Trope-a-Day: Waif-Fu

Waif-Fu: Some of the Empire’s Fantastic Fighting Styles (coming tomorrow) are like this – particularly those like, say, Silken Courtesan Style, which was intended for the courtier or courtesan required to fight when out of armor and with only opportunistic weapons (and which does include over 200 ways to inflict death and maiming through skillful use of a silk or paper fan, so…), but by no means all of them are.

(It is also somewhat subverted inasmuch as while there are a lot of eldrae who, apart from height, look the part, it’s not the quantity of muscle tissue that counts, so much as the quality.  They may be slender, but they are disproportionately strong – and if they happen to be ex-Legion with the various military-basic upgrades, that may be “ties knots in metal bars for practice” strong.)