History of Morrowind Martial Arts

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Notes: NOT the book, JUST my own musings before I turn this into book form--

 

The Unarmed Traditions of Morrowind
by Kevaar Asurani

Morrowind is home to three recognized unarmed and unarmored fighting traditions. Although perhaps not as famous as their counterparts in Elsweyr or Akavir, the Golden Reed, Marshmerrow, and Salt Rice styles have their own equally fascinating histories and theories of practice. 

The fighting style that has garnered the most attention in recent years is that of Marshmerrow. This style's roots can be traced back to one practitioner, Taren Omathan, the Master-Student of Elsweyr. It is due to this Dunmer's peculiar history that this tradition has spread so far and so fast, comparatively, to the other ancient traditions.

Taren Omathan had the unfortunate occupation of being a sweeping-servant in a Khajiiti temple for many years. During this time he would watch the techniques of the Khajiiti students, waiting until he had an opportunity to fight in their bloody war arenas. When he finally had the chance to prove his worth to the Elsweyr heathens, Omathan won handily, proving Morrowind's superiority. Omathan has since returned to Morrowind to teach his art, where his fighting style mimics the same watch-and-wait philosophy that bore him through many years of outlander oppression. Rumors of this honorable master joining the Dissident Priest movement should have no bearing on our esteem for his martial accomplishments. 

The Marshmerrow tradition carries many similarities to its grandmaster. Marshmerrow is a flowing form, weaving willpower and the physical manifestations of the practitioner's spirit together with precise hand, leg, and foot techniques. Many opponents would deem the dance-like movement of Marshmerrow laughable, at least until they ended belly-up on the fighting mat.

Although many styles in Akavir make use of forms based on animals, Marshmerrow is mostly absent of these. Instead, a number of Marshmerrow techniques recall the movements of plantlife caught in wind and water, as the name of the style would suggest. Many forms are also based on honoring the ancestor spirits, making Marshmerrow a favorite among Indoril priests. In more recent years, as the reputation of the Master-Student fell into disfavor, the Imperial elements in Morrowind have taken up the style instead, particularly the Mages Guild and Imperial Cult. These practitioners consider Marshmerrow to be a useful addition to their offensive repertoire, claiming that the forms that "invigorate the spirit", in Omathan's terms, in actuality also help them replenish their Magicka. Perhaps if these outlander elements were more in tune with their ancestors instead of blindly following Akaviri fads, they would realized that Magicka and spiritual energy are one and the same thing!

Despite its vaunted roots, however, Marshmerrow is not the most widespread nor the first tradition to have developed in Morrowind. Golden Reed takes that distinction, and is commonly understood to be a conglomerate of familial traditions from the Redoran, Dres and Ashlander warrior castes. Golden Reed is considered a well-rounded tradition, with a mix of heavily rooted and agile evasive stances. Special attention is paid to those techniques that can be used against armed and armored opponents.

For this reason Golden Reed is particularly popular amongst the Temple, where Ordinators will often spend a year or two studying the art before graduating to learning how to fight with pike and sword. That the style has passed from the traditionally antagonistic Ashlanders to the Temple speaks to this style's long history and association with the most honorable sects of Dunmer society.

Of final note is the style of Salt Rice, a discipline first developed by the Morag Tong to prepare their assassins for the more up-close-and-personal aspects of their job. Like its creators, Salt Rice is considered the most brutal and competitive of the traditions, in which throws, disarming and grappling techniques, and even a variety of cheap shots are common. Salt Rice also contains a number of stances involving stepping out heel-to-toe, believed to teach its practitioners how to move silently even while in battle.

In more recent years, Salt Rice has filtered out to other elements of the criminal underworld. Although many of the Morag Tong scoff at these connections, classic forms such as Ducking the Guar and the Removal of the Jewels have remarkably similar counterparts in Camonna Tong street fights. Nor do the Morag Tong seem overly concerned with fighting knowledge passing back in the opposite direction; Salt Rice continues to evolve as it absorbs bits and pieces of many other styles, primarily brought to Morrowind by traveling pirates or the more combative victims of Morag Tong justice.

