Be warned that beyond this junction, unmarked spoilers about the interactive chronicles that I am the eponymous individual of will be visible for all to witness
(To immerse yourself fully in the prose of this biography, read this in the voice of one Simon Templeman).
My tale...where shall I begin?
The origins of my story do not begin with my birth, for the hands of the fates have woven my lifespan and my destiny into the tapestry that is our reality to the point where although my life began during my birth, the world had already been shaped to accommodate for my presence in the past, the present, and in the times yet to come.
My name is Kain, as you may have surmised from reading this so far. At the very beginning, I was but a petty nobleman, the youngest of my siblings, and unlikely to amount to anything in my life as a mortal. I took it upon myself to travel the land of Nosgoth, but they were cut short after I had been accosted and slaughtered like livestock in preparation for a meal. In the afterlife, I didn't care for where I ended up - I only sustained myself through hunger for vengeance on those that had robbed me of my life so early.
It was here where I first met Mortanius, a Necromancer — but more importantly, he was a member of the Circle of Nine, a gathering of sorcerers and mages who sustained the realm of Nosgoth through nine dominions; Mind, States, Dimension, Nature, Energy, War, Time, Death, and Balance, each represented by a pillar, with all nine of them being known as "the Pillars of Nosgoth". Mortanius offered me a chance to take vengeance on those who had engineered my end, and I accepted with little hesitation - but for my eagerness, I did not consider the consequence of my decision. As such, Mortanius resurrected me - but rather than return to my original mortal self, he had brought me back from the brink of oblivion as a vampire.
After slaughtering my assassins, I quickly turned towards my next problem - my new existence as a vampire. I set out towards the Pillars of Nosgoth, the nine structures sustained by the aforementioned Circle of Nine, in order to seek answers on how to return to my normal self. But when I arrived, I encountered the ghost of the previous Guardian of Balance, Ariel, who had been killed three decades before my resurrection. Her body had been discovered by Nupraptor, the Guardian Mind and her lover. Nupraptor deduces that she could have only been killed by a member of the Circle of Nine, but unable to deduce which member was the one with Ariel's blood on their hands, he sent a wave of psychic energy out of grief and rage, intended to drive the members of the Circle to insanity. Because the Circle's well-being was linked to the land, Nosgoth began decaying as each member was driven to the brink of madness.
Of course, I had no concern for this - my motive was purely to seek a cure for myself, which Ariel and Mortanius claimed would find its way to me once I had slain every member of the Circle. And so, I went after each and every one of them. Starting with Nupraptor, and eventually making my way to Azimuth the Planer, I had slaughtered four of the nine guardians, with the fifth, Anarcrothe the Alchemist, fleeing in a cowardly haste, while the sixth, the Sarafan warrior Malek, wound up killed by the vampire Vorador. Vorador had shown me the excesses and benefits that came with the existence of being a vampire, and who had begun to fuel hedonistic temptations within me. My pursuit for a cure became less and less of a concern, with the hunger for blood and the desire to slaughter becoming my main motivation.
Nevertheless, all good things must come to an end. The land of Nosgoth was being threatened by the legions from the north, led by the Nemesis, formerly known as William the Just. After amassing an army with the help of King Ottmar, the ruler of Willendorf, we engaged in an epic and sprawling battle against the enemy horde - but it was too little, too late. The army was decimated by the legions of the Nemesis, leaving Nosgoth now at the mercy of the tyrant and his thrall. With no option left, I used a time-streaming device to travel half a century back in time, and confronted William the Just before he became the Nemesis. It was here where I first learned of how the course of history can be altered - William and I both wielded the same blade, the Soul Reaver, but from different periods in time. By crossing both versions of the sword, a paradox was created in which the flow of history could be altered, and it was here where I slayed William the Just. And though I did not know it yet, the Soul Reaver would become a salient part of my future, and of my later attempts to perverse the course of history.
