What would be the western equivalent of Chi or whatever the eqivolent would be...

Grace, I would assume, but there's no inherent power or divinity from the human form as in Eastern culture.

Vril, Odic Force, Od, maybe Prana.

Aura

Well yeah, for what it's worth that what it is but I want to move away from the D&D conception of magic where it's caused autist to believe that "non-magical" persons doing superhuman things are weeabo and how a fighter mastering the art of fighting is somehow conceptually different from a monk.

That and the name just needs to roll off the tounge. Trying to imagine a spanish like dude showing his students how to channel their inner energy to stab people with a rapier multiple times in a second after he puts down his goblet of wine and scoffing at how these welps have never truly risked their lives for their honor.

Or a vetern warrior showing his son how to think on the samon jumping up stream and leap up the giant rock.

Humours, duh. An imbalance of humours was often blamed for disease, but it wasn't always a negative diagnosis. It's not a far stretch to imagine a fantasy world where humors work in tandem to create fantastic effects.

It would require careful manipulation of bodily fluids and the ingestion of toxic metals, but the end result would be something very much like a wizard or a superhuman warrior. They would be toxic to be around of course. Their very presence would be destabilizing to the humours of those around them.

Pretty sure the closest you're going to get is magic.

As far as I know the West pretty early on has a dramatic split on metaphysics with the dominant cultural narrative being influenced by Platonism, which is proto-scientific. Every "energy" or mystical substance, no matter how esoteric, has a physical, measurable, and rational quality. Basically Alchemy and Aether. Otherwise you get a grab bag of pre-christian, pre-greek superstitions that already falls under "magic".

I once had a history teacher that claimed the witchcraft became a thing of worry because the church was so influenced by Aristotelian logic. Inquistors go into town looking for heretical behavior but can only find the old equivalent of local psychics. When the church men trying to understand "magic" scientifically (for the current era) they come to the conclusion since no detectable physical force or known substance could cause an object to fly across the room, for example, the only known force the that could explain it is Satan - which we all know does totally exists, has power over the earth, and is often invisible. Therefore witches are making pacts with the devil. Logic.

That could work. Magic users would mostly be the types to make potions and other sorts of alchemical concotions and you have parallels to Taoist alchemy as well

"Here, drink this special medicine and focus on your prayers and meditation otherwise the medicine will cause your humors to go too out of balance and you'll die."

And you can have the training aspect so beloved by these aura building animes. Humours require upkeep - a phlegmetic can't stay sanguine without work.

Take it even further with Aristotlian elements and you can make an even more interesting combination, since humours were balanced against each other based on moisture and heat.

Biofeedback

>I want to move away from the D&D conception of magic where it's caused autist to believe that "non-magical" persons doing superhuman things are weeabo
Supernatural abilities in 3.5 depend on the weave, and are subject to the effects of anti-magic fields, or dead zones, making monks just as magical as anybody else.

Think about the source of magic in your setting. Shadowrun has the physical adept, which is basically what you're talking about. They derive their power from the same place as mages and shamans.

Astral/etheric energy, the vital spark, you could call it just about anything.

I'm looking into the classical elements now but it looks perfect as a western style foil for asian mysticism and things like Chakra.

The big part of it is to allow for several abilities that, while universal, can be interpreted in different cultural context. This idea came from seeing a pic that showed western sword techniques side by side with japanese swordsmenship to show how essentially similar they are and got me to thinking how say a fast movement skill wouldn't be different whether you were a ninja or some acrobatic knife flinging slav.

But then you have the problem of perception which some people think knights who train their bodies to shrug off blows even unarmored would trigger their westabo sensibilities.

Spirit.

Which also happens to be the stuff that might coherently hang about after death.

Maybe instead of catering to anti-weebs, bending over backward to come up with a convoluted explanation for characters doing monk things, you, I don't know, tell them to get fucked.

There was never a wall between east and west.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism

One day I dream of creating a ruleset that replicates the Nen power system. Too bad I'm a lazy fuck though.

Blood of magical creatures.

