T'ai Fu
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T'ai Fu is a fictional character and the protagonist in the PlayStation game T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger. The son of the long-departed Tiger Master, Lau Fu, T'ai was spared the destruction of his people by being hidden away as a baby in the temple of the Panda monks, where he grew up completely ignorant of his heritage. Brash, overconfident, with a tendency to cut corners in his training whenever possible, T'ai nevertheless embodies the spirit of a good-hearted rebel without a cause...that is, until the murder of his people, the villainous Dragon Master, shows up at the temple's front door and attacks him, leaving him for dead. Confused at this seemingly random act of senseless violence, and with little to no answers pending from his Panda guardians, T'ai takes their suggestion to seek out the counsel of the other animal Clans in the land in order to gain further strength in the ways of kung fu, as well as information about his hidden past.
In his journey, he befriends and becomes the pupil of the first Master he meets, SiFu the Mantis Master, and coupled with his interaction with the other Clans' Masters and the wondrous locales he travels to to find them, he slowly begins to understand the gravity of the situation: the attack on his life was not a random act, but a calculated play by the Dragon Master in his bid for domination. He learns of the Dragon Master's lust for power and control, how he instigated the infighting within his own power-hungry Clan to become its sole survivor, and his attempt to gain control of the secrets within the mysterious Forbidden Palace beyond the dreaded Shadow Gauntlet. With the power of the Palace at his disposal, he would become invincible, and he terminated all who opposed his impending rule, the Tiger Clan being his most feared target due to their strength and influence over the other Clans. If even one member of the Clan remained alive, the Dragon Master believed he or she could use the influence of their Clan to rally the other Clans into a formidable rebellion against him - enough, possibly, to overthrow and even destroy him. With T'ai's existence threatening his bid for ultimate victory, the tiger realized that he is the land's only hope for freedom from the Dragon Master's menace. This realization, combined with the even more personal goal of revenge against his own assault and the death of his people, T'ai conquered all challenges he faced in his journey, mastered all the available Clans' kung fu styles, and finally defeated the Dragon Master once and for all at the Forbidden Palace itself.
After ridding the land of the Dragon Master's evil, T'ai's father - now a spirit guide for his son - gives the young tiger his chi and mantle as Tiger Master, as well as the task of finding any survivors of their Clan and rebuilding the land to its former glory. T'ai accepts these honors and tasks with humility, having grown past his former reckless youth into a fine and capable leader, before walking into the sunset with SiFu, to plan for his new responsibilities.