Traveling forward in time, it seemed as if Nosgoth had been restored, free of the Nemesis' threat. But to my horror, I discovered that my actions in the past had created a worse future for myself than I had imagined - the vampiric race had been hunted to extinction, with William being used as a martyr for the vampire-hunting crusades of old to resume. I arrived just in time to watch Vorador meet his fate at the guillotine, leaving me as the last vampire in Nosgoth. As the mob of vampire hunters turned on me, I realized that the leader of this crusade, the Oracle of Nosgoth that had previously assisted me in first meeting Vorador, was in fact a member of the Circle of Nine - the Guardian of Time, Moebius the Timestreamer. He had gone back in time and fueled William the Just's insecurities so that he may become the Nemesis, orchestrated his invasion of Nosgoth, and the ensuing confrontation between me and William, in a bid for Moebius to either wipe out the vampire race, or get rid of me and end the threat to his life. While I still managed to defeat Moebius, the damage had been done. I was the last vampire in Nosgoth, and the sole survivor of the ancient race.
I was then summoned to the Pillars by Mortanius, and witnessed a confrontation between him and Anarcrothe, where I learned that Mortanius had been the one who sent the assassins after me in the first place. He had seen the Circle's decay first-hand, and came to the conclusion that new Guardians needed to take their place. After doing me the favor of killing Anarcrothe himself, I confronted him and swore to bring my wrath upon him, which he accepted - but what came next, I had not been prepared for. The Dark Entity, a being of indeterminate origin, has been possessing Mortanius, and had been the one who had killed Ariel in the first place, orchestrating the demise of the Circle. While I did vanquish him for the time being, our destinies would intersect in our futures, though I did not know it at the time.
After defeating the Dark Entity, I was left with the revelation that I was the final Guardian of the Pillars - the Scion of Balance. In order to restore Nosgoth, I would need to give my own life up - in a roundabout way, "curing" me of my vampiric disease. But had I chosen the sacrifice, the entire vampiric race would've been lost to the annals of the past. So I refused it, and let the Pillars decay even further. The decision to reject the sacrifice would be the foundation upon which I would build my vampiric empire, and I would later resurrect six of the ancient Sarafan priests to serve me at my behest.
My reign lasted for a millennium and a half, and during this time, I had discovered the secret chambers that were used by Moebius to manipulate history. While viewing the timestream in the Chronoplast, I witnessed visions and apparitions of future events to come, and was granted with all manner of revelations. Namely, my first-born "son", Raziel, was destined to become trapped within the Soul Reaver, that the Pillars needed to be maintained in order to keep the race of the Dark Entity, the Hylden, imprisoned in the Demon Realm, and that Ariel's death had been orchestrated to happen directly before my moment of birth, thus damning me to a lifetime of insanity. Sacrificing my life would have changed nothing, as the Pillars were meant to be maintained by vampires, and the extinction of the vampiric race - as well as the death of the last Guardian of the Pillars - would've resulted in the Hylden being released. However, should I have chosen to refuse the sacrifice, I would have damned Nosgoth to an eternity of decay. To say that the odds of the game were not in my favor would be understating the situation; most outcomes would result in some form of defeat for me.
All I could do was bide my time. I stared into the Chronoplast for centuries, looking at the individual threads that were possibilities of the future. Raziel became the key to my success; if he wielded the Soul Reaver, which housed his future soul, he would become a walking paradox that would be the key to unraveling the nigh impossible odds I have been facing until then. And so, disguising my true motivations as mere jealousy, I cast Raziel into the abyss, damning him to an eternity of suffering and torment. From there, I waited until the day he would return, all while putting in place the final preparations of my gamble. My empire crumbled around me as the land fell further into decay, and as the rest of my children evolved into grotesque abominations.
Eventually, Raziel returned, now disfigured, mutated, and fueled by self-righteous rage and a lust for vengeance. We clashed, and while Raziel was no match for me, that had always been part of my plan. I brought the Soul Reaver upon Raziel, and due to the Reaver's nature as being Raziel's future prison, the Reaver instead shattered upon making contact with him. Raziel absorbed what was left of it, and his place in my game had finally been cemented - now, destiny was but a malleable object that did not hold him subservient to the whims of fate. After watching him slaughter his brothers, we reunited at Moebius' time chambers, where after another confrontation in which Raziel revealed to me that he was now aware of his origins as a Sarafan warrior, I fled into the past of Nosgoth, knowing Raziel would follow me.
