I decided to check out the Legacy of Kain games on a whim after a brief discussion I'd seen about the dynamic between Kain and Raziel. I didnt know much except it was about vampires and that I'd seen Raziel in many a Playstation magazine growing up and thinking he looked really cool.
I started with the first game, Blood Omen. It's very... clunky, and a little ugly, but the vibe drew me in and hooked me. I am a huge lover of dark fantasy but I'm also extremely picky about it. There needs to be something there other than doom and gloom and misery, and Blood Omen opens with a sequence of the best CGI cutscenes 1996 could muster, which introduced a ton of questions without answers and answers without questions, all while Tony Jay's dulcet tones tickled my ears. Needless to say, I was in.
The short version is, Nosgoth is in a long lasting era of disarray, and fate catches up to nobleman Kain, who is murdered by brigands in a neighbouring town from his home, and, seeking revenge, is ressurrected as a vampire by a necromancer named Mortanus. After Kain kills his assassins, he is told by Mortanus that the puppetmaster responsible for Kain's death is still out there, and instructs him to "seek the pillars."
The "pillars" are nine stone pillars that extend into heavens which all represent some sort of primal force in Nosgoth, each guarded by a guardian selected by the pillars themselves. Upon arrival, Kain is told by the ghost of one of the pillars' guardians, Ariel, that the pillars are corrupted because her murder drove the guardian of the pillar of the mind, Nupraptor, insane, and his insanity has spread to the other guardians, which is why Nosgoth has been slowly succumbing to death and horror over the past century. Kain cares little for the fate of Nosgoth, but Ariel assures him that getting to the bottom of this mystery will find him the answers to the question of who had him assassinated and why. Kain then sets out to kill the guardians and bring their tokens to the pillars, which would cleanse them of their corruption and thereby allow the pillars to select new guardians.
The "pillars" were such a fascinating hook to me. I love shit like this. Metaphors made manifest.
The long and short of it is, the puppetmaster who ordered Kain's death had done so on purpose, because Kain was the long missing guardian of the ninth pillar. With all the other guardians dead, you can choose to have Kain sacrifice himself to restore the ninth pillar and cleanse the world of corruption, or, the canon choice--Kain revels in the corrupted world and deifies himself instead, opting to rule the blighted world with murderous hedonism.
It was a clunky, harshly linear game to actually play, but so laser focused with its tone and setting that I couldn't help but love it. I'm going to start the Dreamcast version of Soul Reaver soon, but based on what I've seen of the first hour or so of it, I think I'm going to enjoy it.