Fighting Styles [Concept][Worldbuilding][Semi-Cannon]

So, I was wondering about the fighting styles of each region.
Not sure about their past history (someone is already writing that), but from what I can infer the regions have fought before.
So, as a logical person each region needs to have a defining fighting style.

Ihu
This was the easiest to imagine, thanks to some concept art for the animated series. Inspired by Kopaka.
Ihu is an Ice based region, where the most predominant environment is a tundra of snow, or a cliff. As such, they do not require much flexibility in fighting. Their combat style is organized and calculated. In the plains where an inch given can corner you onto an icy cliff. They do not have to take much into consideration as such they tend to fight in an organized and coordinated manner.
Their most common martial art is Kokoro. Which specializes in the use of spears and shields. Like Spartans, your shield covers you and part of your ally. Spears are the hands of all. Allowing you and you allies behind to stand and attack the enemy.
when the fight devolves into a melee, they take our small swords. while their allies behind still use spears. They fight somewhat like the elves in the battle of Helm’s Deep. Except they use shields, while attempting to mow their enemies with their swords.

In one-to-one combat, they use a combination of either sword shield or spear shield. Giving them certain flexibility in attack or defense. The most advanced learn to mix their elemental control of Ice into their style. Either throwing icicles between attack to cover for the spear’s gaps in attack; to distract their enemy; or to make them slip slightly changing the battlefield by adding slippery Ice under their opponent.

Their mode of fighting is mostly defensive, with decisive and calculated attacks thrown when their enemy makes a mistake or lowers their guards.

Mangai
This one was the second easiest, as the other militarized region.
Mangai is a region covered by a volcano. Their fights sometimes help in ever changing terrain. Where Ihu has a rigid and solid structure, Mangaians group fights are just a group of people fighting together. Ussually not organized, they prefer to charge into battle, as many warrior require little to no motivation to charge in.
They place emphasis on personal strength. As such, their individual martial arts are highly developed. Their group coordination might be terrible but they make up to with with their unusually high individual fighting prowess. Combined with the high quality of their weapons and armor each individual Mangaian is a force to be reckoned with.
Their one-to-one combat style, revolves around attacking the enemy and forcing an opening as opposed to waiting for one. The more advanced can combine their fire attributes to heat their weapons, allowing them to cut thru other metals, as well as distract their opponent when they find their armor burning them. They also use small burst of flames to distract their opponent, as well as other flammable material in the area, to create smoke cover. Like the lava, they follow the flow of the fight, clashing head on with the enemy and flowing into their gaps.

Kanae
They do not like close combat confrontation. As a region made of floating islands, battles tend to be long distance or in the air.
As such they tend to prefer the bow and arrow. However, not all their fights have been between themselves. In a confrontation against ground based armies, they employ long distance harassment, to whittle down their enemies. While a special shock troop is used to break any possible defensive formation. Imagine the eagles in the Hobbit final battle. Yeah, that is basically it. Riding in Rahi, they plow through enemy formation. while another group showers them with arrows from a distance. If the situation is dire, they even employ a group elites, whose job is to fall in the middle of the enemy, kill as many as possible before being pulled out by a rope connected. Think, the blue soldiers in the movie “The great Wall”.
To such ends the prefer the use of spears, which give them reach, or axes which give their blows more weight.
Hardened warriors use their elemental powers to slightly change the course of weapons allowing them to more easily deflect them or parry the attacks. Also, wind in the eyes is a commonly used method, to temporarily blind their opponents. Some are seen compressing the air behind their backs, before releasing the pressure, catapulting them into a terrifying charge.

Motara
Vast desert and rocky area. The people in Motara are by large either merchants or raiders. Due to the prevalence of both professions, the escort buisness has reached an all time high. Fighting styles in Motara are as varied and unique as personalities. However, there exist three generalized classifications: the Doble Filo style, the Coraza style, and the Marcial style.

Doble Filo style
It characterized for its aggressiveness and unusual movements. This style is commonly found on raider groups and self taught mercenaries. Weapons vary from chained-scythes, blunderbuss to normal swords an spears. This is one of the harder to classify as most of them are self taught and have little to nothing in common. It is literally, anything goes. As such using elemental powers to throw sand on the face of the opponent as well as other distraction tactic are common.

Coraza style
Learned and taught by mercenaries who specialize in escorting and protecting cargo. Most of them require a shield. The basic idea is simple, protect yourself the hit the opponent so hard they will be unable to fight. Specializing in defense while moving, the difficulty of this style is in getting your timing right as to leave no openings, from possible enemy elemental attacks or well timed strikes. Sometimes, you can see escorts covering their shields in mud. This way they can reinforce their shields with their elemental powers.

Marcial style
This is an old style, back when Motara was at war. Generally used by ex-military as well as current soldiers, you can find this style on anyone ranging from mercenaries, to bounty hunters. The style leaves no quarter, and gives the impression that the practitioner is unmovable. Well timed counter attacks mixed with parry, the style tends to hurt the opponent while they smash themselves against an impenetrable defense. Requiring high elemental affinity, it is not a style anyone can practice. The peak experts of the style are know to cover certain parts of their body with stone. Weapons are not required, as usually the body alone carries enough momentum to make is blunt weapon. However due to its high elemental demand, some carry other auxiliary blunt beapons such as war-hammers, flails and maces. Usually the weapons are made of extremely hard stone, capable of bending iron, while some rare cases one can see them made of lumisite crystals. Due to practicing with a stone frame, most users of the style develop strong muscles, specially in the legs.

