The dual being known as Ferra/Torr is mysterious even to their closest allies. It's rumored that Torr and Ferra were Outworld citizens, captured and permanently tethered to each other by the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung in the bowels of his Flesh Pits. They're more likely members of a forgotten symbiotic race, in which the "rider" bonds with a "mount." The rider, Ferra, serves as the de facto brains of the duo, while the hulking Torr is the muscle. It's possible they communicate with each other telepathically, or that Ferra can actually understand the booming grunts that are Torr's usual vocalizations. Found roaming the Tarkatan Wastes by Imperial troops, Ferra/Torr was trained/coerced into serving as Kotal Kahn's personal bodyguard.
For many years Ferra and Torr were a symbiotic pair, as is natural with their species.
But that bond was broken when Ferra came of age and began the Great Transformation…
Ferra/Torr returned to the Tarkatan Wastes, where Ferra began her metamorphosis.
The process took an agonizing three Outworld years--during which time Torr withered and died.
Now a brute, Ferra will be chosen by a rider.
A new symbiotic pairing will be forged--and new battles will be won.
Early on during pre-production for Mortal Kombat X the concept art team got together for weekly brainstorming and sketching sessions where new ideas were thrown around. During one of those sessions, the subject of new and unique character types came up and an idea was proposed for a symbiotic pair of creatures who fought as one character. Interesting idea, but how would we pull it off?
After exploring various ideas of how the pair would look and function, we settled on the idea of a large, brutish, mindless character with a small, impish character on its back. The smaller character would pick fights and the larger character would fight them. Once we decided to make the smaller character female (Ferra) and the larger one male (Torr), their personalities came together quickly.
Visually, we settled on a barbaric meets post-apocalyptic style. This seemed to suit both of the characters' personalities well and made for a very intimidating new addition to the roster. Ferra has a more flamboyant design since she's the brains and mouth of the pair, while Torr looks like a living bulldozer, destroying everything that gets in his way.