Kain

Appearance: Kain is seen with a more mutated appearance, with three-fingered claws in place of his hands and pointed protusions on his face. Having spent millenia uncovering the secrets of Nosgoth and his own existence, Kain has shifted his motivations towards restoring Nosgoth and destroy those who would manipulate him to further their own agendas or prevent him from fulfilling his role as the Scion of Balance. White hair, red cape.

Personality: The character of Kain grew significantly throughout the games. He is initially seen as a petty nobleman who blindly seeks revenge for his death, showing cynism and a misanthropic disdain for humanity, with little to no concern for the fate of both Nosgoth and those who lived there, something which allowed him to easily become a unwilling pawn for the machinations of both Moebius and the Hylden Lord. After embracing his vampiric powers Kain begins to lust for power, while striving to escape other's manipulations and forging his own destiny. On subsequent games Kain, feeling the weight of his actions and of his destined role, becomes a more fatalist and cunning individual, though he values loyalty and sincerity above all else, despising traitors and cowards. Though he realizes his ultimate goal of restoring Nosgoth may be beyond his reach, he still takes careful steps to ensure his plans will go smoothly and as to not fall into traps laid by others. Despite his often violent temperament, he shows true compassion for his sons and those loyal to him.

"The Necromancer Mortanius offered me a chance for vengeance. And like a fool, I jumped at his offer without considering the cost. Nothing is free. Not even revenge."

Restored to life as a Vampire and gifted with armour, a sword, and artefacts of magic including the heart of Janos Audron, which can restore vampiric unlife, Kain seeks out the men who slew him. He massacres them with ease, delighting in his new-found strength, and accepting his bloodthirst as a gift. Under Mortanius's instructions, Kain travels to the Pillars to meet Ariel. She persuades him to aid her in healing Nosgoth, by slaying the deranged Circle of Nine and restoring the pillars so that new guardians might be born. Kain's first victim is Nupraptor, Guardian of the Mind. After travelling through the maze of Nupraptor's retreat and speaking with the insane servants trapped within, Kain finds Nupraptor himself. After a bloody battle, Kain severs Nupraptor's head and returns to the Pillars, clutching it as a vile trophy. Kain places the head at the foot of the Pillar of the Mind, which takes back the gift of power from Nupraptor's remains and is restored.

Kain sets out to confront the Conflict Guardian Malek, and eventually encounters him in his fortress bastion. Malek proves too strong for Kain to overcome, and the fledgling vampire flees. Realising that his quest is hopeless without guidance, he seeks out the Oracle, who instructs him to search for the last known refuge of the ancient vampire Vorador. Upon arriving at the mansion sunk deep within a morass of swamps and marshes, Kain discovers that Vorador is still - for want of a better word - alive. Vorador has long since abandoned all hope of Nosgoth ever being saved, and seems content to remain in his mansion while the world falls apart around him. However, he sees a glimmer of new hope in Kain, and provides him with advice, and a magical ring which will summon Vorador to Kain's aid should it ever be needed.

Kain sets out again, this time headed for Dark Eden in the far north. He arrives to find the landscape warped and twisted in a sickening perversion of nature. After crossing Dark Eden he reaches the castle at its blackened heart. There he discovers Anarcrothe, Bane, and DeJoule. Anarcrothe summons Malek and flees. As Malek prepares to destroy him, Kain uses his ring to summon Vorador to his aid. As Vorador and Malek continue the battle that was left unfinished centuries ago, Kain pursues and slays Bane and DeJoule. He returns to find Vorador gone and Malek's armour in ruins. Taking Malek's helm, Bane's head-dress and DeJoule's cloak, Kain returns to the Pillars and restores Conflict, Nature and Energy with the items he took from the fallen guardians.

