#mortal kombat worldbuilding

[thewritingisconsumingme]

headcanons

yes, this was inspired by @charlotte-family-apologist little edenian elf ears in their drawings, fight me

i don’t really like how people from outworld and people from earthrealm look exactly the same in terms of morphology

they’re from a completely different world with a similar but still different and much more dangerous ecosystem (have you seen the animals in mkx and mk11?)

i can’t imagine that edenians, seidans, zaterrans, etc. have the exact same culture of morphology as humans, and i wanted to throw my hat in the ring about what differences they could possibly have

starting off with the edenians

first thing that’s different is that they have pointed ears, similar to an elves but a little bit more rounded at the tip, and they move their ears

i.e. they can pin them back, perk them up, etc. sort of like a cat’s, and this is so they can hear incoming predators and prey better when they still hunted that way

their pupils and iris take up much more of the eye so that only a bit of sclera shows, so that they can take in light much better

their noses are also more animal-like, and they have a much better sense of smell than humans to hunt down wounded animals

i think their teeth are also a lot more sharp for chewing through the tough meat/hide of the animals of outworld

i also really like the idea that they have claws in addition to pointed nails rather than just regular human hands, inspired by those claw things mileena and jade wear in mk11

and just because i can, they also have tails with small tufts of fur on the end to help them balance while they’re running and/or climbing trees

i think they’d also be much more muscular than humans, like their upper-body strength is insane, and their legs are strong enough to crush the trunk of an earth tree

so no, they wouldn’t be skinny but rather buff and muscular with more stomach and thickness appreciated within the culture

in mk1, we can see that they don’t have technology (they have sorcery, but it’s doesn’t seem quite the same), and they have what looks like their technological advances are from an agricultural society

so, from that, i think that thicker bodies would be much more appreciated as it would indicate a well-fed/capable edenian capable of attaining food

additionally, different types of fabrics (like earth) are appreciated in different ways, like the hide from a dangerous predator is much more expensive and are almost declarations of love compared to the wool of a sheep-like creature that is mostly domesticated

i think that they’re more of a ‘it takes a village to raise a kid’ sort of mindset when it comes to taking care of children and so are much more willing to take care of multiple children even if it’s not theirs

respect within the culture seems to extend from achievement-based but also filial piety (very pushed in asian countries) as seen with shao kahn and reiko’s achievements in war and mileena and kitana’s deference to their mother

but respect is still very much given to everyone within the culture because everyone plays an important role, whether it’s tending to the farm animals, guarding, sowing clothes, etc.

for seidans, i think they’d look pretty similar to edenians except much more regal-looking and have towering figures, like borzois

they take great care in their appearance and pale complexions are put in high regard (white hair, pale eyes, pale skin, etc.)

their teeth aren’t quite as pointy as edenians but still much sharper than humans, and their ears sort of droop down to give them a much softer look despite their harsh demeanor

still have the claw hands and the tail except the tails have much more fur (think unicorn tails from those old medieval paintings)

but, for someone who’s stockier, has tanner skin, dark hair (like havik), they’re discriminated against and are made into slaves

since they’re born into slavery under careful eyes, their ears are cropped to indicate their slave status, and their tails are docked, making it harder for them to balance

they’re also declawed (which btw you shouldn’t do that to a cat because it’s inhumane), and so have a hard time surviving and running away from the seidans

their changed appearance also indicates their status, and so they’re usually found easily or returned

for zaterrans, (basing this off wiki-level info about komodo dragons) they have the clawed hands same as any others

their tails though are just lizard tails and their fangs are much longer and have a serrated edge to tear into their prey

i think their ears are also shorter naturally compared to edenians or seidans, and they have a hard time hearing things that a human would have no trouble hearing

this stems from the fact they can smell a lot more on their tongue than any human, edenian, or seidans, and even in human form, their forms are large and broad and intimidating

they also have black-green scales littering their body, particularly their joints and their back

regarding culture, i think they wouldn’t have as strong as a focus on offspring and as soon as a zaterran can hunt for themselves, they’re considered an adult

they also can spit venom, both forms, because why not, and as seen within Syzoth’s moveset, it melts people like an acid

i like their lizard forms, they can keep those unchanged

now for those of draconian blood, (shao kahn) i think that general shao is actually an anomaly within draconians (i’m basing this off snakes because snakes in chinese mythology are closely related to dragons)

first, their features are closer to the zaterrans: clawed hands, shorter ears, lizard-like tails, less sclera

but they have the horns in addition to everything else and have much longer canines than humans

usually though, females are much bigger than their male counterparts and have control over much of their society

general shao comes from a special case of already being the heir to a general and training to have that muscle mass within the edenian court

those of draconian blood have hard scales covering their entire body, but they can vary in texture and in colors (because snake scales can vary and it’s cool)

they don’t have hair, they’re all bald and have scales in place of hair (baldies for the win lmao)

tarkatans can stay the same (just add on the fact of the clawed hands, pointed ears, less sclera, tails, etc.)

the only thing i would change is that they don’t grow swords from their hands because that would require them to grow metal from their bones which is…nuclear fusion

anyway, bone swords, like wolverine

for shokans, just slap on the general traits (pointed ears, tails, etc.) because i think they’re already different enough (goro and his four arms plus humongous physique) 

for osh-tekks, i know that in mkx and mk11, it’s just painted skin, but fuck that, he has blue skin with stripes that glow

i’m also going to make osh-tekks semi-aquatic, so they have webbed hands and feet in addition to the other general added traits

their tail has no fur (because drag) but instead have a wide-fanned tail to help them swim in the water (similar to an alligator’s tail but smooth and blue)

they don’t have gills, but they have great lung capacity (like a whale or something)

for centaurians, i don’t they would have the clawed hands because they have the powerful hind legs, but everything else applies (and they already have a tail so perfect)

this is all i could think of, and i have no idea if any of this makes sense?

but also, i have limited knowledge regarding the different societies of outworld outside of mk9-mk11 and mk1 (2023) (so like hotaru means nothing to me unfortunately)

i still like their designs in the games, but i just wish they were a bit more alien (give me the animal traits, GIVE ME THE ANIMAL TRAITS, I NEED THEM, I AJAKJHDAHKJAHKFJ)

we’ve seen in mkx and mk11 that they have huge animals of terrifying size and proportion, but edenians and everyone else still just look like weak, fragile humans?

like what, no freaking way

i know they have magic, but that seems like a practiced skill that grows with age

and before they advanced in society, growing to old age probably wasn’t all that common and so harnessing magic wasn’t all too common either until the current eras we see in gameplay

not to mention, shang tsung and quan chi need the help of shang tsung from a different timeline that has lived for centuries to catalyze their magical skills, and without titan shang tsung, they probably wouldn’t have attained the skill of magic they have until centuries later

some pictures for how i imagine it to be (you're gonna have to excuse my piss poor drawing skills and anatomy)

anyway, yeah, peace out

#mortal kombat #mk1 #mortal kombat 1 #mk1 2023 #mk #mortal kombat headcanons #mortal kombat worldbuilding

[cienie-isengardu]

[MK1] Bi-Han & Kuai Liang. Good brother? Evil brother? Nah, just different reactions to trauma, part 1

Author's note: the first part is not directly focused on Kuai Liang and Bi-Han as characters but at the worldbuilding, our knowledge about Lin Kuei and tradition that shaped Sub-Zero & Scorpion, and Liu Kang's acceptance of things as they are.

Lately it feels like Lin Kuei fandom split into either Bi-Han’s supporters or Kuai Liang’s supporters and the dispute over who is a good brother and who is not is an ongoing issue. This is greatly upsetting because both men have their share of flaws that sometimes fans exaggerate to demonize one or another. For me though, the brotherly conflict is not about who is good and who is bad, not even who is right and who is wrong, but about how two men groomed since childhood to be a living weapon deal with the trauma in totally opposite ways. As in, one is rebelling against the tradition and the other willing to uphold the system. 

With Smoke, the adoptive yet no less traumatized brother, stuck in the middle of that.