Now, my plan rests in the hands of Raziel, and in order to restore Nosgoth and the vampire race, while keeping the Hylden at bay, I must guide Raziel with benevolence not shown to him by his other benefactors, one of whom appears to be my old foe, Moebius the Timestreamer, still as manipulative yet pathetic as ever. Raziel seeks his own answers, plundering and pillaging ancient temples and ruins containing some of the land's most well-kept secrets, with his answer and motivations still undetermined to him. I must continue playing the waiting game, so that once the fateful moment approaches, I will be present in the right location at the right time to change the land of Nosgoth, for better or worse.
"But suppose you throw a coin enough times - supposed one day, it lands on its edge."
Fate promises more tropes, before this drama unfolds...completely:
- A Lighter Shade of Black: If I had been present in any other fable or myth, it would be remiss of you to assume that I would occupy a heroic position - but in Nosgoth, I instead play the part of a lesser and more benign evil when confronting the dark and manipulative forces of my world.
- Anti-Hero: I am no paragon of virtue, yet some of my objectives would be considered desirable by those nobler than I.
- Battle Cry: "Vae Victus" - woe to the conquered.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While Raziel's fate of being imprisoned in the Soul Reaver is the fulcrum of my centuries of planning, I would choose another way to spare him from his fate. And despite what he may think, I never threw him into the Abyss out of jealousy.
- Even Evil Has Standards: I may be cruel, but I am not without some modicum of morals:
- I have no tolerance for hypocrisy and moral posturing - my interactions with Raziel in the past of Nosgoth have made this clear enough.
- I have nothing but disgust for Elzevir the Dollmaker, whatever he was.
- While my bloodlust was absolute during my early days as a vampire, witnessing what torturous horrors the insane members of the Circle had inflicted upon normal humans left me no choice but to grant them a final mercy.
- After learning that my former subordinate Magnus had remained loyal to me in spite of all the torturous horrors inflicted upon him by the Wardens of his prison I granted him a merciful end to his nightmare.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: As a human, I was the youngest in a family of nobles, destined for nothing greater than a life of hedonism and self-pleasure. As a vampire, I have become feared by humans, and a foe of those who try to shape destiny for their own benefit.
- Guest Fighter: Raziel and I once found ourselves inside a temple from within another realm. But I seldom make appearances in realities that aren't my own, though it seems as if my devotees have asked for me to confront warriors from other realities on several occasions.
- It's All About Me: I may be working to restore Nosgoth, but I have never fully shed my self-interest and selfish motivations - once I restore Nosgoth, I intend to rule it as before.
- Legendary in the Sequel: My exploits and the trail of blood left behind by them made me the subject of tales and legends in the future by the vampires spawned from me and my brethren.
- Noble Demon: My sense of honor, morality, and personal limitations may seem odd to most of you, but make no mistake - at least I have one, unlike my foes.
- Our Vampires Are Different: It has come to my attention that the portrayal of the vampiric race varies in your fictional tales and stories. Some depictions have gained my interest, and I wonder if some of these are where our species' cycle of evolution is poised to progress towards.
- Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": Make no mistake - I enjoy bloodshed and combat, which my mannerisms and habits make all the more obvious to those I am engaged in combat with.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: The inceptive decision I made to refuse the sacrifice was done purely out of selfishness and self-interest - but as it was revealed to me, it was the preferable recourse in the grand scheme of things.
- Sociopathic Hero: I have no fear of bloodying my claws should the time arises, though in my elder age, my desire for bloodshed has decreased substantially - in my younger days as a vampire, I held no care for one's innocence or not, for I would have gladly slaughtered them for their blood.
- Take a Third Option: My entire plan from after I refused the sacrifice was to find a way to restore Nosgoth without sacrificing myself, while also ruling over it and keeping opponents such as the Hylden from conquering it for themselves.
- Vampire Monarch: The path I chose for myself once I had refused the sacrifice.
- Villains Never Lie: Would I give you half-truths and metaphorically correct answers should you ask me for them? Yes. But would I ever lie to your face? Never. I am truthful - a mercy you will not find from those who oppose me.
- Was Once a Man: Though my subjects worship me as a deity among vampires, the simple truth is that I too was a mortal.