Kain journeys to Avernus seeking the Dimension Guardian Azimuth as his quarry. When he arrives, he finds the town's inhabitants slaughtered and demons prowling the streets. He fights his way through Avernus to the cathedral. In a sealed vault he discovers the Soul Reaver, the deadliest blade in existence, and a unique suit of armour created in a forge fuelled by dying souls. He finds Azimuth, who summons a horde of demons to fight Kain. He defeats all the demons and then slays Azimuth, taking from her the artefact that she had used to see into other dimensions. He also discovers a time-streaming device, planted by Moebius for Kain to find. He returns to the pillars and restores the Dimension pillar.

Ariel tells Kain that his quest for vengeance must wait. The whole of Nosgoth is under threat from the fanatical armies of the Nemesis, and that only King Ottmar of Willendorf has an army powerful enough to stop them. Kain must journey to Willendorf and persuade Ottmar to save Nosgoth. Upon reaching Willendorf and finding the King, Kain learns that Ottmar has lost the will to live. On his daughter's birthday, he proclaimed a contest to see who could construct the finest toy for his daughter. The contest was won by a strange, wizened old man called Elzevir, who made a doll which was an exact miniature replica of Ottmar's daughter. Elzevir requested a single lock of hair from Ottmar's daughter as his reward for winning the contest. This seemingly harmless gift was Ottmar's undoing, as Elzevir used it to trap the soul of Ottmar's daughter in the doll, leaving her body a lifeless husk. Ottmar went into mourning, and gave up all hope of defeating the Nemesis.

Hearing this, Kain travels to the home of Elzevir the dollmaker, and slays the strange magician. He is able to restore the soul to King Ottmar's daughter. Ottmar rejoices once again, and agrees to lead his army against the Nemesis in a bid to save the land. At the Battle of the Last Stand, the army of Hope and the Army of the Nemesis meet in bloody combat. The tide of battle turns against Ottmar's troops, and Kain is caught in the middle of the battle, about to be cut down by the soldiers of the Nemesis. In a last chance to save his life, he uses the time-streaming device to cast himself fifty years into the past, to a time when King William the Just still rules the land and the Nemesis is not even a sinister dream. Realising that he can change history and thus prevent the Nemesis ever being created, Kain travels to the palace and encounters the young King William the Just. William tells Kain that he has been warned by Moebius of a vampire assassin sent to slay him. As Kain draws the Soul Reaver to fight William, the King draws his own weapon - also the Soul Reaver. As two blades, unique by their very nature, meet in combat, a paradox is created and weakens the fabric of reality. William's Soul Reaver breaks in two, and the time-stream is shattered as Kain changes history by killing William. Moebius's plans play out perfectly. Kain uses the time-streaming device to return to his own time. The personal guards of King William find their monarch slain, the blood drained from his body by a vampire's fangs. The people of the land vow vengeance on the vampire assassin, and turn to Moebius for guidance. The devious time-streamer ignites a genocidal crusade against vampires, causing more carnage than the Sarafan crusades ever could. Moebius takes the shattered halves of the Soul Reaver and places them on the sarcophagus of King William, to await the arrival of the wraith-creature, whose magic will restore the broken blade.

Kain returns to the present, but a different present to what he remembers. King William died as a saint before he could ever become the Nemesis. A crusade of annihilation commenced, and the vampires all but wiped out. Kain arrives back in his time to see the last surviving vampire, Vorador, executed by Moebius. The vampire hunters attack Kain but he defeats them, and then moves to fight Moebius. The time-streamer summons three powerful opponents to fight Kain - A creature from the past, a creature from the present, and from the future an older version of Kain himself. Kain defeats the opponents and then faces Moebius himself. The time-streamer offers no resistance, and Kain slices his head from his body in vengeance for the vampires he had guillotined. Taking Moebius's hourglass, the symbol of his power, Kain returns to the pillars and restores Time.