Bi-Han and Kuai Liang being survivors of a great psychological and physical abuse is the most true for previous timelines, however hear me out - just because Lin Kuei falls now under Liu Kang’s authority it does not automatically erase the possibility of both brothers experiencing things that no child should. To better illustrate my point, let’s take a moment and look at the Empress Sindel and Umgadi system. 

Sindel in general is presented as the ruler who does not seek an open conflict with Earthrealm and whom Liu Kang openly admires. As Fire Lord said himself, Sindel was destined to “rule Outworld firmly, but fairly” and it is her rule that brings peace to the otherwise conflicted Outworld

Liu Kang, story mode: Its past has been difficult. Though the last thousand years of Empress Sindel's reign have been a true golden age... the memories of that strife still linger.

and

Sindel's Bio: Her early reign marked the start of a new Golden Age.

That is what the character's Bio and the main story mode outright says or implies about Sindel. 

But then intro dialogues bring a different side of the beloved Queen. The people infected by Tarkat illness are exiled, their property confiscated by Sindel’s edict 

Kitana: When you became ill, your assets were taken? Baraka: As required by your mother's edict, Princess.

and in result forced to slowly die in poverty far away from healthy citizens. Those who sympathize with suffering infected people and won’t “report them for quarantine” are treated like criminals, as was seen when Li Mei and her men disrupted the Royal Family’s procession while leading arrested and tied up people.

The bad treatment of infected people, according to Mileena and Baraka endings, will improve thanks to the new Empress, who not only reaches a hand to suffering but would go so far to reveal her own illness to reduce social stigma against the sick. Mileena is seen as hot-headed, violent and not the best material for a Queen compared to Sindel, the supposed wise and kind ruler or even compared to her younger sister, Kitana. But it is the brash Empress that would actually make an effort to change her Empire for better.

Similar things can be said about the Umgadi system, which forces Outworld families to give up their first-born daughters for a training that will turn their children into living weapons to uphold the Royal Family’s rule

Liu Kang, story mode: Umgadi, like Tanya, are warrior priestesses... Selected from the first born daughters of Outworld. From infancy, they are trained to defend the royal family."

The daughters in question will never know their biological family or where they were born to ensure their absolute loyalty to the Royal Family, even though not every candidate will finish their training. Once they obtain the title of Umgadi, they can’t marry or be in a relationship, we have no idea if they even are paid anything for their service. So far Li Mei is the only known woman to leave Umgadi, and she did so due to the death of Sindel’s husband for which she was unfairly blamed. And again, the tie-in material implies that the change to Umgadi system will happen because of Mileena, who is willing to reform an organization that is deeply rooted in Edenian tradition, not the “kind and good” Queen Sindel. 

So just because a character is set on the Good Guys Side, it does not mean the said character is crystally good with no flaw at all or that breaking up with tradition is inherently evil, because the tradition alone is just a system of beliefs, practices or behaviors established in the past and passed down from one generation to another within a group of people or society and not a determinant of being good or bad. 

Now, the important thing - Umgadi and Lin Kuei are very similar organizations. The similarities are especially true for old timeline(s) Lin Kuei, as we have more or less idea how training adepts looked through the ages. However, what we learned through sources about Liu Kang’s version of the clan still brings a lot of parallels to Umgadi - and I think we all can agree that objective speaking, the Umgadi system is very unfair to first-born daughters and benefits only the Royal Family.

Through the story mode and intro dialogues, Liu Kang does not question the nature of the Umgadi system. Quite the opposite, the intro between Geras and Tanya suggests that Umgadi was Liu Kang’s innovation

Geras: The Umgadi was one of Liu Kang’s best innovations. Tanya: My order sprung from his mind?

A man who does not see anything wrong with enrolling little girls into never-ending servitude to the Royal Family, logically thinking, won't question the process of making Lin Kuei warriors nor the nature of their duty.

In previous timelines, Bi-Han and Kuai Liang as children were kidnapped and forced into the life of assassins by their own father (original timeline) or unspecified Lin Kuei member, presumably grandfather (alternative timeline). Their choice was to adapt to this hardship or die and so they survived and both became great warriors on their own. The fandom has been torn about their brotherhood for years, as if Bi-Han was a good brother or not. Personally, I do not think this was even a matter of one brother being inherently good and another inherently evil, as both men are the result of the abusive environment in which they grew up. And I truly can’t stress this enough - Bi-Han and Kuai Liang were survivors of great abuse and pathology more than anything else. 

Now, in Liu Kang’s timeline Bi-Han and Kuai Liang were born into a place of power, as both are sons of Grandmaster. Sub-Zero as the oldest was meant to inherit the leadership once his father would pass away, or possibly abdicate. So in theory, Fire Lord improved the living of both brothers. However, the same as the previous, both men weren’t given a choice, as Lin Kuei clan is bound to serve Earthrealm while their existence is kept in secret. 

Liu Kang said: “The Lin Kuei is a centuries old clan dedicated to Earthrealm’s defense” while Sub-Zero’s Bio adds “As the Lin Kuei's Grandmaster, Sub-Zero leads his ancient warrior clan in the defense of Earthrealm from external threats. For centuries, it has been their solemn task” and this is the tradition that will define the whole life of Bi-Han and Kuai Liang. Because they, as sons of Grandmaster, were expected to uphold and continue that service.

We do not have a full picture of how Lin Kuei daily life or training looks like in Liu Kang’s timeline, but the sources give some idea. And so we have an examples from story mode

Scorpion to Kung Lao: We're trained differently. It takes years to master our ways." 

and intro dialogues

Sub Zero: The Lin Kuei are trained from childhood.

confirming both brothers were prepared for their role as Earthrealm Defenders (Liu Kang’s Special Forces) since they were children. Scorpion’s words alone brings another vital clue, as “trained differently” is what distinguishes both brothers from Liu Kang’s chosen Champions. We could see a glimpse of that during the Lin Kuei mission in Ying Fortress, as both Sub-Zero and Scorpion did not hesitate to kill their enemy and Kuai Liang’s “fit of rage” illustrates well how brutal Lin Kuei can be in a fight.

As story mode and intro dialogues point out, Lin Kuei weren’t trained for the glorious yet honorable Mortal Kombat Tournament, as members of this clan have never been chosen to represent Earthrealm

Kitana: Why are Lin Kuei never Earthrealm champions? Sub-Zero: So that Outworld doesn't lose every tournament.

but they were trained to eliminate any threat to Earthrealm’s safety, be it by killing or capturing those whose activity concerned Liu Kang. As could be seen with the Lin Kuei brothers mission to capture Shang Tsung.

Intro dialogue Sub-Zero vs Reiko adds another detail about process of making Lin Kuei warriors:

Sub-Zero: To kill, one must be cold-blooded. Reiko: My veins are as iced as yours, Sub-Zero.

Thus we may assume Lin Kuei training was not just about a physical aspect but psychological one as well. Both brothers were prepared from childhood to kill - while that was never demanded from Earthrealm Champions. In story mode Liu Kang said:

“No tournament participant has ever been grievously injured or killed."

and

“I would never send my champions unwittingly into mortal kombat."

so I assume the reason Liu Kang send his Champions to search for Shang Tsung was A) threat of the sorcerer that wasn’t supposed to learn magic in the first place and B) they were in Outworld, so he couldn’t call for Lin Kuei without Sindel’s knowledge.

Another detail about Lin Kuei comes from Scorpion vs Nitara intro dialogue

Nitara: Had you ever known hunger, you wouldn't judge us. Scorpion: I have, and I will.

and though we don’t have an idea if Kuai Liang was forced to endure hunger due to training - as happened in old version of Lin Kuei according to Mortal Kombat novel by Jeff Rovin:

 Many young people died during training: some could not hold their breath for five minutes and drowned, others weren’t fast enough to avoid the weapons of the masters, some starved or froze or dehydrated when they were stranded, naked, in deserts or on mountaintops and told to make their way home. But those who survived were the Lin Kuei.

Or was that a reference to economic problems of Scorpion’s clan, which at some point faced so great famine that it touched even the son(s) of the ruling family. Whatever the case, it gives us a sense of hardship endured by Lin Kuei members.

