Hylden

"History is written by the victors. Beneath the vaults of Avernus I discovered scenes that told a familiar story, but from a very different point of view. This was the work of the enemy race, and revealed what the Vampire histories had conveniently omitted – how the noble Vampires, god-ridden and righteous, had started the wars that would destroy both races – victor and vanquished alike. Their adversaries opposed the Vampires' god, and refused to submit to the Wheel of Fate. For this they were banished. I now understood the poetic irony of their curse. And my resemblance to the Vampires' enemy no longer seemed so accidental."

- Raziel

The Hylden were one of the three sapient species dominant in Nosgoth, along with the vampires and the humans. They were technologically-adept beings, "different in method and intention" to the ancient vampires, but similar in power. Before Nosgoth's recorded history, they rejected the Elder God's doctrine and his Wheel of Fate, incurring the ancient vampires' wrath; the consequent vampire-Hylden war raged on for a millennium, and concluded with the banishment of the entire Hylden race to the nightmarish Demon Realm. When the Pillars of Nosgoth were raised to seal the Hylden in this plane, the Hylden retaliated by laying the blood curse on their vampire enemies.

After their expulsion from the Material Realm, the word "Hylden" became taboo among the vampires and the Circle of Nine; they referred to their ancient adversaries only as the Unspoken. In later eras, leaders among the banished Hylden – specifically, the Hylden Lord and the Revenants – attempted to break the Binding and escape back into their plane of origin. Many of the central events in the Legacy of Kain series, including the corruption and collapse of the Pillars, were masterminded by these militants to facilitate their goal. Members of the Hylden race physically appeared in both Blood Omen 2 and Legacy of Kain: Defiance.

But a Warped Parody
"... the Hylden are merely an inconvenient consequence. They will be dealt with in time. It's a small price to pay for Kain's death."

- Moebius



The Hylden outright opposed the Ancients' God and his Wheel of Fate, which cast their souls in a cycle of reincarnation. For this heresy, the Ancients, who were prompted by the Elder God, declared war on the Hylden.

The war prompted the creation of a weapon with which the Hylden hoped to wiped out the life of the world apart from their own race. This was known as the Device, channelling the energies of a creature known as the Mass, constructed by a Hylden known practically as The Builder. The Mass was said to be able to destroy any creature with a thought, but lacked an energy source or personal sentience with which it could project its ability. Before a solution could be found, the Ancients defeated the Hylden, and constructed the Pillars of Nosgoth, which utilised powerful magic to seal away the Hylden in another, more demonic dimension.

The Hylden did not go quietly, however, and retaliated as a last stand with a final Blood Curse, turning the Ancients into Vampires. The nature of this curse was three-fold: To first impose an animalistic blood-thirst upon their noble enemies, turning them to savage beasts; to render them sterile and incapable of continuing their species, and thus, their magic on the Pillars; and to render them immortal, and thus unable to die of old age to naturally return their souls to the Wheel of Fate. As the curse became apparent, many Vampires committed suicide to rejoin their God who, in light of their new abilities, had gone silent to them.

The Hylden were thus locked away by the Pillars to the Demon Realm, wherein they slowly devolved and themselves became more demonic. They plotted from there a diabolical scheme to re-enter Nosgoth through means of manipulation of the inhabitants and of the Time Stream itself. A leader would rise amongst them, known as the Hylden general or the Hylden Lord who would initiate this invasion.

Prophecy
Both the Hylden and the Ancients prophesied their battle to climax with a battle between their respective champions. The Hylden champion was envisioned to stand for immortality and divinity, appear as demonic as their devolved selves and brandish a flaming sword. The Vampires told of their own champion who would enforce the Wheel of Fate, and wield the sword they had crafted known as the Soul Reaver (Informally as the Blood Reaver). The depiction by both sides, of a Vampire and Hylden champion, both coalesce in Raziel, who not only brings about the victory the Hylden required to escape the demon dimension that brought about the events of Blood Omen 2, but also became the means to which Kain could, possibly in the future, restore the pillars and balance. The prophecy also told of a hero who would restore the Pillars to vampire rule, where they would be best served. This savior was the Scion of Balance, which later in the game Defiance was realised by Raziel to be Kain, and was completely separate from the vampire champion depicted in the other murals, which referred to Raziel.

The Hash'ak'gik Cult
The vampires, unable to reproduce, passed their 'curse' to the humans, turning them to vampires. Eventually, and inevitably, the humans rejected the gift, overpowered their masters and claimed the Pillars as their own. Having lost sight of what the Pillars were erected for, the humans served them themselves, unaware that humans could not adequately maintain the magic the Pillars required to keep the Hylden banished.

As the Binding weakened, a particularly powerful Hylden, known as the Dark Entity (later revealed to be the Hylden Lord), projected his soul into Nosgoth and possessed Mortanius, the human Guardian serving the Pillar of Death. Using this physical form (albeit a fairly weak one), he murdered the Guardian of Balance, Ariel. This in turn drove Nupraptor, Guardian of the Mind, and Ariel's lover, insane, and his madness thusly infected the rest of the Pillar Guardians. The Circle began to corrupt, and so too did their power. The Binding weakened further.

At the moment of Ariel's murder, Kain was born, and thirty years later, Mortanius, able to momentarily break free of the Hylden's control, had him murdered and reborn as a vampire, setting in motion the Ancients' Prophecy, where a powerful vampire would restore the Pillars to Vampire Guardianship. He would achieve this by using the Heart of Darkness, a powerful ancient vampire relic, placed into the body of Kain. He hoped Kain would one day himself restore the Pillars as the Ancients had foretold.