He overhears Mortanius and Anarcrothe arguing, Anarcrothe having realised that it was Mortanius's wish that the Circle be destroyed by Kain. Mortanius kills Anarcrothe, and then Kain reveals his presence to the necromancer. In what seems to be the final battle of Kain's ordeal, the two masters of death, the Vampire and the Necromancer, meet in combat. Mortanius tells Kain that even if he falls it will leave one life left for Kain to take. As Mortanius dies, the demon Hash'ak'gik is released from his body.

The demon speaks with Kain, telling him that it had planned the destruction of Nosgoth, and that Kain was but a pawn in his game of death. Kain refuses to submit, and launches a hate-fuelled attack on the demon, eventually banishing it back to Hell. Kain restores the pillars of Death and Alchemy with Mortanius's death orb and Anarcrothe's scales. Ariel appears and tells Kain that the last guardian, the Guardian of Balance, must die for the pillars to be restored. Kain realises that he is the ninth guardian, and he is faced with a terrible choice: To die and so save the world, or stay alive and rule Nosgoth in its damnation?

Thanks to Moebius, Kain is the last vampire left alive, and so if he dies Nosgoth will be left to the humans. After seeing the horrific brutality that humans are capable of, Kain finally accepts the dead Vorador's argument: That vampirism is a gift, not a curse; and that vampires are dark gods whose destiny is to rule the world. Kain walks away from the pillars, which shatter like glass behind him and plunge Nosgoth into a spiral of decay and corruption. Ariel is condemned to forever haunt the pillars as an insubstantial spectre.

"Once I embraced my powers, I realised that Vorador was correct. We are gods - Dark gods. And it is our duty to thin the herd."

As the pillars of Nosgoth shatter and crumble, the boundary between the real world and the demon dimension is momentarily weakened. One of the strongest of the Hylden emerges from the gateway separating the two worlds. Over a period of many years, he reactivates the gateway and brings more of his kind through. He assumes the guise of a human, and travels across the seas to the walled port-city of Meridian, where he allies himself with the humans, giving them devices that exploit a new type of magic: Glyph energy. As he elevates himself to a position of power in the City, he revives the Sarafan Order under the pretext of protecting the City, but really as a means to strengthen his personal power and influence. He institutes himself as the Sarafan Lord, the leader of the new Order.

Kain somehow resurrects Vorador, who sets about creating more vampires to once again inhabit the world. Kain develops a new goal- he wishes to become the supreme ruler of Nosgoth. He recruits a legion of vampires, an army of the night who follow his command. Some of them do not wish to follow Kain. One of these is Marcus, who refuses to join with Kain's army. Kain attempts to destroy Marcus, but the younger vampire escapes, though Kain thinks him dead. Kain's dark legion marches south, crushing all who oppose them, until they come to Meridian. One of Kain's lieutenants, Sebastian, secretly allies himself with the Sarafan Lord. He leads Kain's forces into an ambush. Kain and the Sarafan Lord meet in single combat, and the Sarafan Lord somehow withstands the power of the Soul Reaver and defeats Kain, and takes the fearsome weapon as his own. Kain's army is scattered and defeated, despite a frenzied counterattack led by Kain's champion, Magnus. Kain is presumed dead.

Many of the vampires change sides and join forces with the Sarafan Lord, and most of the rest are slain. However, Vorador and a few of the other vampires, including Umah, form a resistance group within Meridian, known as the Cabal, sabotaging the Sarafan plans and working to overthrow their rule. Kain's body is recovered, and to Vorador's amazement a flicker of life still remains.

Blood Omen 2

"From the shards of tattered dreams I rose, tossed upon tides of pain that ebbed and flowed and left me chillingly awake - and, more revoltingly, alive."

Two centuries later, Nosgoth is a changed world. The Sarafan have taken control. Meridian is a decadent autocracy, ruled over by the megalomaniacal Sarafan Lord. A sect known as the Glyphwrights have installed Magical devices powered by Glyph energy across the city. Outside the fortress that Meridian has become, the world is beginning to collapse. Otherworldly demons stalk the barren landscape.