This leads us to another detail - father’s teaching (tradition) mentioned by Kuai Liang and Tomas through the story mode:

Kuai Liang: Glory? We fight for duty.

and

Tomas: Our clan doesn't govern. It serves.

while intro dialogues adds

Raiden: The Lin Kuei won't be allowed to govern. Sub-Zero: We will not be frozen out, Raiden.

Furthermore it is important to note that every Liu Kang’s Champion had their own life outside the fighting - Johnny was an actor, Kung Lao and Raiden were farmers, Kenshi was Yakuza on path to redemption and saving his clan. Lin Kuei? Not so much, as Bi-Han’s Bio points out Sub-Zero leads his ancient warrior clan in the defense of Earthrealm from external threats. For centuries, it has been their solemn task. 

After the Tournament, the Champions easily will return to their life - in the case of Johnny, benefit greatly by making his own movies based on the events, while the Lin Kuei would come back to the never ending training in preparation to defend Earthrealm and repeating the cycle by pushing their children into the same service. And it would go like that for generations, if not for the Titan Shang Tsung’s meddling that interrupted the “natural” order of things.

Let’s establish another thing - namely Lin Kuei duty in recent centuries.

Sub-Zero’s Bio suggest the Earthrealm hasn’t be threatened in generations:

But Earthrealm hasn’t been threatened in generations, and Sub-Zero sees no point in limiting his clan to preparing for dangers that may never come. Under his leadership, the Lin Kuei will come out of the shadows and fight for its place as one of Earthrealm’s great nations.

This lack of need to dispatch Lin Kuei to eliminate threat is supported by intro dialogues:

Reptile: The battle against the sorcerers was your first real fight. Smoke: It was a baptism by fire, Syzoth.

and

Kenshi: How is it you haven't been to Outworld? Scorpion: Earthrealm's defense has never required it.

However Bi-Han alone suggest something else:

Story mode: After years of idleness, it pleases me to again face kombat."

And so do the information about their mother:

Sindel: Both your parents were excellent fighters. Scorpion: I can only hope to live up to their example.

Sindel in another intro says, she knew the previous Grandmaster 

Sindel: I knew your father. He was a great man. Sub-Zero: Yet he never understood the Lin Kuei's potential.

So I think it is safe to assume Sindel was familiar enough with Bi-Han and Kuai Liang’s mother to praise her skills and is not just praising her out of politeness. But the thing is, Kitana’s intro confirms the Lin Kuei warriors weren’t chosen for the Mortal Kombat Tournament, so how did Sindel know if their mother was an excellent fighter? That to me suggests she either witnessed it outside the Tournament or it was reported to her and the latter may imply Bi-Han’s mother took part in eliminating the threat on Liu Kang’s order, maybe even in Outworld. We know from source material that Outworlders do not tolerate Earthrealm’s unauthorized activity on their land. However in the story mode alone, Sindel herself admitted that Liu Kang’s “interventions have kept Outworld at peace for centuries”

while the vast tie-in material agrees that Sindel’s Court is full of intrigues and dangers - both to the Queen and her daughters. So, if Liu Kang is a close friend of King Jerrod and Queen Sindel, it doesn’t feel that far stretched to think Lin Kuei could be dispatched to ensure the Royal Family's - and in greater perspective - Earthrealm’s safety.

Now, if there was no need for Lin Kuei service in the latest generations, why a woman

considered to be an excellent fighter - thus presumably in great shape

who also happens to be wife of Grandmaster - thus presumably having access to the best medical care the clan could offer

died in some unspecified time before main story happened? That doesn’t sound like a natural death, as Bi-Han and Kuai Liang are what? In their 30s at the worst? Which gives the chance she was a middle-aged woman, not an old person who dies out of age. The Grandmaster alone, also an excellent fighter, died in an accident, though story mode does not tell us what kind of accident it was supposed to be. Did it happen on a hunting trip? During mission on Liu Kang’s order? 

So again, for a supposedly peaceful time, it seems like Kuai Liang and Tomas are those who did not have much part in Lin Kuei activity - in contrast to Bi-Han and presumably their parents. 

Going further, the sources claims Lin Kuei clan is dedicated to defend Earthrealm from external threats, and indeed Lin Kuei warriors fought against vampires (Nitara’s people)

Bi-Han, story mode: As a boy I heard tales of battles against your kind. I had thought them tall ones.

and apparently their might is know in Outworld

General Shao: Finally, the chance to test the Lin Kuei's mettle. Sub-Zero: It will end with your humiliation.

However Lin Kuei apparently took part in solving the internal problems too, if Sub-Zero vs Kenshi dialogue is something to go by:

Kenshi: My ancestors say they've tangled with yours. Sub-Zero: Has it occurred to you to ask them why?

For a quick summary, through the sources, we learn that Lin Kuei:

were meant to serve, not govern

trained from childhood not just to be an excellent fighters but to be capable of killing

do not have a life outside their duty the way Earthrealm Champions do

endured hardship (hunger)

each generation is trained to perform their duty

and presumably, even in supposedly peaceful times, the fighters may not survive to an old age nor die in a natural way (the fate of mother and Grandmaster).

So I think that objectively speaking, we can agree that Lin Kuei does not benefit much from its service to Earthrealm, while Liu Kang got an excellent Special Forces that kept Earthrealm safe for centuries.

[Next part] Bi-Han and Kuai Liang and how Lin Kuei training affected who they are.

#mortal kombat #lin kuei #kuai liang #bi han #sub zero #scorpion #liu kang #sindel #umgadi #sorry for the introduction to worldbuilding through sindel and umgadi but this is the best example #why characters being on good side shouldn't mean they have never wronged others #and why being a lin kuei is not an easy thing #even in liu kang's timeline

[puissantveil]

things I need to explore

Jerrod looking very white in a world populated largely by POC

Outworld's biomes and wildlife

Kitana's future in the military

the nature of Edenian religion

the medical details of Tarkat and its treatment

the importance of Baraka being Edenian

the heavy emphasis on family in MK1; it doesn't exactly go into found family, but there are obvious examples of blood relatives not taking precedence (Bi-Han ditching his brothers vs. Kuai Liang's bond with Tomas, Ashrah leaving her "sister demons" behind to pursue a better life), as well as Syzoth and Baraka's pasts as family men and how Kitana's family is her whole ass world

Kitana vs. amatonormativity

#mk1 #unveiled thoughts #mortal kombat 1 #mortal kombat #worldbuilding #my intent is not to shit on jerrod i promise

[gophergal]

I'm having MK: Karnate thoughts again. So now you have to hear about it-

There's so much interesting stuff you can do with a succession crisis after the defeat (and assumed death) of Shao Kahn. Like, not to be the person who goes "y'know what would be perfect here? Political drama", but there's SO many people who have some claim to the throne of Outworld.

Kitana; as his step daughter and oldest child and Mileena; as his soul offspring are the obvious ones here, but there's also:

Skarlet. Shao Kahn's blood runs through her veins (literally), a claim that no other can make

Baraka. Outworld has shades of being a Battle Culture and Baraka is a general of the Kahn's army. One who has been loyal for many years

Reiko. Claims that Shao Kahn named him as his heir. Though no one can corroborate this statement, Reiko had been a general and the emperor had been a mentor of sorts to him, so this holds water

And more. There are plenty of people and factions vying for power with varying degrees of backing and legitimacy

I just think it's neat, especially if you begin to consider how the personal relationships between these characters affect things

#gopher rambles #mortal kombat #mk karnate #if you're confused this is just my au/headcanon world/rewrite thing. see also my worldbuilding headcanons(explains the soul offspring thing) #also some of these details are subject to change. just thought it'd be fun to share while i was thinking about it

[dei2dei]

Working on Legacies in Memory and Dust and one of the settings in C6/7 is getting fleshed out. I thought I'd throw a few of the inspo pictures of it here. This is a heavily photoshopped image I found of a set of what look like travertine pools in, IIRC, Thailand. The trees there are not actually red, but who says they can't be in Edenia?

