Kain (Legacy of Kain)

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Kain is a main character in the Legacy of Kain series. Throughout the series, he was voiced by Simon Templeman.

Kain often shouts "Vae Victis!" (Translated as “Suffering/Woe to the conquered”) whilst inflicting severe punishment upon his enemies, a phrase which was borrowed from the Celtic chieftain Brennus, who conquered Rome in the 4th century BC.

During the course of the Legacy of Kain series, Kain is portrayed as a dark vampire brought back from the dead to fulfill his desire for revenge and as such makes an anti-hero.

It is later found out that Kain is the Guardian of the Pillar of Balance and the successor to Ariel, and much later that he is destined to become the Scion of Balance.

Contents 1 Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain 2 Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain 3 Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 4 Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 5 Legacy of Kain: Defiance 6 See also

[edit] Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

In the centuries before Kain's birth, the land was protected by an oligarchy of sorcerers known as The Circle of Nine. These guardians were sworn to serve and protect the Pillars of Nosgoth, the ancient edifice towering over the earth as a manifestation of the mysterious power that preserved and gave life to the land. But the Circle was infiltrated by dark forces, and Ariel, the Balance Guardian, was cruelly murdered. Her assassination sent psychic shockwaves throughout the Circle, and in their derangement the remaining sorcerers turned their powers to dark purposes, poisoning the land with their sorcery and abandoning the Pillars to stand like silent, decaying sentries.

Into this dying world Kain was born. The son of an aristocratic Nosgoth family, he lived the privileged life of a nobleman, never realizing his undiscovered destiny that he was marked from birth as Ariel's successor, fated to take her place as the Guardian of Balance. Ignorant of his destiny, the ambitious but directionless Kain roamed the land until during one fateful journey, he was ambushed by brigands and murdered, cruelly impaled on his assassin's sword.

Plucked from the brink of oblivion by Mortanius the Necromancer, Kain awakened in the underworld, still transfixed by his enemy's blade. Tormented by his hunger for vengeance, and heedless of the spiritual cost, Kain recklessly accepted the Necromancer's offer of revenge, and rose from his tomb to discover that he had been resurrected as a vampire.

Kain quickly tracked down his assassins and exacted his bloody revenge. With his vengeance and hunger sated, he sought only a cure for the vampiric curse that afflicted him. Guided by Mortanius and the spectre Ariel now bound helplessly to the decaying Pillars she once served. Kain hunted down each of the corrupt sorcerers now poisoning Nosgoth. Only with their deaths could the Pillars be healed, and only by restoring Balance would Kain be released from his vampiric curse.

At first reluctant to live the horror of an existence blighted by a thirst for human blood, Kain soon adapted and discovered, within his darkened soul, a growing disaffection for humankind as he embraced his newfound immortality. During his journey, Kain discovered and claimed the Soul Reaver, an ancient blade that was created by the vampire patriarch, Janos Audron to absorb the life essence of humans and in particular Hylden, and stumbled across - not so coincidentally - a time-streaming device created by Moebius, the Guardian of Time.

Against the counsel of the ancient vampire Vorador, Kain found himself embroiled in human events, caught in a bloody battle between King Ottmar's Army of Hope and the ruthlessly advancing armies of the Nemesis, from the north. As the tide of the battle turned, Kain used his only means of escape, the time-streaming device, which swept him nearly 50 years back into Nosgoth's past.

Hoping to alter the course of Nosgoth's history, Kain assassinated the young King William the Just, who would become the diabolic tyrant known as the Nemesis. After sating himself on his victim's blood, Kain returned to the present, only to discover that his murder of the beloved King had ignited a genocidal war against vampires, led by the Timestreamer Moebius himself.

Upon his return, Kain witnessed the future that he had wrought, and the final, triumphant act of Moebius's cold-blooded mob. Vorador, the last of the era's vampires, is guillotined and his head held aloft for a cheering, bloodthirsty crowd, leaving Kain the sole surviving vampire in Nosgoth.

As his quest brought him full-circle, Kain confronted the destiny that Mortanius and Ariel had hidden from him, that he was the Balance Guardian, and that only by sacrificing himself could he restore the Pillars. Ariel presented him with a final, climactic decision - sacrifice himself to heal the land, but ensure the extinction of the vampires; or refuse the sacrifice, and seal the world's corruption.

Revolted by the machinations of the human sorcerers and alienated from his former humanity, Kain chose the latter path - opting to rule the world in its damnation rather than commit himself to oblivion. This apocalyptic act completed the Pillars' destruction. The mighty columns toppled as Kain sealed their ruinous fate, and damned Ariel to ceaselessly haunt the dilapidated Pillars she once served. Until the Balance is restored, she can never be released.

