Dumah

Dumah is a recurring character in the Legacy of Kain series who makes major appearances in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2. One of the leading warrior inquisitors of the vampire-hunting Sarafan brotherhood, he was born in Nosgoth's early history, and was himself raised as a vampire, unawares, a millennium after his death by Kain to act as a member of the Council. Dumah created the Dumahim vampire clan and served Kain for centuries in the Soul Reaver era - notably partaking in Raziel's execution, alongside Turel - before being killed by vampire hunters. On his return to Nosgoth, Raziel pervaded the Ruined City and revived Dumah, only to destroy him utterly and consume his soul.

Complacent in Arrogance


Dumah was originally a human being, born in Nosgoth's early history. He joined the order of the Sarafan, and was among those accordingly "trained to be devoutly loyal to the Circle [of Nine], and the perfect exterminators of the undead scourge" (Nosgoth's vampires). Over time, Dumah attained the high rank of warrior inquisitor, junior to Malek, the youthful Raziel, and the elder Turel. Alongside these warrior-priests, and his peers Melchiah, Rahab and Zephon, he was considered the "pride of the order"; with the other six commanders, he was lionized as a "Sarafan saint" upon his death. His corpse, like those of the others, was interred in a sarcophagus in the Tomb of the Sarafan.

When Kain - a vampire, and the Guardian of the Pillar of Balance - sought to revive the near-extinct vampire race at the end of the post-Blood Omen era, he stole into the Tomb of the Sarafan and found the "well-entombed" remains of six of the former inquisitors. Breathing his soul energy into them, one by one, he drew their own souls back into their bodies, and thus resurrected them as his "favored sons". Dumah was most likely the third fledgling to be raised. The cadre was "too long dead to remember much of their human lives; they [were] ignorant of their Sarafan roots, or of Kain's blasphemous private joke". They and Kain resolved to bring Nosgoth under vampire rule.

Over the ensuing century, Dumah sired a clan of vampires in Kain's empire - the Dumahim - and participated in the domestication of humanity. Eventually, he "retreated with his clan into Nosgoth's northern wilderness" - his mountain stronghold, which would later become known as the Ruined City, lay near the Oracle's Cave. Like his fellow lieutenants, he was present for the Council meeting which took place at the Sanctuary of the Clans, a millennium after Kain had raised them. There Raziel revealed he had surpassed Kain; Dumah was visibly perturbed when he noticed Raziel's newly-pupated wings, and reacted with blatant distress when Kain viciously tore the wings from his eldest son's body. Nevertheless, he did not disobey when Kain instructed him and Turel to cast Raziel into the Abyss.

Strength Honed by Centuries


Five hundred years after his execution, Raziel would be resurrected by the Elder God, and would return to Nosgoth to exact revenge against the vampires. In the intermediate centuries, the vampires continued to evolve, and, ultimately, devolve: they had inherited spiritual corruption from Kain's soul, which gradually warped them into monsters. Dumah's evolution, though, was prematurely halted. Centuries before Raziel's revival, "Dumah and his offspring failed to see an attack coming from the least likely assailants". Their stronghold was ambushed by the land's surviving vampire hunters; the humans managed to "decimate their ranks with little resistance".

Dumah himself was killed - impaled by three massive stakes, and transfixed to the seat of his throne room - and the few Dumahim who escaped the attack were "reduced to scavengers". Drastically-evolved fledgling Dumahim were the first vampires Raziel encountered on his journey - so altered that they had become unrecognizable - but Dumah was the last of the lieutenants he met in the Soul Reaver era. After consuming Rahab's soul, he found the Ruined City, and initially believed that his brother and the Dumahim may have suffered the same fate as the Razielim, but the Elder God immediately corrected him, attributing the devastation to their arrogance.

Raziel found Dumah's corpse, and removed the stakes, enabling his soul to reinhabit his body. Dumah expressed gratitude, but Raziel rebuked this, still holding him to account for his execution. Unbowed, Dumah claimed that he, too, had surpassed Kain; he was now a revived vampire, and "the centuries in limbo [had] honed [his] strength". Raziel was forced to retreat, finding that Dumah's armor was impenetrable and his physical prowess formidable, but was correct in his thesis that "even the strongest vampire is vulnerable". He evaded Dumah's constricting powers and tremor-inducing attacks, and lured him to the Ruined City's Furnace. There, he used a mechanism to burn Dumah to death, and obtained the ability to constrict upon devouring his soul.