The ghost of Ariel would direct Kain to kill the remaining Pillar Guardians in order to end the corruption Nupraptor had brought on the Circle, and thus end the damage they were doing to Nosgoth. Kain proceeded to eliminate every Circle member, and learned of Mortanius's possession. He killed Mortanius, and apparently The Dark Entity with him, however, in order to full realise the destruction of the corrupted Circle, Kain would have to sacrifice himself, having been newly revealed as the new Balance Guardian, replacing Ariel. The corruption he inherited from the Circle's madness drove him to reject the sacrifice, dooming Nosgoth, the Pillars, and the Binding. The Hylden were now free to enter Nosgoth.

The Dark Entity had not been destroyed however. At the moment of the destruction of the pillars, his soul entered the body of the newly resurrected Janos Audron, brought to life by a time-displaced Raziel who'd retrieved his heart from the equally displaced Kain from the future. With the elder Kain (the saviour of the Pillars) now dead, the Pillars themselves destroyed and with the body and blood of Janos Audron in their possession, the Hylden were all but victorious.

The Hylden Lord used the blood of Janos Audron to fuel the ancient Hylden weapon, the Mass. He also assumed recreated, or assumed control of the ancient Vampire-Opposed human faction known as the Order of the Sarafan, and wearing a mask, assumed the identity of 'The Sarafan Lord'. Under this noble guise, he imposed harsh laws and a brutal dictatorship over Nosgoth. Using an artefact known as the Nexus Stone, he was able to stand against the equally powerful Kain armed with the Soul Reaver sword. Apparently killing Kain, he began a campaign to take over Nosgoth, all the while aiding his Hylden brothers enter the world, into what became known as the Hylden City. Here, he used a gate, powered by the Nexus Stone, to bring the Hylden, and his own body, through. He disposed of Janos body by imprisoning him within the Mass, to feed it with his own blood.

Kain was not killed, conveniently, and slept for two-hundred years. Upon awakening, he was enraged with what the 'Sarafan Lord' had done with his Nosgoth, and proceeded to chase him down and retrieve both his Soul Reaver sword, and rulership of all of Nosgoth.

Kain managed to halt the Hylden invasion and destroy the gateway which acted as an umbilical cord to the demon dimension, destroyed every Hylden within Nosgoth. The Hylden Lord, however, was within the gateway itself, and Kain chased and killed him there, reclaiming his sword and then continuing to conquer Nosgoth.

Physique and traits
Ancient Hylden are depicted in murals as being much more humanoid, having full cheeks and less skeletal structures. These may have been exaggurations of their nobility, however, as in all other media, Hylden are shown to be demonic, emaciated creatures, though this may be the result of their long banishment to the demon realm. This may or may not correlate with vampire murals which, though ancient, depict them in their modern, reduced forms, raising the question as to the authenticity of the Hylden's depiction of themselves, though the Ancient's depiction may simply be their take on the Hylden, as Janos was mentioned to say in response to "Look at what it (the demon dimension) has made of our once fair race"; "I see you have taken your true form, at last".

In addition to this, when Kain is blasted into the Demon Dimension by Raziel after their last fight, presumably Hylden voices speak to him from nowhere, claiming they will soon be free. They say "You are still fair of form, vampire. That will go first. This realm will render you hideous. You will go mad, and will not know it".

The most notable features include a head-crest, which is suspected to vary between Hylden families and small wing-like crests on their backs. The Hylden have pale, sickly skin, with three digits on each hand. Their feet have only two, long toes. Their musculature is also very different compared to humans and vampires.

Background
The Hylden were introduced to the Legacy of Kain series as antagonists for Blood Omen 2, devised prior to the completion of Soul Reaver 2. In Blood Omen 2, they were designed by art director Steve Ross, who also contributed to the game's storyline. Ross previously worked on a proof-of-concept for an unrelated project named Sirens circa 1997, which featured a similar backstory to that of the ancient vampires and the Hylden in the final game, with the Hylden taking the role of the Daemons:

"The City has existed since the beginning of time. Once it was a place of transcendent beauty and purity governed by five beings known as the Aeris. Then, many centuries ago, a catastrophic plague ripped through The City. This scourge cleaved each Aeris into two separate entities: A Siren, a being of light and song, and a Daemon, a dark, vile creature. The Daemons soon overwhelmed the Sirens beginning a long reign of brutality and horror. They stripped away the Sirens' souls turning them into pitiful empty creatures who wander aimlessly through The City. The Daemons imprisoned the Siren souls in Soul Worlds; strange domains existing beyond space and time. With no one left to challenge their power the Daemons began to feed on The City's population. They did not feed on the flesh of their victims, but on their souls, their life force. Through centuries of dark rule The City was transformed from a place of peace and serenity into a cruel, hard, twisted place. A place of horror, death and decay."

- The Official Sirens News Page

Blood Omen 2's storyline clashed with the plans of the Soul Reaver 2 team in Crystal Dynamics, and in an effort to resolve inconsistencies, Amy Hennig introduced backstory in Soul Reaver 2 which explained that the Hylden had conspired to alter Nosgoth's timeline. In Legacy of Kain: Defiance, she merged the character of the Dark Entity/Unspoken from Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain with that of the Sarafan Lord in Blood Omen 2, re-introducing him as the Hylden Lord.

Appearances

 * Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (as the Unspoken and the Dark Entity)
 * Soul Reaver 2 (as the Hylden, mentioned and depicted only)
 * Blood Omen 2
 * Legacy of Kain: Defiance comic
 * Legacy of Kain: Defiance