Kain concluded with the epiphany that Vorador was right, that vampirism is not a curse but a blessing. That vampires are dark gods whose duty it is to thin the human herd.

But the Pillars, Kain ultimately realized, were more than just a human edifice. The health of the Pillars was tied inextricably into the health of the land. With the Pillars left unrestored, corruption seeped slowly into the land like a poison, turning his empire into an irredeemable wasteland.

[edit] Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain

After the fall of the pillars, Kain raised an army of vampires with the help of Vorador, intent on taking all of Nosgoth for himself and declaring himself absolute ruler. Kain's campaign ran unchecked until his siege of Nosgoth's capital city Meridian. There, his army is scattered and he himself is struck a mortal wound by the Sarafan Lord, the general of Meridian's forces and leader of the Holy Order of the Sarafan, an order dedicated to the destruction of all vampires. During the battle, Kain's legendary Soul Reaver proves incapable of hitting the Sarafan Lord. Kain is left for dead.

Kain reawakens two centuries later, shadowy bits of memories about his army razing the land on their path to victory teasing the former vampire lord. Kain remembers he had been betrayed by members of his own legion, who have joined with the Sarafan Lord as his underlings since the failed final siege.

Kain has friends in his new world, however. The Vampire Cabal, a resistance group against the ruling Sarafan, has sent an operative named Umah to assist Kain and persuade him to help the Cabal defeat the Sarafan Lord. She quickly fills him in on the recent history, in turn, he vows vengeance upon those responsible for his fall, and ultimately to deliver the Sarafan Lord’s head on a pike.

Through his journey to regain his strength and power, he meets up with familiar faces. One is Vorador, the leader of the Cabal and Kain's erstwhile mentor. Within the Cabal are both humans and vampires trying to defeat the Sarafan Lord's plans of world domination. The plot runs much thicker, as Kain will eventually discover. Along his path, Kain meets and ultimately defeats the legionnaires (Sebastian, Marcus, and Faustus) that betrayed him long ago. Kain also discovers that the Sarafan Lord was not even a human but a Hylden, the enemy of the Ancients (those later cursed to become the first vampires), and his intent was to raze Nosgoth of all life so that his own race may attempt to colonize it once again. He discovers what happened to his finest warrior and prime lieutenant, Magnus, who had his mind destroyed and left to rot in the Eternal Prison, where all dangerous enemies of the Sarafan are kept.

Kain also meets the 'first' vampire Janos Audron, who explains the history of the Ancients and the Hylden and their ages-long perpetual struggle for Nosgoth. Audron explains the Ancients repelled the initial Hylden invasion and banished them into a chaotic realm beyond time. Exacting vengeance, the Hylden cursed the Ancients with vampirism, forcing them to feed on the humans they loved and protected.

Across the ocean within the Hylden City, a base of operations made by the Hylden in their guises as high-ranking Sarafan knights and the mysterious Glyph Wrights, Kain meets the Sarafan Lord in a final battle that closes the portal between Nosgoth and their realm, shutting out the Hylden and ending their deadly plot. Janos is thrown into the Hylden's chaotic prison realm in this conflict, and is presumed to be trapped there for eternity.

Kain's enemy defeated, he resumes his quest to subjugate Nosgoth under his flag.

[edit] Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

Kain refused the sacrifice and Nosgoth was condemned to damnation. Kain built his empire in the land of Nosgoth and kept the ruined Pillar of Balance as his seat of throne. Kain raised 6 lieutenants from the fallen bodies of sanctified Sarafan warrior priests, with which to rule his empire.

One day, his first born lieutenant, Raziel had inexplicably evolved wings surpassing Kain's own evolution. In an apparent act of jealousy, Kain ripped the wings from Raziel's back and ordered his execution. Raziel was dragged to a cliff by his brothers, the Lieutenants Turel and Dumah, and at Kain's order, was thrown over the edge into the abyss - a deep and raging natural whirlpool. As water is like acid to vampires, Raziel's body was twisted and destroyed, his image becoming a skeletal wraith.

However The Elder God plucked Raziel's soul from the Wheel of Fate, and Raziel awoke to find himself in the spectral realm and had seemingly survived. Here, Raziel meets The Elder God, a gigantic squid like entity that claimed to control the wheel of death, life and rebirth. The Elder God explains that he had saved Raziel from the brink of oblivion. The Elder God explains that the Vampires are unnaturally immortal and are corrupting the natural order of life, death and rebirth. He has given Raziel incredible power, a power Raziel could use to avenge his betrayal at the hands of Kain and his brothers. Only then, will he grant Raziel the peace in death he so surely wants. Although reluctant at first, Raziel soon finds himself consumed by thoughts of revenge and agrees.

