Turfer (Brawler Archetype)
One of the most dynamic thing you can do when shooting a martial arts scene is incorporate the set, the environment. Sure an open floor is fine, but we all love when the heroes and villains are bouncing off walls, leaping from tree to tree, or even grabbing improvised weapons from the environment.
The brawlers called turfers train themselves to master their environments, moving swifter and more freely than others, as well as fighting harder.
They might be defenders of particular environments, or they might believe in a philosophy of oneness or mastery of their surroundings. Is it also an excuse to give brawlers a modified version of favored terrain? Also true.
As they train, these martial artists learn the tells of their environment, and how to use it to their advantage. This allows them to react quicker to combat and to gain leverage when performing various maneuvers.
What’s more, their mobility is vastly improved, ignoring natural difficult terrain and outright moving faster in their favored terrain. They are also extremely hardened against the weather and conditions of such places, ignoring all but the most extreme.
A basic archetype, but a fun one. I would recommend an acrobatic or athletic build that makes use of dirty tricks and improvised weapons, taking appropriate feats to make those viable options.
Much like archetypes that focus on improvised weapons, this sort of archetype highly encourages you to get lots of detail about your environment to know what sort of attacks to describe, such as throwing a prickly desert plant into a foe’s eyes, grabbing a tree branch to spin and change direction into a strike, and more.
Getting extremely lucky, Erbfar managed to slay the chaneque fey who stole his soul, but the skull containing it was nowhere to be found. He’s been searching for it ever since, the hollow-eyed wanderer of the forest, honing his fighting craft and woodcraft in hopes of discovering it.
Utterly at home in both sewers and the back alleys, the nightskulk moonkin Rein learned early on to fend for herself with both a knife and anything handy, be it garbage or a street food vendor’s fry pot. If there’s anyone that can guide you to hidden locations in the underbelly of the city, it is her.
Though the Galefang Monastery was burned to the ground, the influence of it’s teaching can still be found in the tundra nomads who took in survivors. Many of their warriors have adapted a flexible, close-combat style that turns the ice to their advantage.