It is this world that Kain awakens to. His memory is shattered and his power greatly weakened by his centuries of deathly sleep, but he walks the world once again. He vows vengeance on those who brought about his defeat, and he swears that he will destroy the Sarafan Lord. Umah explains that the Cabal wants Kain to assassinate the Sarafan Lord and so bring down the Sarafan order, but that Kain is too weak to do this. She aids Kain in regaining some of his skills and his combat ability, and then leads him through the slum district of Meridian towards Vorador's base of operations, a place called Sanctuary. Unfortunately, as Kain and Umah prepare to cross the bridge to the Lower City, they are seen by one of the Sarafan Guards. He closes the magical ward gate, and separates the vampires, preventing Kain from crossing the bridge. Umah tells Kain to go to the Smuggler's Den and find the Smuggler's Tunnel, which will take him to the Lower City. On the way to the Smuggler's Den, he meets a human agent of the Cabal who tells him that most of the humans are desperate to throw off the despotic rule of the Sarafan. As Kain continues onwards to the smuggler's den, the human he spoke to is silently murdered by a vampire in a red cloak.

Kain locates the entrance to the subterranean section of the Smuggler's Den near an abandoned church. He finds the area has been filled with strange, steam-driven machinery and powered by Sarafan guards. He also observes the Glyphwrights speaking with a red-cloaked vampire. The vampire departs and walks onwards into the central room of the machine, and the Glyphwrights seem to disappear into thin air like ghosts. Kain makes his way through the machine to the central chamber, killing the Sarafan guards, and meets the vampire he had seen earlier. Faustus, one of the former legionnaires of his army, but now working for the Sarafan. Kain accuses Faustus of being a traitor to all vampires, and Faustus replies that he only ever served himself. Kain attacks Faustus and kills him, drinking his blood and taking a new Dark Gift.

Kain travels through the Smuggler's Tunnel to the Lower City, where he meets Umah. She tells him how to find his way to Sanctuary, and then goes to the Industrial quarter on a reconnaissance mission. Kain proceeds across the Lower City by means of the rooftops, back alleys and sewers, until he comes to an open courtyard littered with dismembered corpses. There he encounters another vampire, in armour and a blue cape. He learns that this other vampire is also working for the Sarafan.

After the other vampire leaves, on some dark errand of his own, Kain makes his way to the secret entrance to Sanctuary, where he meets Vorador. As they talk, they are interrupted by a messenger, his body covered in vicious cuts. He says that he was with Umah as she searched the Industrial Quarter, but they were attacked by Sarafan knights. He escaped, but Umah was captured and taken to the Sarafan fortress to await execution.

Kain pledges to go to the Sarafan fortress to rescue Umah, but Vorador tells him that the front entrance is far too heavily guarded, and that Kain will need to find the secret entrance. He says that the Bishop of Meridian knows the location of this entrance, and that Kain could get the information from him. Kain sets off for the manor house in the upper city where he expects the Bishop to be. On the way, he meets an old enemy - Marcus, who is now working for the Sarafan.

Marcus wishes revenge on Kain for the attempted murder centuries ago, and tells Kain that he has developed the power to control the minds of all creatures. Marcus tries to use this power to enslave Kain, but the will of the ancient vampire is far too strong for Marcus. Even so, Marcus is able to read Kain's mind, and taunts Kain by saying that by the time he reaches the Bishop of Meridian, Marcus will already have killed him. Kain pursues Marcus to the Bishop's manor, fighting with guards under the psychic influence of Marcus, where he discovers the Sarafan guards have ransacked the place looking for the Bishop. Kain speaks with the Bishop's butler, telling him he was sent by Vorador and the Cabal. The butler tells Kain that the Bishop fled to the Cathedral. Kain enters the Cathedral, but Marcus manages to get there first and when Kain arrives the Bishop is paralysed under Marcus's control. Marcus flees from Kain, who eventually corners him in the main chamber of the cathedral and kills him, absorbing another Dark Gift from his blood. The Bishop recovers and is able to guide Kain to the secret entrance to the Sarafan fortress.

