward and constantly pushing forward. A proper Five Thunders adherent will never retreat in combat, only move forward. Five Thunders makes use of powerful combos of punches and elbows, flying kicks, and running knees. It incorporates grappling, but only so that the user can catch their opponent before kneeing them repeatedly or smashing their face in.

Five Thunders style is debilitating to its victims. Adherents will just repeatedly strike opponents with endless combos of violence to the point where they feel they can no longer move. Combine this with its users favoring electricity-type Qi and you can probably predict that those facing off against Five Thunders are frequently stunned. This is why Five Thunders' Flourish is Forceful.

Core Principles

There are a few key elements to those who practice Five Thunders. These elements are central to the martial art's key concept: Delivering aggressive combos of powerful offense.

• No Retreat: Five Thunders is a very offensive style. Although it does have blocks and parries, this is not the styles' focus. In addition, it has no means for practicioners to actually retreat or even really pull back from their opponent. This basically means that Five Thunders users will always rushdown their opponent before trying to overwhelm them with offense.

• Ruthless Aggression: Five Thunders users will always use the most efficient means to destroy their opponent. If they catch their opponent, they'll smash their face in with a knee. If they pick up on hesitation, they'll hasten up the pace of the fight to overwhelm them. They also aren't afraid to pick their opponent apart, attacking the ears, eyes, or throat if necessary to bring them down.

• Stunning Strikes: When Five Thunders' users aren't literally using lightning or thunder Qi techniques on their foes, they can make use of numerous stunning techniques, hitting the heart, liver, or head to send them into a daze.

Weapons

Five Thunders and the Kingdom of Wei favor hand-to-hand combat above all else, but their Nameless are trained in how to use weaponry and are quire skilled in it. Warriors of Wei will use such weapons as well if needed, although they cultually favor hand-to-hand combat.

• Battle Axe: Nameless wield axes in the stead of sword as the weapon of choice for rank and file soldiers. Axes will occasionally be thrown or duel-wielded as well if the warrior is especially skilled.

• Giant Club: A massive polearm weapon with a spiked club at the end of it. Used by particularly massive Warriors of Wei or Nameless, particularly as a means of clearly out crowds of opponents.

• Ball & Chain: Warrior of Wei will wield a ball & chain as a weapon, with some particularly larger warriors wielding massive variants of the weapon. Used as a medium-range weapon, with the warrior swinging the ball and chain around before swinging the massive metal ball down upon their foe.