Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Dark Gods
A
millennium has passed since Lord Kain set his capital in the ruins of the
Pillars of Nosgoth and began his conquest of the world. His first
act was to recruit a cadre. Dipping into the underworld, Kain snared
six souls and thus birthed his lieutenants, of which I Raziel was
one. We, in turn, prowled the twilight of purgatory building six
legions of vampires to pillage Nosgoth. The destruction of the major
human Kingdoms was inevitable. Within a hundred years, humanity had been
thoroughly domesticated. To be sure, there remained some feral humans scattered
across the hinterlands, clinging to their hopeless holy war to rid Nosgoth
of "the vampire scourge". They were tolerated. They made
existence for the fledglings more challenging.
After
the taming of the humans, our real work began: shaping Nosgoth to our will.
Around the Pillars, slaves constructed a shrine worthy of our new age,
worthy of our dark renaissance. Huge furnaces were built to belch
smoke into the sky, shielding the land from the poisonous effects of the
sun. Never had the world known a time of such beauty.
However, we grew bored. We allowed the remains of the legions, the
lesser vampires, to have their intrigues. They provided amusement and spice
to an increasingly uninspired court. As faction fell against faction we
bet upon the outcome. We helped and foiled plots at our whim.
We were the Council and Lord Kain, our only master.
Raziel
The
humans think it is a poison of the blood that makes us what we are. Fools,
the blood only feeds the bodies we live in. To create a vampire,
one must steal a soul from the abyss to reanimate the corpse. It
is the body that demands the blood sacrifice; our souls gain their advantage
from the powers of the underworld. As we matured, our earthly bodies
evolved into a higher form. We assumed the powers and nobility of the Dark
Gods. With each change, the trivial affairs of vampire and man held
less interest. Always, it was Kain who would change first.
After the master had experienced a new gift, one of us would follow in
a decade or so. That is, until I had the audacity to evolve before
my master. I was gifted with wings. And for my impertinence
I was damned.
The Elder
To
us the touch of water is agony; it burns our flesh like acid. My punishment
was to be cast into the Lake of the Dead, our execution ground for traitors
and weaklings. As my brethren heaved me into the air I could see
the bemused expressions on their faces. The transitory thrill of
something new. Then the pain began. Melting, twisting, burning,
falling. A new experience indeed. Time. I have no concept
of how long I fell. Only that there was an end to the fall and through
the pain I heard the voice. At first I thought it merely the echoes
of my own tortured mind, but I grew to understand that it was more.
Something primal. Something angry. Something righteous.
Something ancient.
The
Elder explained much to me. It told me of creation, of death, of
souls and of hunger. For eons the Elder fed upon the souls of Nosgoth.
Then Kain's vampire dynasty deprived the Elder of sustenance. For
centuries his hunger grew and festered in this place. The Elder
offered me a solution to my sorry existence - if I would stalk the Material
Plane, slaying my former brethren, then I would have the chance to avenge
myself against Kain.
How
could one refuse such an offer?
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