Kain carves a bloody path through the fortress on his way to the tower where Umah is held. On his way, he meets an agent of the Cabal who asks him to assassinate a nobleman named Artemis, who is a traitor to the Cabal. After slaying Artemis, Kain takes the elevator up to the top floor and then out onto the rooftops, where he finds the cell guarded by a Glyph Knight. Kain kills the knight, and frees Umah, who has been weakened by her imprisonment. As they escape from the cell, they are discovered by the Sarafan Lord. Both Kain and the Sarafan Lord are amazed - the Sarafan cannot believe that Kain is still alive, and Kain is furious that his weapon, the Soul Reaver, is now in the hands of the enemy. Kain is far too weak to face the Sarafan Lord as yet, and so Umah teleports Kain and herself back to Sanctuary.

Once back in Sanctuary, Umah tells Vorador and Kain of her discovery in the Industrial Quarter. In the main factory, she found a portal leading to a place unlike anything she had ever seen before. This portal was supported by a magical artefact - the Nexus Stone. Kain has never heard of this item, and Vorador tells him of the power of the stone. It can open up a portal to any area of Nosgoth, but also has the strange property that anyone wearing the stone will be immune to the power of the Soul Reaver. Vorador also tells Kain that the Sarafan Lord was wearing this stone when he defeated Kain at the battle centuries ago. Since Kain could not harm the Sarafan Lord with the Reaver, the Lord was able to defeat him. Kain sets off for the Industrial Quarter to recover the stone.

When he arrives, he finds the Industrial Quarter under heavy guard. With use of stealth and his Dark Gifts, Kain is able to reach the central factory, and eventually discovers the Stone held in an energy shield in a room at the highest point of the factory. The vampire he spoke to earlier, in armour and a blue cloak, appears again. This time, Kain recognises him as Sebastian, the traitor who led Kain's army into a Sarafan ambush. Kain and Sebastian seek to kill each other, and when Kain appears to be winning the fight, Sebastian attempts to destroy the Nexus Stone. Kain manages to defeat Sebastian before the stone is destroyed, and promises that he will spare Sebastian's life if he tells Kain about the Nexus Stone and the Sarafan Lord's plans. Sebastian knows Kain is lying, but tells him anyway to see him suffer when he realises that the Sarafan Lord's plans cannot be overthrown. He tells Kain that the portal leads to the ancient Device created by the Hylden millennia ago, during their war against the Ancients. He tells Kain that the Sarafan Lord has reactivated the Device, and that he will use it to annihilate all opposition to he rule. With this, Sebastian' life is extinguished, and Kain takes the Nexus Stone from its energy shield. But as he does so, the machinery it powered goes into overload, and the chamber is destroyed by a massive explosion. Kain manages to leap clear, as more explosions level the factory behind him. One of Vorador's agents finds Kain unconscious, and carries him back to Sanctuary.

Vorador speaks with Kain, and counsels him about his new discovery. The only person who might know about the Device is an ancient Seer who lives in the canyons far outside the city walls. Kain leaves the city by a secret passage and travels along the road through the wilderness in search for the house of the Seer. The path is not easy, however. The main bridge has collapsed, and the only other way is through subterranean tunnels and mines that are prone to collapse. When Kain makes it through these, he finds himself in a desolate area of Nosgoth, a wasteland inhabited by strange, insectile demons from an unknown realm. Kain eventually reaches the house of the Seer, weary after the long journey and battles with the demons.

The Seer, a strange, humanoid creature resembling both the Ancients and the Hylden, and perhaps older than both, tells Kain of the evil nature of the Device. As she speaks to him, the Sarafan Lord arrives with a contingent of troops, and sets fires to burn the house of the Seer. She urges Kain to drink her blood, so that he can gain the power of telekinesis from her, and so gain entry to the Device. When he has done this, she teleports him to just outside the ground-level entrance to the Device, in the city of Meridian. She stays to face the Sarafan Lord and await her fate, but whether or not she survives is unknown.