To Bury the Fiend Alive


After Raziel pursued Kain through the Chronoplast, into the past, his travels across time led him at length to Nosgoth's early history. While searching for the ancient vampire Janos Audron, who supposedly held the key to his destiny, Raziel encountered the troops of the Sarafan in the flesh, and "the victims of their crusade". By this stage, Raziel's former idolatry of the Sarafan - his own noble heritage - had started to wane. He still "felt a twinge of longing, a pang of grief for what [he] had believed was [his] lost virtue", but he "regarded them now with none of the reverence [he] formerly felt".

Raziel entered Janos Audron's Retreat, and met Janos in person, who offered him the Reaver blade. They conversed briefly, but were soon interrupted by attackers - the Sarafan warrior inquisitors themselves, including Raziel's former self, and Dumah. The wraith Raziel was prevented from intervening as his Sarafan counterpart ripped the Heart of Darkness from Janos's chest. Dumah expressed alarm as the Retreat began to collapse, appealing to Raziel that they should flee: Raziel instructed him to "remember the sword", and he seized the Reaver as they absconded.

Janos's murder had dire consequences for Dumah, as the wraith Raziel followed the inquisitors back to the Sarafan Stronghold to avenge his death and recover the stolen Heart and Reaver. His attack was simultaneous to Vorador's slaughter of the Circle (at the same location, and with the same motivation). Raziel found the Reaver and, after using it to slay the Sarafan Melchiah and Zephon, confronted Dumah, with Rahab, in the Sanctuary area. Dumah merely inquired as to whether Raziel sought "to reclaim the monster's black heart" before launching into battle. He soon had his answer, as Raziel easily killed him and his remaining comrades. "It was [Raziel] who put these bastards in their tomb – thus providing the corpses for Kain to raise as his vampire sons a millennium from now".

Development
Dumah was principally designed by Daniel Cabuco, and is voiced by Simon Templeman in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Like those of other vampires, Dumah's voice samples were heavily processed for the retail version, but the game's early beta features Templeman's "clean" recording. Dumah's voice actor in Soul Reaver 2 is uncredited. In the former game, his leitmotif is the Ruined City theme.

Dumah's boss battle in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver initially intimidated and confused Crystal Dynamics' playtesters: "when [they] were testing him for the first time everyone freaked out that they were being chased by this big ass vampire. Some people had a hard time figuring out how to kill him too".

Between the releases of Soul Reaver 2 and Legacy of Kain: Defiance, Blue Box Interactive created licensed, boxed action figures of Legacy of Kain characters. After releasing versions of Kain and Raziel, they began to produce figures of the devolved vampire Dumah. According to Ben Lincoln of The Lost Worlds, "true to his appearance in the game, this figure did not include accessories but featured a removable helmet and red LED light-up eyes. Although many players did not notice these details in the game due to the relatively low polygon count and texture resolution, they are completely accurate". Earlier prototypes of both the devolved Dumah figure and an unreleased figure - the non-devolved, vampire lieutenant Dumah - have been discovered. Cabuco once entered a store in San Francisco Japan Center which stocked the Dumah figure, but "despite his best efforts, he couldn't get the salesperson to believe that he really designed that character". As of 2012, he still has yet to obtain the toy.

Appearance


In Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, the vampire Dumah's outfit is one common to the lieutenants: leather leggings, metal boots, greaves, pauldrons and accessories, and a cape hanging from his right shoulder which bears his clan symbol. Tall, stalwart and well-built, he wears his cropped black hair in a ponytail, like Raziel and Turel (though Dumah's ponytail is higher, and shorter). His cape and flags, seen throughout Kain's empire, were purple in hue. As Dumah's evolution was suspended "centuries" before Raziel returned to Nosgoth, he did not mutate as excessively as his brothers before his final death. It is unclear from the games which animal he would have come to resemble - his fellow clan leaders all gradually adopted bestial features - but Daniel Cabuco has revealed that, had he continued to pupate, Dumah would have developed rhinoceros-like traits.

The devolved Dumah, such as he was, is an armored, though agile, titan. Cabuco explained that the design "was a conglomeration of different styles, the most prominent of which is Japanese Samurai. [He] modified it with [a] layer of Soul Reaver-esque flavor, adding carvings of faces, and the helmet flares" - the style "emphasized the armor and shapes that would make him feel deadly". Dumah has grown far bulkier, and has doubled in height, with glowing orange-red eyes and scaly, olive-colored skin. Fangs protrude up from his lower jaw, and Cabuco "envisioned him with a bladed and hollow tongue with his fledglings eventually inherited". Judging from his action figure, this incarnation of Dumah wears intricate, ornately-designed metal armor, including bracers, greaves, pauldrons and a detachable helmet, with leather trousers. His clan symbol is etched into his gloves, and his stentorian footfalls pound and echo as he chases his prey. To Raziel, his vampire wraith form was identical in appearance.

