I like that concept. It sounds like a great way to add depth and mystery to Outworld and its inhabitants for the Earthrealm warriors like Jax, Johnny, etc...

Hornbuckle's design back in the day was a pallete swap of a green Liu Kang. What differences and details have you planned out so far for him? Considering his past as a shadow priest; what designs will you take from the ones we've seen in MK:2 before?

His primary will still be kind of monk-ish and similar to Liu, but different enough to be his own character, not just a green palette swap. I might base it more on Liu's alt from MK9 since nowhere in my stuff will Liu wear that outfit.

As for his alt, he's a Lava Shrine Priest, not a Shadow Priest, so he'll look more like this.

What if the background bridge shows ghostly images of previous battles? Blaze being captured by Hornbuckle and company is supposed to have happened centuries before MK2. My other idea was like a time window opens during Blaze's capture but that sounded too random.

Something along those lines would likely be the explanation Kitana or whoever they're with who knows the environment gives, yeah. Point is though, it's just a cameo to sell that weird magic shit happening is just part of Outworld's natural environment.

So where exactly are the characters located geographically before/after the MK3 invasion? Since, after Kahn sucks out all of Earthrealm’s souls and creates a barren wasteland, wouldn’t the cast be scattered across the world/country? Or do most of the heroes have time to gather in the same area because they know what’s coming?

Liu and Kung head back to the Wu Shi Academy; Sub-Zero and Smoke would likely be in China since they’re returning to the Lin Kuei. Jax, Sonya, Johnny, etc are all in the US. Raiden, from what you’ve said before, can’t teleport other characters around or create portals, so will characters like Sub-Zero be separate from the cast in the beginning and will they have to find a way to reorganize with the others?

Also, are you going the MK9 route with New York City being the city Kahn primarily invades?

And, this one’s down the road but when the time comes, what is/are Tanya’s motivation for betraying her own realm in MK4, how did she even come in contact with Shinnok?

Yes. I'm thinking the entire first half, maybe even two-thirds of the story is characters traveling long distances, being isolated from their allies, dodging and surviving Extermination Squad encounters.

Once they meet up at Nightwolf's reservation, getting organized, marching into the city as a team, and having the final battles happens pretty quick.



To be fair, MK9 didn't invent that, the Chrysler Building was always visible in MK3 backgrounds and Stryker's MKA bio card called his hometown NYC too.



In a nutshell, it's all jealousy of Kitana.

Tanya is the spoiled daughter of a noble. She wants to be even more rich and privileged and powerful than she already is. I also like to think that she grew up in the resistance when Outworld and Edenia were merged and seriously resents that everyone in Edenia is happy to serve a princess who used to kill her own people as an assassin for Shao Kahn.

She was probably approached by Quan Chi since his whole "how to free Shinnok from the Netherealm" plan revolved around convincing the Queen of Edenia to invite them into her realm, which means he needs someone to speak to the queen for him. Also because I get kind of a "black magic" vibe from some of her moves, so I'd like to establish her having sort of an apprentice-sorcerer relationship to Quan.

Characterization questions:

From the little information we've been given about them, how do you plan to write Smoke and Jade's personalities? I can only hope you won't follow the route MK9 went with Smoke...

Do think, between all their assassination missions and their rivalry growing up, that Kitana and Mileena ever bonded as "sisters" at one point or another? Or Kitana tried and Mileena just shoved her away because she was jealous of Kitana and Kahn's favoritism of her?

My approach to Jade is more of a timid, obedient slave since it takes her a lot more convincing to turn on Kahn for Kitana's sake in UMK3 than it did in 9. I can assure you, she will not find anything "too easy".

Smoke, on the other hand, is...difficult to pin down. The events he's involved in don't tell you much about his personality.



That's a very complicated relationship, but I think the short answer is yes, they were close at one point. Part of Mileena's resentment probably comes from the fact that Kitana started shunning her and they grew apart once she found out the truth about her being a clone, because even though she was keeping it a secret, she couldn't help that she'd never see her as a real sister or trust her again.

