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Blood Omen era refers to the period of Nosgoth's history in which the events of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain occur. Some events of Legacy of Kain: Defiance also take place in this era.

Most of the important events of the Blood Omen era occur in a single year. It is debatably the single most important year in Nosgoth's history.

Profile[]

Kain, a nobleman, is murdered by hired brigands in Ziegsturhl. In the Underworld, the Necromancer Mortanius offers Kain revenge against those who killed him. Rashly, Kain accepts and Mortanius brings him back to life as a Vampire.

Kain tracks down the brigands, killing them with the sword that they had impaled him with. Mortanius then explains that the men were under the employ of someone else and that Kain should seek out their masters at the Pillars of Nosgoth.

At the Pillars, Kain meets Ariel. He learns how the Circle of Nine have been corrupted, and how the Pillars - symbiotically linked to their guardians - are crumbling. Nosgoth is being poisoned by the Circle's sorcery and the decline of the Pillars. Ariel promises Kain 'release' from his vampirism if he rights the Pillars. Kain begins a quest to kill the corrupted guardians. Each guardian has a token that has to be returned to their pillar to restore it.

Historical Timeline[]

  • Mortanius orchestrates Kain's assassination – Mortanius is in control for now; not Hash'ak'gik. In the village of Ziegsturhl, Kain is ambushed by brigands, who murder and cruelly impale him with a sword.
  • Kain's body is interred in a crypt west of Ziegsturhl.
  • Kain awakens in the underworld, where Mortanius offers to revive him, so that Kain may take revenge upon his assassins. Kain, heedless of the cost, accepts the necromancer's offer. The catch: in order to rejoin the world of the living, Kain is reborn as a vampire.
  • Kain awakens in his mausoleum, and begins his “unlife" as a vampire.
  • Kain finds his assassins and kills them, getting his revenge – but Mortanius drives him on to the Pillars, saying that the brigands were only the instruments of his murder, not the cause.
  • Kain visits the decaying Pillars for the first time, meets the spectre Ariel, and learns the nature of his quest. The Circle – the sorcerers poisoning Nosgoth – must be destroyed for the land to be healed and the Pillars righted. Kain wants only to be cured of his vampirism – Ariel promises him release (and peace) when the Balance is restored.
  • Following Ariel's direction, Kain hunts down and kills the Circle members one by one, returning the “tokens" of their service in order to heal each Pillar in turn. The mentalist Nupraptor is Kain's first victim.
  • Kain confronts the immortal warrior Malek in his frozen, bleak stronghold, but Malek eludes him.
  • Kain meets the Oracle of Nosgoth, a reclusive soothsayer who holds court in the arctic caves of the northern mountains.
    • The Oracle warns Kain of the legions of the Nemesis attacking from the north, of the bereaved King Ottmar of Willendorf, helpless to withstand their attack. He gives Kain some of Malek's history, including his defeat centuries ago at the hands of the vampire Vorador. Kain, intrigued, asks for more information about Vorador – the Oracle directs him to Vorador's mansion.
    • The Oracle is in fact Moebius the Time Streamer, member of the Circle of Nine (representing the Pillar of Time). He uses the guise of the Oracle to influence pilgrims and orchestrate events. Kain only learns much later how much of his quest was manipulated by Moebius.
  • Kain meets Vorador, Nosgoth's oldest and most-evolved vampire.
    • Vorador recounts the stories of the Sarafan vampire purges, and his revenge upon the Circle and Malek. He warns Kain not to meddle in the affairs of men, and offers him a ring by which Kain may summon Vorador if he is ever in need of his assistance.
  • Kain travels north to "Dark Eden", a twisted corruption of nature created by a triumvirate of the deranged sorcerers – Bane, DeJoule and Anarcrothe, the Guardians of Nature, Energy and States (respectively).
    • When Kain confronts the sorcerers, Anarcrothe summons Malek and makes his own escape. Outnumbered, Kain summons Vorador – Malek's ancient enemy. While they battle, Kain pursues the fleeing Bane and DeJoule – whom he subsequently defeats in combat.
    • When he returns to the scene of the confrontation between Malek and Vorador, Kain finds that Vorador has been the victor. Vorador is gone, but Malek has been destroyed.
  • Kain returns the defeated sorcerers' tokens to the Pillars – now four have been healed. Ariel instructs him to seek Azimuth the Planer (the Pillar of Dimension) in the heart of Avernus Cathedral.
  • Kain travels to Avernus – Nosgoth's largest city, ruled as a religious autocracy from the great cathedral that sits at the center of the city. He discovers the city in flames, assaulted by a plague of demons summoned by the deranged Azimuth from other dimensions.
  • In his pursuit of Azimuth, Kain must ascend into the heights of the cathedral, and the hellish depths of the catacombs below. Along the way he discovers and claims the Soul Reaver blade, conveniently hidden away in the upper reaches of the Cathedral.
  • During his exploration of the great cathedral, Kain also discovers a hidden altar room – like a corruption at the heart of the apparently pristine and wholesome cathedral. This is an altar to the dark entity Hash'ak'gik – a tome open on the altar describes bloody acts of human sacrifice.
  • Kain confronts and defeats the planer Azimuth, and reclaims her token. He also discovers a mysterious Time Streaming Device, which Azimuth has apparently stolen from Moebius (the Guardian of Time).
    • In fact, Moebius has planted the Time Streaming Device here by allowing Azimuth to steal it. He is orchestrating events so that Kain will discover and claim the device.