(this is a Nicobar pigeon. It's also an Edenian forest birb. I have thus decided.)

This is a Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher. It also suits my vibe.

And then, you know, taigores. Because.

#mortal kombat #fanfiction #worldbuilding #flora and fauna #no merriweather though

[grandcrossoverworldbuilding]

The Four Worlds

Many thousands of years ago on the planet Earth, there were stories. People wanted to know how the world worked, but did not understand. And so they told stories to explain it, stories of magic, monsters, and most of all, Gods. And it was through the telling of these stories that the Gods came to be. Earth had been saturated with metaphysical objects known as “Authorities”, which were akin to admin privileges for pieces of reality. The “Authorities” became a core, and their bodies were made from human imagination.

These gods were sustained by worship from the same humanity that created them, and they would grant boons to the humans of Earth in exchange for said worship. It was a prosporus time, but it would soon come to an end thanks to a threat from beyond the Earth. Deep in space, one of the civilization destroying entities known as the Reapers had encountered something that caused it to deviate from it’s normal path. This Reaper, known as Velber, wandered through the universe on a set path, a route which took 14,000 years to traverse, and dispatched machines that wiped out any civilizations it encountered, regardless of how advanced they were. When it passed by Earth, it wiped out 80 percent of life on Earth, and slew the majority of the Gods.

The key players in driving off this menace were Agamotto and Mamaragan. Agamotto was the mortal son of a goddess named Oshtur, who had helped codify many of Earth’s magical systems. Agamotto commissioned several Fae clans to forge a sword of his design, Excalibur, in order to slay Velber’s forces. Agamotto knew he himself could not wield the sword to it’s full effectiveness, and that is where Mamaragan enters the picture. Mamaragan was an Aboriginal god who was well respected amongst the the gods. Earlier in the conflict, Mamaragan’s apprentice Oggar had hatched the idea of creating Letters of Power, symbols imbued with the lent power of gods and legendary figures. The Letters of Power could in turn be made into Words of Power, giving great strength to their Wielders. Oggar had intended these letters of power to be used by himself and Mamaragan to defeat Velber’s machines, but Mamaragan foresaw that their godly nature would leave them vulnerable to the enemy’s weapons. So he instead gifted the Word of power to a mortal. That mortal then used Excalibur to defeat the machine menace.

The gods had been killed, but the stories that spawned them hadn’t gone anywhere. And thus they were reborn anew, but it was not just the gods themselves that were reborn, it was the world around them as well. At this point in time, much of the surface of the Earth was metaphysical in nature, dictated by belief and by those with the power to shape it. And so when the Gods were reborn, so was a majority of the world around them. This was why this time became known as the Second World, and why that name scheme would persist to later iterations of the Gods.

The stories of the Gods had changed over time, so the second iteration of the Gods were different from their originals. That was not the only change, however. Velber’s destruction has stuck in the minds of man, and inspired stories of Apocalyptic destruction. The Death of the Gods would not be a one time event, it would occur over and over. Once enough gods died, the change to the next world would trigger, and all would be reset. The Gods who had been forgotten by Humanity would disappear, and Gods who’d been incorporated into other pantheons would become permanent fixtures. Gods who were not dead when the Worlds changed would be wiped away, though some (Such as Mamaragan, now going by the name Shazam) found ways to persist beyond the change. Additionally, the Demigods begotten by these gods survived, anchored to existence by their half mortal nature.

Most Gods believed that while every other pantheon was the creation humanity, their pantheon were legitimate. They believed that the creation stories of their pantheons were the genuine truth. It is entirely possible that one of these pantheons is right, but it is entirely impossible to know for sure which one is right. The stories which inspired the gods did have to come from somewhere, after all. While in some cases the inspirations are known, such as how the Ancients inspired the stories of the Asgardians, others are unknown. This means that it is possible for the stories to be inspired by legitimate Gods. There are Gods from other regions of space that are outside Earth’s system, and could have appeared on Ancient Earth. As an aside, the era wherein the stories the gods are made of were written is informally known as the 0th World.

The Second World would pass by naturally, and the Third World would begin, however the end of this world would have drastic impact on the next World. The problem began when one of Zeus’s spawn, Kratos of Sparta, slew Ares and took his mantle as God of War. This would set into motion a series of events that would lead to the destruction of the Greek Pantheon. In the absence of this Pantheon, Alien infiltrators known as the Seosten would masquerade as the Greek Gods as part of their plans to take control of the planet. The Seosten wanted to control Earth because humans had a unique ability, the power to bond their DNA with the DNA of alien lifeforms to gain their abilities. They had the potential to be highly versatile Super Soldiers, but there was an issue. Their ability to bond only worked on physical creatures, known as Alters. Metaphysical creatures, known as Others, did not have the DNA necessary for the process. Gods fell under the category of Other, and would be an obstacle for Seostenic control of Earth.

The Seosten’s ultimate plan was to hide away the Supernatural world from humanity, and advance their knowledge of science to the point that the supernatural was deemed as impossible. This would mean that the Gods would cease to exist after the third world, due to their metaphysical bodies no longer being compatible with their “Authorities”. This plan, to institute what would eventually be known as the Bystander Effect, would require a great deal of power, even for a space empire. They obtained the lion’s share of their power by orchestrating a war between the gods themselves and siphoning energy given off by the conflict.

However, the conflict would escalate beyond the Seosten’s expectations. The people of Egypt had Long be wary of body snatchers like the Seosten, due to their prior experiences with the Goa’uld, and this experience allowed them to uncover the Seosten’s presence, bringing them into the war directly. The revelation could have spurred the gods to ally with each other in order to crush the Seosten, but before such an alliance could be cemented, one of them took an action that scuttled it. Shem-Ha Mephorash had long toyed with the idea of using humanity as a weapon of conquest, and the exposure of the Seosten convinced her to enact her plans. She began to take control of Humanity via a method that involved the Universal Language of the human race. This was seen as an existential threat by the other gods, and tensions ratcheted up between them even though the god Enki had managed to scuttle it using the Curse of Balal.

Being out in the open made it harder for the Seosten to keep the war in line, and so the war began to escalate to higher stakes. Another major driver of this was the Monkey King of Korea, a reckless but powerful fighter. Eventually the intensity of the conflict began to stir the Chaos Bringer who resided beneath the surface of the planet Earth. And this drew the attention of two other groups of Gods from beyond the stars.

The first group were the Elder Gods. These were the first six gods whom had been created before Unicron and Primus were split apart, and whom had subsequently fought against Unicron. The second group were the Kais. The Kais were an offshoot of the Mathusians, the same race which would spawn the Green Lantern Corps. The Kais were descended from a group of Malthusians who had apprenticed themselves under the Elder Gods in order to seek penance for Krona’s Sin. The Elder Gods thus gifted them with an “Authority” covering the concept of Creation, and the responsibility of maintaining the afterlife and various other realms connected to our cosmos. To balance out these Kais, an office known as the Hakaishin was created, who bore the “Authority” over destruction.

The intervention of these gods from the stars put an end to the war between the Gods, and forced them to come to the peace table to hash out an accord that would be implemented at the Dawn of the next World. The biggest result of this intervention was the splintering of the Earth into several realms. This was primarily done to split off the lands of the gods from the physical plane which humans resided. This was a very complex process, and due to the nature of Earth’s make up, Earth could not be split into just the Earth and the domain of the Gods. Several different realms, such as Outworld, had to be made as well in order to make everything work. Additionally, the war had severely damaged the flow of the afterlife on and around Earth, creating the need to create the Soul Society in order to regulate the damage.

Ironically, the Seosten were treated relatively leniently in this matter, as they did not posses the conceptual power to cause the damages that had drawn the ire of the cosmic gods. Thus they managed to get the Bystander Effect which they’d been aiming for the whole time, helped by the placement of a special Artifact which reinforced the planet’s belief in Science. However, the Gods did manage to get some concessions. It was agreed that the Gods would be given physical bodies in the next world, which were less reliant on the worship of humanity to survive, though it still empowered them. A Taboo was also put in place, which acted as a conceptual defense which prevented humans from being able to directly harm the Gods. The Gods won these concessions by striking a deal with the sorcerer supreme of the time, Suleimon Bin Daoud, to empower his proposed “Seal of Solomon”.