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Comments

First of all, very good text,

Atrayonis's picture

First of all, very good text, excellent research. Just some typos and one to two passages that I think could use a bit work.

Taren Omathan had the unfortunate occupation of being a sweeping-servant in a Khajiiti temple for many years. During this time he would watch the techniques of the Khajiit students, waiting until he had an opportunity to fight in their bloody war arenas. When he finally had the chance to prove his worth to the Elsweyr heathens, Omathan won handily, proving Morrowind's superiority. Omathan has since returned to Morrowind to teach his art, where his fighting style mimics the same watch-and-wait philosophy that bore him through many years of outlander oppression. Rumors of this honorable master since joining the Dissident Priest movement should have no bearing on our esteem for his martial accomplishments. 
[...]

Although many styles in Akavir make use of forms based on animals, Marshmerrow is mostly absent of these, perhaps because few of the deformed creatures of Morrowind could be considered graceful or wise enough to emulate. (Sounds odd. The first part of the text is very friendly to Dunmer (of course), but this calls the creatures of Morrowind deformed, which is a jarring negative slant. Perhaps state that they can only be emulated by masters spending decades of emulating them, which is not easily learned and as such only something individual hermits do?)

These practitioners consider Marshmerrow to be a useful addition to their offensive repertoire, claiming that the forms that "invigorate the spirit", in Omathan's terms, in actuality also help them replenish their Magicka. (You might want to wuickly remind people about the Akavir-fetish the Imperials have with a jab at them or something.)

Fixed the the accomplishments

Kevaar's picture

Fixed the the accomplishments typo. (Finally. Thanks Avisrend for also pointing this out).

You're quite right about the deformed animals part. I was blanking coming up with a way to make this same point about the alien critters. Editted a correction into the main draft, though still not entirely happy with it.

Repertoire spelling corrected.

Blanking on an Akavir jab. Have a suggestion?

Review

ThomasRuz's picture

Listed below are the things that caught my attention, and the suggested edits:

"During this time he would watch the techniques of the Khajiit students, waiting until he had an opportunity to fight in their bloody war arenas." to "During this time he would watch the techniques of the Khajiiti students, waiting until he had an opportunity to fight in their bloody war arenas."
- Like in Khajiiti temple, I think Khajiiti reads better as an adjective.

"Rumors of this honorable master since joining the Dissident Priest movement should have no bearing on our esteem for his martial accomplishments." to "Rumors (circulating) about this honorable master since he joined/joining the Dissident Priest movement should have no bearing on our esteem for his martial accomplishments."
- I know what you mean in this sentence, but I couldn't immediately make sense of it. I think using 'about' instead of 'of' might make the sentence a bit clearer.(I'm also a bit tired so it might also be me cheeky)

"Marshmerrow is a flowing form, weaving willpower and the physical manifestations of the practitioner's spirit together with precise hand, leg, and foot techniques." to "Marshmerrow is a flowing form, weaving willpower and the physical manifestations of the practitioner's spirit together, with precise hand, leg, and foot techniques."
- The comma isn't really necessary, but I feel like the sentence might flow better.

"Although many styles in Akavir make use of forms based on animals, Marshmerrow is mostly absent of these, perhaps because the creatures of Morrowind lack physiology similar enough to the Dunmer for the masters to be able to emulate them appropriately." to "Although many styles in Akavir make use of forms based on animals, Marshmerrow is mostly absent of these. Likely because Morrowind creatures lack physiology similar enough to the Dunmer for the masters to be able to emulate them appropriately."
- This sentence is a bit long, though I don't really know how to change that, maybe this is a solution?

The rest looks top-notch, so when these things are looked after this asset gets my approval wink

P.S. I think this book could also work as an unarmed skill book

As said in Discord, the last

Kevaar's picture

As said in Discord, the last would actually make a grammatical error. :)

Changed it to Khajiiti.
"Rumors of....since joining..." technically correct. Since is used to mean "after" instead of "because" here. "Rumors of" sounds more posh to me, so I'll keep that, but I'll remove the "since" to make it clearer.
I'll keep it as no comma, since here the techniques is directly referencing how the weaving is being done.