No, seriously. The berserk were thought to have trollish blood, which was why no weapons told on them and no fired burned them.

It was really just the drugs, though.

According to this internet comment though apparently Tolkien felt there was a common pre-Christian aboriginal European mysticism encoded in works like Beowulf that he called Fairy stories. The "perilous realm".
reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4umc7c/i_remember_once_being_told_tolkien_believed_that/d5r78f8

Indeed Beowulf or Cu Chulainn seem to be really damn strong, though I don't know how. Or you could have powers of Fey or the Fey realm, I guess.

>I propose, therefore ... to use Fantasy for this purpose: in a sense, that is, which combines with its
older and higher use as an equivalent of Imagination the derived notions of “unreality” (that is,
of unlikeness to the Primary World), of freedom from the domination of observed “fact,” in short
of the fantastic.

>If you are present at a Faërian drama you yourself are, or think that you are, bodily inside
its Secondary World. The experience may be very similar to Dreaming and has (it would seem)
sometimes (by men) been confounded with it. But in Faërian drama you are in a dream that some
other mind is weaving, and the knowledge of that alarming fact may slip from your grasp. To
experience directly a Secondary World: the potion is too strong, and you give to it Primary
Belief, however marvellous the events. You are deluded— whether that is the intention of the
elves (always or at any time) is another question. They at any rate are not themselves deluded.
This is for them a form of Art, and distinct from Wizardry or Magic, properly so called.
The Primary World, Reality, of elves and men is the same, if differently valued and perceived.

Anyone play Dragon Pass where they cast spells by acting out legends to enter the realm of the gods and gain powers from there? Maybe you could have people that phase into a secondary fey realm of purer creation to temporarily surpass reality and become fantastic.

Aura, OP. call it Aura instead

To elaborate on this: Levels. The western equivalent is already present in the form of levels.

In western mythos, the more badass, cunning, daring, etc. you were (provided you pulled it off) the more badass you in turn became. You leveled up. This might sound like just the standard "you become more experienced at xyz" but it's not. You see, these ancient heroes also became stronger, tougher, and so forth. Like Beowulf, because he is the baddest dude around, is also the STRONGEST dude, who can choke out monsters with his bare hands.

For other examples, you can also look at norse and icelandic sagas and see how the dudes start with a great bloodline to begin their badass, but then they go off and have adventures... when they eventually come back, they can now lay ten swordblows in the space of a breath and lift oxen. Because they got badass going a-viking.

I call it Salt, Vinegar, or Animus.

Nah, eastern mysticisms makes a distinction between using "conciousness" and using "Qi".
Qi is generally nature-y. Monks us it, but you can vaguely think of it as "druidish".
Qi also generally has the connotation of air or heat, thoughit subdivides in to all sorts of crap (Sword Qi, Blood Qi, et al.)

Fighting spirit!

Inner power.

Mana is something western that means the same thing. That or life force, energy auras, or some sort of mental power that the user exerts onto the surroundings around them.
>very very japanese
>Burning Heart Shounen Nonsense
nigga that's not japanese at all. Willpower is something that exists in folktales and legends throughout the world. Also, you sound like an autist.

I forget the name of the movie but it was a kung fu movie of a guy who was trained from birth to use iron body kungu and explained he had a special, controlled diet along with special medicines and intense physical training.

You could have something like that to distinguish joe farmer who ,over the course of his life is fuck strong from lifting hay bails and cows over his head from warrior nobility trained from birth to be great fighters.

Areeeeeeeete?

>Western Shounen series about Greek philosophers

Funk.

I legitimately keep meaning to sit down and figure out the angle to approach building a P-funk game around, are the PCs just working for Dr Funkenstein to heal mother earth and defeat Sir Nose D'Void of Funk? Or is there something less saturday morning cartoon to come at it from? And at what point does that become an all Cult of Ectasy game of Mage the Ascension?

Kia?

INDIVIDUATION, AS DESCRIBED BY JUNG

Vitae? Spirit? Will?