The Gods were also given a new duty, to prevent Unicron from awakening. As part of this duty, every 1000 years a God’s council would be organized, which would assess the state of mortal affairs on Earth and the adjacent realms. If a risk of awakening Unicron was detected, the Gods would hold a vote on how to handle it, with the most extreme solution available being the extinction of mortal life. Though if that provision were voted through, Mortals would have the right to challenge the Gods to a series of 13 one on one matches, to avert their destruction.

When the world’s changed over, there was a new pantheon joining the others. This was a common occurrence, but this case was set apart by one key fact: This pantheon stretched beyond the Earth. This pantheon had been born from the stories of the war between the Gods themselves, and was not simply made from the minds of humanity, but of the various alien species who had fought in the war as well. It was a story of a war between two godly races whose conflict split their world asunder. It was the tale of New Genesis, and Apokalips. After they came into existence, the Gods of New Genesis and Apokalips became major players throughout the cosmos. Apokalips’ leader Darkseid sought to restrain all things into his own image, using subterfuge and guile to lead people into giving into their worst nature.

However, they were not the only Gods who transcended the bonds of Earth. During the period of the war after the Seosten’s involvement had been revealed, Odin had allied with other alien races in order to even the playing field. Foreseeing that the conflict would eventually attract the attention of forces outside of the Earth, Odin had his allies spread the tales of the Norse to other planets. As a result, when the change to the Fourth world went into effect, the Norse pantheon became a technologically advanced race with connections that spanned the galaxy. The 3rd World incarnation of Odin attempted a scheme that would allow his consciousness to persist into the body of his 4th world counterpart, but this plot was scuppered. The 3rd World Odin was able to continue existing, and took up the name Mr. Wednesday.

The Gods of Uruk also hatched their own scheme to influence the next World. They cam up with a scheme to create the ultimate neutral party to rule over humanity and keep the Gods from losing their dominion over them. This neutral party was the hero known as Gilgamesh, who was one third human and two thirds God. However, Gilgamesh developed outside of their plans, and their attempt to rerail him back into the role they planned for him using Enkidu failed, and Gilgamesh ultimately wound up cementing the end of the Age of Gods.

Time passed. Eventually the nation of America came to prominence on the world stage, and many of the lingering old gods relocated there, seeking opportunities to gain wider influence there. From this location, Mr. Wednesday would hatch a plot to obtain even greater power. His plan involved orchestrating a new War between gods, except this time the war would be between the New Gods, and the Old Gods, gods who had found ways to persist after the change over from one World to the next. In order to kick off this plot, Mr. Wednesday would need a villain to rally the other Old Gods to action. Wednesday, by this point was well aware of how Gods were created, and so he decided to nudge along the creation of one, with the aid of a certain Investor.

By this point in time, the industrial revolution was in full swing in the Americas, and Mr. Wednesday guided humanity’s belief in faith and industrialism to become incarnated as a God known as The Factory. The Factory, which embodied all of the toxic and destructive aspects of Capitalism, would consume anything and everything as raw material for it’s products, including other Gods. However, Mr. Wednesday’s desired war between the Gods would be put on hold, as The Factory soon came to the attention of an organization known as the SCP Foundation, who worked swiftly to contain it's products, which were the only way it could interact with the world. They had been tipped off as to it’s existence by the Fourth World Odin, who had maintained a close watch over Mr. Wednesday in order to head off any schemes. The War between the Gods would thus not begin until the Modern Day, when changes in the SCP Foundations Leadership would draw their focus more towards Superheroes, and after Odin had fallen and his son Thor took up leadership of Asgard. When that happened, Mr. Wednesday would set off this war by covertly pointing the Church of the Broken God in the Factory’s direction.

#grand crossover worldbuilding #fanfic #fate stay night #mass effect #doctor strange #shazam #the fourth world #stargate #heretical edge #god of war #symphogear #god of high school #transformers #mortal kombat #dragonball #green lantern #Bleach #eureka #pact #record of ragnarok #the mighty thor #american gods #The SCP Foundation

[skyeblue8]

No offense but the safe edgy worldbuilding Viv has(I still can't believe she made some moth pimp more evil than a literal Deadly Sin) makes me think if I was playing Mortal Kombat but when I'm about to perform a Fatality, the opponent explodes into confetti in the least terrifying way possible and the game still tries advertising itself for adults. It's I think Viv forgot where her show takes place because this feels more like Earth with furries and horned people. If you changed the setting to Earth a lot of these characters would be indistinguishable from humans.

Very true.

#helluva boss critical #vivziepop critical #helluva boss criticism #hazbin hotel critical #helluva boss critique #ask #asks #helluva critical #hazbin hotel critique #vivziepop criticism

[kenyizsuartblog]

Kalego Naberius sketches

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun! (yes, I'm watching the dub) is one of those rare gems that can make even me, who is legendarily terrible at sticking with any series due to my many hobbies, watch it till the very end, and occasionally rewatch certain episodes. It's a light-hearted, funny, actually heartfelt, all-around-good-time fantasy anime that never takes itself too seriously, and has not fallen into the usual problems of "turning into a brutal Mortal Kombat gorefest" or "powerlevels so high they are knocking the goddamn Moon out of its orbit at this point" other shonen anime have. So far, that is, and I'm rooting that it will stay on course. The animation itself may not be top notch at all times, but it more than makes up for that with heart, good character writing, witty worldbuilding, and genuinely good humor. Hell, as someone who rarely watches anime, I wasn't even that bothered by the animation quality, it's passable even at the lowest.

And of course, we have a new favorite from the cast - Professor Kalego Naberius. This guy's a goddamn legend, and I love everything about him - his design, his English voice, his personality all lend themselves to the perfect teacher to watch over the main cast, and occasionally nuke them with insane levels of homework, because they totally deserved it! Funny thing is, Kalego is the exact type of person whom I would really not like, or even fear in real life, but in this super happy fun-time anime, he is my spirit animal. He needs much more screen time! Also, he just needs to absolutely destroy Opera down the line for being the little shitty secret bully he had turned out to be in Season 2. I like to think that is what is going on in the lower right corner sketch.

2023.05.02.

#naberius kalego #kalego #iruma kun #mairimashita! iruma kun #welcome to demon school #fanart #kenyizsu art

[charlotte-family-apologist]

@running-with-the-feels Took me several days longer than expected, but here is my Sub-Zero family headcanon!

Their father's name is Zi-Lin (子凛).

Their mother's name is Nanxue (南雪).

Their family name is Sōng (松).

The Song family are descendants of cyromancers who have sworn allegiance to the Lin Kuei for centuries. Zi-Lin was the second son of (the then) Sub-Zero and head of the Song family. With each new generation, fewer cryomancers are born, with Zi-Lin being the first of the main family born without it. This led to him being neglected and sent on less favorable missions.

On a mission to Yunnan Province, he met Nanxue and fell in love with her. He deserted the Lin Kuei and went into hiding to be with her. They lived normally until Bi-Han awakened his cryomancy when he was five. Which caused Zi-Lin to become distant. Eventually, the Lin Kuei tracked him down and blackmailed him into meeting them. Over a year, he met with them and told them what they wanted to know. This led him to become even more distant, and when Nanxue confronted him, she let it slip that Kuai Liang was displaying signs of cryomancy. Causing him to realize there was no way out of this and the Lin Kuei would take what they wanted.

There's more that skipped out on, but that's the gist of what I have so far.

#i kinda gave up on zi-lin in the last drawing... #nanxue looks great though #also my signature is backwards bc I forgot I had flip canvas on #sub zero #kuai liang #bi han #lin kuei #mortal kombat #mkx #mk11 #mortal kombat fanart #mortal kombat headcanons #mortal kombat worldbuilding #my art #digital art #cfa art

[running-with-the-feels]

So, bit of a ramble but I swear I'll get to the point.

