Meargánta
Skills: Brawling, Wrestling
Techniques (Common): Ground Fighting (Brawling), Headbutt (Brawling), Kicking.
Techniques (Polladh): Aggressive Parry (Brawling), Counterattack (Brawling), Disarm (Brawling), Ear Clap (Brawling), Elbow Strike (Brawling), Jam (Brawling), Knee Strike (Brawling), Two-handed Punch (Brawling), Uppercut (Brawling).
Techniques (Fáscadh): Breakfall (Wrestling), Choke Hold (Wrestling), Drop Kick (Wrestling), Feint (Wrestling), Head Lock (Wrestling), Knee Drop (Wrestling), Leg Grapple (Wrestling), Leg Lock (Wrestling), Trip (Wrestling).
Optional Traits:
Secondary Attributes: Increased HP, Increased Will.
Advantages/Disadvantages: Destiny (required, as long as it’s about how you’re going to die), Hard to Subdue, High Pain Threshold, Rapid Healing.
Skills: Boxing, Karate (note that Brawling will still be necessary, even if the other two skills are available).
Meargánta is a martial art that one might find in worlds where somebody can absolutely and unquestionably learn how they’re going to die. In this particular case, it comes from a Celtic-themed culture whose members routinely receive geasa which prophesy that they will be killed by a one-handed man with an axe, or something along those lines; this encourages a certain recklessness among those fighters currently not facing their ultimate bane. Meargánta perhaps encourages said fighters to be even more reckless. Meargánta is a martial art for the grimly stoic; and while it is not deliberately cruel, its fighters tend to be ‘dour.’
Traditionally, all Meargánta initiates are taught the basics of screaming, rushing their opponents, and striking them at very close range, with casual disregard for their own defense. After this is learned, students of the art will concentrate on either Polladh, which teaches even more ways to hurt people directly; or else Fáscadh, is mostly about to how to have leverage and stress points do the hurting for you. In either case (or both), defensive techniques are rarely taught. If this is the person who is going to kill you, then why prolong matters? And if this is not the person who will kill you, why bother?
There is no cinematic version of Meargánta. The entire style is a cold-bloodedly pragmatic way to take full mundane advantage of a wondrous condition. And its practitioners tend to have a personal grudge against the esoteric anyway, as befits people who more or less labor under an unshakeable curse.
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