  • Kain returns to the Pillars and rights the Pillar of Dimension. Ariel warns him of the impending assault from the Nemesis armies to the north, and that Willendorf is next in their path. She tells him of the Nemesis, how this tyrant was once William the Just, a kind and benevolent king.
  • Kain continues on to Willendorf, to rouse King Ottmar into battle against the Legions of the Nemesis.
    • Ottmar has become an ineffectual king, lost in grief over his daughter who lies in a comatose state. A minor sorcerer called Elzevir the Dollmaker has stolen her soul. To rouse the King, Kain embarks on a side-quest to recover the princess' soul. With his daughter recovered, Ottmar rallies his army and launches an attack against the approaching Legions.
  • Kain joins Ottmar's army at the Battle of the Last Stand – but the battle is hopeless, and Ottmar's army is decimated. Kain escapes the battlefield by activating the mysterious Time Streaming Device he found in Avernus Cathedral.
  • Suddenly, Kain finds himself in a peaceful field, the carnage of the battlefield erased – he knows he has traveled to a different time, but doesn't know when in time he is. The Time Streaming Device lies in ruins at his feet.
  • Traveling on, he encounters and kills a man-at-arms – as he drinks the victim's blood, he receives a telepathic image of recent events in the man's memory. Moebius addresses a crowd, exhorting them against some unnamed evil, and urging them to take him to their king.
  • As he continues on, Kain realizes that he has traveled nearly 50 years into Nosgoth's past, to a time before William the Just had become the megalomaniac tyrant known as the Nemesis. He infiltrates William's castle, and overhears a conversation between Moebius and the young King – Moebius has armed William with the Soul Reaver, and warned him of a vampire coming to assassinate him.
  • Kain confronts William, each of them armed with the Soul Reaver (incarnations of the same weapon at different periods of time). Kain is victorious, and he triumphantly drinks the blood of the fallen king – this is witnessed by the king's guards, come to aid their martyred ruler.
  • Kain conveniently discovers another Time Streaming Device (also planted by Moebius, of course), and escapes back into the future – secure in his belief that he has thwarted Moebius's machinations by removing his pawn William from the game. With William dead, there will be no Nemesis army to lay waste to Nosgoth.
  • Upon returning to the future, however, Kain discovers that his actions have dramatically altered the course of Nosgoth's history.
    • Following the scent of fresh blood, he comes upon the scene of a public execution – Moebius addresses a crowd of bloodthirsty villagers and vampire hunters. Kain arrives just in time to witness the climax of their little gathering – Vorador, the last of Nosgoth's vampires, is guillotined and his head held aloft for the cheering crowd.
    • Kain now realizes the impact of his actions, and how he has been manipulated by Moebius from the start. By going back in time and influencing William, Moebius perverted the just king into a power-hungry tyrant. Then he sends Kain back nearly 50 years in time, knowing that Kain will try to prevent the Nemesis' future devastations by murdering the king before he can become a tyrant. Moebius knew that the murder of the beloved king at the hands of a vampire would ignite a genocidal hatred of vampires among the citizens of Nosgoth.
    • So, through all these acts, Moebius orchestrated and engineered the vampire genocide which Kain witnesses upon his return to the present. And Kain, albeit inadvertently, is directly responsible for the extinction of the vampires and the execution of his erstwhile mentor Vorador.
  • Kain confronts Moebius and – fitting retribution – lops off his head with his sword. Upon claiming Moebius's token, Kain is instructed by Mortanius's disembodied voice to return the Pillars.
  • Kain arrives at the Pillars just in time to witness the confrontation between Mortanius and Anarcrothe.
    • Anarcrothe accuses Mortanius of betraying the Circle by turning Kain into a vampire and setting him against them.
    • Mortanius replies that the Circle is irredeemably corrupt and must be destroyed. Anarcrothe challenges Mortanius, and is killed.
    • Kain reveals himself to Mortanius, stating that if the Circle is to be destroyed, then Mortanius himself must die. Mortanius agrees, saying he will embrace death, and engages Kain in combat. Mid-battle, Mortanius' form begins to change as the dark entity, now fully in possession of Mortanius' body, finally crushes the necromancer's psyche. Before Kain's eyes, Mortanius' body dissolves into the massive, demonic form of the dark entity, Hash'ak'gik.
    • Hash'ak'gik taunts Kain, saying that Kain has been no more than a pawn, and that all of the preceding events have been orchestrated from the beginning. Kain launches himself at Hash'ak'gik, and using the Soul Reaver, manages to defeat him. It's not clear, however, whether Hash'ak'gik has been destroyed or merely dispelled.
  • Kain uses the recovered tokens to heal the remaining Pillars, leaving only the Balance Pillar still corrupted.
  • Ariel appears and reveals to Kain that he himself is the Pillar of Balance, and that the only way the Pillars can be healed is for him to sacrifice himself – as the last of the Circle – to the Pillar. She presents him with the final, climactic decision — sacrifice himself to heal the world, or refuse the sacrifice and ensure the world's corruption.
  • Kain chooses the latter path, deciding to rule the world in its damnation rather than commit himself to oblivion. This apocalyptic act completes the Pillars' destruction – the Pillars topple as Kain seals their ruinous fate. He concludes with the epiphany that Vorador was right – that vampirism is not a curse but a blessing; that the vampires are dark gods whose duty it is to thin the human herd.

