How do you do a non-chinky monk? All I can think of is a Hercules like wrestler or a street thug-like brawler

How do you do a non-chinky monk? All I can think of is a Hercules like wrestler or a street thug-like brawler.

A savater from not fantasy france

use current high level martial artists for reference

What is a monk? A creature that draws strength from mental clarity and physical training, striving for some kind of perfection which can take many forms.

Whether it be the mastery over their own body, their spirituality, their knowledge, their understanding of reality or perhaps they are simply driven to complete a certain goal with all their will bent upon it.

Purpose user. It drives us.

This

Who's your favorite street fighter character

There you go

At low levels, a cowboy.

>Fantasy Setting.
Lots of people have reasons to fight, but for a Monk you're looking at exotic weapons or open-handed methods; this means you've got a lack of access to viable weapons and armor. King has lots of gun/sword/spear control laws and confiscates weapons on sight? Your NPC with PC levels monk population is going to rise pretty fast.

In a Hellenic setting, Hercules works out fine, or any other legendary warrior for the most part could benefit if they're not using armor much. Gladiators likewise, especially the ones that go bare to show off and be audacious.

Warrior/Assassins for Arabian Nights type settings. The elite of a given Siik or secretive order of some unknown purpose.

Innuit aescetic who learns from the bears and wolves that wander the arctic wilderness, wrestling and battering those that haven't realized that the humans have learned, emulated, and improved to a preternatural level of predatory potential. If you can make it worth their while, they may seek your prey for you with the same skills. They eschew armor in favor of warmer clothes.

You can basically switch out the climate, society, and animals and get this in equatorial zone rip-offs as well; too hot for armor, hell with that, just pay attention, avoid claws, grab tails and punch lions/gators.

In higher fantasy settings, they're practitioners of ancient arts, passed along generations, divine patterns of motion meant not simply to cultivate a philosophy, but to endow over time a mimicry of divinity itself.

They are sought out carefully for their relations, little bits of divine blood from the days when angels and demons walked the world.

They're one of the strangest demolition crews you've ever come across; the art of breaking and disassembly without any tools to reduce costs of equipment in favor of long-standing traditions and dual-service; no need to worry about people being upset with your comissions if the demolition crew can demolish opposition too.

Luchadores really never get old if you commit them to a single cause or idea.

Firey, up front, and willing to sacrifice practicality for style: best way to martial really

I treat monk as a different sort of knight, typically. Theres a lot of flavour overlap.

Well, several martial arts have evolved into sports, with rules and stuff. And from there, they have created some sort of celebrities, which can become a different archetype of the weaboo monk. The most blatant example could be pic related.

Now, that doesn't mean all the non-asiatic monks have to be boxers. There's a load of sports with roots on combat, from different cultures across the world, so just do some research. Some quick examples:

- Turk: oil wrestling.
- Brazil: capoeira (this could be fun, a hue hue pot smoking monk)
- France: savate
- Samoa: lima lama

You could try doing a luchadore.

Any bare-knuckles boxer, really.

Martial Arts weapons are stereotypicaly peasant's weapons- staves, the heads of pitchforks (sais), or commoner weapons like spears.

So you could be a peasant. I know D&D 5e has a "folk hero" background that would work. You could start off as the squire (read: packmule) to the party's paladin, or you could be some gifted upstart that has a reason to be considered the equal of a noble for some reason.

In our D&D campaign we're running Curse of Strahd in MtG's Innistrad and the DM is allowing monks. The logic is that the Church of Avacyn has holy warriors of all kinds, and people called monks, and then just hand waved and said they'd be treated the same as any other warrior monastery in the setting. I think that fits most fantasy settings, to be honest.

Friar Tuck is coming to get you.

Delete the monk class from existence, make a martial artist class instead.

pick whichever class lets you dual-weapon fight with a high dex in your edition of choice, then choose the fist weapon of your choice. Bonus points if the DM doesn't hose you with fist weapons and lets you choose something that will go with your class features well.

Zangief

Something like that should never be locked behind a class.

A very long time ago, close to 40 years now, when my gaming group was first exposed to the monk as a class, none of us had any idea about chinky monks, at all. So we automatically clung to the word "monk" itself and from that moment on, all monks in every campaign since were of the "Friar Tuck" variety, statistically they were as written, but they weren't oriental in any way, they wore brown robes and looked and otherwise acted like Franciscan or Cistercian monks...the martial arts aspect is what made it fantasy. Most are suggesting to make the monk simply a martial artist, I'm suggesting the opposite...start with a monk, a Western monk...who trains and fights really well.

This.

Seriously m8?

This is amazing

Fatass Friar Tuck readin books and kickin ass

By going the other flavor of chinky, instead of pasty weeb go full manly Elder Scrolls.

This. I've seen players take levels in cleric as well for that extra bit of holy oomph.

Ubermensch.

Shit, now I'm wondering if Maya qualifies as a Monk. She's got most of the hallmarks of one.
Reach Heaven through Violence

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Thomas Covenant bloodguard.

I came here to post this

Pankration mofo