We actually get a not terrible amount of worldbuilding in mk9-mk11 continuity, but not enough (tbf I go feral for worldbuilding so that might just be me) and I'm really tempted to try and make the worldbuilding of MK9-mk11 make more sense and flesh it out a bit?

Like, there's so many questions left unanswered:

If the cryomancers were banished from Edenia by Sindel, why? And how did they end up in China? What was their culture before that? Did they have a language of their own, has any of it survived, did the dragons Kuai Liang finds in Arctika come from Edenia with the cryomancers or were they there before that?

Also, the Tarkatans, we know they have a language but NRS hasn't made anything substantial for it (which is fair, conlangs are hard and a lot of work to put in for what would likely be a minor part of the games) so what would their language look like? And what is their culture like, we know they value kombat, but what else? Do they have rules around who they can hunt, is anyone off limits? Do they have holidays or gods?

Kollector is an antisemetic caricature, I don't think anyone can really dispute that, so I would love to throw that out tbh. For the Naknada, what if the way Kollector behaves is just a stereotype Outworlders hold about them, and not actually the truth (seriously fu NRS for making Kollector like that, wtf)? What is their culture like? Their language? We know Shao Khan enslaved them so where did they come from before that and are they now free or still trapped?

And the Netherrealm, canonically, people go there when they die sometimes. Do people ever escape? What do they become then, are they wraiths or something else? Also what specifically is the difference between a wraith and a revenant? It's implied that spectres and wraiths are the same thing but are they? What's the hierarchy between the Oni? We know they answer to Quan Chi and Shinnok but how are they organized besides that? What is their culture (Or cultures) like? And their language?

Similarly with Edenia, what was their culture and language like? How much of it survived with Sindel and got passed down to Kitana and Jade? How many Edenians survived and now live in Outworld, bc surely Shao Khan couldn't have killed them all, not only would that be logistically impossible, it's kinda proven by the way he treats the Naknada and the Tarkatans that he prefers to keep the peoples of the realms he conquers around as a workforce, did he do the same here?

What did the other Mortal Kombat tournaments look like? Not the ones with Earthrealm but with Tarkata, the Osh-Tekk, and the Naknada (who I'm pretty sure had their own realm too?). You have to win ten consecutive tournaments to conquer a realm so what happens if you lose the third? Do you have like a cooldown period or just wait another however many years to when the fourth would be and start from there? Like do the realms being threatened need to win ten as well in order to stave off conquest?

Similarly, what specifically is the timeframe, bc a couple times they say once a generation (unclear), others (if I remember correctly) they say it's every hundred years, but then Shao Khan says he has to wait 500 years to conquer Earthrealm so is that the cooldown period? Or is that how long it took him to get to tournament ten (making it 50 years between tournaments)? Is it different depending on which realm is attacking which? Like it's once a generation but bc some live longer than others the exact amount of years varies (which seems to make the most sense)?

What even are the actual rules of Mortal Kombat? How many fighters can each side bring? Are there any weapons banned in the arena? Why can people challenge fighters on their own side and does this count as an official match and if so whose victory does the win count towards? Who is allowed to declare Mortal Kombat? Does it have to be a leader (like how Shao Khan is an emperor) or can a realm's protector god do it?

Also wtf was Outworld originally? I know we get some answers on that in games before mk9-11 but I don't know what those answers are (PLEASE feel free to yell at me about it, I BEG). Which of the nations we see under Shao Khan were part of Outworld originally, and which had their own realms?

Basically, I have many questions, I crave answers and if I cannot find them I might just create them.

Like I have headcanons and a long and boring night ahead so...

#Someone give me answers pls I am Begging #mortal kombat 11 #mortal kombat x #mortal kombat 9 #outworld #edenia #cryomancers #naknada #osh-tekk #tarkatan #mk lore #netherrealm #mortal kombat #mortal kombat lore

[cienie-isengardu]

I like to imagine most Outworlders don't speak English if we were being realistic with workdbuilding. The royal family and their advisors would probably interact with Earthrealm officials during visits but regular Outwrolders probably wouldn't.

The only reason they speak English is for our convenience but realistically most probably shouldn't and it'd be funny if the language barrier popped up at times.

Like I imagine Quan Chi didn't speak English initially so he didn't register Titan Shang was talking to him when he was doing his job in the mines. Like Titan Shang thinks Quan Chi is ignoring him...when in reality Quan Chi simply doesn't register he's talking to him at all.

That is exactly my thought - worldbuilding wise, common Outworlders shouldn’t speak English or any other Earthrealm’s dialects, as they do not have a constant contact with totally foreign cultures from Liu Kang’s realm. I don’t think we ever heard of any vital trade between Earthrealm and Outworld and the portal between realms isn’t that easily accessible for people to just snuck in, and it is not just about Outworlders being wary of Earthrealmers but also Liu Kang decided to keep existence of other realms in secret from majority of his people. So the contact is limited and let’s not forget that the same as Earthrealm, Outworld is not culturally homogeneous realm either, as there is many different cultures coexisting there, like Edenians, Shokan, Centaurians, Saurian, Osh-Tekk to name few. So learning additional Earthrealm's dialects may be more difficult to some of those people than to others.

It makes sense for the Royal Family, their palace guard (Umgadi), advisors and for some military officers like General Shao and Reiko to learn English and possibly other earthrealm dialects, as such knowledge is vital to diplomacy and state security. 

It is understandable that the games use English as common language for simplicity, however 

It really is sad how the cultural/language barriers are not exploited as it has such a great potential (the closest things are: Johnny’s references to Alien that Kung Lao misunderstand as Cage calling Tanya a slur and was both offended and confused by the whole thing and Mileena thinking that drone is some kind of magic)

I don’t like the implication in Liu Kang’s timeline that Great Britain again influenced the whole world to the point English is the commonly used language because with that implication comes the question: did some Earthrealmers again suffer under the regime of other countries, be it under colonization or losing their country's independence. I mean, it is Liu Kang’s timeline, why Royal Family don’t speak in his native language as they had the longest contact with the Fire Lord and English is not, logically thinking, Raiden’s native language either?

Let’s just agree I’m very picky about this issue and I would love all the shenanigans coming from characters speaking in different languages and sometimes failing - or on purpose making it difficult to communicate well. Or, as the Lin Kuei faction has the number of native-speakers from different cultures (China, Czech, Botswana), they could utilize other languages as their “secret dialect”. Like Lin Kuei brothers waiting for Liu Kang, instead of speaking English between themselves, they could talk in Tomas’ native language because the chance Kung Lao, Raiden or Liu Kang’s servants would understand Czech is slimmer than them understanding English. 

I’m seriously crying over the untapped language potential Mortal Kombat has for years. 

As for Titan Shang Tsung, I’m gonna trust he was smarter than using English, when Quan Chi was born in mines and spent his whole life there. The mortal Shang Tsung consuming souls for ages most likely knew and could fluently use a vast number of dialects, so I imagine Titan Shang Tsung would figure out pretty quickly that no one in mines used earthrealm language and talked to Quan Chi in a way he could perfectly understand him, especially since “Damashi” needed Quan Chi’s trust to process the great plan of his.

#mortal kombat #my replies #outworld #lin kuei #shang tsung #where are the characters speaking in their native languages? even if just to curse under their noses #i wanna them to have their native cultures acknowledged! #and seriously our five main lin kuei could speak Czech and Tswana to confuse people around them or comment people's idiocy XD

[puissantveil]

CW: Chronic/terminal disease, body horror, survivor's guilt

I know it's too much to ask for even a smartly written game about people beating each other up, but I want to see Kitana struggle with survivor's guilt. No, Mileena hasn't croaked just yet, but a long, thankless road full of suffering awaits her, ending in the warping of her body and the obliteration of her mind. The empress of tomorrow, Mama Sindel's pride and joy, her very own Big Sis, doomed just like that.

And Kitana, the younger daughter of Outworld, who just wants to live her life quietly in the palace and soak up all that tasty privilege without actually doing anything of value, who might even be a little afraid of the duties of an empress, is just fine.

