Clogs and clog fighting martial art

[Kilmore]

I am shocked (shocked!) to not have found wooden clogs in any GURPS book in my admittedly not exhaustive collection. Doing a little digging around, I found out that functionally there are two styles, ones with wooden soles and heavy leather tops, and ones of wood throughout. They served as effective safety shoes before steel-toed shoes showed up, often used by farmers, ranchers, and miners. And apparently they were also used to kick people to death in Northern England in martial bouts. This is the application I am interested in for my Fantasy-Martial Arts campaign. So tomorrow after I've gotten some sleep I'm gonna try to work something out for this. In the meantime, I'm open to any thoughts.

[tbone]

You mean like Dutch wooden shoes? I suppose the base effect would be the same as heavy boots: +1 damage (and some effective DR).

In more of a DF setting, I'd note that they're very vulnerable to dire termites. (Any termites, actually.) And the wearer takes -1 Move; solid wood means you just lumber around. On the plus side, the shoes are signature wear for practitioners of Hague Ki Do, and confer +1 on windmill kicks.

[Dalillama]

Looking into it a bit, it appears to more a violent sport than a martial art per se, being principally concerned with kicking each other in the shins until someone quit or bled (often while sitting on the rim of a barrel to stop anyone moving away). There's only one instance I can find mention of qhere anyone was killed, and I'm forced to presume it was by kicking him in the head after he fell or some such.

Take Brawling, buy up Kicking and TA:Legs. Maybe Clinch too, to lay hold of someone and kick their legs more.

[johndallman]

There's considerable material on clogs in a violent form of country dancing in the comic strip The Cloggies: an everyday saga in the life of clog dancing folk, by Bill Tidy. It's no longer running, but collected volumes are available used on Amazon.co.uk.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by tbone

You mean like Dutch wooden shoes? I suppose the base effect would be the same as heavy boots: +1 damage (and some effective DR).

In more of a DF setting, I'd note that they're very vulnerable to dire termites. (Any termites, actually.) And the wearer takes -1 Move; solid wood means you just lumber around. On the plus side, the shoes are signature wear for practitioners of Hague Ki Do, and confer +1 on windmill kicks.

And the medieval kind with a hinged wooden sole held on by straps and ties ("pattens") just turn soft, one-layer medieval shoes into something more like modern shoes. They keep your feet out of the mud and **** and off any sharp stones or broken pots. A friend has gone jogging in his. So the usual rules for heavy boots should be a good place to start.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by tbone

solid wood means you just lumber around. On the plus side, the shoes are signature wear for practitioners of Hague Ki Do, and confer +1 on windmill kicks.

*Groan*. Seriously?

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

*Groan*. Seriously?

What? No Bold-text love for "windmill kicks"?

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by tbone

What? No Bold-text love for "windmill kicks"?

I was stunned by the Hague Ki Do.

[Ultraviolet]

Originally Posted by tbone

<snip> On the plus side, the shoes are signature wear for practitioners of Hague Ki Do, and confer +1 on windmill kicks.

Well I'll be Rotterdam'ned - I never heard of that! ;)
Maybe they also reduce the penalties for kicking someone in the tulips?

[Lord Azagthoth]

Jacky Chan had a nice wooden shoe fight in Rotterdam in his movie "Who am I". He also use kicking, punching (with smaller wooden shoes oin his hands) and letting those shoes fly.