When you do Armageddon is there a scene in your mind where you picture Johnny Cage just REALIZES that he screwed up by leading his allies into a trap not to mention he sees his killer Motaro alive which infuriates him. So out of character he suddenly starts glowing in red, butts in between Motaro and Sheeva's fight, pushes out Sheeva in an adrenaline rush, and beats Motaro to death by tearing off the rat tail, one of his horns, his arms, stabs one of the horns in his head, and starts beating Motaro to death while loudly yelling out his failures pre-Armageddon from Nimbus's death in MK1 up to the trap in Armageddon?

Y'know, I hadn't thought of it (Not that much work put into the "how does everybody die" part of MKA just yet), but a revenge against Motaro scene ain't a bad idea.

There's one thing I don't understand about Liu Kang's ending in MK4. If both him and Kitana are DEFINITELY going to talk about each other's problems (kicking Kahn's ass and freeing Edenia, helping out Liu from being teary over his immortality as Champion of Kombat) in both MK2 and MK3 and Kitana KNOWS that Earthrealm needs the MK Champion to defend his title in the next tournament, Then why the fuck does she just pop out and offer Liu a seat in Edenia in a somewhat redundant fashion? Isn't it kind of saying that asking out a Catholic priest-in training out on a date even though you've known him as a friend for two weeks and he's fucking celibate?

If I was Liu, I would be pissed off and just remind her like "Uhhh Kitana you know you have a responsibility right? You know the realm you just freed that you dreamed of doing for your fucking entire life once you stopped being a murderer? I just kicked the Emperor's ass "two times" (first time was that stone statue) and had my realm invaded and almost MERGED because YOUR fucking mother happened to be involved in a resurrection process! I'm sorry is this visitation of your image supposed to be TESTING me whether I'm a worthy protector of Earthrealm or just a cocktease who wants to bang some alien princess? What kind of position do you think you have to have the BALLS to ignore the previous conversations we had about our problems as FRIENDS and ask me to defend your realm as king like I'm in a fucking relationship with you that I never agreed to?! I got a question: If you want to defend Edenia so much. why the FUCK can you do it? You've 10,000 years old and have approximately 455X more combat experience than I do and I failed to kill Shang Tsung on THREE separate opportunities! So FUCK YOU Princess Kitana! I'd rather have Shang Tsung twist my neck behind me than abandon my post as Champion of MK just to keep alien fucks like YOU from shitting all over the entire planet! IT'S OVER!"

Seriously I'd like to hear Kitana's excuses for even visiting Liu in the MK4 ending rather than to mess with his head

That's a bit harsh. I suppose I'd argue that by MK4, there's no way they were still "just friends", especially since Liu's bio kinda implies that he was visiting Edenia on a regular basis just to spend time with her, not to mention Liu was training Kai, which implies he'd like to retire and have a next generation ready to pick up the slack.

It's just that Kitana probably simply wasn't thinking about Liu's responsibilities, she was thinking about the fact that they're in love, and unfortunately, Kai turned out to be useless as a replacement and Liu had to do everything himself again.

Speaking of Kai, any plans for his inclusion in MKDA? He was considered for that game based on that concept art. Or would he be redundant with Kung Lao there.

Irrelevant, but I find it amusing that John Tobias seems to have strong distaste for that character.

Apparently Kai spent the gap between MK4 and Armageddon wandering the world, seeking enlightenment, becoming a hermit-sage, that sort of thing...to the point where in his ending, he can actually read the One Being's mind and see the past, present, and future.

I'd kinda like to stick to like that, because I intend to have him appear as a wise guru character at some point in the Post-MKA fanfic stuff.
One thing of note is I'm gonna let him keep Raiden's staff and draw Raiden carrying the hammer from that point on instead.

Is there ever a reason why Bi Han spares Sareena in Mythologies and why years later Taven does the same in Armageddon when Sareena is back under Quan Chi's control? Is there some kind of aura Sareena gives off to make her enemies pity her or something, lol?

I'm going with raw physical attraction in Bi-Han's case, which will eventually be revisited as Noob Saibot.

Taven didn't kill any of the three girls. Pretty sure you don't have the option. He's a good guy and he's usually in a hurry, so he doesn't kill everybody he meets. In fact, even though you can do a Fatality on the Tengu clan leader Wu Lae and get a treasure chest for it, I'm fairly certain Taven's canonically not supposed to, since he says he'll let him go.