In the upper level of the Device, Kain discovers a fearsome beast held prisoner. It speaks with him, telling him of the Hylden and the Device, and of its imprisonment to feed the Device with its life force. It tells Kain about the Device, how it was built long before the era of humankind, and how the network that channels the energy of the Device was never completed. Kain realises that the wires that transmit Glyph energy throughout the city must be this network, and that the Device is nearing completion. He learns that only the creator of the Device knows how to destroy it. The Builder languishes still in the Eternal Prison, suffering endless torment, and the creature tells Kain where to find the Eternal Prison. Kain sets out once again, headed for the desolate cliffs where the Eternal Prison holds its lunatic inmates trapped forever.

As Kain steps through the doors of the eternal prison he is greeted by one of the Prison Guardians, strangely ghostlike creatures armed with scythes, only their glowing green eyes visible beneath the hoods of their robes. The guardian tells Kain that no guests or visitors are permitted in the Prison, and that Kain must leave immediately. However, the guardians appear to be as insane as their captives, as they seal the doors behind Kain, and thus prevent him from leaving. Kain proceeds onwards into the prison, slaying the guardians who try to force him to leave, until he sees a creature that was once a vampire. Insane and driven by an uncontrollable hunger for living flesh, the deformed abomination pursues Kain through the prison, until Kain manages to cast it into a cistern of water, where it burns in agony.

Kain eventually locates the Builder, and releases him from the cell. Kain explains that he means to destroy the Device, and the Builder offers to tell him how, in exchange for the one thing he has craved throughout his millennia of imprisonment -death. Kain agrees, and the Builder tells him about the Mass that forms the corrupt heart of the Device. He tells Kain that the Mass can be poisoned by the blood of the Hylden. Kain kills the Builder, releasing him from his anguish, and drinks his blood. As the blood of the Builder flows through his veins, Kain can now poison the Mass with his blood.

Kain destroys an arcane machine within the Prison, breaking the loop in time in which the prison existed. The eternal prison is no loner eternal, and the captives eventually find the relief of death. The Prison Guardians ambush Kain as he searches for the exit, trying to kill him in vengeance for his destruction of their grand experiment. Kain slaughters them, but before he can escape from the prison, the insane vampire that he had tried to destroy earlier catches up with him. Kain fights the lunatic creature, eventually killing it by toppling a massive statue of Moebius onto it. As the lifeblood flows freely from its wounds, the psychotic vampire regains its sanity. It calls out to Kain, and tells him who it is. The mad creature is Magnus, who was once Kain's champion, defeated by the Sarafan Lord and incarcerated within the nightmarish confines of the Prison. Magnus dies of his wounds, and gives his blood to Kain. Kain absorbs a new Dark Gift from Magnus's blood. He leaves the ruins of the Eternal Prison and returns to the Device at the heart of Meridian, now prepared to destroy the Device.

As Kain journeys into the depths of the earth seeking out the living heart of the Device, he encounters the Hylden warriors, protecting their ultimate weapon. He also sees the machinery of the Device, and the living creatures entrapped in its workings. He realises that the Device must channel the life energy of these creatures to feed the Mass. He eventually reaches the central chamber that houses the Mass, and after killing the Hylden and demons that guard it, he slices a gash in his own skin and allows a few drops of his blood, mixed with that of the Builder, to fall into the vile maw of the sickening creature that is the Mass. The hideous, hell-spawned abomination is poisoned by the blood, and its death agonies shatter the workings of the Device.

