Smokestack

The Smokestack was a landmark in Nosgoth's Soul Reaver era. It was a gargantuan furnace constructed by the vampires of Kain's empire, designed to perpetually belch smoke into the sky, and thus shield the land from the sun. While the Smokestack featured in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, it was not a playable location. It had originally been intended to have a role in the cut Turelim clan territory area, but was excised due to time constraints.

Role
The Smokestack was constructed long after the collapse of the Pillars and the post-Blood Omen era, at some stage within the nine centuries between Kain's domestication of the humans and Raziel's execution. It was devised to diminish Nosgoth's sunlight, which would typically weaken, or even kill, vampires. According to Raziel, "after the taming of the humans, our real work began; shaping Nosgoth to our will. Around the Pillars, slaves constructed a shrine worthy of our new age, worthy of our new renaissance. Huge furnaces were built to belch smoke into the sky, shielding the land from the poisonous effects of the sun. Never had the world known a time of such beauty".

The Smokestack's creation predated the point at which the vampires and the Council "grew bored". By the time of Raziel's execution, it remained in operation, and continued to produce smoke. From the horizon at the Lake of the Dead's cliffs, it was visible as a colossal tower in the mountains roughly north and east of the Lake, and roughly north of the Silenced Cathedral. It was ambiguous whether or not the Smokestack endured until the time of Raziel's resurrection; Raziel did not encounter it. However, sunlight in Nosgoth was sparse during his quest to destroy Kain and the Council, while fog and dark skies were prevalent – perhaps indicating that even if its mechanisms had been discontinued, its effects had already taken firm root in the ecology.

Background
In Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, the Smokestack can only be seen in the background of the Lake of the Dead scene during the GlyphX introductory cinematic, and has no presence in gameplay. However, before time and resource constraints obliged Crystal Dynamics to cut content from the game, the Smokestack was planned to feature as an area within the Turelim clan territory. This region would be accessible after first defeating Kain in the Chronoplast, and then the Priestess in the Undercity. The Smokestack would be manned by Turel and the mechanically-inclined Turelim, and featured rivers of lava.

Cut dialogue reveals that the Elder God was to mention the tower: "this smokestack will permit your ascent to the summit of Kain's mountain sanctuary". Ben Lincoln, of The Lost Worlds fansite, said, "Raziel would have used its powerful updraft to soar high enough to reach the redoubt of his master". The Lost Worlds collected three screenshots of Raziel at the foot of the Smokestack, but no playable builds or vestiges of the area have been publicly released. Series art director Daniel Cabuco relayed that the Turelim territory was designed to entail "a lot of sneaking past eggs, and great fire blasts you had to either time or turn off".

The mythology surrounding the Smokestack, and the proliferation of fog in Soul Reaver-era Nosgoth, may have been devised to help satisfy the game's technological demands. During Soul Reaver 2's development, series director Amy Hennig said that, for the new game, ''"fog isn't used as a way of obscuring your view [...]... the ugly pea-soupers that have obscured so much detail in so many PlayStation games, including Soul Reaver, are no longer necessary. "We just use fog as a way of creating an eerie atmosphere now [...] We don't need to use it to hide inadequacies anymore. It's exciting to be able to create these environments with the level of detail that we always imagined"''.

A screenshot from the canceled sixth game, Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun, depicts a giant plume of smoke rising into the air in the background, though the source of the smoke is obscured by mountains. Since Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun was to take place in a setting later than Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, it is possible that the Smokestack could have appeared.

Appearances

 * Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver