Points of Honor
From BelegarthWiki
A Point of honor is where when engaged in battle with an opponent you match limb loss damage to your opponent to share their disadvantage.
Contents |
Examples
- Fighter A Comes upon fighter B, who is portraying a missing leg. Fighter A drops down to a knee, sharing the injury with his or her opponent.
- Fighter A Comes upon fighter B, who is portraying a slashed arm. Fighter A drops one weapon or shield and engages fighter B with one arm.
ALSO
- Fighter A legs fighter B. Fighter A backs up from fighter B, strikes his or her own leg and drops, mimicking fighter B.
Issues
Damage or Pretend Pretend Damage
Some fighters will portray a point of honor instead of injuring themselves or simply pretend to be injured and then if they defeat their opponent they magically get the limb back. This is against the letter of the rules since fighters can not pretend to be injured or dead (see Book of War rules). However, some people don't believe it violates the spirit of the rules.
When it comes to arms this is not necessarily an issue since arms don't have to be behind the back to gain the disadvantage. This however does bring up the issue of the limbed opponent who only has one arm while the fighter portraying the point of honor has both arms and can still sacrifice an arm, and perform a magic switch, which in some peoples opinion is not truly portraying a point of honor.
With legs this is an issue because you may not pretend to be legged according to the rules of the sport. However, it is often obvious that a fighter was never hit in the leg, and it is done so openly that people understand the tradition.
Disrespect
There are fighters out there who, when confronted with someone who takes points of honor, feel disrespected. The reason this is perceived as disrespectful is because they feel as if the person who arms or legs themself believes that they are superior. If people are legged and honorable fighters approach then identically leg themselves, they are sending the message, "The only chance you have at beating me is to lower myself to your level." Many fighters would rather die outmatched, than win because their opponent was not fighting to the best of their abilities.
Injuring yourself
Sometimes injuring yourself in the course of a large field battle doesn't make sense, because of this most fighters will not take points of honor durring a field battle.
Also it brings up the question can fighters injure themselves?
Reasoning
Fair Fight
Some fighter give opponents points of honor because the believe it to be honorable. Some fighters take their own leg because they believe the rules of the sport are broken and that legged opponents have an advantage over a standing opponent tactically.
Respect
Other fighters give points of Honor as a form of respect to other fighters that they admire or share peearage/title with.
Improvement
Some fighters believe that sharing a point of honor will help them improve in fighter skill. The idea is you use it in practice and then when you really are in an important fight like a tournament or a major battle that you will regain a new advantage. This line of thought is often considered false since if one were to follow it regularly then they would not have the experiance of fighting a limbed fighter and would not understand the tricks and nuances of limbed fighting styles.
