Sword
Precision, spacing, the counter
Disciplined and measured. The sword wins by reading the other fighter and punishing cleanly, not by flurries or force.
- Mid-range control
- Counters
- Clean punishes
The Paths
Four ways to fight
A path is how you fight, what you value in a fight, and what you will always find hard. Every one of them is something a person could train for.
Body
The fist: pressure, stagger, staying power
Grounded and relentless. The body path is a heavy presence at close range that is very hard to move once it has arrived.
- Stagger
- Guard damage
- Durability
Blade
Mobility, burst, the fast punish
Quick, dangerous and opportunistic, and fragile when misplayed. Not a faster sword: more volatile, and weaker in a long, disciplined exchange.
- Fast chains
- Repositioning
- Burst
Polearm
Reach, control, owning the ground
Deliberate and imposing. The polearm teaches you to own space instead of reacting inside it, and makes a careless approach expensive.
- Longest reach
- Zone control
- Anti-approach
Beyond the path
A path is the start of a build, not all of it. Manuals decide what a fighter is allowed to learn, footwork decides how they move, techniques are put together by the player, and cultivation sets how far all of it can go.