And that fucking bothers her. If they're twins, why does Mileena have to suffer and not her? Even worse, if Kitana was with Mileena when the latter got infected, could she have done more?

If you're wondering "what about Mileena? She's the one who has to go through all this bullshit!", a) all hours are Kitana hours on this blog and b) I'm considering a speculative write-up on Tarkat Disease, which would at least touch on Mileena's misery and how Kitana is not always as helpful as she thinks.

#body horror #tarkat disease #kitana #mortal kombat #mortal kombat 1 #unveiled thoughts #mileena #terminal disease #chronic illness #worldbuilding

[gophergal]

Mortal Kombat Worldbuilding Ideas - Part 1: Immortals

These ideas float somewhere between headcanon and rewrite. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the worldbuilding as is (for the most part), but a few things stick out to me as things that could be more interesting. Specifically, immortals this time.

For one, establishing that immortals can't have biological children would make them a little more interesting and give some more depth to immortal characters, imo. As immortality is a status earned in one way or another, this is the price you pay for taking it.

"Then how, pray tell, do demigods exist, Gopher?" You might ask. Well, they aren't born, in this rewrite. That's right, baby, demigods can fulfill the Macbeth prophecy! They are not of woman born!

Demigods are created, not unlike a fleshpits experiment or some of Wonder Woman's origins (y'know, the one where she was a clay baby). Regardless of what the godling in progress is made of, their godly parent will then "breath life" into them by infusing them with a fragment of their own soul.

Breathing life into one of these creations slightly weakens the god in question, but it forms a bond with their offspring that can persist even after death. The bond entails different things for different gods, but typically the offspring is compelled toward loyalty to their parent and/or the goal they were created for. Which makes it very difficult to break free from their parent's control.

Specific Characters This Applies To

The obvious ones to first discuss are Taven and Daegon, Argus' sons with Delia and the brothers fated to stop Armageddon.

Delia created her sons from gold and dragon scales. This gave them innate pyromancy that they might not otherwise have. While Taven was always stronger and faster, Daegon is smarter and stronger willed. This, combined with his feelings of inferiority, compelled him to want his bond to Argus severed, even before he was awoken early.

Rain's mother dug clay from the riverbed to form her son. His aquamancy and impulsive tendencies were influenced by his beginnings at the bottom of fast flowing water. Being the youngest of the three, he is weaker still than either of his brothers. But, paired with his physical distance from Argus, it has also made his bond weaker. While Taven is happily beholden to Argus, and Daegon wishes to break free, Rain is untethered. He has the most freedom of the three.

Having three sons made Argus much weaker than he normally would be. Hence why one of said sons was capable of permakilling him, rather than simply forcing him to reform at a later date.

This last one might surprise you, but Mileena works by these rules as well. Shao Kahn isn't a god in the same way that Argus is, but he also had a powerful sorcerer on his side. (Mileena has two papas)

So Mileena isn't a demigod, but she does contain a fragment of Shao Kahn's soul. The other method of giving her life would be to simply use another full soul, but that would be more akin to resurrection than to creating a daughter for him. And it wouldn't guarantee the loyalty to the Kahn and his ideals that Mileena presents long after her father's "death". After all, Ermac broke free from that compelling force, so it wasn't simply mind control.

@mikka-minns @inferoinvictus @rabbitlost @dinainwater @cbros5 (tagging y'all just in case you wanna see)

#gopher rambles #mortal Kombat #worldbuilding headcanons #please note: im not saying this is better. its just stuff thats been rattling around in my skull for a while. #if you wanna use these concepts for au's or something feel free. im completely unbothered #you can also probably see some of my biases showing through ehdheb

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

so, i infodumped about this to geeky saikyo-rat because i know they also love mortal kombat and probably bo-rai cho due to their love of hated/underappreciated/obnoxiously misinterpreted by mainstream culture characters, but...listen to my thoughts on bo-rai cho (and also outworlder gender binary. however i have only read the mortal kombat wiki. so if i don't understand canon it's because i genuinely need to play mortal kombat):

1.) nonbinary bo-rai cho. because some nonbinary people (whether amab, afab, or intersex people who id as assigned intersex at birth) DO have beards and present masculinely, and also gender probably presents different in the outwords. the outworlds are where the ninjas of five billion different colors are right? so maybe being a ninja and covering your face is common gender roles for both men and women, and bo-rai cho, by identifying outside of that, is automatically nonbinary by outworld's culture. (i'd term outworld female and male gender expression xenobinary, which is a term coined by the inactive blog "queer-buccaneers" as "a version of male or female that is found in a different species", hence, outlander, and bo-rai cho, by being outside of that binary, is xeno-nonbinary, meaning either "having a gender between or outside of a xenobinary gender system (or) identifying as a version of nonbinary that is found in a different species". bo-rai cho, in my opinion, is the first definition, and would be his species version of abinary or anonbinary. sorry for the infodump i just want to think about mortal kombat worldbuilding related to gender.)

2.) nby4nby dan hibiki x bo-rai cho. think of the Dynamic.

Ooohhhh. Very very interesting.

1) Yes, yes.

2) *Eyes glow* YES. His, the dynamic, imagine Bo giving him some fighting advice or being curious about Saikyo style.

#mortal kombat #ask

[scalproie]

I've been seeing lots of debate regarding the Tekken 8 character endings, especially compared to MK 1, and since I'm not that big on the lore, I wanted to ask how you feel about the different approaches these games went for those endings?

Honestly its a matter of personal preferences I would say!

MK12 decided to make every character ending canon, thru them you get to learn what the characters have been up to post-story mode, and if you have additional questions, you may find an answer in the dialogue intros. It's pretty straighforward even if you do have to do a bit of research to get the full picture. Mortal Kombat also doesnt have a clear-cut protagonist (even if fire god Liu Kang is the closest we get to that role) so it's easier for it to divide the focus on it's multiple characters, and the fact that it's very much a fantasy setting means that you have an infinite amount of lore to establish, so you never run out of things to say and do with characters.

Mortal Kombat is trying to build a world, but that means that everything the characters do are meant to move this worldbuilding forward, and the future story, along, you dont really get "fluff" out of MK12's endings. And also, MK12 doesnt exist in a vaccum, it's a new timeline so it's obviously going to be compared with its predecessors, and sometimes it's like "look we're making a callback to a previous thing!" or "look we're doing this thing completely different!", and let's just say that if you DONT like those choices and changes, well you're fucked. Because it's here to stay. And sadly Im in that category.

As for T8, the story mode and the characters endings are NOT related, every single T8 character ending is non-canon, BUT. the characterization is. It's all "fluff". And it's honestly not a problem bc it makes things more focused: the characters episodes have a clear beginning meant to establish the character's motivation, a few dialogues between the different fights, and an ending, and out of all of that you get a clearer picture on who the character is, on their relationships with other characters... the endings dont NEED to advance the story forward bc that's what the story mode is for, the endings are here for presentation, for spectacle, for fun. And they're MAD fun.

As opposed to MK, Tekken has a clear set of protagonists: the titular tournament hosts, the Mishimas, and I'm lucky enough to find their story really interesting and to have them as my favorite characters. Some other people don't, however, and that's where you usually get the "oh [...] didnt do anything in the story!"

In MK12, that can be a problem, bc the story is ALL you're gonna get about your fav, but in T8, it's like... yeah? This is Jin's story, why the fuck would Feng (chinese kenpo master wanting to be the strongest) be relevant. And imo, his inclusion in the actual story was the best it couldve been (he lost to a wing chun master who chose to support Jin so he joined the bad guys team to get revenge, we see him for one fight and thats it). Not ALL characters have to be relevant, and if you want to see more of your fav: well they have an entire episode dedicated to them, with a fun little cgi cutscene at the end!

Tekken is like a movie: you dont need every character to be fully developped to drive the message of the story across, Mortal Kombat is like a franchise: every character has something to contribuate to build the world and move the story forward. Tekken wants to be Fast And Furious and Mortal Kombat wants to be Star Wars. They're different with both positives and negatives.

