paletteswap | In the Night App

PLAYER INFO

Player Name: Sydney
Player Contact: filledwithstraw
Character(s) In-Game: n/a

CHARACTER INFO

Character Name: Kuai Liang (Sub-Zero)
Age: 45
Canon: Mortal Kombat

World Description: Wiki of Earthrealm
The world consists of several realms that can be traversed by magical beings, sorcerers or gods. Kuai is from Earthrealm which is constantly being invaded by Outworld and the Netherrealm (MK's version of Hell).

History: Wiki Page

Death: His death will come at the end battle as they fight across the bridge to the gate of Kronika's Keep. (Right around here)

What are your plans for this character in-game? Solve things without fighting! He can't exactly punch the darkness away or freeze it, so he'll have to be a normal person who solves problems through investigation and talking. He won't exactly enjoy that.

While he is the one in canon who trains outsiders, his frame of reference is still incredibly limited when it comes to other people and cultures. He lives on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere China with only his clan and trains or meditates every waking moment. He's not exactly great with big groups of people when it's not coordinating fighting. Even though this is a horror setting, there's going to be downtime where he won't be able to train and I'd love to explore him being an actual person who does non-combat related things. (Other than making tea. He does make a mean cup of tea.)

What aspects of this game and/or its setting are you most interested in having this character engage with? The ever encroaching darkness. Kuai's brother Bi-Han is basically a being made of darkness and shadow now so he'll definitely start extrapolating what's going on here to what's happened to his brother with hopes that he can use that knowledge to fix him should he ever get back to his own realm.

Because of everyone being dead, and this not being the Netherrealm, he'll be suspicious that Kronika (an elder god with the ability to rewrite time) might have erased him from existence and this is where he ended up. Maybe Beacon is some sort of holding place or limbo for those that she's removed from the sands of time.

How does your character generally get along with other people? He is shockingly the nice one in the series. He gets along with everyone, even though he comes off as gruff and unapproachable: he's forgiven Hanzo for murdering his brother and made peace between them, he is constantly hopeful that he can reverse what has been done to his brother and he's often selfless and helpful. He'll talk to anyone, but he is very formal so depending on how the other person acts he may simply leave - but he generally won't immediately start a fight unless he's attacked first.

However once attacked he'll fight without caring if he kills the other person. They engaged in combat therefore they're accepting the risk of death and pulling his punches would be condescending and dishonorable.

He's generally distrustful of technology, but he'll enjoy the texting and network once he figures out how to use it which will open up a lot of options for him to talk to other people.

What is your character's mental state upon entering the game? He's hopefully optimistic that the final battle put an end to Kronika's time shenanigans. However he does believe that Beacon might be where those unmade by her meddling go when they are removed from the timeline. He'll be constantly searching for a way out, but he's not depressed about being dead or upset about what transpired. He died honorably and for a purpose. That's more than most warriors get.

Skills/Abilities:
See his moveset in action here.
Ice - As the name implies Sub-Zero's ability is ice. He can shoot it out of his hands, and also explode in little icicles as a defensive move. He has three major ice-based attacks he uses:
Ice Axe - He summons a huge ice battle axe to fight with that shatters after a few hits.
Freeze - This is a projectile ice ball that will freeze anyone (or anything) it touches. In canon they're frozen for minutes, but for the setting I'm going to nerf this one so that if he actually freezes a person they'd be able to break out of it in a few seconds (though be very very cold). He can also direct this at the ground and slide on it, or create ice walls to throw people at or to block their way. He can also make an ice copy of himself and snowmen sculptures.
Icicle Barrage - Shoots a bunch of razer-sharp icicles out of his hands. They're ice so he can't exactly knock down a door with this, but if it hit a person it would tear them up.

Martial Artist - Even without the ice he's a skilled fighter and martial artist. He can use blades and throwing stars in addition to his ice axe, and is deadly in hand to hand combat.