When Kain escapes from the Device and returns to the cage that housed the beast that he spoke to, he finds it no longer there. In its place is a human-like creature, with blue skin, clawed hands, and wings like those of an angel. This is Janos Audron, who had fallen many millennia ago, and yet was resurrected and had since been held as a captive in the Device, his blood feeding the Mass. The centuries of torment caused him to devolve into the hideous creature that Kain encountered as he entered the device, but now Janos is restored and thirsts for revenge. He teleports himself and Kain back to Sanctuary, where he meets Vorador and explains the situation to him. Janos explains about the banishment of the Hylden many millennia ago, and that when Kain destroyed the pillars the boundary was weakened enough for the Hylden leader to break though. He tells Kain and Vorador about the Hylden Gate, the portal through which the Hylden are able to enter the world. He plans to teleport the warriors of the Vampire Resistance to the Hylden city in a bid to destroy the gate, but he discovers that the city is shielded. Someone must travel to the city via one of the transport ships that take slaves and magical devices across the seas for the rebuilding of the Hylden city. Kain and Umah travel to the docks to board one of the Sarafan transport ships.

As they arrive at the wharves, Umah attacks Kain and steals the Nexus stone. She does not trust Kain, and suspects that when he rules the world again he will destroy the Cabal as they pose a threat to his power. She takes the stone and teleports herself away, planning to seek out and kill the Sarafan Lord herself. Kain pursues her through the heavily-guarded wharves, slaughtering the Sarafan glyph knights. He eventually finds Umah, fatally wounded in her fight against the Sarafan knights. She begs him to give her some of his blood to restore her strength. Instead, he kills for her betrayal of him. As he walks away from her corpse, he feels a different kind of pain. Remorse at the death of a friend.

Kain reaches the Hylden city, the sole passenger on a transport shop strewn with the corpses of the crew. He is greeted by the Sarafan Lord, who again tries to kill him. As the Reaver is harmlessly deflected from Kain's armour, the Sarafan Lord sees that Kain wears the Nexus Stone. Kain also tells the Sarafan Lord that the Device lies in ruins, and that the Lord's plans are shattered. He tells Kain that it does not matter, as the Hylden armies will soon be able to enter the world and take it by martial force. The Sarafan Lord teleports himself away, and Kain continues his quest.

After shattering the gates of the Hylden City and journeying inside, Kain finds two human slaves discussing their plans to escape. As they see him they realise that he must be the one fighting the Hylden, and they revere him as a hero. Kain questions them, and learns more than just the location of the shielding device and the Gate. He learns that these humans are a race who have lived in the Hylden city for as long as they can remember. They have been slaves to the Hylden seemingly forever, and although they are desperate to overthrow the Hylden rule, they are not strong enough. Kain proceeds onwards towards into the City.

Kain cuts a bloody swathe through the Hylden ranks as he slaughters all in his path to the shielding device. When he reaches it he destroys both it and its mechanical guardian, and so the shield falls and Vorador and Janos Audron teleport themselves to the chamber. Vorador asks Kain what happened to Umah, and Kain tells him that he killed he because she was a traitor. Vorador threatens to kill Kain, but Janos tells them that they must put aside their differences until the Hylden are defeated. The Sarafan Lord teleports himself into the chamber, strikes down Vorador and Janos with magical bolts from the Reaver, and then teleports away. Kain is unharmed, and although Vorador is unconscious or dead, Janos recovers enough to initialise a spell to teleport Kain to a point very close to the Hylden Gate.

Kain reaches the Gate and finds the Sarafan Lord preparing to open it for his army. Kain challenges the Sarafan Lord, telling him that all his agents amongst the vampires are dead, even Umah. The Sarafan Lord informs Kain that Umah was not one of his spies. Kain attacks the Sarafan Lord in fury, but the battle is stalemated - As long as Kain wears the Nexus Stone, the Reaver cannot harm him; But if he takes the stone off to destroy the Gate, he will be vulnerable to the magic of the Reaver. Kain decides to risk his life to save his world. He removes the stone and casts it into the Gate, which immediately begins to collapse. The Sarafan Lord launches a frenzied attack on Kain, who is unable to withstand the power of the Reaver.

