The Campaign: You Have Offended Shaolin

(Following from yesterday's post.)

We looked at the Druids and the Assassins. Now it is time for the heirs of Shaolin to take their turn.

The Monk of AD&D1e comes to the game decades before mixed martial arts was a thing. Well before the '80s Ninja boom, you have the '70s Kung Fu zeitgeist and it is that spirit you see in the Monk. Look no further than the movies of that era, or Kung Fu (the pioneering Kung Fu Western series).

The Monk class is not a class that is unorganized. They too have an implicit organization, whose senior members are Faction Leaders in their own right, and the mixture of this implicit organization and the Alignment constrictions (Always Lawful, but may be Good, Neutral, or Evil) means that you can lean hard into one of the longest-running martial arts fiction tropes: Warring Temples.

Come Snatch The Pebble From My Hand

The Monk exists in a hierarchy, and it is a looser one than that of the Druids, the Up-Or-Out segment of the hierarchy hits much earlier.

Within a Monk temple, the number of members at Superior Master (L7) or below is unlimited. There are only three Masters of Dragons (L8) and only one of each rank above that (PHB pg. 32). Furthermore, the prohibitions on retaining Hirelings and Henchmen is directly related to their martial prowess; there is an outright prohibition until approaching the rank of Master (ibid) and just before attaining it a Monk can do short-term contracts for Hirelings and no more than two Henchmen as retainers- and then only Fighters, Thieves, or Assassins.

This implies that a Monk cannot properly manage subordinates until he has mastered himself. The implication is reinforced when, as a Master of Dragons, he is now able to attract Followers akin to a Fighter. These are L1 Monks, and they can stay with him as if Henchmen until they too attain Superior Mastery and either strike out on their own or prepare to challenge your man (should he still, somehow, only be L8).

The wealth prohibitions follow the implied pattern for subordinates: near-total poverity, save for subordinate upkeep, necessary upgrades, and provision for a headquarters- the latter of which greatly augments your man's ability to attract and retain followers.

Your Southern Tiger Cannot Beat My Northern Bear!

This Up-Or-Out element of the class coming in when other classes are just hitting their stride shows how early a Monk becomes a player in the conflicts of the Martial Arts World. While the manuals do not make it explicit that all Monks are of the same temple, neither does it say that they are not; it is a valid interpretation, given that this is a liminal element, to lean hard on the source material and go for the Warring Temples or Feuding Style trope. The Alignment range suggests and encourages this approach, and it is not hard to say that the ranks within the class are spread between the temples- and that take leans even harder into the "Up-Or-Out" scheme because it encourages factional fighting over Who Is Strongest.

While the game (barring Oriental Adventures) doesn't go into hard-coding such distinctions due to how combat in AD&D1e actually works, it is not hard to see how this can play out- especially if various Monks are as wise as their Ability Scores imply that they are and retain expert assistence. Also, being that only Men can be Monks and Dual-Classed characters are a thing, it would not be surprising to see Monks who were another class previously (or Monks who decide to Do Something Else because they can't advance any further) and with that blending create specific styles of their own.

Monk temples are going to be able to step into some of the same underworld actions as Assassins and Thieves due to their own select access to Thief Abilities; whether or not they too want to get into freelance spying is up to the temple's master(s). Monk-dominated domains are going to be mostly quiet places, mostly out of the way, and preferring the wilderness over integration into Civilization; they can get along with Druids, despite being similar to Assassins in capabilities.

Playing The Man With The Deadly Hands

The development of the sort of martial arts tradition that the Monk takes its substance from is one where access to the weapons, armor, and training typical of Fighters is lacking despite the need for it. It is also where access to the supernatural is lacking, as there is no priesthood to speak of--not even of a false god, where Clerics can still get 1st and 2nd level spells (DMG pg. 38)--and no occulists either.

In short, Monks occur due to a confluence of material lack and the necessity for self-reliance in both body and spirit in an environment of adversity. This is why Monk domains tend to be in the middle of nowhere, despite having an attitude that facilitates Civilization, and the nature of their ethos regarding attaining mastery is the source of their own internal factionalism.

If they were Thieves or Assassins, we'd see rampant gangsterism. Instead, we see more open conflict on a more regular basis but it tends to be smaller scale- mostly small gangs or one-on-one duels. What is similar between these classes is that the savvy Monk will cultivate loyalty and build out his temple around this personality cult. Former followers will be built up as lieutenants holding various ranks, and stationed in widely-dispersed strongholds, in a manner that makes dealing with threats easy to address. ("Hmmm, problem in the Eastern Mountains; dispatch Bob to handle it.")

Therefore, a Grand Campaign will have someone playing the Grandmaster of Flowers because--like his Assassin and Druid counterparts--the shots that this character calls matter and thus is a player on the Faction level of play. Arguably, so are those immediately beneath him.

(On a lighter note, the real-life Bullshido going on at this time and well through to the present when Mixed Martial Arts all but wrecked it is ripe for use as fodder for all forms of incompetent opposition as well as tales of martial arts mysticism. Also, use Oriental Adventures carefully; that book came out after the paradigm shift into the Cargo Cult hit TSR.)