Raziel returns to the Material Realm and infiltrates Kain's former stronghold to encounter Kain at the fallen pillars. During the following battle, a strange paradox occurred when the Soul Reaver, a soul consuming blade, struck Raziel... who was also a soul reaver himself. The invincible blade shattered, and the soul sucking entity within attached itself to Raziel as a symbiotic spectral weapon. Kain seemed strangely pleased with this event, and escapes. After Kain's escape, the spirit of Ariel, the murdered balance guardian revealed herself to Raziel. She explains that when Kain refused to sacrifice himself, her spirit was trapped at the Pillars forever and Nosgoth began to decline. Ariel tells Raziel that only with the death of Kain will the pillars recover and Nosgoth will be saved. Raziel found that his thirst for revenge was not just about him anymore, but that all of Nosgoth lay in the balance.

On his way to hunt down his siblings, Raziel uncovers the burial tomb of seven Sarafan saints. Raziel was shocked to discover his name and his brother's names over the tombs, as well as Malek's. Apparently, with intentional irony, Kain raided the ancient tomb of the Sarafan, a fanatical order of warrior-priests once sworn to eradicate the vampires plaguing Nosgoth. From the desiccated corpses of these long-dead knights, Kain raised his six vampiric "sons" to become the Lieutenants of his fledgling empire. Angered by this, Raziel leaves, where he is confronted by an elite member of Turel's descendants. After absorbing his soul, Raziel gained the ability of Telekinesis. Raziel confronts his brother Rahab (now a hideous sea-monster), telling him of what he has learnt about their Sarafan heritage. However, Rahab simply replies "He saved us from ourselves."

After Raziel slays all his brothers but Turel (who is mysteriously absent), he turns his attention back to Kain. Raziel makes his way deep into the mountains and finds Kain in the Timestreaming Chamber of Moebius. Kain, through a series of riddles, hints that there is more at stake than Raziel could possibly imagine and that he thinks Raziel is the key to his dilemma (explained in Soul Reaver 2). Kain activates the time streaming device to Nosgoth's past and jumps through, with Raziel hot on his heels.

However, Raziel finds himself plucked from the time travel stream by Moebius. Moebius introduces himself as the Time Guardian and tells Raziel that indeed, there is more at stake than Raziel could possibly imagine.

[edit] Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2

Soul Reaver 2 starts exactly where SR1 left off. Kain had just jumped through the time portal, with Raziel in hot pursuit. Inside the portal, Raziel is confronted by Moebius — Guardian of Time. The portal would have taken Raziel to the pillars of Nosgoth, but Moebius had brought Raziel to the Sarafan Stronghold. Moebius tells Raziel that they have a common enemy. Like Raziel, Moebius serves the Elder God and tries to reinforce in Raziel a desire to kill Kain. Aware of Moebius' deceitful nature, Raziel shows open contempt for Moebius and unleashed his symbiotic weapon, the Soul-Reaver and threatens Moebius not to cross him. Moebius' staff pulses and Raziel's soul reaver is suppressed. Moebius was shocked that the staff had an effect on Raziel's Wraith Blade, as the staff only affects vampires, and Raziel is no longer one. Raziel threatens Moebius with his claws, but Moebius presuades Raziel to spare him and to go to Kain near the Pillars of Nosgoth, but warned that his vampire hunters in the stronghold will try to kill Raziel on sight and that he should try to kill as little as possible.

Raziel fights his way out of the stronghold, and is shocked to see Nosgoth as a green paradise, and not the wasteland he remembered. He confronts Kain at the pillars, where Kain reveals his agenda to Raziel, explaining that he was cheated out of his true destiny. Kain explained that he brought Raziel to the past to try and find a third option to his dilemma, where he would not have to choose between his own death and the damnation of Nosgoth. Once again, Kain escapes.

Fed up of being everyone's puppet (whether Kain's in killing his own brothers, or the Elder God and his minions directing him to kill Kain), Raziel seeks answers. During his travels he discovers ancient ruins and relics. The ruins have ancient pictures of Vampires fighting an evil looking, demonic race. The Soul-Reaver Blade is depicted as some kind of Holy Relic that helped the Vampires win.