Kain's life is saved by Janos Audron, who descend into the Gate chamber to exact revenge on the Sarafan Lord for the years he spent imprisoned in the Device. The Sarafan Lord is too powerful for Janos, and casts him through the Hylden Gate into the Hell-world as revenge for Janos's magic that first banished the Hylden from the human world. However, though Janos is doomed, he was strong enough to knock the Reaver from the Sarafan Lord's grasp. Kain takes up the Reaver and once more does battle with the Sarafan Lord, this time able to overcome him and kill him. As the Reaver sates its dark thirst on the inhuman soul of the Sarafan Lord, the Hylden Gate finally collapses in on itself. Kain leaves the Hylden City as it burns, the Hylden dying as their lifeline is cut off. With the Soul Reaver returned to him, and his greatest enemy slain, Kain stands once again poised to take on the world.

"To the victor go the spoils. At last, Nosgoth would be mine."

Pre- Soul Reaver

Kain, now self-proclaimed ruler of Nosgoth, discovers ancient secrets in its decaying landscape. He finds the Chronoplast time-streaming chamber, and uses it to search the intricate webs of past and future in an attempt to predict his destiny. Time and again he sees his betrayal by Mortanius, the collapse of the pillars, the machinations of Moebius, and his eventual death at the hands of an otherworldly creature. He constructs an elaborate plan to avoid this, and maybe even to restore Nosgoth to its former glory…

Kain plunders the long-abandoned tomb of the Sarafan, finding the bodies of Melchiah, Zephon, Rahab, Dumah, Turel and Raziel, and the empty coffin reserved for Malek. In an act of calculated blasphemy, he breathes his vampiric gift into the corpses, and restores the Sarafan warriors to a life beyond death as his sons and lieutenants. Raziel, the first-born, is the strongest and closest to Kain. Kain creates a fortress, the Sanctuary of the Clans around the fallen Pillars, with the great throne from which he rules the world at the foot of the shattered Balance pillar.

The vampire lords become stronger over time, slowly evolving and becoming less human and more divine. Always, Kain is the one to evolve first, followed some years later by the lieutenants. Until, one day, Raziel surpasses Kain. He gains the gift of flight, growing bat-like wings. In a seemingly jealous act of egotistical sadism, Kain tears the new-grown wings from Raziel's back and orders him to be executed as a traitor - cast into the Lake of the Dead to burn for eternity in its immeasurable depths. And yet, this is not the end. For in the abyss lurks a creature of incalculable age and power that spares the soul of Raziel - The Elder God.

Equipment

Soul Reaver: The most powerful weapon in Kain's weaponry arsenal, it is a flamberge-class sword with a broad, undulating serpentine blade,The sword is forged with metal and with the energy of the Pillars of Nosgoth, making the sword (like the pillars) indestructible (The sword only can be destroyed by a paradox, like fight with another version of the same sword or trying to absorb his own soul). The Reaver was originally an enchanted sword, forged by Vorador at the Ancient vampires' behest to destroy their prophesied adversary, the Hylden champion. It could drain its victims' Blood, but was altered when it absorbed the soul of the time-traveling wraith Raziel. Hereafter, Raziel's spirit inhabited the blade, and it obtained the ability to devour the souls of those it struck. Much later in Nosgoth's history when Kain attacked Raziel with the physical blade, it proved unable to devour its younger self and shattered, releasing Raziel's soul (the Wraith Blade) The sword is able to devour the souls of the creature that strikes,to absorb the soul of wraith Raziel, the sword is made of two parts "The material" and the "spectral" by this, the sword attacks in a multi-dimensional way, attacking in the spectral and material realm to the same time.The sword also has other abilities like:the ability to drain the life energy of the creatures that hits, increase his power when hit, can destroy magical barriers like: Holy barriers, earth and ice barriers and protective barriers, while also making it possible to create a small forceshield that protects the wearer.