Character Idea Showcase (Up Next: Daisuke, the Haunted Armor)

Hey there, folks! For some time now, when I’ve had nothing to do, I’ve just been messing around and thinking of ideas for potential characters in KI. Being the big ol’ nerd that I am, I’ve been writing up some backstories, making some movelists and kits, and thinking of stage ideas for them. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately, what can I say?

Either way, I thought up about 20-ish different ideas for characters, some of them based off ideas from the community survey, some ideas I’ve wanted to see for awhile, and others just ideas I thought of while going through this. What I wanted to do is see what 8 character ideas people would be most interested in seeing me present to the forums. I’d commission an artist friend of mine to get a visual representation of those 8, give the basics of a character, then let you folks dispense feedback for a week before presenting another. I don’t know, I thought it’d be fun to see what kinds of discussions it starts. So, here are the 20 characters I thought up for the time being.

  • Eagle, the Lost Brother
  • Daisuke, the Spectral Samurai
  • Gigante, the Wandering Luchador
  • Kelvin, the Galactic Deputy
  • Cassidy, the Sinister Outlaw
  • Darius, the Pensive Djinni
  • Reiketsu, the Cyborg Ninja
  • Mako, the Ocean Stalker
  • Yakone, the Tundra Archer
  • Sinew, the Relentless Wendigo
  • Adagio, the Audacious Technocrat
  • Zevnir, the Mad Dracolich
  • Crowley, the Aged Hunter
  • Xylem, the Treant Sentinel
  • Oba, the Righteous Zangbeto
  • Brutus, the Stone Minotaur
  • Kat, the Sadistic Mercenary
  • Foehn, the Just Tengu
  • Sol-Dakuri, the Living War
  • Vyle, the Astral Lieutenant

0 voters

I should’ve realized this, but some of the two-word descriptors aren’t as specific as I’d like them. In the interest of trying to alleviate this issue, I’ll provide some real short descriptions of each one. Yeah, more word space!

  • Eagle: Thunder’s brother who seeks to reunite and team up with him to take down UltraTech.

  • Daisuke: A samurai whose soul was tied to his armor by UltraTech.

  • Gigante: A luchador watched over by an ancient Aztec spirit.

  • Kelvin: Glacius’ partner who comes to earth to save him.

  • Cassidy: A member of The Coven from the Old West and gun enthusiast.

  • Darius: A djinni who caused a great tragedy centuries ago and seeks redemption.

  • Reiketsu: A former Yakuza assassin that received cybernetic enhancements, wanted dead by UltraTech.

  • Mako: Subject #273 of Project Mako, a direct successor to Project Stalker that synthesizes human and mako shark DNA.

  • Yakone: An archer of Inuit descent whose bow has been blessed by the Bear Spirit.

  • Sinew: A miner who was turned into a wendigo decades ago by Cassidy.

  • Adagio: A Czech robotics savant that seeks the admiration of ARIA.

  • Zevnir: An ancient Polish lich that has merged his soul with that of a dragon.

  • Crowley: A Victorian-era member of the Night Guard seeking to repay an old friend.

  • Xylem: A Celtic tree given life by druids to protect their homeland.

  • Oba, a troop of benevolent Yoruba spirits summoned into a zangbeto to protect their land from UltraTech’s encroaching operations.

  • Brutus: A minotaur golem powered by the Heart of the Ancients.

  • Kat: A nihilistic mercenary whose only loyalty rests with cold hard cash.

  • Foehn: A humanoid bird that looks to bring his old friend Darius to justice for what he did ages ago.

  • Sol-Dakuri: An ancient Babylonian general cursed to bring war with him where ever he goes.

  • Vyle: An UltraTech scientist who experimented on herself with Astral Energy, mutating her.

And, as always, I encourage others to share their more fleshed-out character ideas they have rolling around. I’ll let you know when I can start actually doing the titular weekly character idea showcase. Some things to set up in advance, you know? Anyway, hopefully this thread doesn’t waste your time and isn’t too redundant. I know there’s countless “ideas for new KI characters” threads on here, but I wanted one that houses more developed ideas that branch beyond just being a concept.

3 Likes

Adagio, the Audacious Technocrat sounds a LOT like what we already have with ARIA, but if your idea is more a long the lines of a tech priest who’s more interested in personal discoveries, that could be pretty cool.

Also, I always vote for luchadors.

Adagio does have quite a few similarities to ARIA in my write-up, but that kinda ties into the story I wrote for him. I can definitely understand seeing some overlap there.

Wow, five of the eight I picked are top five. Cool. Also went with Sinew, Crowley and Cassidy.

BTW, those are some great character names you have there! Some real creativity when combined with their identity. They all fit rather well. I’ll be curious to see how they’re fleshed out, especially:

Eagle
Sol-Dakuri
Daisuke
Reiketsu
Mako
Sinew
Crowley
Cassidy

I’d really love Kelvin to be a female member of Glacius’ race. It’d be cool to see what a female of his race looks like.

Evil ryu, oni were well recieved in sf4, So shago and shadow orchid bonus char, nuff said

A lot of these ideas are too similar to what we already have. Aganos = Treant/stone miniature. Technocrat = ARIA. Spectral samurai = Hisako. And so on…

Oh why not, ALL of them for me here

I see where your coming from. Especially with Aganos and ARIA. I went with the Treant idea because it was one of the ones I remember from the character survey, Adagio is similar to ARIA because of reasons I got in the write-up (you’ll have to take my word), and Daisuke may sound similar from the descriptor of “Spectral Samurai”. but the concept is less Hisako and more Bishamon from Darkstalkers (i.e. a living suit of samurai armor). I did my best to make them as different from existing characters as possible, but I have no doubt I borked up somewhere. At least I got 20 options!