This just tell them if they don't like it they can fuck off their negativity would just bring down the game anyway

More on topic I would just call it magic and be done with it
If I were you OP I would check out this manwa called Dark Mage it has a fantasy world with monsters and dragons and wizards but also warriors that use magic like Qi/Chi/Ki to enhance and augment their abilities
The main character is a martial artist from ancient Korea that this fantasy kingdom brings over to save their world because he does physical magic better than anyone

I think will pretty much does it. That's the route Fable went and I don't think you can find much better.

These guys get it.

You probably want to ask /x/, user.

That was a really common belief between the romantic period and the 1960s or so, actually.

>Mana is something western
Are you retarded?

Probably humors or some shit.

Breath.

Swag.

where does it come from then, pray tell.

New Zealand. It's a loan word from Maori.
The original meaning is somewhere between charisma and aplomb.

Well, it technically goes back as far as Proto-Polynesian, but that general area.

>charisma
>aplomb
>mastery of mana is just standing up straight and speaking clearly
Explains much.

Memes.

That and eating the hearts of your enemy and honoring your ancestors

This

Balls

Elan Vital.

>setting has a unified energy source
Well there ya go OP
If the power source is the same then the only thing you need to do is say that when people discovered they could shoot fireballs they found out they could give themselves super strength
No reason at all to segregate the disciplines

Faith in God.

There are claims I've heard that western alchemy is all metaphors for internal changes, rather than external chemical reaction. I have no idea if there's validity to that, or if there's a good source to read about it.
Maybe look up Rosicrucianism - that's kinda the direction we're talking about here, secret masters with great powers gained through wisdom.

Gnosis

Logos

Mythos

Volens

Murphy's law

humors

Energico

Style, Heart, Face, Mojo.

Groove. The Zone.

Cool.

It isn't technique. It isn't years of meditation and asceticism. It isn't one one explosive moment of enlightenment. You're just that good.

You're just that good. You've always been that good, or you never will be. Or at least you're a good enough bullshit artist that you can convince the universe itself you've always been that good.

These guys get it.

Odic force. It's almost exactly a Western version of Qi. Check it out:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odic_force

The term is Polynesian, but the concept as used in contemporary Fantasy comes from Niven.

PERFECT

Not REALLY relevant to your post, but if you havent already you should look into Joints & Jivers.

Maybe don't make a unified name, make every discipline, hell even people within the same discipline just different schools of thought call it a different name. Priest types have mana, some warriors call it resolve, others focus, still others call it rage. If you want a unified name for the energy as a reference point for rules, call it energy or magic, no need to overcomplicate the terminology in the rules.

>There are claims I've heard that western alchemy is all metaphors for internal changes, rather than external chemical reaction.
I've heard of that too, the "Ultimate work" of the alchemist was to refine himself into a perfect being

Uuuuuh, the four humors maybe?

Mana is a Polynesian/Pacific Island concept, it's not western at all.

Orgon or vril-energy

Arete, seconded.

Well, have you considered where "charisma" comes from?

Heil.

Why do you think people hailed each other in ancient times? you give some of your heil to the other person.

(Hitler absorbed SO much of it)

Check out Neidan it's Chinese internal alchemy

Force of will and Faith for post-christian.
As above+godspawn for pre-christian.

See El Cid legend for the first or any roman legend for the later.

Force of will or faith for post-christianity stories.
Godspawn or as above for pre-christianity stories.

See El cid legend for the first one (via unwavering faith he pulls extreme bullshit) and most if not all roman and nordic stories for the second one where most big-ass heroes are somekind of godspawn.

Why was my first post deleted? Mod angry I didn't mention nordics?

As an individualist society, we aren't compelled to deify a strong individual because that's just the expectation of everyone.

