Shinnok

Shinnok is an Elder God that fell from grace after he attempted to conquer the Earthrealm and a villain from the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games.

Attempt at Power
It is known that Shinnok knew Taven and Daegon and their father, Argus. Shinnok desired to control the Earthrealm, which would give him immense power. However he knew that he could not enter the realm without the Elder Gods becoming aware of his plans. Shinnok then aquired a mystical amulet, which allowed him to enter Earthrealm by weakening the dimensional barriers. A war broke out and the Elder God found himself fighting the thunder god, Raiden. At one point Raiden was left with a terrible choice, either sacrifice the indigenious race of Earthrealm or surrender to Shinnok. However the Elder Gods intervened and Raiden defeated the god, stripping him of his amulet. Shinnok was cast into Netherrealm, but his defeat left the dimensional fibres of the worlds weak, resulting in Earthrealm's then indigenous race, the Saurians, going almost extinct.

Claiming Netherrealm
Shinnok was imprisoned within Netherrealm, where he was tormented constantly by Netherrealms then ruler, Lucifer. However he met Quan Chi, who agreed to help him overthrow his tormentor, in exchange for a great amount of power and a place at Shinnok's side. They were succesful in their coup and became the main controllers of Netherrealm.

Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
Shinnok began rebuilding his forces of darkness, but knew he could not escape from Netherrealm without his amulet. He dispatched Quan Chi to find it, who after many years discovered its location. The sorcerer recovered it for Shinnok using the elder Sub-Zero, but secretly gave him a useless replica. Sub-Zero confronted the fallen Elder God and managed to retrieve the amulet from him.

Mortal Kombat 3
Though Shinnok did not participate in Shao Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm, he did instigate them and monitored them. Earlier, Quan Chi had made a deal with Shang Tsung in exchange for the location of Shinnok's amulet, Shinnok would ressurect Shao Kahn's deceased queen, Sindel, allowing him to enter Earthrealm. Shinnok also ordered Noob Saibot to spy on Shao Kahn and to eventually side with the Earthrealm warriors, since Kahn had also attempted to invade Netherrealm, which Shinnok took as a sign that he was becoming to powerful.

Mortal Kombat 4
With Shao Kahn defeated, Shinnok lead his forces in an assault on the realms and proved successful in conquering Edenia, capturing Queen Sindel and Princcess Kitana. However after this, Shinnok's plans went downhill, thanks to his possessing a fake amulet, with the real one belonging to Quan Chi. The sorcerer was dragged down to Netherrealm when he attempted to send Scorpion back to Netherrealm. Shinnok's forces were defeated by Raiden and his warriors and Liu Kang managed to defeat Shinnok himself, resulting in his banishment back to Netherrealm.

Mortal Kombat Armageddon
Earlier Shinnok discovered Onaga trapped in the Netherrealm and offered him freedom in exchange for the Dragon King's assistance in reclaiming his power. When Onaga agreed, the Fallen God opened a portal for him to Outworld where he allied himself with Shao Kahn, Shang Tsung, and Quan Chi. Shinnok later encountered Taven during his quest in Netherrealm while he was being attacked by Li Mei. Taven didn't know about Shinnok's fall from grace and he saved the the fallen Elder God from her wrath. The god said that he had been sent to Netherrealm because he had meddled in the affairs of mortals. Shinnok asked him for assistance in driving out invaders in his tower, only for him to reveal, after Taven had left, that these were illusions he had conjured up and that he was in league with Daegon, whom Taven had pursued to Netherrealm. Shinnok said that perhaps he should have placed his trust in Taven, since he defeated the illusions faster than Daegon. The god also revealed he was the one that alerted the kombatants to the godlike powers Blaze's defeat would give to the person who defeated him.

In his ending, Shinnok sent a doppleganger of himself to the final battle to assist Daegon in defeating Blaze. However this doppleganger defeated Blaze himself and became a living being as powerful as Shinnok. Now the fallen Elder God would have to face his doppleganger to attain ultimate power.

Powers
Shinnok is quite a powerful being thanks to his being a god, his powers seeming to mainly revolve around darkness and the Netherrealm, such as summoning a skeletal hand from the ground to grip his opponent. Shinnok can also shapeshift and mimic the powers of other kombatants, however the powers he mimic must be in his jurisdiciton. He can also take on a larger demonic form and create clones and illusions of others and himself.

Trivia

 * Shinnok's fall from grace is similar to that of Satan.


 * Shinnok is loosely based on the demon Yan Wang from Journey to the West.


 * So far, Shinnok is the first boss character playable in his game without aid of a cheat code or cheat device.


 * In Armageddon, Sektor will say to initiate code K-0-N-N-1-H-5 where that code should be read is 5H1NNOK, despite there being no relation between Shinnok and Sektor.