Eventually, Raziel tracks down Kain in the Cathedral where Kain was tricked into killing King William The Just (see Blood Omen 1). Kain breaks into another rant about destiny. Kain says that he cannot simply accept his destiny to die and bring balance to Nosgoth. He can't accept it, because there is a flaw in history. Kain says that if destiny is set in stone, how can anyone explain what happened in this very room? King William was destined to become the evil tyrant The Nemesis. And yet, history was changed when Kain came back in time and slew the king. The variable? The Soul Reaver. Both Kain and William were armed with the Soul Reaver (Kain with the "present" version, and King William with the "past" version). When the blades crossed, it created enough force to change history. Kain then notes that it was Moebius that made sure they both had Soul Reavers... obviously a part of his plan to eliminate the Vampires (see Blood Omen 1). Raziel picks up the Soul Reaver sword on King Williams tomb. Suddenly without warning, the Soul Reaver attached to Raziel unleashed itself and tried to kill Kain by itself. Raziel resists and eventually managed to subdue the Soul Reaver. Violent ripples go through time, as history is changed. Kain explains that by refusing to kill him here, Raziel has altered a small part of history. And with that, Kain escapes.

The Elder God and Moebius are furious that Raziel spared Kain's life, but Raziel is bolder and states that he will destroy Kain when he chooses to.

Raziel continues on his travels and comes across the now destroyed lair of Janos Audron, the infamous ancient Vampire of olden times. Raziel somehow knows that his only way to get answers is to go back in time and speak with Janos. Raziel makes his way back to the Sarafan Stronghold, where he forces Moebius to send him back in time with the Time Machine.

Once Raziel leaves the time chamber however, he finds that he has been deceived. Moebius had sent him into the distant future of Nosgoth. Here the Pillars had decayed so much that demonic entities from the hell dimension were breaking through into this reality. Fighting off Demon Hunter and monstrous demons alike, Raziel searches for a way back to the past. He discovered an ancient temple, where he sees paintings of the Vampires of old. He is struck to find that his features were almost identical to the ancient vampires, including the fact that like him, they all had wings! Raziel starts to see that his coming had been foretold, and that he was destined to bring balance back to Nosgoth by killing Kain. Raziel finds another time streaming device and launches himself into ancient past to the time of the Sarafan.

Raziel soon comes across a field where thousands of vampires (including women and young children vampires) had been cruelly impaled. Raziel realised that his previous assumptions of Sarafan being pure and good, and vampires disgusting and wicked were completely wrong. At this point in time, the Vampires were not deformed monsters like they were back at his reality; here they appeared virtually human. And yet the Sarafan brutally exterminated them like rats.

Raziel soon finds Janos' lair and finds a way in. Finally, he meets with the great Janos. Janos explains to Raziel that the Vampires fought the evil Hylden race and managed to banish the Hylden into the hell dimension. The Pillars were built to keep the banishment spell secure, and that the more the pillars corroded, the more the spell corroded, allowing the Hylden and their demonic servants back into Nosgoth. (note: It is interesting to note that health of Nosgoth seems to have almost nothing to do with the pillars. It is a lot more likely that the returning Hylden contributed to the demise of the land, and that the real reason for the decay was the Elder God who fed on the land. Blaming the vampires would have been a good way to trick Raziel into helping him kill Kain). Janos explains that Hylden cursed the Vampires before the banishment. The Hylden's curse gave the Vampires a terrible bloodlust and immortality. Since vampires could no longer have children, they had to vampirize mortals to become guardians. However, the Guardians rebelled against the vampires and outlawed them - ironically not realising that they were killing off the very race that was protecting them.

Suddenly there is a violent thudding on the door, and to his horror Raziel realises that he was followed by the Sarafan into Janos' lair. Janos teleports Raziel away to the Fire Forge, telling him he is the only who can save Nosgoth. Raziel manages to break back in, only to see the Sarafan version of himself ripping out Janos' heart.

Raziel chases the Sarafan back to the stronghold, only to be attacked by demons. At this point in time, the Pillars were still whole, so Raziel realises that Kain was not responsible for the demon infested future he had seen. Did Kain condemn the land, he now thought, or would an even greater disaster have happened if Kain had killed himself?

Raziel fights his way to the stronghold and finds the Soul Reaver blade. He was strangely attracted to it and picks it up, only to realise he could not put it down. He found that the blade had made him invulnerable, and he made his way to the Sarafan crypt. He killed the 5 Sarafan Lords- the 5 Lords who will be buried in a shrine and raised by Kain as Vampire Lieutenants. Raziel then confronts his past Sarafan self and kills him, enabling Kain to resurrect him as a vampire.