#with all that being said I like t8 more than mk12 bc i didnt like a lot of mk12 stoey decisions while t8 was like a feast for me lmao #tagging later #mortal kombat #tekken #anon

[maxwell-grant]

What did you think of Mortal Kombat X, and the new characters introduced there?

Never really played it compared to it's predecessor and successor, came out at a time where I had kinda fallen out of keeping up with MK. I did go back to catch up more to it and watch the entire Story Mode and all but, just never really did much for me. I barely even play Mortal Kombat as is and I completely forget this even had a big Story Mode, even now I couldn't tell you anything that happens in it besides Johnny Cage getting tortured by bees and later beating Shinnok, and the D'Vorah parts, because D'Vorah rules obviously.

Still, I like the Variation system, at the time I thought it was a really cool idea and I enjoyed trying these out the few times I played the game. Custom movesets and special variants are allright but I liked the idea of every character having between 3 optional movesets and playstyles to choose from. I also like some of the choices the took with the characters here (what they did with Mileena's teeth was total cowardice though, frankly way worse than killing her off right as they're taking her character somewhere interesting). I definitely appreciate their commitment to creating lots of new characters instead of immediately padding out the roster with the 3D era revamps of has-beens and never-weres

Really it's just the characters I have thoughts on when it comes to these so let's get to them (won't be using any images of them in X and instead just talking about them in general, man was everybody ugly in X now that I'm looking back on it)

Cassie Cage: ...you know what, she grew on me a bit in MK11. She is pretty much the Mortal Kombat version of Luke and I hated her for most of the same reasons but, 11 had her take the backseat a little and patched up some things and generally made her funny and occasionally cool enough, with some fairly good Fatalities, that she grew on me. I like her better than Sonya, which isn't a lot but it's something.

Jacqui Briggs: Pretty cool, I like her the most out of the new heroes and she got the mother of all glow-ups in 11. I like the contrast between her and Jax and how her moves and gameplay are very different from Jax while also having basically the same powers. I like that she's a kickboxer and that she has no innate magic abilities and instead gets by on enhanced gauntlets and tech, makes it feel like she's always at a lot more risk than the other fighters. I really wish she had more of an identity besides Jax, Jax is great but they overplay it to the point I think it drags her down a bit. Still, easily the best of the new heroes.

Takeda and Kung Jin: They're allright, cool weapons, you could do worse for the first confirmed gay character in Mortal Kombat, but I completely forget these guys exist most of the time, I have their profiles in hand right now and still couldn't tell you much of anything about him. Idk man most of MKX is just a memory hole for me and these guys weren't anywhere close to the most interesting things about it.

Triborg: Not a character so much as an excuse to feature all the cyborg ninjas without having to cram them into a narrative role, and fine, there could be worse ways to go on about it, the cyborg ninjas are a staple of the series with individually fun playstyles, so putting them all together via the Variation system is a practical and good solution. Only really bummer for me is that I like Cyrax as a character quite a bit and would have like for him to stay around, but I get it.

Ferra/Torr: Vaguely uncomfortable? Really don't care much for when Mortal Kombat flirts with fantasy race worldbuilding and I hope Ferra's not supposed to be like, an actual pygmy, we're probably only gonna get clarification when she shows up in MK1. I feel like they could have used an extra turn on the drawing board before being put in game but putting these aside though, pretty allright, borrowing from Mad Max freakshows feels like a no-brainer for MK and they're a fairly novel idea for a fighting game two-in-one character.

Kotal Kahn: Kotal's pretty great. He's the heart ripper to end all heart rippers a killer design and silhouette, he's got some pretty cool ideas for special moves, he is a fairly great fighting game character design. He's used to glue plenty of separate storyline threads together and he's a very solid midcard character, in that he can and frequently does job to just about anyone but can still get individually cool moments like his takedown of Goro and amazing Fatalities enough to justify him being enough of a threat in-universe to be Emperor. He is fairly novel in being The Next Emperor of Outworld who isn't a wholly evil bastard like Shao, even if he is very much kind of a bastard a lot of the time. Phil Lamarr's excellent voice work does most of the heavy lifting in making him seem a lot more cool and honorable than he actually is.

He isn't really "noble" so much as he's just regal in a cool way, and humble and honorable enough to not be at cross-purposes with the protagonists most of the time or at least own up to his mistakes, and having that bare minimum of decency is enough to make even a murderous heart-eating violent warlord who executes and enslaves people for petty thievery comparatively a great guy next to the ones that came before him, the guy who relinquishes the throne to Kitana as someone who was far better than Shao Kahn, but not good enough to properly heal Outworld from Shao. His romance with Jade is pretty allright as well.

Erron Black: I'm frankly shocked that it took Mortal Kombat that long to add a Cowboy to the roster, seriously you'd think that archetype would have shown up in the wacky MK3 years or something. Erron's pretty great and I feel like his appeal is fairly self-explanatory and everybody's more or less on the same page that he's great, so I don't have as much to say on him. They get a lot of mileage out of him as a wildcard mercenary dirtbag, who is just different enough from Kano and Kabal and the lesser variants of those two that popped up over the years that he works in storylines with, and against them. Obviously his named bullet X-Ray is the sickest shit and they do a surprisingly amount of cool stuff for his moveset, I love that he's a total scavenger and it shows in his specials. Also love his voice work, love how mysterious they keep his background.

Gunslingers tend to get a bad rep in fighting games because of how cheap their options can be, but frankly I think gunslingers nearly always tend to make for cool characters because of how much they have to be designed around game design limitations and having to give them movesets besides The Schut. Erron's easily the most iconic of the new characters and I think he's the only one who's more or less guaranteed to keep showing up, I'd be surprised if they didn't add him to MK1.

D'Vorah: People have no taste whatsoever, D'Vorah fucking rules completely. If I'll give NRS one thing, is them not capitulating to fan outcry and diminishing her in 11. The fandom went nuts over her killing Mileena in X, and so for the sequel, they let her get away with taunting Shao Kahn to his face about killing his daughter and then killing fucking Scorpion, absolute queen shit.

Women characters designed to look cool and fearsome over looking attractive are already goddamn unicorns in videogame/fighting game economy, and designed to look unapologetically monstrous and unsympathetic and horrifying, let alone all of these in one and more, are much rarer still. But disgusting? A rotting parasitic baby-eating scavenger with flaky, cracked open exoskeleton skin, filthy rags, appendages and spikes everywhere leaking gooey poison, whose belly tears open for her to caress giant maggots before the fight? I don't think any other major fighting game franchise would pull off D'Vorah's design the way they did. She only looks like a naked yellow alien lady from a split-second distance before you actually look at what's going on there, and that dissonance makes her work even better than if she was a shapeless or purely-insectoid monster. She looks just close enough to all the other bikini-clad women that it makes what she actually is and does stand out more.

It's not even like D'Vorah is that much new ground for the series besides her design, because for the most part she is just one among many backstabbing sadists with agendas looking to get a leg up by throwing their lot with the villains (that was basically Mileena's role for the longest time, which is why D'Vorah has to one-up her in grossness and kill her), it's just that unlike Mileena and most of the others, D'Vorah actually gets to follow through with backstabbing fuckers and playing them for chumps instead of getting trampled in the sidelines (and she is beatable, yes, but she's very good at last-minute dirty tricks with bug swarms and poison and scurrying away). She is every bit as much of a disgusting dirtbag heel as Kano tuned in a completely opposite direction from Kano's funnyman sellout antics, driven by a fierce blood loyalty to the hive that she embodies alone and far more capable of killing you than you ever would be towards her

I think D'Vorah is easily best female character design in the series, she's one of the finest heels in fighting games, her Fatalities are some of the best in the series, she is beauty she is grace and her maggots will melt your face, in 11 she's got the cutest voice ever, and I think she should get to kill and feed to her bugs as many of your beloved characters as she wants to. As a treat for her and her babies.

#mortal kombat #replies tag #mkx #mk #netherrealm studios #nrs #d'vorah #erron black #kotal kahn #fighting games #videogames