  • in the underworld, the necromancer Mortanius offers Kain the chance to avenge his murder
    • Kain accepts the offer, and is reborn as a vampire
  • Kain hunts down and destroys the corrupt Circle guardians, restoring each of the Pillars in turn
  • Kain meets the ancient vampire Vorador

Altered Historical Timeline[]

  • Kain returns to present-day Nosgoth... and discovers that assassinating William 50 years ago triggered a renewed vampire purge
  • Vorador is executed; Kain is the only surviving vampire in Nosgoth
  • Kain confronts and kills Moebius, the Guardian of Time
  • Kain confronts Mortanius, the final Guardian, at the Pillars
    • Mortanius is destroyed as the Dark Entity possessing his body emerges; Kain defeats the Dark Entity in combat
  • with Mortanius' death, all but the Balance Pillar are restored
    • Kain realizes finally that he is the Balance Guardian, and therefore the last of the Nine
    • He must choose between sacrificing himself to heal the world...
    • ...or preserving his life and ruling Nosgoth in its damnation
  • Kain refuses the sacrifice, ensuring the Pillars' collapse

  • Mortanius orchestrates Kain's assassination—Mortanius is in control for now; not Hash'ak'gik. In the village of Ziegsturhl, Kain is ambushed by brigands, who murder him by impaling him with a sword.
  • Kain's body is interred in a crypt west of Ziegsturhl.
  • Kain awakens in the underworld, where Mortanius offers to revive him, so that Kain may take revenge upon his assassins. Kain, heedless of the cost, accepts the necromancer's offer. The catch: in order to rejoin the world of the living, Kain is reborn as a vampire.
  • Kain awakens, and begins his "unlife" as a vampire.
  • Kain finds his assassins and kills them, getting his revenge—but Mortanius drives him on to the Pillars, saying that the brigands were only the instruments of his murder, not the cause.
  • Kain visits the decaying Pillars for the first time, meets the spectre Ariel, and learns the nature of his quest. The Circle—the sorcerers poisoning Nosgoth—must be destroyed for the land to be healed and the Pillars righted. Ariel promises him release (and peace) when the Balance is restored.
  • Following Ariel's direction, Kain hunts down and kills the Circle members one by one, returning the "tokens" of their service in order to heal each Pillar in turn. The mentalist Nupraptor is Kain's first victim.
  • Kain confronts the immortal warrior Malek in his frozen, bleak stronghold, but Malek eludes him.
  • Kain meets the Oracle of Nosgoth, a reclusive soothsayer who holds court in the arctic caves.
  • The Oracle warns Kain of the legions of the Nemesis attacking from the north, of the bereaved King Ottmar of Willendorf, helpless to withstand their attack. He gives Kain some of Malek's history, including his defeat centuries ago at the hands of the vampire Vorador. Kain, intrigued, asks for more information about Vorador—the Oracle directs him to Vorador's mansion. The Oracle is in fact Moebius the Time Streamer, member of the Circle of Nine (representing the Pillar of Time). He uses the guise of the Oracle to influence pilgrims and orchestrate events.
  • Kain meets Vorador, Nosgoth's oldest vampire.
  • Vorador recounts the stories of the Sarafan purges, and his revenge upon the Circle and Malek.
  • Kain discovers a mysterious Time Streaming Device, planted by Moebius (the Pillar of Time).
  • Kain cleanses each of the pillars, leaving only Balance at the end.
  • Ariel appears and reveals to Kain that he is the Pillar of Balance, and that the only way the Pillars can be healed is for him to sacrifice himself to the Pillar. She presents him with the final, climactic decision—sacrifice himself to heal the world, or refuse the sacrifice and ensure the world's corruption. Kain chooses the latter path, deciding to rule the world in its damnation rather than commit himself to oblivion.

References[]

Preceded by:
The history preceding Blood Omen
History Nosgoth's historical eras
The events of Blood Omen
Followed by:
The era following Blood Omen
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