The human Dumah is memorialized along with his fellow inquisitors in the Chapter House of the Sarafan Stronghold in Soul Reaver 2, and Dumah later makes appearances in person. He is the only inquisitor whose signature color overlaps with another's; both he and Malek wear purple clothes beneath their armor. Dumah wields a pike in action, although his commemorative mural depicts him with a long sword. He has short, cropped dark brown hair, long pauldrons and bracers, and a helmet decorated with a red plume and protrusive "wing" motifs. Whereas some of the inquisitors' future clan symbols appear on their lower vestments, Dumah's does not - distorted shapes reminiscent of the symbol are present instead. Dumah's Chapter House mural is significant as it features a hostile winged demon behind him - this is almost certainly a bastardized depiction of the wraith Raziel, who murdered the inquisitors. Not many Sarafan lived to see who murdered the commanders, so they had to rely on second-hand accounts and artistic license - hence the inaccuracy of Raziel's image.

Personality
Of all his brethren, Dumah was "supposed to be the most skilled of the warriors in physical combat". Though stoic and perhaps reserved, he was "never meant to be 'dumb' per se". Series art director Daniel Cabuco "always saw Dumah as extremely skilled in weapons, with a cunning darkness about him". As a member of the Sarafan, he evinces prudence, practicality and inquisitiveness. As a vampire, he is described as "complacent", and repeatedly underestimates his foes, with his "arrogance" playing into both of his deaths.

Dumah's leadership is apparently so vital to his clan that they prove unable to operate without him, roaming Nosgoth as nomadic scavengers. Raziel recognizes that he values his dignity and reputation as a fighter: he "would have burned with shame" to be found dead, skewered "like a stuck pig". In dialogue as a devolved vampire, Dumah is direct, and brashly self-confident. He extends thanks to Raziel, but is eager to do battle, and - like Turel - boasts that "not even Kain is [his] equal". He also displays the capacity to be highly animated and reactive; his body language expresses obvious shock, if not horror, when Kain destroys Raziel's wings.

Out of the seven members of the Council, Cabuco considers Dumah the fourth most cruel: he "would pit his clan against [slaves/food] in gladiatorial combat".

Powers


In life, Dumah was respected by Raziel as "a powerful warrior". As a Soul Reaver era vampire, he inherited the effects of the blood curse and the corruption of the Pillars from Kain; he was immortal and sterile, sustained by blood, and capable of pupation over time. Like the other clan leaders, Dumah would "turn" the corpses of his human victims to raise new Dumahim. Whereas typical vampires could be enervated by only one stake or stave, the vampire hunters needed to pierce Dumah's body with three, and penetrate his heart, to incapacitate him.

In battle as a revived vampire, Dumah was invulnerable to Raziel's conventional attacks. He laughed off blows from the Wraith Blade, Fire Reaver and all other physical weapons, was unhindered by all glyphs, and was unaffected by sunlight. Only the eruptive fire of the Furnace was enough to damage and eradicate him. His characteristic ability was the power to "wind a constricting band of spectral energy around [his] enemies". If Raziel was at a distance, he would sunder the ground with a mighty punch - the localized tremor was powerful enough to temporarily stun Raziel, enabling Dumah to constrict him. At close quarters, he would use melee attacks.

Dumah, much like his fellow devolved lieutenants, had "a limited ability to shift between planes, but only momentarily". As a wraith, he was entirely invulnerable, but he could still attack Raziel, and his abilities were no less potent. Once revived, he only manifested in the Spectral Realm. Since he was a vampire wraith and revived vampire, his strikes created a "soul-devouring tether"; when hit, Raziel's health coil would be continually siphoned until he severed the link by running sufficiently far away from Dumah.

Etymology
Dumah's name is the Aramaic word for "silence". It can alternatively be rendered "Duma" or "Douma", and the character was actually named Duma very early in the production of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver before receiving a "h" for the final game. Gustav Davidson's A Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels describes Dumah as a figure in Biblical mythology - "the angel of silence and the stillness of death... prince of Hell, and angel of vindication". The same work cites his description in the Zohar as "chief of demons in Gehinnom with 12,000 myriads of attendants, all charged with the punishment of the souls of sinners".

Dumah was informally codenamed "Ronin" or the "Ronin Boss" by Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver's programming staff. In feudal Japan, rōnin were leaderless, disgraced Bushi/samurai whose masters had either perished or disowned them. These aspects are reflected both in Dumah's art design and the fate of his clan in the story.

Appearances

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