Suddenly, the Soul Reaver sword in Raziel's hands gets a life of its own. His own spectral soul-reaver that is symbiotically attached to him coils around the sword. Not strong enough to resist, Raziel is helpless as the spirit soul-reaver forces Raziel to impale himself with the Soul Reaver sword. As intense pain ran through Raziel... he finally understood. The soul-devouring entity that is trapped in the soul-reaver sword is and always has been... himself. The sword was never a soul devouring blade until this point in time where his own soul was sucked into it. A paradox.

Kain arrives just in time and pulls the soul-reaver sword out of Raziel, saving his life. Having two reavers together once again causes ripples in time. As new memories shot through Kain's head he turned to Raziel and shouted "My god, the Hylden! Listen to me, Janos must STAY dead!" but it was too late. Raziel dies of his wounds and he fades into the spectral realm. He knew two things. Kain had succeeded in changing destiny, but will it be enough to save Nosgoth from the Hylden? Second, the reaver was still at his side, as it always was. This indicated that his fate had not changed. Only postponed. Raziel knew that destiny itself was against him and his time was running out...

"History abhors a paradox"

[edit] Legacy of Kain: Defiance

After Kain prevented Raziel from being consumed by the Reaver and history reordered itself, Kain found himself alone in the Stronghold of the Sarafan Order. Kain tracked down Moebius, the Timestreamer, who guided him to learn some hidden secrets in Nosgoth's past.

Raziel spent 500 years in the lair of the Elder God, refusing to serve the dark deity out of fear that he would still end up imprisoned in the reaver. After Raziel had returned to Nosgoth he began to enhance the spectral reaver through spirit forges. The latter forges using the souls of the original circle of nine. As he continues through the forges, he learns more of the Ancients' history and their prophesied hero, and even the hero of the hylden.

Kain was soon to learn that he, not Raziel, was the prophesied hero of the vampires and Raziel was, in fact, the destined hero of the Hylden. In time, he confronted Raziel in the main chapel of Avernus Cathedral. After a fierce battle, Raziel ripped out Kain's heart.

The heart, Kain realized, was the Heart of Darkness, which once belonged to Janos Audron. This was how Mortanius transformed Kain into a vampire, having no other means of invoking the dark gift of vampirism. Raziel then proceeded to banish Kain to oblivion.

After Reviving Janos Audron Raziel realized the reason for Kain's warning. The Hylden then used Janos to act out their plan to revive their race (see Blood Omen 2). Later, Raziel had but one guardian to absorb, Ariel. After this was done Raziel's soul reaver had become balanced with the souls of all the guardians.

Kain later awoke, inexplicably alive, in the dimension the Hylden had been banished to at the end of their war with the vampires. Kain was able to fight his way out of the Hylden realm and made his way to the Citadel of the Vampires. There, he found Moebius, who was reporting to the Elder God at the time. Kain killed Moebius, but a few minutes later, Moebius' body arose. Kain impaled the Timestreamer with the Reaver only to see the body transform into Raziel.

Kain, shocked by what he had done, tried to free Raziel from the blade, but Raziel finally submitted to his fate and entered the sword willingly. As his last act, Raziel rejoined the complete and purified wraith blade with Kain's soul, healing Kain's gaping wound and granting him unerring vision, allowing Kain to see the Elder God for the first time. Kain proceeded to fight the Elder God in single combat. With the soul of Raziel and the balance reaver imbued in Kain's blade Kain was able to defeat the Elder God.

After their battle, Kain turned a deaf ear to the Elder God's threats and returned to the meeting hall in the Citadel from where he could see the newly fallen Pillars of Nosgoth. As he gazed out, Kain realized that Raziel had given him one last chance to heal the wounded land, remarking about the last gift that Raziel had given him. "The first, bitter taste of that terrible illusion...hope."

[edit] See also

• List of Legacy of Kain characters

Legacy of Kain series
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain | Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver | Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 | Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain | Legacy of Kain: Defiance
Major Characters
Kain | Raziel | Moebius | Elder God | Mortanius | Hash'ak'gik | Ariel | Vorador | Janos Audron
The Circle of Nine
Nupraptor the Mentalist | Malek the Sarafan | Bane the Druid | Azimuth the Planer | Dejoule the Energist | Anacrothe the Alchemist | Moebius the Timestreamer | Mortanius the Necromancer | Ariel of the Balance
Kain's Lieutenants
Raziel | Turel | Dumah | Rahab | Zephon | Melchiah
The World of Nosgoth
Pillars of Nosgoth | Lake of the Dead | Nosgoth timeline | Soul Reaver | Ancients | Hylden | Material Realm | Spectral Realm