Mortal Kombat Kreations
Prologue
Before all things, there was the One Being. From the One Being came the elder gods, those that govern over the aspects of life, death, time, space, chaos, and order. While the elder gods were granted sentience, they were ultimately extensions of The One Being's will. The One Being created all the realms, thousands in number. The realms took many different shapes and possessed many different ecosystems and forms of nature. Edenia was a realm luscious green fields, crystal clear oceans and rivers. The realm of chaos was in a constant state of deterioration and reformation, barren of healthy nature. Outworld was a realm covered in an eternal purple sky with wildlife taking on more sentient forms. Earthrealm was a realm with the most variety, having snowy arctics, sandy deserts, and wet jungles. All of these realms and more were radically different from each other, yet they all were a part of the One Being.
However, the elder gods knew that these realms served no purpose if they were devoid of life that could inhabit them. As a result, the One Being created mortals to provide culture to these realms. While the One Being watched over the realms, the elder gods began to bring balance to the mortals. The elder god of life, Cetrion, would create and preserve all life through the realms whether it be plant life, animals, or mortals. The elder god of space, Ourano, created portals between the realms, allowing mortals to travel between them. Ourano also created two other realms, the Heaven realm and the Netherrealm. The elder god of death, Shinnok, was placed in charge of sending the souls of the dead to either of these realms. Those with righteous souls enter the Heavenly realm while the souls of the damned plummet to the depths of the Netherrealm. Kronika, the elder god of time, was in charge of the passage of time, making sure days pass in each realm correctly as well as keeping track of the rate the mortals of each realms' aging process. Abacus, the elder god of order, provided mortals with the knowledge in the facts of morals, laws, science, and structure. To provide balance, the elder god of chaos, Zaggot, gave mortals knowledge in the ideas of individuality, choice, art, and freedom.
With these gifts and knowledge, mortals had begun to change their realms. Edena became a utopia with beings that lived for hundreds of thousands of years. The realm of Seido took up the morals and laws created by Abacus to build a rich society that punishes any misdemeanor with extreme force. Outworld became a realm filled with monsters that fought with each other in the most barbaric ways. The Chaosrealm followed the ways of Zaggot, feeling that the only way to live in a realm in a constant state of degeneration was chaos. The elder gods watched over these realms, watching mortals invent weapons, build larger cities, even manipulating the energies of the realms with sorcery. Mortals learned sorcery either through gaining favor of the elder gods, mastering their chi, or learning to find the holes in the design of the realms.
Learning that mortals had founds holes in the design drove the One Being mad. The One Being began to drain the power of the elder gods, feeling they had failed to protect the structure of his creations. As the One Being drained power from the elder gods, the realms began to fall apart. Wildlife dried up and died, the barriers between realms broke down, wars scattered across the realms, the dead rose from their graves and the living were picked off, and days grew and shrank rapidly, aging all life. The elder gods knew that the One Being had to be stopped but since all reality depended on the One Being's existence, they had to find a path to victory without killing. The elder gods turned to their most faithful of sorcerers to pull on the natural spirit of all the realms to create the Kamidogu, jewels able to contain unnatural amounts of energy inside of it. With the Kamidogu, the elder gods broke apart the One Being and sealed each part inside the jewels. From that point on, each individual Kamidogu would serve as the artifact that keeps its respective realm together as well as a prison for the One Being.
With the One Being imprisoned, the elder gods slowly regained their power and slowly reformed the structure of the realms. However, simply keeping structure with the realms became more difficult. Keeping the Kamidogu safe was a necessity to keep the One Being from reemerging. Keeping them separated in each realm was a logical start, but they needed more security to stop any fool from trying to merge them into one. That is when the elder gods created the gods, immortal beings that lack the control over the fabrics of reality but are in control of strong elemental magic. These gods would act as the guardians of their respective realms, maintaining stability in their realm while avoiding interfering with other realms. Argus, god of fire, became the guardian of Edenia. Lucifer, god of shadows, became the guardian of the Netherrealm. Suijin, goddess of water, became the guardian of the Chaosrealm. Raiden, god of thunder, became the guardian of thunder. Those and hundreds of other gods guarded the realms and the Kamidogu of each realm. Most of these gods decided to work alone, with Suijin only acts in the Chaosrealm being the continual flow of water and protect her realm's Kamidogu. Some of these gods took more hands-on approaches to guarding their realm. Raiden has always made it a point to interact with the most faithful of followers, having them assist in his mission. Lucifer decided to rule the Netherrealm with an iron fist, declaring himself ruler of the realm and greatly punishing the souls of the damned.
While each realm had one singular god guarding it, each realm had a secondary god to assist the guardian if a situation ever arose that called for more power. Not many gods were created in the Heavenly Realm due to Cetrion worrying the act of creating new gods could eventually cause an unbalance in the nature of life and mortality. As a result, the Cetrion, Zaggot, Ourano, and Abacus developed an idea. If a mortal could gain the favor of the elder gods, they could be granted the status of god and with it, immortality and an increase in power. While the elder gods would normally seek out the most faithful of followers that have achieved a great feat or protected their realm, these individuals were hard to find due to multiple circumstances like wars within said realms or times of peace where mortals would live their normal lives. They needed to find a way to take these individuals away from these outside factors and see them actually achieve greatness.
This led to the creation of an event where the most skilled warriors of each realm would compete against each other for the favor of the elder gods, immortality, and godlike power. A tournament that was set in an arena between realms created by Ourano, with rules created by Abacus, and with a focus on blood combat to satisfy Zaggot.
Mortal Kombat was born.
After the mess with the Sindel retcon, the lack of clarity on how the elder gods and titans work, and the movie being a bit disappointing, I decided to make my own Mortal Kombat story. It was a bit harder to come up with an origin for the One Being, the elder gods, the regular gods that was in line with what all the go media presented. I mean, I know I'm making my own universe, but I'm doing this to also be faithful. I do like the idea of the elder gods being in control of key components of reality like Shinnok being the god of death. That makes sense to me, but I decided to downgrade Kronika to being an elder god because that actually makes sense instead of whatever a titan is supposed to be in the MK universe. I get it being a tie to Greek mythology, but it's still messy.
As for why I made the Mortal Kombat tournament start off as being a ground to be worthy of godhood, I looked back on the MK 1 endings about Raiden and Liu Kang trying to bring honor back to the tournament. I know the tournament by the time of Shao Kahn was meant to keep Kahn from just outright invading, but I was wondering what it meant by Liu Kang bringing honor back to it. So, I chose to have it start off as being about gaining favor from the elder gods and gaining godhood.
I hope this is at least somewhat interesting to read and think about. Leave a comment on what you think down below.