Thinking Beyond Samurai: the Ryukyuan Paladin

An old theme on the blog is doing different things with Japanese or pseudo-Japanese settings: getting away from samurai and ninja and all that. 

Here's a continuation of a previous post from earlier this year. Have a look at this conditioning video. Uechi-ryu is one of the traditional Okinawan karate styles, and arguably is one of the "purest" in lineage to the Chinese Southern kung-fu origins of modern karate. All the Okinawan schools practice conditioning of the hands and forearms to make them extremely tough and strong. 

It gave me an idea for a character concept: the Ryukyuan paladin. This is a holy warrior who is specialised in defeating the undead: he conditions his fists until they are harder than stone, allowing him to smash the skeletal and brittle bodies of the evil dead with the sheer force of his punches. He would use the scaling damage of the monk, but when fighting against undead enemies would do maximum damage with each hit - ignoring requirements to  In return, he sacrifices the ability to cast spells and heal with his hands.