Infinite Lotus (3.5e Martial Discipline)

Mathematics is a way of describing the world, and everything that is connected to it. Through the esoteric studies of infinities, numbers, counting, geometries and things even more unusual, the mind becomes focused, strong and able to see things from a perspective few others can share. Those who practice the discipline of Infinite Lotus see that within mathematics' many facets, just like in the petals of a lotus, lies a beautiful harmony, unifying mind, body and soul to produce amazing and powerful effects that few other martial artists can even conceive of, much less understand or use. While learning these things is difficult, for mathematics of the level required to use the maneuvers of the Infinite Lotus is beyond many, those who persevere gain the ability to reshape reality with ever-greater facility.

Students of the style spend many hours studying unusual and theoretical mathematical principles, becoming foremost scholars of arithmetic and its many principles. Their meditations, sometimes hours long, require them to contemplate the infinite, the eternal, and things that the mortal mind was not meant to visualise, while at the same time internalising and learning these things at an instinctual level. The unusual, rigid and almost-impossible katas of the Infinite Lotus are based on unusual geometrical or mathematical forms, and their training techniques resemble contortionism, academic practice and martial arts in equal forms. At all levels, unity between the disparate needs of the scholar and the warrior, theory and practice, and the self and the world are stressed, and great awareness of subtle mental and physical shifts and precision is granted. Those who survive this regimen, and have sufficient mental and physical strength and flexibility to complete it, find that the world now responds to their actions.

History of the Infinite Lotus

The Infinite Lotus, like all disciplines of the Sublime Way, have origins shrouded in mystery. While most of its disciples are not historically-minded, those who know a little of its ways claim that the modrons first taught it to a few select individuals as part of some great plan that only they could know. While the modrons never truly revealed why they revealed the Infinite Lotus, the individuals to whom they revealed it became mighty warrior-scholars, who took on many disciples and attempted to fully understand everything the modrons had placed within their minds. Although they never succeeded before their deaths, their disciples expanded on this knowledge, filling in the gaps and constructing the disciple as it is known today. They became known as the Infinite Lotus Disciples, and while all of them had slightly different interpretations of the teachings, as they were based on sound mathematical logic and principle, they different only in focus, not basic content.

After many centuries, Reshar, the great uniter of the Sublime Way, began to walk the earth in his bid to learn more than any other master had before him. Reshar was not a scholarly individual - he lived his life for battle and the improvement of his fighting techniques, and while he was far from illiterate, he placed little hope on, and had little interest in, esoteric forms of knowledge. Thus, when he heard stories of the legendary martial prowess of the Infinite Lotus Disciples, he sought them out to try and learn their ways. However, he found that their emphasis on mathematics, its learning and appreciation, and only then the use of martial arts, were not to his liking. He found it strange how anyone could call themselves a warrior and yet spend so much time amid books and in meditation on concepts which had little relation to life, no matter how amazing their martial arts happened to be. After a year of fruitless efforts, Reshar left in disgust, never incorporating the teachings of Infinite Lotus into his school.

When the Temple of the Nine Swords fell, and its students were scattered among the four winds, some found their way to the Infinite Lotus Disciples. While many saw their studies as being excessively focused on esoteric numbers and not enough on fighting, and left in disgust just like Reshar had, a small number of swordsages could see the greater picture of the discipline, and stayed. Applying themselves to its studies, they eventually mastered its complex principles, and gained great power in the martial arts as a result. They later, thanks to their experience with the Temple of the Nine Swords, found ways to teach their brother and sister initiators how to use this rather difficult discipline.

Infinite Lotus Maneuvers

 * To see the full, expanded description of every maneuver, click here.

Other Stuff
Infinite Lotus Disciple - allows martial adepts to get Autohypnosis as a class skill easily.

Perfect Lotus - a tactical feat based around use of this discipline.