Gendiri

The gendiri, also called the scholar's cane, was a rare weapon used by human doctors during the "Thirteen Kingdoms and One Kingdom" years of the Era of the Five Courts of Man (21st Eon, 153-740).

The weapon was intimately linked with mufon medicine, a pre-glyphic medical system still practiced in the Core Worlds due to its near-1:1 compatability with current glyphic healing techniques. Using a gendiri, which resembled a sparring foil about one umblit long topped with one to three round "hejeki" (Ishu, "senders"), a mufon doctor could strike sensitive "vaa points" on the target's body (analogous to life-glyph intersection zones) and produce immediate disruptions of bodily equilibrium.

Known techniques with the gendiri included rendering the victim blind, unconscious, deaf, numb, or paralyzed partially or totally; removing the subject's sense of balance and equilibrium; stopping the victim's breathing or heart; or causing massive and fatal changes in the subject's internal temperature. While most attacks were limited to human anatomy, some methods functioned across several species, and enterprising doctors generated unique attack methods for specific alien species.

Legends persist throughout the Core Worlds about the legendary efficacy of the gendiri, but it fell out of favor centuries ago due to a combination of factors, including its difficulty to wield (only scholars of mufon medicine could master enough vaa points to make use of the gendiri), its uselessness against armor, and its ineffectiveness in cross-species combat. The last Human academy dropped its mufon/gendiri program in 1098, and the Celestial Scholars of Medicine (the diffuse academy of mufon teachers throughout space) stopped teaching the weapon in 1175.