Folk
In Finnish mythlogy everything has its own "Folk"
Fire folk, water folk, forest folk. This includes the element itself, the gods related to it and monsters, a torch has firefolk in it and when you put the torch in water the waterfolk kill the firefolk.
even people have their own folk. The spirit is made from 3 parts: Self, Breath and spirit/folk/nature/luck
breath is your body, its warmth that leaves after dying
Self is your "shadow". its you
and the third thing is your guardian angel, your spirit animal that protects you and gives you luck. More powerful this third part is, you're more lucky and strong. The strength of your spells is dependant on its strength and it can be made stronger by rituals and spells

Life force, essence, vitality.

Quintessence would be the Greek term.

Newtonian physics.

Wait.

I thought it was eating your ancestors and honoring the hearts of you enemies?

>HxH
Mein neger

In absolute seriousness OP, Od/Odic Force/Orgone are the major Western equivalents.
One of the major differences between the Western "vital energy" stuff is that for China they developed the "science" of Qi much, much earlier since it was part of popular Daoist philosophy of health and life, so they had this whole system of meridians and blood flow and energy and energy imbalances and shit way earlier then people in Europe did.

Meanwhile in Europe while "fifth element" type things were nothing new, the idea that somehow it was linked to the body's vital energies wasn't really common or popular until the 19th century, WELL after Daoist theory became popular in China, and unlike Daoist stuff it got disproven as quackery pretty quickly because it was dreampt up pretty much right when the scientific method was becoming more and more reliable.

Mind you OP, in almost all of these philosophies there's literally nothing "external" about your bodily energy; it's usually supposed to be able to affect outside stuff but it comes from YOU, not the environment or "ambient energy" or whatever.

>Mana
Polynesian.
>Magic.
Result, not method.
Accurate anyways though.
>Burning Heart Shounen Nonsense
It's actually a extension of "Yamato-nadashii" as a point of fact; the philosophical concept that Japanese people will just randomly get better then other people through sheer spirit and willpower even when they aren't because they are Japanese and they're special. It's such an old concept (like, 18th century old) that you see it reflected in a lot of their fiction the same way you see old outdated stuff reflected in ours as well.
Grace is divine, Qi is not.
Qi was/is supposed to be sort of a process of biological life, more or less, and they actually draw strong differences between "divine" stuff and Qi.

THE RIPPLE!

Will.

I don't know what to tell you except that it just doesn't exist. Chi is a uniquely Eastern form of quackery. The west has different kinds of quackery like the four humours.

>Vril
Not a "real-life" equivalent that was seriously believed because a popular novelist made it up. Vril was weird too. It was a fluid or something, but it also was some kinda electromagnetic force too. And you needed a special staff to control or something.
>Prana
Indian, not Western.
Hamon wasn't a type of power, it was a method of "channeling" a type of power, mainly the sun itself.
Like, it was basically special breathing like Qi is supposed to be and doing crunches only you're doing it with the power of the fuckin' sun.

Man, Finnish shit is always the fucking coolest.

>Japanese people will just randomly get better then other people through sheer spirit and willpower even when they aren't because they are Japanese and they're special

That's kinda....super racist.

What do you expect from snow mongol elves?

And also a thing that happens in a lot of cultures!

Y'know, the white man's burden, American exceptionalism, all that shit? Every culture on earth thinks that they're the superior culture.

The 18th and 19th centuries were kind of an entire time period for hopeful messages about human potential that were frequently quite racist at the core that nonetheless stuck around in fiction pretty much forever simply due to cultural resonance.
Nobody in Japan actually believes in Yamato-nadashii anymore (as evidenced by their shattered economy and spiraling suicide rate), but elements of the concept still show up the same way elements of Manifest Destiny often show up in American works in different ways, like how it's always mankind's "destiny" to travel to and claim the stars even though there's nothing true about that at all and weather we do or not is dependent upon a number of practical factors that have nothing to do with "Destiny".

It's indeed true.
EVERY culture has some kinda special philosophy about how they're the most special and unique people around.
Exceptionalism is so common in the world as a philosophy that groups that specifically believe they are UNexceptional are actually almost absurdly rare.

Obvious and well-known example: the Jews are God's Chosen People. Or, well, the ancient Isrealites. Dunno if they still have that lore, but it wouldn't surprise me given that it's a religious thing and those stick around.