Tiro
Know for its forest and knowledge hungry inhabitants Tiro is mainly a peaceful region.
However few still remember and practice the old martial style of the war times. Characterized by its strategic use of terrain, Tiro martial style, prioritizes strategy in large scale fights and intelligence in one-to-one combat. There are little qualms about the weapons of choice, as generally they are tools to enforce a greater plan. However, those who study fighting generally focus on two types of weapons, War-hammers and Claws. For those living in a forest, fighting is generally done in a confined space, as such you either use claws to move around the trees and walls in an easier way, or you use the War-Hammer, to know away any obstacle in your way.
Masters in Tiro are those who are at the peak of knowledge in a specific field. Those who become proficient enough on a weapon, are called Master warriors. Master warriors who use claws, can be terrifying coming and going quickly while leaving a trail of dead bodies. They tend to use the vegetation to snare and hide. Usually coming out of unexpected angles, they kill and leave you wondering, how did he fit there? Master warrior on the War-Hammer tend to have bulkier builds. As they are required to be able to topple trees with a single swing. Not much can stand on the way of a Master War-hammer user. Mowing down enemies left and right. Back in the warring times, The Onoku formation caused despair. Usually consisting of a couple of War-Hammer users mixed with a group of claw users, left trails of bodies. Enemies only had the opportunity to be ambushed by a group of claw users while the survivors got mowed down by the hammer wielders.

Naho
Always living near the sea. Naho tends to spend most of their lives on the ocean. As such their fighting style prioritizes balance over anything else. Usually seen as a dance, the fights are a group of coordinated movements that are hard to predict. Think dancer of the Boreal Valley, except less animalistic, with the hard to predict tempo. You are not entirely sure when or where the attack is going to hit. The style is also know for its accuracy, and it is used mainly to aim at the gaps in defense. Hard to hit, hitting hard.
Due to its complex movements and intrinsic need for agility, the fighters are known to use strange but lightweight weapons. Making it even harder to predict. Most notable uses are tridents, hooks, chained scythes, custom staffs, daggers, as well as some hidden weapons such as hidden crossbows, and throwing daggers. Specially good users, will be able to mix water manipulation, distracting the enemy, or infusing it on the weapon, making it hard to distinguish the dangerous bits. Some go as far as using it to manipulate the flexible parts of the weapon allowing for unnatural movements. The most advanced are capable of creating flow, crating a trail of blurry images that further confuse the opponent.

Hope you liked it, but I specially hope it inspired you. Maybe someone more knowledgeable will be able to create the exact moves? Not sure. Any way, back to hiatus.

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I would imagine Naho would have some kind of dance-like fighting style, and then Tiro would focus on appearing like your resting, but really you calculating for the best time to strike. I would imagine Matora to have fighting that is just brawling or whatever you do to survive

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Kind of right, in fact you helped me with some styles. I think you can tell.

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Ok so I’m only gonna focus on the Mangai for this because, I personally think that your description of their fighting styles isn’t that well thought out, mainly because of these two contradicting ideas:

I personally don’t think that if the Mangai have a powerful military that they would be uncoordinated. For instance, at the lowest end of the team working scale, the military leaders could at least sort their warriors into groups with similar skills (archers, spearmen, and those would use a good old fashioned sword). In this way their is still some organisation but it’s very loose.

Whilst strength is a fitting attribute and as well as charging a common tactic, I feel like they would need some teamwork or their personal strength is kind of irrelevant. Battles are not won without teamwork even if it’s something as little of shouting “I’ll hit the big on first, then you hit him next”.

I will acknowledge that the idea of forcing openings in the enemy combatants to strike at them is definitely a fitting strategy, as is focusing on weakpoints of the enemy. This style seems most easily summed up in the statement: “Find the weak spot or make it”.

TL;DR

This is just personal opinion, I think they should be coordinated in some way at the least

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I think Tiro should also incorporate wrestling-style combat into its fighting style, combining strength and strategy to gain leverage over the opponent and subdue them as quickly as possible.

I agree. the issue is mainly from a lack of vocabulary and no easy way of writing it down. What you say make sense, at then end it does sound contradictory to a certain extend. I have to apologize for limitations. The idea I had for the Mangai military was based on Celtic military organization. Not organized in the traditional sense of rank or a chain of command, but more in the sense of people grouping up using things like status and groups. Either like a bunch of adventurer groups in fantasy or like the Celts in real history. Except these guys have easy access to Iron and maybe even steel and are as courageous.

Funny you should mention this. The idea I had for their fighting style was similar to the Jeskai Monks in Magic: The Gathering. Controlled, calculated, studied, but at the same time, instinctual and savage. Much similar to some movies like the Journey to the West, where you have animals fighting with martial arts. If you know One punch man, think of S-class hero Watchdog man and Bang. The style is studied, calculated and practiced, but the timing and the feel of the moves are more unpredictable, and animalistic.

I did forget to add, people in Tiro are focused on studying. So their fighting style is as varied as that in the Motara region. I just listed the most popular. I have to say though, Claw fighting was going to be bare-handed fighting. However wanted to pay an homage o G1 Onua. So I picked claws instead of bare hand and that changed how they fought.

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This might be a weird thing to put, but Lerahk’s combat style ever since I saw his design I’ve always imagined as being similar to that moment in Metal Gear Solid 4 where Raiden effectively vaults continuously using his sword.

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You mean this scene?

If it this scene, it is pretty much like that for me too.

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Yep, that’s the one.