Flaws/Weaknesses:
Optimistic and Idealistic: He believes that people are capable of change and can be redeemed. While this would normally be a positive thing, it does lead him to be betrayed a lot and lured into dangerous situations. Even though he knew that Frost was prideful and egotistical he thought that she had potential and trained her as his protege, only for her to betray him due to her own hubris. He also thinks that his brother can be reasoned with even though he's not really the same person anymore. (More on that below)

Not Ed Boon's Favorite: Anything that can go terribly for Sub-Zero will. An incomplete list:

- His brother Bi-Han is murdered by Scorpion (Hanzo Hasashi)
- The Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei decides to turn everyone into robots against their will - basically destroying his clan
- Kuai gets turned into a robot and forced to serve Shao Kahn
- Bi-Han is resurrected as Noob Saibot by Quan Chi without any of his humanity - turning him into a monster
- His friend Smoke is killed and turned into a rage-filled undead revenant
- Quan Chi rips Kuai's soul out of the robot body and puts it into a new body created by sorcery
- He's forced to serve Quan Chi and is enslaved, while still being aware of everything he's mind-controlled into doing
- Once freed from Quan Chi he's unconscious for months
- Upon waking up he's stabbed by a cursed dagger and possessed by a cleric of Chaos
- While possessed he destroys an entire town and kills thousands
- Once freed from being possessed Hanzo nearly kills him and leaves him to bleed out
- He frees Cyrax from being an enslaved robot only to have him blow up the rest of the robots along with himself
- The entire Lin Kuei clan is wiped out except for him
- Finds out that Sektor had made a deal with Shinnok to have Quan Chi destroy their rivals the Shirai Ryu (Hanzo's clan) in exchange for the Lin Kuei's loyalty
- Nearly gets killed when he tries to make peace with Hanzo
- Is betrayed by his protege Frost who turns the whole clan into robots (again)
- Frees Cyrax from being an enslaved robot (again) only to have him shut down the rest of the robots along with himself
- The entire Lin Kuei clan is wiped out except for him (again)
- Hanzo is killed
- Scorpion kicks his ass

Honorable & Proud: He's bound by a sense of honor and duty to his clan, which means that he wouldn't ever back down from a challenge even if he knew he couldn't win. He's also confident in his skill and will brag about how flawlessly he fights. This is backed up by him actually being incredibly skilled, but it does tend to make people want to fight him more.

People:
Bi-Han: His brother and the first Sub-Zero. Now he's been reborn as Noob Saibot without any of the humanity he once had. No matter how many times Noob tries to kill him, Kuai still thinks that he can be saved and brought back from Quan Chi's dark magic. Noob knows it too and taunts him about this, he could easily manipulate Kuai into getting himself killed trying to help what used to be his brother.

Hanzo Hasashi (Scorpion): The murderer of his brother and last remaining member of the rival clan the Shirai Ryu. For twenty-three years of this franchise they were enemies, occasionally joining forces but most often trying to kill each other. There are times that they seem to understand one another, for instance in MK2 Scorpion realizes that Kuai is not anything like Bi-Han and is a good person and vows to be this new Sub-Zero's protector. But in MKX they finally, actually, ended their rivalry and became friends.

In Mortal Kombat 11 they're shown as close partners working together to take down the Cyber Lin Kuei factory. Kuai is able to recognize Hanzo's footsteps without looking at him and Hanzo actually comforts Kuai when they see the massacre of his clan, which for someone as emotionless as Hanzo is pretty significant. When Kuai finds out towards the end of the game that Hanzo has been killed he immediately attacks the messenger of that news.

While Kuai will never, ever, admit to caring about Hanzo in any way he would be devastated if something happened to him.

Personality: The main thing with Kuai is that he's both a decent person who makes ridiculous ice puns and sculptures of bears, but he's also deadly dangerous and rips peoples' spines out and prides himself on his fighting skill. There's a constant push/pull dynamic between him being nice and honorable, and not hesitating to kill anyone who challenges him or threatens the realm.

He's not naive, but his optimistic nature means that he can be taken advantage of without realizing it. He's also, quite honestly, tired and too old for this shit. He's been fighting constantly for his entire life and the realm doesn't seem any safer. But because he's made a solemn vow to protect it he'll never stop fighting, or even take a day off. In Beacon he'll likely work himself into the ground fighting and planning and trying to escape. Hopefully some of the people he'll meet there will force him to actually take care of himself for a change.

Items:
- This outfit along with the knives. He also has a headband under his hat.
- Telescope
- Lin Kuei medallion

SAMPLES

Log & Network Sample: TDM toplevel