I read Sub-Zero's original bio and it says that along with his mother, is younger sister also disappeared. Then suddenly in MKDA this Cryomancer named Frost just comes along into the Lin Kuei and Kuai Liang is impressed by her? Has anyone actually considered that Frost is actually Sub-Zero's long-lost sister? Could this potential be used by Noob Saibot as a way to demoralize his younger brother?

Vogel once confirmed that Frost is NOT Sub-Zero's sister.

The fact that they're NOT directly related yet have the same inherited powers is what proves to Sub-Zero that his powerset isn't unique to his family and the Cryomancers are a whole species.
Besides, I don't see Frost being half-Chinese like the Sub bros. She strikes me as Nordic, like she'd be blonde under the ice-hairgel.

Shao Kahn was severely wounded in the aftermath of MK3 right? I could picture after Liu tears a hole with his Flaming Fist through the unmasked Kahn's abdominal cavity, Liu Kang can hold up his body high up on top of Kahn's towering fortress and toss his wounded body down from there, crashing there so Kahn's comrades can cease their attack and attend to their wounded master. It's kind of like Superman after he defeated Darkseid at 3:30-3:41

Superman vs Darkseid

Any plans for MK2 alternate costumes?

Well Kahn's defeat has to look like this:







And no, nothing new on the costume front yet.

How important will Bo Rai'Cho be in the Razorverse timeline besides training Kitana and Kung Lao to defeat the Deadly Alliance (which they FAILED despite the fact that Bo Rai'Cho is a professional 1,000 year-old Outworld martial artist. Maybe he was drunk I don't know) and rallying "Kitana's" army against the Tarkartan horde in Deception?

Bo trained someone for EVERY MK tournament. His students only won twice out of twenty.

Maybe he's not that good. Or maybe it's just that no matter how good you are, there's only so much you can prepare a human who has to fight Goro or Shang. Plus, in MKDA, Shang Tsung had Liu Kang's soul, and was using the Soulnado to heal at will, and Quan had Shinnok's Amulet. So Kung and Kitana kinda had no chance.

As far as seeing him more often in the Razorverse...well, you forgot that he also trains Shujinko and Li Mei...but yeah, outside of the stuff he does in DA/Deception/Armageddon, I don't really have anything extra planned for him. Basically, he's an old man trying to retire. When Liu won, his work was done, so he moved back to Outworld. The only reason he starts teaching and fighting again is 'cause Liu died.

Ho, I'm interested. Especially since it's Bi Han of all people.

Concerning Kung Lao, is there a reason given he wears a razor rimmed hat, especially since he's a monk? Do his brother monks even support that?

And, I remember back either in this thread or your art one, mentioning how Sub-Zero arrives late to the MK2 tournament. Is it a big spoiler to ask why/how? And wouldn't this arise issues with Kahn, like him being strict about late arrivers, just giving the Earthrealm side more problems and not wanting them to have an extra fighter that increases their chances of winning?

Liu and Kung technically stopped being monks when they left the order to join the White Lotus Society and devoted themselves wholly to training for constant battle with Outworld. They've given up a lot of the dogma and lifestyle rules, as evidenced by their grown-out hair, fancy clothes, and the fact that in MK1, they had to come back to the temple and convince the elders to let one of them represent the Shaolin in the tournament.

Kung Lao in particular is not the pacifist that Liu is, he's a lot more aggressive and willing to kill during MK1 thru 3, and that'll be a big source of conflict between the two of them during MK2 because if Liu had killed Shang, the temple wouldn't have been attacked, and Kung wants revenge but Liu is having a moral struggle about still not wanting to kill anybody.



It sorta goes the same way it did in MK9, but more fleshed out. Sub and Smoke don't have any reason to hang out with the other heroes, so they're not there when the challenge is issued, they wander into Outworld on their own mission and once Sub finds out about the tournament, he decides that entering is the best way to assassinate Shang.

Kahn doesn't care about Sub enough to be mad about it, but he does stack the deck against him, making him fight Shang's bodyguard (Reptile) and a guy who showed up to just to kill him (Scorpion).