On Fri, 23 Aug 1996, Doug Murphy wrote:

1. All about Chi. I've heard that being able to focus chi into a projectile 
type attack depends on heavy martial arts training. Just what is Chi? How can 
someone gain the ability to use it? And what types of attacks (or defenses) 
can be created with it?

Chi is, to put it simply, life force, the energy that all living being
have.  (Or so it's said. ;-)  Every living thing has chi, but it takes
true discipline to focus it.  Long training and meditation can grant you
the ability to feel your chi and focus it, along with ways to act in
harmony with your inner nature and nature itself to increase your chi's
strength.  At the lower, more realistic levels, focused chi could provide
a momentary surge of strength, a sudden burst of speed, highly focused and
perceptive senses, great stamina and toughness, perfect balance, and so
forth.  Basically most things you'd see in a 'realistic' cinematic martial
arts movie.  At greater levels of power, chi could be used to perform a
lot of the more ridiculous stunts in, say, _Ranma 1/2_, with the ultimate
being the Shishihoukoudan and the Mouko Takabisha, which take your chi
and energy focusing around one emotion, make you focus on it exclusively,
and release it in a tangible blast of pure chi energy.  Other masters are
said to be able to disrupt a person's chi with a single touch, and cause
him to sicken and die.

A good reference for powers that's somewhat in the style of anime might be
the _Feng Shui_ role playing game, which was designed to emulate Hong Kong
action movies.  Just about every ability described in the 'Fu Schticks'
section can be considered a use of chi in one way or another.

2. Ki. I know little about Chi but Ki  know nothing of. I have seen it in a 
few fanfics.  Same basic questions arising. What is ki and how can characters 
gain the power to use it.

They're the same thing.  I believe Chi is the Chinese name for it and Ki
is the Japanese.

3. Special attacks in Ranma. I know enough about the characters in Ranma to 
try at a fic. I shouldn't have any problems with that, but I know a (drum roll 
please) total of 3 attacks from the Ranma-verse. Shadow Fog, Shishi Hakoadon, 
and Happo Fireburst (Yes I know I spelled them wrong.) Some Ranma crazed fan 
please update me. I need the name of some attacks, who uses it, and a short 
description of what it does.

A tall order. :-)  Try the Ranma 1/2 Universe web page at
http://iczer1.usacomputers.net/~ranma/ranma.html - there's sections on the
martial arts moves both in the FAQ and the What's What list. (I personally
found the FAQ to be more help, but both are handy.)  Just remember that,
some fanfics aside, the special moves really aren't used a lot in the
Ranma universe, especially not repeatedly.  You might see them as one of
the ultimate moves in a battle, but Ryouga doesn't toss of
Shishihoukoudans at the drop of a hat, for instance, and a few moves
require more setup than some people give them (the Hiryuu Shouten Ha is
often used poorly, for instance.)  Just something to keep in mind - you
could really write a good Ranma fic, even a combat intensive one, without
using the special attacks much or at all.

4. Crossover magical abilities. Say a hardened black belt in some form of the 
martial arts from our universe gets somehow sent somewhere where magic 
exists... Does this person suddenly gain great power because he is a skilled 
martial artist, or is he doomed to never have the joy of throwing fireballs?

Neither.  :-)  First off, if he's a skilled marital artist in our world,
there's a chance he might have minor abilities attributed to chi already,
which might become more prominent in a world like Ranma's but probably
nothing up to the level the main cast of Ranma 1/2 has.  In fact, I'd
guess that there are lots of 'hardened black belt' characters in the Ranma
universe that have no special abilites like the main cast - the heroes and
villains we see are, quite probably, the best martial artists in the
world, or at least numbered among them.  Even Kunou could probably trounce
your average city or regional kendo champion, and would probably have a
good but mostly one-sided fight against your average national champion.
It's just that he has the bad luck to be among the few people in the world
who are even better than he is.

On the other hand, just because your theoretical hardened black belt
wouldn't suddenly gain great powers doesn't mean he's doomed to
powerlessness.  If he goes through certain amounts of training, focusing,
meditation, etc., and if he's got good chi already, then there's every
chance he could learn to focus it in the cinematic ways that Ranma
universe martial artist seem to do quite a lot.  He'd require the proper
training, but there's folks around who could do that...  Cologne and
Happosai, definitely.  Maybe Dr. Tofu.  Theoretically even Soun and Genma,
maybe (though it'd probably be low quality training.)  I haven't seen much
evidence that anyone else in the series would make a good instructor in
any aspect of the martial arts, despite their great skill with it...

--
Scott Johnson |
zagyg@io.com  |          This space intentionally left blank.