A lot of your ideas also conflict with certain accessory sets too. Spinal has a samurai set and Sadira has a genie set, for example.

Hey, thanks man. I’m glad to see somebody liked the idea of Crowley. Personally, I hope he ends up being in the top 8.

1 Like

Too be fair…a character like Spinal got around in his however many hundreds of years of life, sure he picked up a Roman armor, samurai oufit or viking clothing, doesnt mean you shouldnt have an ancient Roman fighter, Spectral Samurai or Bjork the skinny viking with the horrible voice…

Might even make for nice matches/encounters for SL if for example Spinal meets a cursed ancient Roman General he had a beer with back in the day…“so, I see you got your ■■■ cursed too, told you not to mess with that voodoo lady” or “Hey Bjork, immortality got a hold of you too I see, great job on those top 40 hits, but why are you a woman now?”

Also, Crowley was my number 8, we need more experienced, older (and not immortal) characters.

Was going to pick Vyle on account of super liking his name, but ‘Astral Lieutenant’ doesnt tell me enough about what to expect… Maybe you should have had short blurbs on their background…

Nice to see so much interest in new characters though, now that the focus isnt on returning characters anymore.

Anyways lots of rambling, pretty tired, love the thread, good job!

1 Like

Yeah, Vyle was the one I had the most trouble with when coming up with a two-word descriptor. I wanted to keep the descriptions really short and sweet, but I just never could come up with one for Vyle. I guess I can at least give a brief description down here.

Vyle is an UltraTech scientist who experimented on herself with Astral Energy, mutating her.

1 Like

Wendigo and Ocean Creatue are highly voted

yes

this is the correct

Got some really cool ideas here…particularly the minotaur and the archer for me. The only thing you forgot was a Gorgon/Medusa character.

I thought about doing a gorgon/medusa style character, but the thing that kept me from doing it is that I just really have no passion for the concept personally. I know for sure that I’ve seen a lot people request it, but it’s just never been something that’s my cup of tea. I’d really love to see someone develop an idea for one. Maybe then I could get on board the snake train with everyone else.

I have a ton of characters:

  • Psychic: A human subject for mastering psychic powers runs away to a circus living her life as a gypsy fortune teller. She is also a love interest of Jago. In the lines of Jean Grey/Phoenix, Raven. Psylocke, Rose, Ermac, Kenshi & Kitana.

  • Speedster: A former race car driver joins a rival corporation to Ultratech, by possessing a suit given him super speed. In the lines of The Flash, Quicksilver, Kabal & touches of Speed Racer, Hot Wheels and The Fast & The Furious.

  • Sherlock Holmes: A detective with spiritual exorcism abilities, whose ancestor hunted down a mad scientist in service to Ultratech. In the line of Sherlock Holmes, Rorschach, Larcen Tyler and John Constantine. He possesses a spirit gun like Yusuke Urameshi.

  • Wrestler: a former wrestler and rival to TJ Combo, whose ranks were expelled for massacre on his opponents. He goes to Ultratech as one their bodyguards giving him venom that enhanced his strength. Somewhere with the WWE.

  • Merman/Mermaid: A member of a royal family from Atlantis who wishes for the city to rise up to the surface again once more, with Ultratech’s help. Able to manipulate water. Like Rikuo, Rain, Mer-Man (He-Man), Aquaman & Namor.

Splendid! Now that’s you’ve got some concepts, try to develop some movelists, somewhat in-depth backstories, and maybe even stages for them. Names always help too!

I’m afraid I’m only good at concepts and bits of story. It’s not easy to find inspiration from reality.

I’d leave the movelists, backstories and stages to the professionals.

Well the psychic is a problem. Maybe a circus? Oh and the detective’s stage is a problem.

Speedster: Something to do with Hot Wheels & Speed Racer tracks.

Wrestler; Wrestling Ring.

But what’s your concepts from yours?

Oh, trust me, I’m far from a professional when it comes to this stuff. I just got passion. When you put your mind to it with enough time, things start to fall into place. As for concepts, well, let’s look at a few. Darius, for example, started as just the concept of “djinn”. Cassidy just started as “cowboy”. Crowley came from the fact that I really like Bloodborne. Those are just some of the concepts I started with.

For backstories, just kinda think about the character in general. What’s their personality? What have they done in the past? What can they do now? Who do they know? What’s their overall goal? Just things like that. It doesn’t have to be perfect/

For movelists, just ask yourself some more questions relative to their idea. What’s their general gameplan? What are they good at? What are they bad at? What can they do that no one else can? I see you have a lot of sources of inspiration for your characters. I found it helps if you look at them and use them as inspiration for what kind of moves they can use. just some stuff like that.

With stages, I think it helps when you have a fleshed-out backstory for them. Then you can look at something that would suit them from there.

And remember: it doesn’t need to be perfect. Just work on stuff like this till you’re happy with what you got and show it off. Or you don’t have to obviously. I just thought I’d offer some tips that helped me when I struggled with thinking of stuff when making my dudes.