Circle of Nine

The Circle of Nine was the collective name for an oligarchy of sorcerers summoned before Nosgoth's recorded history to serve and protect the Pillars of Nosgoth, which gave life to the land. All members of the Circle were Pillar Guardians, whose powers of longevity enabled them to live for centuries. Before the collapse of the Pillars and the post-Blood Omen era, there were almost always nine active members at a time. Circle membership and Pillar Guardianship were inherent, and mutually inclusive – if a Guardian died, the Circle remained broken for a time, until the Pillars culled a newborn successor from Nosgoth's population to be apprenticed.

When Mortanius murdered Ariel under the control of the Hylden Lord in the pre-Blood Omen era, the subsequent corruption of the Pillars drove the incumbent Circle of Nine to irrevocable insanity. Kain, the corrupt Balance Guardian, purged his fellow Circle members and restored their Pillars, but instead of sacrificing his own life to complete the process and enable new Guardians to be born, he chose to live on – and thus triggered the Pillars' destruction. Ever since that event, he remained the only residually-serving Pillar Guardian in Nosgoth, and the Circle remained unable to renew itself.

The Circle was originally founded by, and solely comprised of, ancient vampires. However, after the vampires became afflicted with the blood curse in the vampire-Hylden war, they were left sterile, and as the Pillars could only cull newborn successors, they began selecting human Guardians. The faction was also referred to as the Nine of the Protectors of Hope, or the Guardian Circle. Technically, as Kain (a Circle member) has appeared in all Legacy of Kain media, so too has the Circle of Nine. Circle members other than Kain appear in Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2 and Legacy of Kain: Defiance.

Degenerating and Descending
"I, and two others. The Circle was devastated; only we three were spared."

- Moebius



The Circle was originally formed after the raising of the Pillars, in ancient times, and comprised nine sorcerer-guardians sworn to protect and serve the Pillars. In Nosgoth's early history, spurred by increases in Nosgoth's vampire population, the human Guardians brought the order of the Sarafan into existence - instated to combat what they feared was a looming vampire menace. Supporting the vampire purge - the Sarafan holy war - they orchestrated the deaths of thousands of their enemies. The elder vampire Vorador retaliated, infiltrating the Sarafan Stronghold where the Circle gathered, and slaughtered six of its serving members.

The Guardians' magic failed, and their appointed protector - Malek - arrived too late to defend them. He fought Vorador, but was easily defeated, and was humiliatingly spared by his foe. Mortanius, one of the three Guardians to survive Vorador's slaughter of the Circle, ensured that Malek's failure did not go unpunished. In a judicial ceremony, he denied Malek the "pleasures of the flesh", magically stripping his spirit from his body and fusing it to his armor. Mortanius decreed that Malek would serve the Circle for eternity as their unliving Ward. Now a wraith, Malek took up residence in a mountaintop fortress - Malek's Bastion - and would plot revenge on Vorador as the centuries passed.

In the pre-Blood Omen era, the Guardians Azimuth and Mortanius were seduced away from their service by a power beneath Avernus. A malevolent being linked to the name Hash'ak'gik possessed Mortanius's body, and utilized him to begin toppling the Circle. Under the control of this Dark Entity, Mortanius murdered Ariel, the Balance Guardian; Kain was born as her successor. When Ariel's lover Nupraptor, the Mind Guardian, discovered her corpse moments later, he was immediately "wracked with grief and tormented by suspicions of treachery". Fuelled by relentless hatred, he vowed vengeance on Mortanius and the fates themselves, directing a telepathic assault at the entire Circle.

The Mentalist's psychic onslaught rippled all across Nosgoth, blasting "the minds of the sensitive and intellectual". All nine Circle members, including the baby Kain, were infected by this irremediable insanity: "some raving like madmen, others maliciously in control of their actions". The Pillars themselves physically corroded and turned gray in a reflection of their patrons' mental states. The deranged Pillar Guardians, now "Destroyers of Hope", would need to die for Nosgoth to be preserved. Only with the infection completely eliminated, and their Pillar tokens returned, could new, uncorrupted successors rise to take their place.

The Destroyers of Hope
"The book spoke of the birth of the Circle. The Circle served the Pillars, protectorates to the strange power that gives life to our land. At the unlikely death of a member, the Circle remains broken for a time, until the Pillars can cull a worthy successor."

- Kain

For thirty years, the insane Circle of Nine quickly turned its powers against the land. Nupraptor "rained upon Nosgoth all his pain and misery" from his Retreat, west of Vasserbunde; he sewed "his eyes and lips shut to deny the outside world", terrorizing his servants, the pilgrims who visited him, and the townsfolk alike. Anarcrothe, Bane and DeJoule - the States, Nature and Energy Guardians - malformed part of northern Nosgoth into the Dark Eden, a "garden of horrors, seeded with sick perversion of nature’s design". The already-sadistic Dimension Guardian, Azimuth, was reduced to a "raving lunatic that [revelled] in the pain and misfortune of others"; she indiscriminately summoned forth creatures from the Demon Realm to massacre numerous cities.

Moebius, the Time Guardian - who originally dispensed "benevolent and kind advice to anyone who sought it" as the Oracle of Nosgoth, now "[caused] trouble and torment by predicting omens and horrific events, exploiting them to his own ends". Still lucid, however, was Mortanius. Seeking to redeem himself for his betrayal of the Circle, Mortanius took action to "correct the imbalance" while still in control of his body. He secretly hired a band of assassins to murder Kain, now an adult nobleman unaware of his birthright, as he passed through the village of Ziegsturhl. Resurrecting Kain as an undead vampire, he set his "undead son" against the corrupted Circle.

Under the promise that he would receive "a cure" to his vampirism, Kain murdered the Guardians in succession as he traveled east across Nosgoth. At the close of his quest, he returned to the Pillars, and watched as Anarcrothe confronted Mortanius. Mortanius argued that the Circle had to be destroyed due to its failure, but Anarcrothe countered by asserting that "the Circle exists for us, we don’t exist for it" - that "our powers will save or damn Nosgoth at our whim". They fought, and Mortanius slew his peer. Kain then battled the Necromancer, and realized that he himself was now "the only survivor of the Circle of Nine".

Kain chose not to sacrifice himself to restore Nosgoth. He elected to live on, causing the Pillars to collapse, and established an empire upon their ruins. No new successors could be born to take the place of the eight slain Guardians, and the Circle remained broken. Kain's intention, however, ultimately proved justifiable: he sought to return the Pillars to their original, vampire inheritors.

Pillar Guardianship
"The Nine of the Protectors of Hope were sworn to use their powers to preserve our world. Now these pillars have been corrupted by a traitor."

- Ariel

Since its inception, the Circle always consisted of a maximum of nine members at a time. Pillar Guardians were bestowed with an extreme longevity of life, and were hence not susceptible to death from old age; however, they could be killed in combat or through other circumstances. When a Guardian died, the supernatural force behind the Pillars ensured that a replacement was born somewhere in Nosgoth to assume their vacant position; Kain, for example, was born only moments after Ariel's death. Each Circle member was granted a unique Pillar token, and possessed a range of abilities corresponding to their role.

Not all individuals were actually aware that they were members of the Circle of Nine. It is unclear whether or not Malek realized that he was the Conflict Guardian until after he became a wraith. Kain was completely unaware that he was the Balance Guardian and the most junior member of the Circle until he was thirty years old, after the death of Mortanius. Generally, however, the senior Pillar Guardians were aware of their peers, and co-operated with each other as a loosely allied group.

It is currently impossible to know exactly how many Guardians each of the Pillars culled between their creation and collapse. There are gaps in Nosgoth's known history which allow for an indefinite number of intermediate Guardians to have existed between Nosgoth's early eras. Each Pillar has had at least two identifiable Guardians, and four incarnations of the full Circle of Nine can be observed in the games, including the nine original Guardians, and all nine of their final, corrupt successors.

The longest-serving Circle members whose minimum age at death can be estimated were Moebius and Mortanius, who served their Pillars for at least 2500 years. This figure is based on a comment from Janos Audron that he had been guarding the Reaver "alone" for thousands of years (therefore, at least 2000 years) while his race died out; Moebius and Mortanius were born at a time when the ancient vampires still controlled the Circle. As of the Soul Reaver era and the fall of the Spirit Forge, Kain has existed as Balance Guardian for no less than 2030 years.

Known Pillar Guardians
"The pillar accepted its offering, thus it was restored. Nupraptor was but the genesis - forever tainted by his madness, the Circle was beyond redemption. For them absolution lay only in death. In me, they would find their deliverance."

- Kain

The original, ancient vampire Guardians all began service at the summoning of the Guardians, but it is unclear when each of them died. All of the eight original Guardians which Raziel encountered implied that they were devout followers of the Wheel of Fate and the Elder God; many of the vampires committed suicide after being afflicted with the Hylden blood curse, in an attempt to rejoin their deity in the afterlife. Thousands of years passed between the vampire-Hylden war and the beginning of Nosgoth's early history, entailing that each original Guardian could potentially have served for millennia before dying and being interred in the Vampire Citadel.

Six active Guardians were killed by Vorador in his slaughter of the Circle during Nosgoth's early history. By this point, the Circle consisted entirely of humans. Malek, Mortanius and Moebius survived Vorador's attack, and would continue to serve the Pillars for another five centuries, until their eventual collapse. Though Mortanius punished Malek for failing the Circle by killing him and transforming him into a wraith, Malek's guardianship of the Pillar of Conflict persisted; he was not succeeded by a new Guardian.

Ariel was murdered in the pre-Blood Omen era, and directly succeeded by Kain. The corruption of the Pillars entailed that no new Guardians could be born until the current Circle was destroyed. Thirty years later, Kain was killed at Ziegsturhl, but was revived as a vampire by Mortanius: his guardianship also persisted, despite his death. Kain killed all of his peers, with the exception of Malek (destroyed by Vorador), and Anarcrothe (slain by Mortanius). As the only survivor, however, Kain refused to sacrifice himself and fully purify the Pillars. He lived on, but the Pillars collapsed, and no new Guardians were culled to serve the Circle.

Line of succession
"The act had taken on the feel of ritual. Isn’t it strange how we must bribe our gods to stay?"

- Kain

The following table illustrates the line of succession between every known Pillar Guardian, based on all information available as of the fourth timeline:

Background
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain director Denis Dyack, of Silicon Knights, originally conceived the concept of the Pillars of Nosgoth, from which the Circle of Nine was derived. In doing so, he drew inspiration from the cover art of Ken Follett's 1989 historical novel, The Pillars of the Earth.

Appearances

 * Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
 * Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver comic
 * Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
 * Soul Reaver 2
 * Blood Omen 2
 * Legacy of Kain: Defiance comic
 * Legacy of Kain: Defiance

Non-canonical

 * Tomb Raider: Legend (depicted only)
 * Tomb Raider: Anniversary (depicted only)
 * Tomb Raider: Underworld (depicted only)
 * Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (Raziel and Kain Character Pack)